Peter May: Blowback

As he followed the path around to the front of the house, Enzo saw why Marc Fraysse had chosen to stay here and remodel the property he had inherited. It sat proud on an outcrop of rock, the land falling away sharply below it to the forest and a spectacular panorama across what seemed like the entire Massif Central. Even on a day like today, you could see all the way across to the snow-capped mountain ranges of the Auvergne and the dominating shadow of the Puy de Dome volcano, pushing almost five thousand feet up into the clouds. Both conservatories provided unfettered access to the view, and it was behind their protective glass that Marc Fraysse had established the restaurant’s two dining rooms, even at the risk of distracting from his cuisine. The view alone would have been worth the money. In summer their glass frontages could be removed to provide a real sense of dining al fresco.

The main entrance was now at the front side of the east extension, and Enzo found himself sucked through its revolving door into a brightly lit reception area with glass on three sides. A thin, attractive woman in her mid-forties, sitting behind the reception desk, offered him a welcoming smile.

“Can I help you?”

“I believe Madame Fraysse has reserved me a room.” He saw the merest flicker of a shadow momentarily mar her smile.

“Ah, Monsieur Macleod. Yes, we’ve been expecting you.” She reached beneath the desk and produced an electronic key card, slipping it into a shiny holder embossed with the initials MF, beneath which his room number, 23, was printed in curlicued gold. “It’s on the first floor. To your left at the top of the stairs. One of our suites.”

Enzo took the card. “Thank you.”

“Shall I send someone to get the luggage from your car?”

Enzo raised his canvas overnight bag. “This is it, I’m afraid. I travel light.”

Her eyes blinked at the bag and back at him, but her smile never faltered. “Of course. I’ll let Madame Fraysse know you’ve arrived. She’ll receive you in her private rooms. The double doors at the far end of your hallway. She’ll call you when she’s ready.”

Madame Fraysse was a strikingly handsome woman in her late fifties. Fine silken hair the color of brushed steel was drawn back from a delicately featured face and arranged in an elaborate bow of black ribbons at the back of her head. She had the palest of green eyes and full, lightly colored lips that stretched back across perfect white teeth as she smiled her welcome. She oozed class and money, and Enzo thought that her taut, wrinkle-free complexion, and too-perfect teeth, probably owed much to cosmetic and dental surgery, betraying a certain vanity indulged by wealth. She offered him a firm handshake and ushered him into her private apartment.

Enzo said, “I very much appreciate you giving me this kind of access, Madame Fraysse.”

She waved him into an oxblood leather armchair, and lowered herself into another one opposite. “I would do anything, Monsieur Macleod, to find out who murdered my husband. The police have been worse than useless. And your reputation goes before you.”

Enzo glanced around the sitting room. There was a spartan quality to it. The hard, cold shine of varnished floorboards; plain walls hung with frameless modern abstracts which no doubt had cost four and five, perhaps even six, figure sums; an unyielding leather suite; Venetian blinds on curtainless windows. Polished pieces of antique furniture stood around the room like staff awaiting instructions that would never come. There was no fireplace, and although the room was heated, there was something of a chill in the air. “I don’t want to raise your expectations too high, madame. There seems to be very little evidence to go on in this case. And a complete absence of apparent motive.”

“But you have already solved four of the seven cases in Roger Raffin’s book, haven’t you?”

“More or less, yes. But of all the cases he wrote about, this seems to me to be the most puzzling. Why would anyone want to kill a man who seemed to be universally loved?”

There was an awkward silence.

“Are you asking me?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Then I have to tell you that I haven’t the faintest idea, Monsieur Macleod. In many ways Marc was a weak man. He wanted people to love him. He needed their love. And he would do almost anything to win it. But he was funny, and generous, and never had a harsh word for anyone. He hadn’t an enemy in the world.”

“I read that he was prone to depression.”

She pursed her lips a little. “He was, yes.” Enzo detected a reluctance in the admission. “Marc was a man of extremes, you see. Extreme ambition, extreme hard work. And extreme depression when things went wrong. But that was rare. Mostly he was up, extremely amusing, and extremely gregarious. And, of course, extremely talented. Not only was he a unique and wonderful chef, but he was a wonderful motivator of people. Everyone who worked for him would have followed him to hell and back. And there were times, monsieur, as he fought for recognition, and toiled to create Chez Fraysse, that we spent more time in hell than anywhere else.”

“Your husband inherited the auberge from his parents, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Both he and his brother, Guy.”

“So it’s jointly owned.”

“Yes, although it was barely worth a thing when his parents died. Passing trade had virtually dried up with the opening of the A72 autoroute. Business had been dwindling for years, and the property was in a poor state of repair. It was only Marc’s growing reputation, with the awarding of the stars, that saved us from complete obscurity. And then, of course, the winning of the third and final star elevated us to another level altogether. Everything seemed possible, then.” She waved an arm vaguely around her. “All that you see here was only possible because of Marc’s brilliance in the kitchen.”

“Guy never cooked?”

“Oh, he and Marc trained together, yes. Both of them had learned at their mother’s apron, but it was their father who sent them for formal training. Which was ironic, since he never worked in the auberge himself. It didn’t make enough money, you see. Just provided the family home and a supplementary income. Old Monsieur Fraysse travelled around France selling shoes. And it was in a restaurant in Clermont Ferrand, where he had eaten regularly for years, that he obtained apprenticeships for his sons in the kitchen of the Blanc brothers.”

Enzo nodded. The Blanc brothers had, at one time, probably been the best known culinary siblings in France, even more renowned than the Roux brothers, or les freres Troisgros. Sent by their father to train under the best chefs in the country, they had returned to Clermont Ferrand to elevate the family kitchen from its humble origins offering cheap meals for working men and women to a three-star Michelin restaurant that had brought the food critics salivating all the way down from Paris.

Almost as if she read his mind, Madame Fraysse said, “I think Papa Fraysse thought he might follow in Monsieur Blanc’s footsteps, and that Marc and Guy would return like the Blanc brothers to transform the fortunes of the auberge. ” She sighed deeply, something approaching amused melancholy in her eyes. “He must have been bitterly disappointed when Guy dropped out to go off and train as an accountant. And, of course, he never lived to see any of Marc’s stars.”

“So the restaurant is only worth what it is today because of Marc?”

“Marc’s cuisine, yes. But Marc had no head for figures. It wasn’t until he won his third star that the fabric of the building itself was really transformed. That’s when Guy came to join us, and it was Guy who achieved that transformation.” She stood up, then, and wandered toward the window. She wore black pants that stopped several inches short of the ankle, and black leather boots beneath them. Over her white blouse she wore a long black shawl that she gathered around her now, as if cold, folding her arms and gazing from the window at the view of the Massif. “We had worked hard, with limited resources, to turn the auberge into a place that would impress a Michelin inspector, but it was Guy who really made the difference. He has a wonderful business sense, Monsieur Macleod. He used Marc’s reputation to raise the money needed to turn us into a hotel-restaurant that would one day be rated fifth in the whole world.”