Free Blowback by Peter May Page B

eventually, the desktop loaded on to the screen, he sat down to look at it and take stock.
    The first thing he checked was the Airport connection and was pleased to see that the computer was still connected wirelessly to the hotel’s wifi system. So he was online.
    From the dock along the foot of the screen he selected the mailer and clicked on it to load. The in-box was, as he expected, empty. He checked for
Sent
mail. Also empty. Then scrolled down a long list of folders in the left-hand window. A complete archive of all Marc Fraysse’s emails, sent and received. There was an odd sense of prurience in going through a dead man’s private correspondence, but Enzo had no time to dwell on it. He scanned the titles of the folders. Many of them were simply people’s names. Jacques, Paul, Michel, Pierre. Others catalogued bills and invoices, correspondence with
amazon.fr
, exchanges between Fraysse and his website designer. There were folders filled with the emails that had passed back and forth between the chef and his various suppliers. Then one titled,
RECIPES
, which brought Enzo’s scrolling cursor to a halt. Had a three-star Michelin chef really exchanged emails with others about recipes? He clicked to open it. Apparently he had. They were sub-divided into folders:
Boeuf, Agneau, Lapin, Cheval, Porc
… Enzo’s cursor hesitated and hovered over the folder titled
Cheval
. It seemed inconceivable, somehow, that horsemeat would ever be served up to customers in a three-star restaurant. He opened the folder. Information across the top of the mailer told him that it contained nearly 600 messages. They had all been sent to a single address: [email protected] . None had been received in reply. Enzo double-clicked to open one, and was puzzled to be greeted by a series of apparently random letters and numbers:
    PV: 18/12: 3e: 14: 150; 7e: 4: 130; 9e: 5,9,10: 200
    D: 1re: 3,7,15: 125; 4e: 13: 175; 12e: 2,5,12: 150
    L: 6e: 11: 200; 8e: 10: 125; 9e: 1,7,8: 150
    There was no name and no signature. Enzo gazed at it uncomprehendingly, then checked the date that the email had been sent. 18th December, 2002. So the 18/12 was the date. He checked the time at which the email was sent. 2:14am. He opened the next mail down. More of the same.
    MB: 19/12: 2e: 9: 175; 5e: 3,6,9: 150; 6e: 16: 200…
    This one sent on December 19th at 2:53am. Enzo frowned. These were not recipes for horsemeat. He opened several in quick succession, all filled with the same mysterious code. He had no idea what the letters indicated.
PV, D, L, MB
, but another thought was beginning to coagulate in the stream of information uploading to his brain.
    Quickly he checked to make sure that the computer was still connected to the printer. It was. He turned the printer on, and winced at the noise it made during start-up, praying that it was still in use and that the ink had not dried up completely. He selected two of the
Cheval
emails at random and chose
Print
. The old ink-jet printer whirred and clattered and churned out two print-outs, faded but legible. He folded them together and slipped them into his jacket pocket, then returned to the computer.
    He felt as if he had been in the dead man’s study for an inordinately long time now, although in reality it had been no more than a few minutes. He pressed on. Scrolling rapidly through the Finder desktop, he clicked on the
Home
folder, which was named
frayssemarc
. Near the top of a column of folders was one named
Documents
. He opened it. It was filled with sub-folders whose headings seemed to indicate lists of recipes and ingredients. Opening up just a few of them confirmed Enzo’s suspicions. So this, it seemed, was where Marc Fraysse had actually kept his culinary secrets. He stopped scrolling on one, mid-list. It was titled, simply,
Moi
. Me. He opened it. Inside was a single document called
moi.dssr
. Enzo had no idea what that was. He double-clicked it, and saw a piece of software called
Dossier
opening up