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For some moments, Enzo was lost in thought. Memories he hadn’t entertained for years flickered on the periphery of his consciousness, like an old black and white movie seen out of the corner of the eye.

“Monsieur Macleod?”

He looked up, surprised.

“Are you still with us?” Her smile was a little forced.

“I’m sorry. Just running some thoughts through my head.” He made himself focus again. “What did Marc do when he wasn’t in the kitchen?”

Madame Fraysse laughed again. But there was no amusement in it this time. “When was he
not
in the kitchen?” She perched herself on the edge of the armchair opposite again. “When Marc got his third star, Guy got the money to build him his dream kitchen. You’ll see it shortly. Extended out from the original house, but mostly hidden from the view of the clients. He had an office built on to it, with picture windows looking into the kitchen so that he could always see what was going on. He spent a lot of time there, planning menus, taking phone calls. He was the darling of the Paris media, you know. They couldn’t get enough of him. And he was always making early morning dashes up to Paris to record some radio or TV show, then driving like a maniac back down the
autoroute
.

“And then, of course, he ran. Every day. He was fanatical about his fitness. So many chefs die young, Monsieur Macleod. All that butter and cholesterol in French
cuisine
. That was one of the reasons he worked so hard to develop the low-fat
style Fraysse,
as he liked to call it. Food that used few of the fatty ingredients of traditional French cooking, but which was still served with wonderful sauces that fizzed with flavour and life. Only the best, purest ingredients were good enough for Marc. He really elevated the preparation and cooking of food to a pure art form.”

There was no disguising her undying admiration for her late husband, almost as if she were defending him from attack. And there
had
been those critics, Enzo knew, who had not admired the
style Fraysse
, and who had taken no small delight in saying so.

“He also had a small office up here in the apartment, just off our bedroom. You can see it if you like.”

Enzo stood up. “I’d like that very much.”

He followed her through an open doorway to the bedroom. More austerity. An uncomfortably high-looking bed with antique head and footboards, a couple of pink Chinese rugs the only compromise to comfort on the otherwise hard, polished surfaces of the floor. A dresser with a large, circular mirror sat in the window space, and an enormous dark-wood
armoir
stood against the far wall.

“All his clothes still hang in the wardrobe,” she said. “I never did have the heart to throw them out.” She stopped to open one door of the
armoir
, revealing a row of pants and jackets hanging neatly on the rail. Polished shoes lined up beneath them, and shelves up one side contained scarves and hats, gloves and sweaters. She reached in to touch a Paisley-patterned silk scarf lined with cashmere, stroking it fondly. Then she grasped it and raised it to her face, breathing deeply. Her smile was bittersweet. “I can still smell him on it. Even after all these years. It’s strange how we leave something of ourselves behind us, so long after we are gone. A scent, a strand of hair. It’s comforting, really, to think that we don’t just vanish entirely without trace.”

No, Enzo thought. Only some murderers manage that.

She pushed open a door to an adjoining room. “He had his
petit bureau
in here. His little private den.”

Enzo followed her in. It was a small room with one single tall, arched window facing out on the view. A roll top desk was pushed against the wall beneath it, mahogany filing cabinets on either side, one topped with an inkjet printer/copier. The rest of the room was bare but for a couple of armchairs arranged around a fireplace that looked and felt as if it hadn’t seen flames since the flame of life had been extinguished from its owner. The walls were painted cream, the skirting boards and architraves a dark chocolate brown. Framed photographs of Marc Fraysse covered the walls. Press photographs, mostly. Marc pictured with celebrities, politicians, movie stars; engaging in a round table debate in a TV studio; in the kitchen, dressed in his chef’s whites and tall hat. And in framed reviews, letters from Michelin, and a hand-written note from the late French president, François Mitterand.
Dear Marc, I have no idea how to fully express the pleasure I derived from indulging in the pure “style Fraysse” at Saint-Pierre yesterday evening. I am salivating still. Or, as my political opponents would probably have it… dribbling…

Enzo studied a portrait of the young Marc taken by the celebrated Robert Doisneau. A chiaroscuro in black and white of a fresh-faced young man inclined to plumpness, dark eyes shining with life and humour. And something else. Something intensely felt, burning somewhere far behind them. The ambition, perhaps, the drive that had made him one of the world’s top chefs in the years to come. Whatever it was, Doisneau had caught it. Magically. It had been the great talent of the man to capture what no one else even saw.

He turned, then, noticing for the first time another door, in the wall opposite the window.

“It opens off the hall,” Madame Fraysse said. “He liked to come and go without going through the apartment.” She cast a critical eye around the room. “It feels a little cold now.” And Enzo realized she didn’t mean the temperature. “I had it redecorated after his death. I regret that now. There was so much of him in here. But I just couldn’t bear the constant reminder. Now, it might have been a comfort.”

She turned toward the roll top and drew back the lid to reveal a cluttered desktop, shelves and brass-handled drawers ranged along behind it. It was a handsome piece of furniture

“But I never cleared out his desk. So many personal things. It didn’t seem right.”

Among all the papers lay a titanium MacBook Pro laptop computer, and next to it a white pearl fountain pen, intricately worked in what looked like matte silver. It stood in an elegant desk stand. Enzo lifted it up and removed the cap to reveal the engravings on its silvered nib. “It’s a beautiful pen.”

“It’s a Dupont Taj Mahal. The workings are in palladium. It’s softer than platinum, and more beautifully colored, don’t you think? It was one of a limited edition of a thousand.”

Enzo raised an eyebrow. This was no ordinary pen. “Must have been expensive.”

“I think, monsieur, you could have dined at Chez Fraysse every evening for a week, and still had change. After he gained that third star, nothing was too good for Marc. Only the finest pen was good enough for writing on the finest paper.” She lifted up a sheet of stationery from the desk. “You only have to touch it to feel the quality. He had all our stationery watermarked with the MF logo.” She held it up to the light, and Enzo saw the pale graphic representation of the intertwined M and F subtly embedded in the fabric of the paper.

“He hand wrote each day’s menu himself, sitting here at his
bureau
.” She slid open the top drawer of the right-hand filing cabinet and extracted a sheet from one of a dozen or more suspension files. “He kept all the originals. A kind of archive.” She passed it to Enzo, and he was struck by the distinctively ornate flow of the handwriting, the light and heavy lines of the palladium nib, the flourish at the end of each word. Like the work of an artist:
la tarte aux cèpes de pays à l’huile de noix; rafraîchie d’un bouquet parfumé
. A mere forty euros for this appetizer on the
à la carte
.

Enzo handed it back to her. “Makes me hungry just to read it.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry, Monsieur Macleod, we have a place set for you to eat with us tonight
en famille
in the kitchen.” And he found himself a little disappointed that he would be eating in the kitchen rather than the dining room. The fare would probably be somewhat different.

He turned back to the desk, fingering things, as if the touch of them might bring him somehow closer to the dead man. A paper punch, a ruler, an eraser. He lifted the lid of the laptop and noticed its power cable snaking away to some concealed power point behind the desk. “Did he use the computer much?”

“Oh, yes, he spent a lot of time on it. He loved his email. He was forever writing to somebody, and his inbox always seemed full. He used his browser to scour the web in search of ideas. Novel ingredients, novel recipes. And, of course, critiques of his food, articles about himself. He needed the reassurance of constant praise, you see. Sadly, it didn’t matter how many good critiques he received, one bad one would send him spiralling into a depression for days.”

Enzo closed the lid again and noticed that the laptop sat on a large blotter covered with scribbles, the idle doodling of a dead man. But here were words, too, and names. The initials JR, their contours inked over again and again till they were almost unreadable. A phone number that began with the digits 06. A cellphone number. The phrase,
la nature parle et l’experience traduit,
written in Marc Fraysse’s distinctive hand.
Nature speaks, experience translates
. A quote, Enzo knew, from Jean-Paul Sartre. His thoughts were interrupted by the door from the hall opening behind them. Both he and Madame Fraysse turned to be greeted by the grinning, florid face of a large man losing his hair.

“Ah, Guy. You’re just in time to meet Monsieur Macleod.”

“They told me you were up here.” Guy extended an enormous hand to crush Enzo’s. The sleeves of his voluminous khaki shirt were rolled up to the elbow, the tails of it out over well-worn denims, and he wore a pair of scuffed sneakers. Not the image Enzo had had in mind of one of the world’s most successful restauranteurs. “A pleasure to meet you, Monsieur Macleod. We have heard a great deal about you.” There was a twinkle in his blue eyes, and an openness that immediately drew Enzo. “Has Elisabeth been filling you in?”

“She has.”

“Good. Well, we’re both entirely at your disposal. We want to get to the bottom of this, Monsieur Macleod. It’s been too long, and there is still no closure.”

“Well, I hope I’ll be able to do that for you, Monsieur Fraysse. But there are no guarantees, I’m afraid.”

“No, of course not. And it’s Guy, by the way. You don’t mind if I call you… Enzo, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I hate formalities. And I’m sure my sister-in-law would prefer you to call her Elisabeth.”

A glance at Elisabeth’s frozen smile told Enzo that perhaps she wouldn’t. He decided to stick with Madame Fraysse.

“At any rate, if you are finished here, I’m sure you would like to see the kitchen,” Guy said.

“Very much.”

“Good. It’s a bit special. I’ll take you down. But first I want to show you my pride and joy.”

Enzo heard Madame Fraysse’s barely audible sigh. “His wine cellar.”

Guy beamed. “Exactly. I have more than four thousand labels, Enzo, and nearly seventy thousand bottles. You couldn’t put a price on the collection. I have vintages down there that will
never
be drunk.”

Enzo frowned. “Why not?”

“Because they’re far too valuable to waste on a moment of fleeting pleasure.”

***

The cellar was accessed through a stout oak door off the reception area, just a few paces from the west-facing dining room. Guests were already assembling in the lounge to order aperitifs and await that day’s
amuse-bouches
, spoonfuls of flavour served on lacquer platters, whatever the chef might have dreamed up during the afternoon to whet the appetites of evening diners.

Guy flicked a light switch at the top of a flight of wooden steps leading down to the cellar. Lamps flickered and shed soft light on rows of wine racks stretching off into the chill gloom below them. The cellar was enormous, filling the footprint of the entire house, hacked out of the bedrock on which the foundations had been built. The floor was stone flagged, and the walls themselves bedrock rising to stone founds.

Guy’s voice boomed and echoed as he led Enzo down the steps. “The temperature down here never wavers,” he said. “Summer or winter. Better than any air-conditioning. A constant twelve degrees centigrade. Perfect to keep the wine in best condition.” He started off along a narrow passage between two towering rows of racks. “When success came we spent money on three things. The building itself, Marc’s kitchen, and my cellar. And I’m pretty sure I’ve assembled one of the best in France.” He stopped and turned to confront the following Enzo with a mask of incomprehension. He shook his head. “The strangest thing. Marc was possibly one of the best chefs this country has ever produced. He had an impeccable palate. Incredibly discerning. He should have revelled in the
dégustation
, the tasting of the wines. But he didn’t drink. Only the odd glass. He had no interest in wine. None. Quite extraordinary.”

Enzo nodded his agreement. “Yes.” How anyone, never mind a three-star chef, could not enjoy a glass of good wine was beyond him.

“You’re a wine man yourself, I take it?”

Enzo grinned. “One of my great pleasures in life, Guy, is to sit back and enjoy a bottle of fine wine.”

Guy’s beam stretched his face. “Excellent! A man after my own heart, then. I know that you are here on… what shall we say… rather unpleasant business. But we’ll break open a few good bottles as compensation while you are. And have some damned good food, too. Marc would have approved of that.” He paused. “You’re from Cahors, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Yes… the black wine of Cahors. The Malbec is a difficult grape, but when it’s crafted properly the results can be magnificent.” He reached up and carefully drew out a dusty bottle. “Château La Caminade. Ninety-five. Wonderful with a
civet de sanglier
. The blood of the earth mixed with the blood of the wild boar. But I’m sure you’ve had many a bottle of La Caminade.”

“I have.” Enzo felt his mouth water with anticipation.

But to his disappointment Guy slipped it back into its rack, and headed off among the canyons of wine. Once again he stopped, stooping this time to very carefully extract a bottle from one of the lower racks. He turned, holding the bottle in both hands, to present the label to Enzo. “What, I am sure, you won’t have tasted before, is one of these.”