Freeze Frames

Chapter Thirty-One

As on the day he arrived, the weather had closed in again. Low, bruising cloud scraping the hilltops, blown in on a wind from the south-west that was mild but wet. The rain fell in a fine, wetting mist that was sucked in under the umbrella that Jane had lent him. Enzo lowered his head, squinting through the rain searching for the name of the boat that the gendarme had given him on the phone.

The pontoon that ran between the line of boats in the tiny marina rose and fell with the swell of the water in the harbour, making him feel a little drunk. He glanced up and saw that the line of houses and hotels that lined the Port Tudy quayside had almost vanished in the smirr. The rattle of cables and the cries of seagulls filled his ears.

And then there it was. White, painted on a blue plaque. La Boheme. Metal hawsers running up the mast fibrillated in the wind, whining, metal vibrating against metal. Enzo stepped on to the shiny wooden boards at the stern of the little yacht, clutching a cable to steady himself, then pushed open the door that led down to the shelter of the cabin. A few steps took him out of the rain to where Adjudant Richard Gueguen sat on an upholstered bench seat along the starboard side. There was a table between facing benches, and a small galley at the far end. Curtains were drawn on the side windows. Enzo slipped into the bench opposite Gueguen, propping his folded umbrella against the wall, rivulets of rainwater streaming from the point of it across the floor.

The air was stale and damp in here, and it was almost dark, cracks of grey light around the curtains providing the only illumination. The two men sat in silence for some minutes. Then Gueguen said, “Anyone see you get on board?”

Enzo shrugged. “There aren’t many people around in this weather. And it’s early yet.”

The gendarme nodded. “Was the autopsy report any good to you?”

“It was.”

Gueguen raised an eyebrow. “What did you find?”

“It’s what I didn’t find that made it interesting.”

Gueguen frowned, dark eyes laden with curiosity. But Enzo did not elucidate. “Did you manage to get the shell casing?”

“I did.” The younger man pushed a hand into the pocket of his dark blue waterproof jacket and pulled out a clear plastic zip-lock evidence bag. He dropped it on the table, and Enzo heard the clunk of the brass shell casing on its wooden surface. He picked it up and held it toward the light creeping in around the window. The casing of the 9mm Parabellum bullet felt surprisingly heavy.

“You know how it gets its name?” he said. “Parabellum?”

Gueguen shook his head.

“It’s from a Latin phrase, si vis pacem, para bellum.”

“Meaning?”

“If you seek peace, prepare for war.”

“There will be a war break out if anyone upstairs finds out I gave you this.”

“They won’t hear it from me.”

“I still don’t understand what you want with it. There were no fingerprints found on it.”

“I know.” Enzo laid the shell casing in its bag on the table and pushed it back toward Gueguen. “I need you to do me another favour.”

Gueguen leaned back and shoved out his jaw. “You’re pushing your luck, monsieur.”

Enzo delved into his shoulder bag, and brought out a green plastic Tupperware food box. He prised off the lid to reveal a dirty wine glass with polystyrene granules packed around it. “There are probably two or three sets of prints on this glass. I think one of them may belong to our murderer. I need you to pack it up securely and send it along with the shell casing to a colleague of mine in England. If there’s a match, then we’ve got our man.” He pushed a slip of paper with a name and address on it across the table. And then a sealed white envelope. “And put this in with it.”

Gueguen leaned forward and peered at the glass, then looked up at Enzo, eyes wide, intrigued. “Who do you suspect?”

“I don’t want to say anything until I am sure. I’d send it myself, but I don’t have time. I have to catch the train to Paris from Lorient in just under two hours. So I need to be on the next ferry.”

The gendarme frowned and shook his head again. “I still don’t understand. If there’s no fingerprint on the shell casing, how can it match with anything on the glass?”

“Because,” Enzo said, “there’s a chance that there is a fingerprint on the casing. Just not one that’s visible with conventional techniques. You see,…” he leaned forward, miming to illustrate his words as he spoke, “…the killer would have had to load the magazine with bullets, pushing each one in with his thumb against the pressure of the spring. And if he did that, then he will have left an invisible print.”

The skin around Gueguen’s eyes crinkled with consternation. “How?”

“Because the natural sweat present on the fingers reacts with the metal of the casing, in effect engraving the fingerprint invisibly into it. Sweat is a complex mix of water, inorganic salts like sodium chloride, and other oily compounds. These have a corrosive effect on the brass. And, in fact, while the heat generated by the process of firing the bullet will have obliterated any normal prints, it will actually have burned the sweat print more deeply into the metal. My colleague, Doctor Bond, has invented a technique for making those engraved prints visible.” Enzo smiled. “Deceptively simple, really. He applies a 2,500 volt electrostatic charge, then dusts the casing with a fine carbon powder which clings to the areas of metal corroded by the sweat. And, bingo! You have a fingerprint. Unfortunately the technique has not yet been granted a patent, so the only person in the world who can carry out this test is Doctor Bond himself. Which is why we have to send everything to him.”

The gendarme stared at him, almost open-mouthed. “That’s amazing, monsieur. The number of cold cases that could solve…”

Enzo nodded. “It’s a technique that can also be used for recovering fingerprints from exploded terrorist bombs. A conclusive way of catching the bomb makers. It’s going to revolutionise crime detection.” He stood up. “But for the moment, let’s just hope that it nets us Killian’s murderer.” He reached out a hand to shake Gueguen’s, then lifted his umbrella.

As he stepped from the boat to the pontoon he saw, through the mist of rain, the lights of the ferry approaching the harbour. The wind whipped at his umbrella, making it difficult to hold. He tipped it in the direction from which the wind blew, and teetered unsteady back toward the quayside. He was climbing the steps to the quay just as the ferry slipped through the narrow harbour entrance, a blast of its horn ringing around the little enclosed bay.

Fifteen minutes later, as he gazed from the rain-smeared window on the passenger deck, he saw Adjudant Gueguen emerging from La Boheme to make his way back to shore, Enzo’s Tupperware box tucked beneath his jacket.

It was, Enzo supposed, a long shot. The killer might have worn gloves when he loaded the gun. Or the magazine could have been preloaded. In either of those circumstances, any print recovered from the shell casing would not belong to the man who murdered Adam Killian.

He turned away from the window and found a seat, and when finally the boat had completed its turn in the relatively calm waters of the harbour and headed out again into the strait, he set his sights for the moment not on who murdered Killian, but why. The answer to that, he hoped, was waiting for him in Paris.