Peter May: Blowback

Enzo was glad to step out of the station to breathe cold, fresh air again. He walked south on the Boulevard de Strasbourg, barely aware of the city around him, wrapped up in a confusion of thoughts. Of suicide notes and fountain pens, confessions and deceptions. And in amongst all of that, the sense of being close again to his son. Existing under the same sky, in the same city. He had an almost overwhelming urge to hold him.

At the Rue du Chateau d’Eau, he turned left and found the apartment block he was looking for around a hundred and fifty meters south-west on the opposite side of the street.

Raymond Marre was still in his dressing gown when he answered the door on the second floor landing. It took a moment or two before recognition banished his frown and he greeted Enzo like a long lost brother, kissing him on both cheeks and ushering him into the warmth of his apartment.

“ Mon dieu, mon ami, comment vas-tu? It’s been years. I’m just having breakfast. Will you join me?”

“With pleasure. I’m starving.” Enzo discarded his coat and gloves, his face flushing with the heat after the cold outside, and followed Raymond into a small dining room which overlooked the street below through French windows. He watched the old man as he fussed to find another cup and saucer, and a plate for the croissants. The bag from the boulanger lay torn open on the table.

“I’m fortunate to have a neighbour who always fetches me fresh croissants in the morning. I’m not really a morning person. It’s usually ten or later before I’m dressed and my brain is functioning.” He grinned. “It gets harder and harder to kick-start it these days. How’s my God-daughter?”

“Sophie’s well, Raymond, and training to be a chef.”

“Mmmmh, then you’ll need to invite me to dinner sometime soon so I can sample her progress.” He looked at Enzo. “And how are you?”

“I’m fine, Raymond.”

Raymond had been Sophie’s mother’s mentor, an old hand in the police scientifique when Pascale was just starting out on her career in forensics. Enzo had asked him to be Sophie’s God-father after Pascale died in childbirth. He was well into his seventies now, and long retired. He poured Enzo a coffee, and they ate in silence for some moments.

“So, what brings you to Paris? Still showing the French police how it should be done?”

Enzo smiled. “I’m trying to find out who killed Marc Fraysse.”

“Ah.” The old man’s eyes twinkled. “I’m beginning to make connections already. Sophie, Fraysse, haute cuisine.” He paused. “Figured it out yet?”

“Nearly. But I need your help. You spent several years working in the questioned documents lab.”

Raymond looked doubtful. “It’s a long time since I retired, Enzo. QD was my specialty, sure. But there have been a lot of scientific advances since my day.”

“And you haven’t kept up with them?”

“Of course I have. What else am I going to do all day?”

Enzo grinned. “And I’m assuming you still have some influence at the lab on the Ile de la Cite.”

Raymond tipped his head to one side. “They tolerate the odd visit.” Hard though he was trying to hide it, his interest was piqued. “What’s your problem?”

Enzo went into his satchel and took out Fraysse’s suicide note, safely sealed inside a clear plastic ziplock bag. He laid it on the table between them. “I want to know if it’s possible to recover the words obliterated by the water damage and the blood.”

Raymond picked it up and looked at it with thoughtful concentration, then he held it up to the light of the window. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Really?”

“A video spectral comparator should do it. The VSC uses various light-filtering systems, infrared, ultraviolet and so on, to enhance effaced, faded, or stained writing.”

“Even although the original text has been lost?”

“Sure. I mean, the writing’s not actually lost, it’s still there. You just can’t see it.”

“How does that work?”

“Visible and invisible radiant energy can excite inks to emit longer wavelengths of energy which make them luminesce. Of course, you still can’t see it with the naked eye. But the comparator has an integration feature which allows you to adjust the exposure time of radiant energy entering a black and white video camera. Weak luminescence can be enhanced, in the same way as slowing the shutter speed on a conventional camera allows you to record images in low light. So the original writing will show up, even though it appears to have been wiped out.”

Enzo glanced at the blood and water stains that seemed to have erased almost a third of the text on the page, and wondered what secrets the comparator might reveal. If any.

“And you would have access to a machine like this?”

“I believe the lab at the Quai de l’Horloge has the VSC6000.”

“Yes, but that’s not the question. Would they let you use it?”

The old forensic scientist sat back in his chair and laughed. “Enzo, Enzo, Enzo. Is the Pope a catholic?”

Charlotte was surprised to see him, although it was difficult to tell whether the surprise was pleasant or otherwise. An experienced psychologist, trained in the detection of the smallest micro signes in the faces of others, she was herself a master of obfuscation.

“I’m with a client just now. But Janine will bring Laurent through.” She showed him into the combined office and sitting room, floor-to-ceiling windows looking down on to the Rue des Tanneries. A bank of computer monitors flickered on a long work table, and one of them showed a black-and-white image from a camera installed somewhere above the indoor garden below. A middle-aged man in a suit fidgeted nervously in a wicker chair by the little pool at the center of the garden. Charlotte’s client. Her chair opposite remained empty.

He turned as Janine came up the steps from the gallery, carrying Laurent in her arms. “It’s not long since he was fed,” she said. “So he might be a little sleepy. I’ll be along in the video room if you need me.” The babysitter disappeared back down the steps, and he heard her footsteps retreating along the metal catwalk. He turned, holding the baby to his chest, and saw that Charlotte had resumed her place opposite the client.

He crossed to the settee, then, and sank into it, sliding Laurent down to cradle in his arms, the tiny pink face upturned toward his. Nonsense noises gurgled from the baby’s mouth, and his wide open dark eyes stared up at Enzo in fascination. Enzo wondered if, even at that age, a child had any instinct about who his father might be. And decided that he probably didn’t. Only time and exposure would provide that recognition. Still, the child seemed completely relaxed with him. And Enzo had his experience with Sophie to draw on. He was no stranger to babies and their needs.

He gave his son his right index finger, and the baby immediately seized it, clutching it tightly in impossibly tiny fingers, and holding on for dear life. Enzo grinned at him, and to his delight Laurent grinned back. A smile that turned to a chortle, and then a laugh. And Enzo laughed, too.

“What’s so funny?”

Enzo looked up to see Charlotte breezing into the room. “I thought you were with a client.”

“I got rid of him. What are you two laughing at?”

“Each other I think. He obviously figures it’s pretty funny for his dad to have different colored eyes.”

She perched on the edge of an armchair opposite and watched them for a moment. “Enzo, we never really had a chance the other night to talk about Kirsty.”

He looked at her, surprised. “Kirsty?”

“And Roger.”

And her ominous tone sent a chill of recollection through him. Kirsty was pregnant, and she and Roger were to be married. Revelations he had almost consciously chosen to bury.