Blowback ef-5

by Peter May

  “I’m looking for Gendarme Dominique Chazal.”

  Curiosity gave way to mild suspicion. “Are you?”

  “I am.”

  “And who should I say is looking for her?”

  “Enzo Macleod.”

  The gendarme hesitated for a long moment, as if reluctant to submit to the notion that he might actually be a public servant rather than simply a wielder of power over the populace. Then he turned and disappeared briskly through a door behind him. It was less than a minute before the door opened again and a young woman in uniform emerged, wide-eyed and smiling. She reached across the counter to shake Enzo’s hand.

  “Monsieur Macleod.”

  Enzo tipped his head in acknowledgment, impressed by the warm firmness of her handshake.

  “I’ve been expecting you for quite some time.”

  Enzo followed her blue van north on the D906 toward Vichy, where the collaborationist regime of Marshal Petain had once set up government during the Nazi occupation. Several kilometres out of Thiers they turned off east toward the small village of Saint-Pierre, a clutch of houses gathered around an indulgent church built from the local rusted ochre stone. The village nestled in the fold of a valley between two impressive volcanic crags, and just beyond it, a private road turned off to the right, flanked at its entrance by two stone blocks, each bearing a grey marble plaque

  chiselled with the monogram, MF.

  The road climbed through a pine forest that rose darkly above it on both sides. After a couple of hundred meters, Dominique pulled off into a beaten parking area where a dirt track headed up through a fire-break in the trees. She was already out of her van and standing at the foot of the track before Enzo could get out of his driver’s seat. “The Auberge Fraysse is at the top of the road, about a kilometre further up the hill. Marc used to go running every day in the afternoon. He came down the road to this point, and then followed the track up through the woods to the plateau.”

  Enzo slammed the door of his 2CV shut and peered up into the gloom. “And came back down the same way?”

  “No, the track skirts the edge of the plateau and comes back down the south facing elevation to the main road. He would follow the road back round here, then on up to the auberge.”

  “He inherited the hotel and restaurant from his parents, didn’t he?”

  “He and his brother, Guy, yes. But Guy only got involved after Marc got his third star.”

  Enzo tipped his head toward the opening in the trees. “You’d better take me up.”

  It was steep, and hard going, roots and ruts making the track beneath the pine needles uneven and treacherous. Enzo could not imagine running up it. After a few dozen meters he was breathing hard. He looked up to see Dominique striding confidently ahead of him. She was a slim girl, somewhere in her mid-thirties he guessed, and the sway of her hips, and the alternate tensing of taut buttock muscles in tight-fitting uniform pants, combined to spur him past his age-induced pain threshold. Only the gun in its black holster attached to her white leather belt gave him pause for thought. Women with guns were not to be messed with.

  Although the rain had stopped, the mist still hung in wreaths and strands among the trees like smoke, while rainwater slow-dripped from a million pine needles, soaking them as they climbed. As they emerged, finally, from the woods, Dominique turned to face him, barely out of breath. Enzo, red-faced and trying to control his gasps, struggled the last few meters to catch her up.

  “Want to take a rest?”

  “Nooo, no, I’m fine,” Enzo lied. And then, casually, “Is it much further?”

  “We’re about a third of the way up.”

  His heart sank. He smiled. “I’m right behind you.” And inwardly he cursed the stubborn male ego that refused to admit that he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

  It took them another fifteen minutes to reach the summit, and Enzo several more minutes to recover. He stood with one foot resting on the rock on which Marc Fraysse’s widow had sat seven years earlier when Dominique first arrived at the scene. As he tried to subdue his breathing, he looked around. The buron was half hidden by the cloud that lay across the plateau. Here the mist swirled in pools and eddies that followed the contours of the breeze stirring among the tall wet grasses. Enzo let his eyes wander over the half-collapsed structure. “What was this place?”

  “A buron. It’s where a farmer used to bring his family, June through September, when he took his sheep or cattle up to the plateau for the summer grazing. You find them all over the Auvergne.”

  Enzo nodded. “In Scotland, they’re called shielings. But it’s the same thing.” He stood up. He had been over the details provided by Raffin’s account of the murder many times, but he wanted to hear it from the young gendarme herself. After all, Dominique Chazal had been the first law officer on the scene. “Tell me what you saw, Dominique, when you first arrived.” And he listened intently as she took him through the events of that bleak February afternoon in 2003. The media parked up in the road at the foot of the hill. Guy Fraysse, and Marc’s widow, Elisabeth, waiting for her by the buron. The body lying in a pool of rainwater inside, blood turning water red.

  He watched the earnest concentration in her face as she worked to recall every detail. And he couldn’t help but think that although it was not a pretty face, it was attractive in its plainness, devoid as it was of make-up. And that there was a beautiful serenity in the deeply warm brown of her eyes.

  He followed her into the buron. “It was pretty much like this then too. Rainwater lying in pools in the mud. Only there was a mess of footprints.”

  “Which you identified?”

  “There were five sets in total. Marc Fraysse himself. His brother. His wife. And two others that we were never able to identify. Presumably belonging to the murderer, or murderers.”

  “Or to anyone who might have taken shelter earlier in the day, long before Marc got here.”

  Dominique shook her head. “The forensics people didn’t think so. They felt that the footprints were fresh, or at least made at the same time as the others.”

  “Casts were taken?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the body was where, exactly?”

  Dominique stepped deeper into the gloom. “Right here. Lying at right angles to the wall.”

  “Face down?”

  “More or less. His head was turned to one side. The police scientifique found traces of blood and brain tissue on the back wall, and from the way the footprints were configured, it seemed as if he had been knocked back by the blast, banging against the wall, before tipping forward.”

  “You’ll let me see the autopsy report? And the photographs?”

  “I can show you a copy of the autopsy report, and pics of the crime scene. But the pathologist still has the originals of the photographs he took at the post mortem.”

  Enzo nodded then stepped back out into the mist, screwing his eyes up against the light. Was it getting brighter, or was it just the contrast with the dark interior of the buron? Whatever, it felt better to be out. There was a strange, pervasive presence within the tumbledown building. Enzo had felt it before at crime scenes, almost as if a victim’s spirit could not rest, but haunted the place until the killer had been found. However, he knew that this was just the product of an over-active imagination.

  He turned to find Dominique looking at him appraisingly. “Did you know him?” he said. “Marc Fraysse.”

  “I’d met him, yes. He was a local celebrity.”

  “He was celebrated all over France.”

  “And the planet. Chez Fraysse was voted the fifth best restaurant in the world the year before he died. But he was a local boy, born and bred. So he was ours. We felt that sense of pride in him that you would feel for a member of your own family. Marc, Guy, Elisabeth… everyone knew them.”

  Enzo smiled. “You were very fortunate to have a restaurant like that on your doorstep.”

  Her sudden laughter, and the patent amusement in it, t
ook him by surprise. “Oh, I never ate at Chez Fraysse!” She punctuated her words with more laughter. “The cheapest menu was a hundred and fifty euros back then, Monsieur Macleod. Do you think I can afford that on a gendarme’s wages?”

  “Surely a woman like you has a man who would be prepared to spend that on her?”

  Her smile faded a little, and he saw her eyes cloud like cataracts. “Never knew one who would,” she said. She struggled to rediscover her smile. “If you’re finished here, we should go back down the hill.”

  But Enzo stood his ground. “One last thing.” He glanced around, as far as the mist would allow him to see. “His belt and pouch were missing, yes?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And never found.”

  “No.”

  “Did you search for them?”

  “We did. A dozen officers combed an area of about five hundred square meters around the buron, and the whole length of the track. We found nothing. Not even a cigarette end.”

  He turned his gaze back on her, and found her looking at him, head dipped slightly, so that she appeared to be looking up from below her finely arched brows. Her eyes were wide and shining again, and full of warmth. He said, “This is the first time in any of my enquiries that I’ve had this kind of cooperation from the police.”

  She grinned. “Just don’t tell my superiors.”

  “Why? I mean, why are you being so helpful?”

  She shrugged with a kind of casual innocence. “When I took the call from Guy Fraysse to say that his brother had been murdered up here on the hill, I was twenty-eight years old. It was my first murder.” She smiled. “And last.” She paused. “I hope. Anyway, although I was nominally in charge of the case, being the first officer on the scene, it was really taken out of my hands. Marc Fraysse wasn’t just a chef. He was a celebrity. France’s favourite son. I had procureurs and juges d’instructions and commissioners of police descending on me. This was far too important a case to be left to some hick gendarme.” He detected the merest hint of bitterness in her tone. “But for all the high flyers who arrived in Thiers in the days that followed, not one of them was able to throw any light on the murder. And when the publicity finally faded away, so did they.” She drew a deep breath. “I would like to know who murdered him, Monsieur Macleod. And if you can’t find his killer, I don’t think anyone ever will.”

  By the time they got to the bottom of the track the cloud, if possible, had settled even lower across the hilltops, and the buron had vanished from view, almost as though it had never existed, and the murder of the most celebrated chef in France had been the figment of someone’s colorful imagination.

  Dominique opened the door of her van. “Do you want to take a look at the evidence and reports?”

  Enzo nodded. “Yes, I do. But not now. I want to go and check in up at the auberge and meet the family first. I want to get a feel for the place. And the man.”

  Chapter Three

  On the road up to the hotel, Enzo passed a group of workmen hammering in snow-poles. They stopped and watched as he drove by. One of them nodded when Enzo caught his eye. A big man, unshaven, with dark, haunted eyes. Their pick-up was parked at the roadside a few meters further on, and beyond that the road suddenly opened out on the left, the ground falling away steeply, fifteen or twenty meters to a stream in spate at the foot of the gully. A low, white-painted wooden fence acted as a barrier. A little further on the land rose sharply, and a waterfall dropped sheer from the rocks to a pool of bubbling, frothing effervescence that fed into the stream.

  It was through the trees above the waterfall that Enzo caught his first glimpse of the auberge, home to Chez Fraysse, one of the world’s most celebrated restaurants. As he rounded the bend in the road, it swung into full view. Enzo’s initial reaction was one of disappointment. He had not been sure what to expect, but the square, stolid stone house with it’s steeply pitched lauze roof did not quite measure up to his image of a three-star Michelin establishment. But then, for most of its life it had just been a rural auberge, an etape on the road for the travelling salesmen who had once plied their trade along the old D2089 between Clermont Ferrand and Saint-Etienne. It wasn’t until he pulled into the paved parking area beneath plane trees that spread their branches to offer summer shade that he realized how deceptive that first impression had been.

  The stonework of the original house had been sand-blasted to its original rusty yellow, and meticulously pointed. Graceful conservatories had been appended to the south and west, with tasteful stone-faced extensions built out to the north and east. The east-side extension linked up with an L-shaped out-building, converted to guest rooms, forming three sides of a courtyard shaded by a huge chestnut tree shedding brown leaves on shiny cobbles. There were more bedrooms in a converted barn on the west side of the car park, with beautifully manicured terraced gardens descending to an outdoor swimming pool. High end guest rooms for a three-star restaurant so remotely located were a must. Not only to provide overnight accommodation for those who wished to drink and drive, but in combination with the restaurant to maximise the high income stream which would mean survival in a tough business.

  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.”