Blowback

by Peter May

  PV: 18/12: 3e: 14: 150; 7e: 4: 130; 9e: 5,9,10: 200

  D: 1re: 3,7,15: 125; 4e: 13: 175; 12e: 2,5,12: 150

  L: 6e: 11: 200; 8e: 10: 125; 9e: 1,7,8: 150

  There was no name and no signature. Enzo gazed at it uncomprehendingly, then checked the date that the email had been sent. 18th December, 2002. So the 18/12 was the date. He checked the time at which the email was sent. 2:14am. He opened the next mail down. More of the same.

  MB: 19/12: 2e: 9: 175; 5e: 3,6,9: 150; 6e: 16: 200…

  This one sent on December 19th at 2:53am. Enzo frowned. These were not recipes for horsemeat. He opened several in quick succession, all filled with the same mysterious code. He had no idea what the letters indicated. PV, D, L, MB, but another thought was beginning to coagulate in the stream of information uploading to his brain.

  Quickly he checked to make sure that the computer was still connected to the printer. It was. He turned the printer on, and winced at the noise it made during start-up, praying that it was still in use and that the ink had not dried up completely. He selected two of the Cheval emails at random and chose Print. The old ink-jet printer whirred and clattered and churned out two print-outs, faded but legible. He folded them together and slipped them into his jacket pocket, then returned to the computer.

  He felt as if he had been in the dead man’s study for an inordinately long time now, although in reality it had been no more than a few minutes. He pressed on. Scrolling rapidly through the Finder desktop, he clicked on the Home folder, which was named frayssemarc. Near the top of a column of folders was one named Documents. He opened it. It was filled with sub-folders whose headings seemed to indicate lists of recipes and ingredients. Opening up just a few of them confirmed Enzo’s suspicions. So this, it seemed, was where Marc Fraysse had actually kept his culinary secrets. He stopped scrolling on one, mid-list. It was titled, simply, Moi. Me. He opened it. Inside was a single document called moi.dssr. Enzo had no idea what that was. He double-clicked it, and saw a piece of software called Dossier opening up on the dock. The document moi.dssr then appeared on the screen as a blank pane containing one large window, and one narrow one down the left-hand side, which was headed Title, and 0 entries. A slide-out pane to the left of that contained one single icon called Unfiled Entries. Enzo felt a wave of disappointment. It seemed that the document was empty.

  Instinctively he moved his cursor to click on Unfiled Entries, and suddenly a document entitled Moi appeared in the narrow window, and an icon of a padlock in the large one next to it. Locked. Enzo’s eye flickered up to the top of the document and a toolbar, where he spotted the same padlock icon. He clicked on it, and a window dropped down asking for a password. Enzo took a deep, tremulous breath, and glanced at his watch. He must have been in here ten minutes now. There was no knowing where in the hotel either Guy or Elisabeth might be, and God knew how long it might take to crack Fraysse’s password.

  He drew his mouse across the blotter, and his cursor swooped down to the dock where he selected and opened the Safari web browser. When its window filled the screen with Marc Fraysse’s homepage, he selected Google from the toolbar and typed into search: most common computer passwords.

  Within seconds, more than thirty-three million links to sites on the subject appeared on his screen. He selected the top one, which took him to a magazine article which listed the ten most commonly used passwords. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. Were people really so stupid? The number one password was password. Then came 123456, followed by qwerty, which on a French keyboard would be azerty. More in hope than expectation, Enzo began trying them out, one by one. Some seemed surprising, like monkey or blink182, or idiotic, like abc123 or letmein, but none of them worked. He was not surprised.

  He closed his eyes, his mind turning over furiously. Some people, he knew, used the names of their children, but he had no idea what Marc and Elisabeth’s children were called. He tried Elisabeth, without success. Then Marc’s first and second names separately, followed by his date of birth. Nothing. He sighed and sat back in frustration, and found his eyes wandering over the doodles on Fraysse’s blotter. They came to rest on the quotation from Sartre: la nature parle et l’expérience traduit. As with the letters, JR, Fraysse had gone over again and again the initial letters of each word in the quotation, so that they stood out quite markedly. He didn’t believe for one moment that Fraysse had done it consciously, but rather sub-consciously, perhaps while speaking on the telephone. But together, those initial letters produced the acronym lnpelt. It was a seriously long shot, but Enzo turned back to the keyboard and typed the letters into the password window and hit the return key. The large empty window to the right immediately filled with text, and the scrollbar revealed that there was a lot of it.

  But Enzo had no time to scan even a few sentences. He heard the door opening into the bedroom next door from the living room beyond, and his heart pushed pulsing up into his throat. Someone was in the bedroom. Perhaps just the maid. But it was equally possible that it could be Elisabeth. What to do?

  As quickly as he could he re-typed the password, which he had to do twice before it would lock the document. Then he shut it down. He fumbled in his jacket pocket for the memory stick he always carried with him and plugged it into the USB socket. When its icon appeared, he dragged and dropped the document on to it, and it began to copy. Infuriatingly slowly. He could hear the unknown person moving about in the next room. “Come on, come on!” he muttered under his breath, through clenched teeth. He stopped breathing as the progress bar moved painfully, protractedly, from left to right, before finally the transfer was complete and he sucked air back into his lungs. He ejected the icon and pulled the memory stick from its socket, stuffing it into his pocket and rising to his feet as the door from the bedroom swung open.

  He turned, hoping to see the maid. But it was Elisabeth who stood there, her right palm placed flat against her chest. She seemed startled, even shocked, to find him there. “Monsieur Macleod!”

  Enzo did his best to seem relaxed. “Just taking a look at your husband’s computer, Madame Fraysse. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “You startled me. The staff never come in here. So when I heard movement I thought perhaps we had an intruder.”

  Enzo grinned self-consciously. “Just me.”

  “It is customary, Monsieur Macleod, in polite society, to ask permission to view private belongings. Even those of a deceased person.”

  There was no mistaking the controlled anger in her voice.

  “My apologies, madame. Since you had shown me in here yesterday, I didn’t feel I was intruding on privacy. And I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Well, you have. I have nothing to hide from you, Monsieur Macleod, and am happy to show you whatever you want to see. But, I would like to be asked.”

  Enzo nodded contritely. “I appreciate that, madame. My apologies again, if I upset or startled you.” He glanced at the computer. “Shall I close it down?”

  “No, that’s alright.”

  They stood for a moment in awkward silence. Then Enzo forced a smile. “Well. I’ll leave you in peace, then.” He turned toward the door.

  “Monsieur Macleod?”

  He stopped, and turned, the door half open. “Yes?”

  “Did you find anything?”

  He frowned.

  “On the computer?”

  “Oh. No. Nothing of any significance.” But he knew that the moment he was gone she could track exactly where he had been by checking the Recent Items menu. He wondered why it was that he didn’t want to ask her about the emails, or tell her about the locked document. But instinct and experience told him that information shared could be information compromised. “I’ll see you later.”

  And as he stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him, he exhaled a deep breath of relief.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Enzo’s laptop sat open on the coffee table, while he squatted on the edge of the settee waiting for the
moi.dssr file to transfer from his memory stick to his hard drive. Sophie was curled up beside him, one arm draped idly over his shoulder watching the slow progress of the transfer. It was after eleven, and she had sneaked straight up to his room after the evening service.

  “Won’t you be missed?” he had asked her.

  “Nah. Everyone’s too tired to bother about socialising at the end of the day. And the only one who’s liable to notice I’m not in my room is Philippe.”

  “Who’s Philippe?”

  “The sous-chef. I told you!”

  “Oh. The boy who’s taken a shine to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how will he know that you’re not in your room?”

  “Oh, papa, stop being so suspicious.” She had drawn a deep breath of indignation. “He quite often comes in to listen to music and chat.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “That’s all.” She had sighed, then. “Anyway, I’ve been playing a bit hard to get lately, so he won’t be surprised if I don’t answer when he knocks on the door.”

  Finally the file finished transferring, and he double-clicked on it. A message appeared informing him that he did not possess any software that would open it.

  Sophie squinted at the screen. “So what are you going to do?”

  “See if I can track down the software and download it.”

  She disentangled herself and lifted the computer on to her lap. “What’s it called? I’ll find it for you.”

  “It’s called Dossier.”

  “No problem.”

  He watched as she focused on the screen, eyes wide and fixed on the browser, tapping on the keyboard in search of the software. She was a beautiful young woman. Even tired, and washed out at the end of the day, and without a trace of make-up. She had inherited her mother’s fine, strong features, and her father’s dark hair and Waardenburg streak, though concealed now by the blond rinse. He remembered how, in those first weeks after her mother had died, and she was just a wet, pink, crusty bundle, he had felt such resentment toward her. As if somehow it had been Sophie’s fault that her mother had died giving birth to her. He found it difficult now, to believe that he had harboured such feelings. Of course, they had passed. And he had come to see her as Pascale’s gift to him, a little part of her that would live on in her daughter. And perhaps, too, in Sophie’s children, if she ever had any.

  “What?” Sophie’s question startled him. Her eyes had never left the screen.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can feel your eyes on me.”

  He smiled. She was so much a part of him. “I love you, Sophie.”

  Her eyes flickered up from the screen, and he saw them grow moist as she met his. “I love you, too, papa.” And she reached out suddenly and touched his face. He felt her fingers track lightly over his bristles. “Do you ever see Kirsty these days?”

  He felt himself tense. “Occasionally. When I’m in Paris.”

  “She’s still with Roger?”

  He nodded. “You don’t keep in touch with her, then?”

  She shrugged. “No point. Since we’re not sisters any more.”

  The revelation that his daughter by his first marriage was not his daughter after all, but the fruit of a fleeting affair between his wife and his best friend, had come as a shattering blow to Enzo. Sophie had greeted it almost joyfully. Kirsty was no longer her half-sister. She didn’t have to share her father with anyone anymore.

  “I need your credit card.”

  “What?”

  “Your credit card. To pay for the download.”

  “You’ve found it, then?”

  “Would I need your card if I hadn’t.”

  Her logic was impeccable. Annoyingly, he could hear himself in it. They were far, far, too alike. He reached for his satchel and took out his wallet, and held out his card.

  “Just read it out to me.”

  “Where did you learn to be so damned bossy, girl?”

  “You, papa. Read!”

  He sighed and read out the details of his card while she tapped them into the computer.

  She hit the return key with a flourish. “Et voilà!” She beamed at him. “Downloading now.” It took several minutes to download, and then Sophie installed it before passing the laptop back to her father. She squeezed up close to him so she could peer at the screen as he opened up moi.dssr, and entered Marc Fraysse’s password to unlock the document. “What is it?”

  “Wait…” Enzo scanned the first few lines, then scrolled quickly through several thousand words of text, stopping occasionally, scrolling back, then forward again. “Elisabeth was right,” he said finally. “Marc Fraysse was writing a memoir.”

  “You mean like an autobiography?”

  “Sort of, I guess. Although, this really just looks like notes and anecdotes. As if he was gathering his thoughts before getting down to the real meat of it, so to speak.”

  Sophie grinned. “As a chef would do.”

  Enzo scrolled back up to the top of the document, to a date and a place where, for Marc Fraysse, it had all begun. And the voice of the young Marc spoke across the years to Enzo and Sophie, as clear as if he had been there in the room with them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Clermont Ferrand, 1972

  I had just turned seventeen, and wasn’t doing so well at school. I never did get my Bac. The truth is, I didn’t see the point. I was going to work in the kitchen at the auberge. Everyone knew it. Mama, papa, Guy. So why did I need to know about about algebra and geography? What possible reason was there for learning about history. It was past, gone. Only the future mattered. And right now, I knew what my future would be. It was to follow in the footsteps of my brother. Footsteps that would lead me straight to the kitchen of les frères Blanc, where papa hoped I was going to learn how to keep him in his old age.

  I didn’t want to go. Guy had been there a year, and I had heard enough of his stories to know that however much I had hated school, I was going to hate Jacques and Roger Blanc a whole lot more.

  School had broken up in July, and I had spent the summer working at the boulangerie in Thiers, treading water till I would go to Clermont Ferrand in October. The prospect of dragging myself out of bed at three every morning all through that summer to work in the stifling, flour-filled heat of the bakery had infused me with dread. In the event, I loved it. I loved being up and working while the rest of humankind was asleep. It felt, somehow, as if I had inherited the whole world, and had it all to myself. The boulanger was a grumpy old bastard to most people. When I say old, he just seemed old to me. He was probably just in his early forties. But he never had a harsh word for me. He could see I loved my work, I loved being there, and I worked damn hard for him.

  I also adored the fact that when everyone else was working during the day, I was free as a bird. Free to climb the hills and wander the plateau. Free, it seemed, for the first time in my life. The apprenticeship in Clermont was the only cloud on my horizon. In the early summer it seemed a lifetime away. But as the weeks passed, it started to loom dark, and ever closer.

  For the first time in my life I had money in my pocket. Money earned through the sweat of my own labour, even if I did give most of it to my folks to pay for my keep. Of course, I also helped mama in the kitchen for lunch and evening service, but I was in bed by eight. And I slept like I have never slept before or since.

  It seems strange to me now when look back on that time. But the fact was, I didn’t really want to be a chef. Long hours of mind-numbing work in the cramped and claustrophobic heat of a restaurant kitchen was something I already knew about. And it wasn’t how I wanted to spend the rest of my days. But when you are seventeen, and without qualifications, or ambition, life stretches ahead like a prison sentence. And you do what you have to. You do what you know.

  I didn’t realize it then, of course, but the twin tyrants of Jacques and Roger Blanc, though I would grow to hate them, were the ones who would give me both the skill and the
motivation to be what I am today.

  ***

  I remember well the day I left home. It was late October. The weather had turned and the equinoctial gales had already stripped the trees of their leaves. Cloud was settled on the plateau and a fine wetting rain colored everything black. It all seemed to bear down on me, like a pressing weight, and reflected the color of my mood. Papa had bought me everything I would need for my sojourn in Clermont. Laid out on my bed were two white chef’s blouses, two pairs of grey and white checkered pants, and two pairs of rubber clogs. And that was it. My uniform for the next three years, a uniform that would be stained by sweat and by cooking and by hauling coal, and washed and washed until it was almost threadbare.

  I remember looking at those things, and the open suitcase on the bed beside them. I remember looking around the room where I had lived my whole life up until then. Walls that bore witness to the scars of my childhood, walls which had seen all my tears and joys, my growing pains, my first fumbled attempts at masturbation. And those walls bore witness to the last tears that I would ever shed within them.