Chapter Twenty-one
Enzo closed the laptop and allowed himself to sink back into the settee. Two entirely different accounts of the same moment. Guy had told him that Marc had called him the day he received the news. That there had been a party going on in the background.
According to Marc, that telephone conversation had taken place several days later, after Marc had sent him him a letter.
In essence, both accounts conveyed the same information, and the same emotions. Only the detail was at variance. But Enzo knew that memory often plays tricks. That a series of moments can be condensed in recollection into a single event. Several conversations into one. Guy’s account of hearing celebrations in the background of their phone call rang true, somehow. It didn’t seem like the kind of detail you would invent. Perhaps there had been some more formal celebrations going at the time of his call, and that’s what he remembered. At any event, there seemed no reason to doubt Marc’s account of the writing of the letter, the return call, and the tearful reunion.
In fact, there seemed no reason to doubt either account, and Enzo decided that he should focus his thinking on Marc’s gambling, which seemed like a more fruitful line of investigation.
A soft knocking at the door startled him. He glanced at his watch. It was after eleven. If it was Guy again with more mirabelle he would have to find some diplomatic way of putting him off. He eased himself stiffly out of the settee and crossed to the door, opening it just a crack. In the light that spilled out into the gloom of the hallway, he saw Sophie’s anxious face, and quickly opened the door wide to let her in.
She breezed into the room, dragging the usual cold air behind her, and turned to face him with shining eyes. Excitement was bubbling out of her like champagne overflowing from a glass poured too quickly.
“Papa, I’ve got news.”
“Good.” Enzo strode past her to recover his whisky from the table. He was not feeling particularly well- disposed toward his daughter since his encounter with Philippe.
“Well, don’t you want to hear it?”
“Sure.” He took a sip of his whisky and she glowered.
“Don’t I get a drink?”
He nodded toward the fridge. “Help yourself.”
And she did, opening a fresh bottle of Chablis and pouring herself a glass, before rediscovering the enthusiasm which had propelled her into his room in the first place. “You’ll never guess,” she said, turning to face him.
“Not if you don’t tell me.”
“Everyone knew Marc and Anne Crozes were having an affair, right?”
“So it seems.”
“But what isn’t common knowledge is that they broke up very shortly before his death.” She beamed triumphantly.
Enzo frowned. “How do you know this?”
Her smile contained an element of smugness. “I’ve been cultivating the Maitre ‘d.”
“Patrick?”
“Yes.” She twinkled. “He’s got a little fancy for me, I think.”
Enzo pressed his lips together in disapproval. “It seems it’s not safe to let you out these days.”
But she just laughed. “Anyway, I managed to wheedle it out of him after lunch today. He likes a drink, does Patrick. And he’d had one or two more than he should have.”
“With your encouragement, no doubt.”
She grinned. “Apparently he found Anne Crozes in tears one day in the locker room out back. Just about a week before Marc Fraysse was murdered. She told Patrick that Marc had dumped her, and that she didn’t know how she was going to be able to carry on. Really distressed, Patrick said she was.”
“Did she tell him why Marc had broken it off?”
Sophie shook her head. “No. Just that it had come out of the blue. A complete surprise.”
Enzo absorbed Sophie’s news in thoughtful silence and swilled some whisky around his mouth. Why would he have split up with her? Had he been under pressure from Elisabeth, who clearly knew about the affair? Or had he simply felt that the relationship had run its course? If Elisabeth knew that it had come to an end, then that would surely have taken away any motive she might have had for killing him. Anne Crozes, on the other hand, might have been motivated by grief, or revenge, to do just that.
“You don’t seem very pleased.”
Enzo smiled. “No, I am. It’s valuable information, Sophie. Sadly, I’m not sure it does anything more than muddy the waters. What I lack is any kind of real evidence… of anything.”
She frowned suddenly, taking a sip of wine and approaching to touch his cheek with her fingertips. “What happened to your face?”
Some of his anger from earlier returned. “Your boyfriend is what happened to my face.”
She frowned her confusion.
“Philippe.” He took another comforting mouthful of whisky. “I had a rendezvous with a contact at the Chateau de Puymule earlier this evening. Your little puppy dog must have followed me down there. He jumped me in the dark.”
Disbelief exploded from her lips. “You’re kidding!”
“I wish I was.” Enzo rubbed his cheek ruefully. “The little shit thought I was some kind of dirty old man having an affair with you. Warned me to stay away.”
Sophie’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. “What did you say?”
“I told him I was your father, and that if he didn’t quit bothering you I’d set Bertrand on him.”
If possible, her eyes opened even wider, embarrassment verging on humiliation coloring her cheeks. “You didn’t!”
“I did. And sent him away with a flea in his ear, and maybe a couple of cracked ribs for his trouble.”
Fear now drained the earlier rush of blood to her face. “Oh, papa, he’ll tell. My cover’ll be blown.”
But Enzo just shook his head. “I don’t think so. I warned him what would happen to him if he did.”
Now anger colored her face again, as she thought about it. “The stupid idiot! What did he think he was doing? He doesn’t own me. He’s not even my copain!”
“He seems to think he is.”
“I’ll kill him!”
“No you won’t, Sophie.” Enzo’s voice carried a threat in it that she knew well from childhood, and it stopped her in her tracks. “My advice is to stay away from him whenever possible. I’ve warned him off, but there’s no telling what he might do if you start laying into him. We can’t afford for people to find out who you really are.”
She was barely mollified and cast sulky eyes over her father’s bruised face. “He had no right.”
“No, he didn’t. But let’s just leave it at that for the moment.” Enzo crossed to the fridge to replenish his glass. He poured slightly more whisky into it this time.
She was briefly silent, turning it over in her mind. Then, “Okay,” she said. “I will let it go for the moment. On one condition. You tell me about you and Uncle Jack.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sophie! You don’t have an Uncle Jack!”
“Yes, I do. If he’s your brother…”
“Half brother.”
“Half brother… He’s still my uncle. And I want to know why you and he haven’t been on speaking terms for thirty years.”
“I told you, it’s a long story. And I’m not at all sure I want to tell it.”
“Well, I’m not leaving until you do.” She planked herself down in the settee, curling her legs up beneath her, and poured another glass of wine. “I’m listening.”
“Damn you, Sophie!”
“Don’t damn me, just tell me.” She sipped calmly on her Chablis, while Enzo turned away, emptying his glass and refilling it again. When he looked up he caught his own reflection in the black of the window. For a moment, it was like a window on his past, and he saw himself as he had been all those years before. A gauche young man in search of his place in the world, and trying to find a way through it.
