Blowback ef-5

by Peter May

  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’experience 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 Soph
ie’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 voila!” 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 freres 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.

  I looked from the window, then, at the view I had always taken for granted, and knew that I really didn’t want to go.

  Papa drove me to Clermont Ferrand in his old Quatre L. I was seventeen years old and I had never been to the city. It was a wonder to me. All those buildings that towered over you, casting their gloom on the rain-sodden streets. The traffic and the trams, and all those people. I had never seen so many people. It gave me a perspective on my life that I had never had before, and made me feel small, and terribly insignificant. My world had been the auberge, my school, my parents, my brother. Suddenly it all seemed like nothing at all.

  I remember passing the Michelin factory on the way into town. The huge, smokey, industrial complex churned out the tires that turned around the wheels of France. Of course, I had heard of the Guide Michelin, but I had no idea then how those two words, and the stars that went with them, would shape my life.

  The Lion d’Or stood in a narrow street off the grand Place de Jaude. The theatre was nearby, and the cathedral and the synagogue, so it was well-placed. The building dated from the nineteenth century, five stories high, and for decades had provided meals and accommodation for the VRPs, the voyageur representant placiers, or travelling salesmen, who motored the length and breadth of this vast country ped
dling their wares. But the brothers Blanc had changed all that, bringing back from their respective apprenticeships a mastery of French cuisine learned at the feet of the then undisputed practitioner of the art, Fernand Point, in his hotel-restaurant, La Pyramide, on the banks of the Rhone.

  They had transformed their parents’ establishment, winning first one star, then two, in the space of just five years. And much of the resultant profit had been poured back into the building to raise it to quite another level. Its clientele no longer consisted of the chattering VRPs in their threadbare suits, but businessmen, successful commercants, politicians, some of whom were now making the trip from Paris just to eat and be seen there.

  For the first, and last time in my life, I entered through the front door of the Lion d’Or. Monsieur and Madame Blanc greeted my father like a long lost friend, one of their oldest and best loved clients from the fondly remembered and informal days of the workmen’s lunches. Papa kissed me then, on both cheeks, handed me my suitcase, and left.

  When he was gone I was taken into the kitchen and introduced to Jacques and Roger. They were big men, both. Tall, corpulent, and perfectly intimidating. Roger sported classic French moustaches which curled up over each cheek. Jacques had a big, florid, clean-shaven, round face that seemed set in a permanent scowl. Each in turn, crushed my hand in his, watched by a gallery of silent apprentices relishing the arrival of a new boy, on to whom they could offload the most unpleasant of their tasks. Among them was Guy, of course, and he could barely conceal his glee.

  “Your brother can show you the ropes and take you to your room,” Jacques said.

  The “ropes”, it turned out, consisted of responsibility for the great cast-iron coal-burning stove that fuelled the kitchen, heating the ovens, and bringing the grills and hotplates up to searing temperatures. That meant shovelling the coal from the cellar below the kitchen into buckets, and hauling it up to keep the stove well stoked. It also meant scraping out the ashes from the night before, setting and lighting the firebox so that the stove was up to temperature by the time the chefs arrived at eight-thirty, a task I had to perform twice a day, for lunch and dinner services.