by Michael Bond
Monsieur Pamplemousse jumped guiltily to his feet and waited for the door to open, but he waited in vain. Once again total silence reigned. He gave a shrug. Clearly, for reasons best known to herself, Madame Grante was not at home to callers. He didn’t feel inclined to press the matter, but it was hardly a good start to the evening.
On his way out of the building, he checked her mailbox. Through the clear plastic door he could see a small pile of letters – mostly circulars. Either she hadn’t bothered to empty it that day, or there was some other reason for their having been left. Whatever the cause, Monsieur Pamplemousse was left with a vague sense of unease.
As they left the building he crossed over to the other side of the street and glanced up towards the fourth floor, but the windows were covered by net curtains and there was no sign of movement.
Retracing his steps in the direction of the Etoile, he called in at a little bar near the Avenue Niel and ordered a Cardinal. The Cassis, its freshness preserved in a refrigerator beneath the counter, was a Double Crème from Ropiteau Frères, rich and intensely fruity, the Beaujolais of Juliénas, purple and deliciously young; the bittersweet mixture suited his current mood. He brooded over it for a moment or two. It was good to be getting his teeth into something new, but on the other hand he wished it wasn’t quite so close to home. After the first glass he began to feel better. After the second, he felt ready for the fray.
He looked at his watch. It was 17.45; time he met Monsieur Borel, the computer expert.
3
THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS
The address Monsieur Pamplemousse had been given turned out to be a smart apartment block off the Rue Raynouard in the sixteenth arrondissement. It was as different to Madame Grante’s as it was possible to imagine. As he approached the entrance, plate-glass doors parted in the middle, opening onto an entrance hall which could have housed his own apartment several times over. He decided that if the architect – whose name was engraved on a bronze plaque let into the floor – had shares in the company who’d supplied the marble, he must have done extremely well out of the deal.
To one side of the hall there was a large desk with a bank of closed-circuit television monitors. Behind it sat a poker-faced man in uniform. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, if indeed he thought anything at all. The man gazed noncommittally at Pommes Frites while he telephoned the news of their arrival. In return Pommes Frites gave as good as he got.
There were four lifts – two either side of a rock-garden full of artificial foliage which was the centre piece of a wide passageway leading off from the rear of the hall. Monsieur Pamplemousse took the first lift to arrive and pressed a button for the tenth floor. As the doors closed he became aware of a camera lens high up in one corner. He turned his back on it. A few moments later, just as imperceptibly as it had started, the lift came to rest again. As the doors opened he found himself entering a small vestibule. The dark brown carpet was thick underfoot; pictures on the walls reflected bulk-buying rather than any artistic aspirations. They were probably the same on every floor. He wondered if the architect had shares in that company too. He pressed a bell-push on the door facing him and waited.
Even before it opened he knew exactly what Monsieur Borel would look like. He would be casually dressed, bearded – probably wearing open-toed sandals. If he wore socks they would be brightly coloured. He would have steel-rimmed spectacles and he would blink a lot as a result of having spent most of his life glued to video screens. His forehead would be domed, his receding hair would need cutting, and he would be so intelligent he would most likely be unable to understand the few simple questions Monsieur Pamplemousse wished to ask. In his spare time he probably compiled handbooks for Eastern manufacturers of electronic equipment, translating them into a language which neither they nor their customers would understand. His large black watch would have an illuminated dial showing the time and date at any given moment in all continents of the world – even if he happened to be under water when he wanted to know. It would probably emit ‘pings’ at set intervals.
He was wrong on all nine counts – ten if you included the fact that it wasn’t Monsieur Borel; it was Mademoiselle, and Mademoiselle Martine Borel was thirtyish, slim, well groomed, expensively dressed, cool and efficient. Soignée perhaps rather than chic. Her make-up was impeccably understated, and her glasses were large and round, with black frames to match her hair. Just to confuse the issue, she wore a Mickey Mouse watch on her left wrist. The flicker of surprise must have shown on his face.
‘They obviously didn’t tell you?’
From the way she said it and from the amused look in her eyes Monsieur Pamplemousse guessed it wasn’t the first time it had happened. He covered his embarrassment by removing his hat and gesturing towards Pommes Frites.
‘I hope you have no objection.’
‘On the contrary. Besides, I was told you might be accompanied.’
‘His name is Pommes Frites. He goes everywhere with me.’
‘So I believe.’
She bent down to pat Pommes Frites, then took Monsieur Pamplemousse’s hat from him and placed it on a shelf in a cupboard. She was wearing a slim gold bangle on her right wrist, but no rings. He spotted a Louis Vuitton bag on the floor and wondered if it was real or a fake. It was hard to tell these days; the Musée de la Contrefaçon was full of examples of the latter. If it was the former, the Director might find himself in for a sizeable bill.
As Mademoiselle Borel turned to lead the way into a large open-plan living-room he noticed she had a few grey hairs. Perhaps she was older than she looked.
From the wide picture-windows he could see across the rooftops of Paris towards the Eiffel Tower. The roads on either side of the Seine were already full of evening traffic. He glanced around the room. One wall was almost entirely covered by shelves. Most of the shelves were filled with books, interspersed with items of bric-à-brac. The remaining walls had a scattering of paintings – mostly modern. There were several pieces of modern sculpture dotted around, lit by equally modern lamps. There was also a faint, but delicious smell of something cooking. Pommes Frites licked his lips in pleasurable anticipation as he settled himself down on a rug in the centre of the room, eyeing his surroundings with evident approval.
On a low glass-topped table between two black leather armchairs there was a tray on which stood two tall glasses of white wine and a bottle in an ice bucket. There was also a bowl of black olives and a plate of amuse-gueule in the shape of tiny tartlets. Beside the tray lay a slim black folder.
‘Please help yourself.’ Mademoiselle Borel crossed the room, closed a door leading to the kitchen, then returned carrying a bowl of water which she placed on the floor in front of Pommes Frites. Settling herself comfortably in one of the chairs, she draped one leg elegantly over the other, then pointed to the folder. ‘My c.v.’
‘Merci.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse opened it as he took the other chair. Normally he might not have bothered, accepting the recommendation he’d been given on trust, but he was intrigued.
Born in Lyon, the only daughter of a shop-keeping family, Martine Borel had been educated first in the city itself where she had gained her baccalauréat, then at the élite Grenoble Technical University. After that had come a spell at MIT in Boston, followed by a job in California’s Silicon Valley; then back to France and Honeywell-Bull before going it alone as a consultant. She had two books to her credit; one on computer security, the other with a more philosophic sounding title. She hadn’t always been Mademoiselle. Somewhere along the line there had been a marriage and a divorce, so she hadn’t emerged from it all entirely unscathed. Perhaps it accounted for the grey hairs.
The tartlets were warm and freshly made. They were filled with a beaten mixture of tunny fish, anchovies, chopped gherkin and mayonnaise, with a few capers to taste.
The wine was cold and unfamiliar; a total contrast to his Cardinal. He tried hard to place it. He could taste all kinds of fruits: peaches, plums, apples, a
hint of lemon. It was a very elegant wine.
She caught him glancing at the label on the bottle as she refilled his glass.
‘It is a Château Bouchamie Carneros.’
He was none the wiser.
‘It is a Chardonnay from California.’
‘Ah, California.’
She caught the nuance in his voice and was about to say something.
‘It is very good,’ he added hastily. ‘In fact, it is more than very good. It is excellent.’
‘One must not be chauvinistic. The Americans have a lot to learn about wine, but they are quick and dedicated. In a very short space of time they have also taught us many things – even though in the beginning we were reluctant to admit the possibility.’
He put down the file. It was time to change the subject.
‘You have led a very full life.’
‘Do I get the job?’ Again there was a hint of amusement in the eyes. She was very sure of herself.
‘If you can call it that. I am in need of advice.’
‘What can I do to help? I was told only that you wish to know about computers.’
‘Starting from the beginning. Par exemple, I know that “hardware” refers to the basic machinery you can actually touch, and that “software” refers to the programs which make it work, but beyond that …’ He spread out his hands. ‘I am lost.’
She made a face. ‘It is a large order.’
‘It is a large problem and there is not much time.’
‘I see. Well, assuming that all external connections are correct …’
Monsieur Pamplemousse’s pride was stung. ‘I do know a little more than that.’
‘Perhaps. But is one of the most useful phrases I was ever taught. I still say it to myself whenever I have a problem. How many times have you seen people take an iron or an electric toaster to be repaired and it turns out not to have been switched on at the wall – or even plugged in? You shouldn’t take it too literally. It applies to life as well as to computers.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse accepted the reproof. ‘Let us assume all external connections are correct.’
‘You are a brave man. Tell me, after the hall porter had announced you, what did you do?’
‘I came up to your floor.’
‘Exactly. And how did you reach it?’
‘I pressed the button for the lift. It arrived. I got in. Then I pressed another button for the tenth floor …’
‘And did you ask yourself why all these things happened?’
‘No.’
‘Of course not. To use a lift it is not necessary to know how it works. So why should you know how a computer works? It is usually sufficient that it does.’
‘Suppose I wished to arrange matters so that when the lift reached the tenth floor it didn’t stop but went on to the twelfth.’
‘Ah, then you would need to know about lifts. You would also need to know something about aerodynamics – for the moment when it went through the roof. There are only ten floors.’
Touché! He felt himself warming towards her. ‘Fortunately in my case lifts do not come into it. I only wish to know how someone might “arrange matters” with a computer. With that end in view, I feel it would be nice to know how they work.’
She nodded. ‘They are like many other complicated things – taking a photograph, for example, or television – once they are broken down into their basic elements they are really very simple.
‘Think of a long corridor with door after door after door. If all the doors are open you can walk straight through, but if just one of those doors is locked, then you can’t. Take that a stage further. Supposing at each door there is a man who asks you a simple question to which the answer is either “TRUE” or “FALSE”. If the answer is “TRUE” you can go through. If it is “FALSE” then you are out of the game. A computer works on much the same principle. It is a series of doors.
‘Think, too, of the fact that the latest IBM door can be opened and closed some thirty billion times a second.’
‘Even computers occasionally come up with wrong answers. They stop people going through doors when they shouldn’t, or vice versa.’
‘Computers very rarely come up with the wrong answer.’ For the first time there was a hint of irritation in her voice. ‘If they do – if for some reason they develop a fault – then the answer is usually so wildly wrong the fact should be obvious to anyone who has half an inkling of what the right one should be. People often ask computers the wrong question, then blame it when they don’t like what it tells them. It is very easy to blame something you don’t understand. If computers have a fault it is that they have spawned a whole society which can’t add up because it has no need to, and isn’t prepared to accept responsibility for its own mistakes.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse pondered the matter for a moment or two while more wine was poured. The truth of the matter was they were playing with each other. He decided the first move was up to him. He would come clean. Instinctively he trusted her. Anyone who liked wine and had such delicious smells coming from her kitchen had to be trusted. He gave the woman a brief run-down of all that had happened to date.
‘That is terrible!’
‘For Le Guide it is worse than terrible. It could be disastrous.’
‘One thing is very certain. If the entries are wrong but make sense, then it is not a mistake on the part of the computer. It has to be a deliberate act on the part of someone else.’
‘Exactly.’
‘For what purpose? Presumably it is not fraud. I mean, no money is involved?’
‘We may not be concerned with money directly – but indirectly a great deal is involved. Over one million copies of Le Guide are sold each year at a published price of one hundred and fifty francs per copy. That is a lot of money.’
‘And no royalties to pay!’
‘No royalties to pay.’
‘But that would point to a rival and from all you say that seems very unlikely.’
‘I cannot picture it.’
‘So if we rule that out, and if it isn’t to do with the shifting of money, then how about revenge?’
‘Revenge? That is a possibility, I suppose, although I can’t think of a reason. Be that as it may, it is my brief to find out who is responsible, and to do that it would be helpful to find out how it could have been done.’
She thought for a moment or two. ‘There are two possibilities. Either it was done from outside the building, or it was done by someone inside. I have to tell you here and now that the second is the more likely of the two. Most computer break-ins are made by members of staff. Do you know what kind of computer it is? What make?’
‘It is –’ Monsieur Pamplemousse took out his notebook. ‘It is a Poulanc DB23, 450 series. What is known as a mainframe computer I believe.’
She looked impressed. ‘Nothing but the best! It has a memory of over sixty-four million bytes. They’ve developed a new type of laser-operated head. It gives data storage of over 500 million characters on disque, would you believe?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse tried his best to look fascinated. Words like ‘byte’ were still as much like Greek to him as they were to the Director.
‘So you probably have a number of work stations dotted about the building?’ He realised she was still talking.
‘There are a good many, and there are network sockets everywhere for when we need to expand.’
Mademoiselle Borel gave a shrug as if to say there is your answer. ‘Are the satellites live or dumb?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Do they operate through the mainframe computer, or are they PCs – desk-top computers – capable of operating independently? In other words, would it be possible to feed a program into the main computer from one of them?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse had to confess he didn’t know.
‘There is a whole history of computers being broken into from outside, but it usually requires time, a good deal of skill and an element of luck. I
n 1983 a nineteen-year-old student caused consternation in high places by breaking into the Pentagon computer. Messages have been left on the NASA Space Agency computer. In England the Duke of Edinburgh’s personal electronic mail was penetrated on Prestel. Mostly it is done by “hackers” for the sheer hell of it. They see it as a challenge – like climbing Mount Everest.’
‘So it is possible?’
‘Let us just say that nothing is impossible. Whole books have been written about computer fraud. As you saw, I have had one published myself. It has simply become more difficult, that is all. Manufacturers try to keep one pace ahead. But it is certainly not impossible.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘To enter a system from the outside you need to go in through the “front door”, as it were. For that, all you require is a home computer and a “modem” to connect it to the public telephone. How many people know that it exists?’
‘A good many, I imagine. There is nothing secret about the installation – only the contents. It has been mentioned more than once in the trade journaux. You could say it is an “open secret”.’
‘Does Le Guide provide a service for outside customers?’
‘An information service will be available. Two, in fact. One for members of the public via France Télécom system, and another for accredited members of various trade organisations. Information will be available on payment of a subscription. It will also have the capability of being accessed by members of staff feeding in information while on their travels. Ultimately all Inspectors will have their own modems.’ He was beginning to pick up the jargon.
‘So in one respect you have already provided a good many people with a key to the front door?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse nodded gloomily. His task seemed to be getting more complex by the minute.
‘You must also bear in mind that a newly installed computer is at its most vulnerable. A computer which has been in use for some years will have had all its bugs ironed out; a new one may have many problems. Who supplied the software – the part that operates it?’