Blowback

Chapter Forty-one

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.

“I imagine you’re not very happy about it?”

“That would be an understatement. You know I’ve never liked Roger.”

“And you know how much I dislike him.”

“And yet you still see him.”

“From time to time, yes. You know what they say about your enemy. Keep him always in plain view.”

Enzo frowned. “Your enemy? Charlotte, he was your lover for eighteen months.”

“Which is how I know.” She paused. “He is a dark and dangerous man, Enzo. You need to do everything in your power to stop him from marrying Kirsty.”

Enzo passed the fifteen minute metro ride from Gobelins to Pont Neuf on Line 7 lost in a deep despond. He remembered once before that Charlotte had warned him about Raffin. There’s something dark about Roger, Enzo, she had said. Something beyond touching. Something you wouldn’t want to touch, even if you could. Enzo had never witnessed that dark side. But he had seen him flirt with other women in Kirsty’s presence, and experienced first hand an unpleasant and ruthless streak in him.

Kirsty, however, was her own person. He had no right to tell her what, or what not, to do. Not least because he had abandoned her to her mother at the tender age of twelve, to pursue a new life in France with Pascale. He had often wondered if, given the chance, he would do it all differently. But if he had, there would have been no Sophie, no Charlotte. No Laurent.

And Kirsty was an intelligent girl, sensible. She clearly saw something in Roger that her father didn’t. But Charlotte must once have been beguiled by him, too. And only time and experience had led her to disillusionment. Kirsty had not had sufficient of either to arrive at that conclusion, and Enzo knew that there was nothing he could either say or do about it that would not lead him into conflict with her.

There was sleet in the air, blowing in on the edge of a north-east wind as he emerged from the metro at the Pont Neuf in the shadow of the decaying icon that was the Samaritaine building. The Ile de la Cite split the river in two, a classical skyline anchored to both banks by bridges at various points along its length, as if it might otherwise float away. On the far side was the headquarters of the Paris police, the Quai des Orfevres. On the nearside, the forensic laboratories of the police scientifique at No. 3 Quai de l’Horloge. Enzo pulled up his collar and hurried off through the sleet.

Raymond Marre was waiting for him at the main entrance to see him through security, then lead him upstairs to an upper floor where the VSC6000 was housed in a small, windowless room. The machine itself wasn’t much bigger than the average laser printer. It was connected to a computer terminal, keyboard and monitor. A gooseneck lamp on the desk cast light over a profusion of papers spread across its surface. Enzo spotted the suicide note in its ziplock bag among them.

“Well?” Enzo looked at him anxiously.

Raymond beamed. “It seems that for once the French police scientifique can actually do something for the great Enzo Macleod.” He held up a sheet of photocopy paper. “Here it is, all cleaned up and perfectly readable. Although what illumination it might throw on your investigation probably only you can tell. It certainly doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Enzo took the sheet and read it in full. His immediate reaction was one of disappointment. There was nothing in the text recovered from the top or bottom of the note that added anything to what was already there. And no signature. He frowned.

“Doesn’t make much sense to you either, I see,” Raymond said. “I guess you’d need the missing pages to get anything more out of it.”

Enzo looked at him, confused. “Missing pages?”

But even as he said it he understood for the first time exactly what he was holding in his hand.

Rows of dark blue police vans were lined up along the quai outside, and people with hoods pulled up, and umbrellas lowered against the sleet, hurried by, heads down. The Theatre de la Ville across the river was almost obscured by it.

Enzo fumbled in his pocket for his cellphone and hit the speed dial key for Dominique’s cell. It was important she knew, and could move immediately. He felt his fingers stiffening in the cold as he waited for a reply. Eventually her messaging service kicked in and he left a quick message asking her to call him back immediately. He called the gendarmerie on the off-chance that she might be there and not have access to her cellphone. The duty officer replied and told him that Gendarme Chazal was not on duty until the following morning.

Enzo hung up, thought for a moment, then called Sophie. With a growing sense of disquiet, he listened as her phone rang unanswered. Eventually he heard her voice. “Hi, this is Sophie. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

He said, “Sophie, call me as soon as you get this. It’s important.”

He slipped his cellphone into his pocket and checked the time. It was after 5:30 and the rush-hour, like the river, was in full flow. The city seemed to roar all around him, but the alarm bells of disquiet set in motion by those unanswered calls grew to such a crescendo in his mind that they began to blot everything else out. He knew he had to get back as soon as possible. There was a TGV high speed train leaving from the Gare de Lyon just after six. That would get him into Clermont Ferrand at nine-thirty, and back to Saint-Pierre by around ten.

He waved at an approaching taxi but it swept past him on the quay and vanished into the gathering gloom. In this weather, taxis would be like gold dust, and even if he got one, there was no guarantee it would get him through the traffic in time. There was no choice but to take the metro.

He turned and began running back along the quayside toward the Pont Neuf.