Krysalis: Krysalis by John Tranhaile

prized up.
    “Yes.” Fox was not to be deterred. “The seminar you were attending was important, was it not? Yet you departed in a hurry, leaving behind an impression of considerable agitation?”
    “What I can’t seem to get you people to understand is that that is the perfectly normal reaction of a husband who’s fond of his wife.”
    Albert flicked a fingernail against his upper teeth while he thought about that word “fond.”
    “All right, we’ll move on for the moment. Mr. Lescombe. Your wife is a busy professional woman. Shehas a career of her own and it’s a distinguished one. She is, if you’ll forgive the phrase, free, white, and over twenty-one.”
    “She’s thirty-nine.”
    “Leaving aside precise numbers, she’s an adult. She mentioned the possibility of going to Paris, I believe?”
    “Yes, although she sounded so tentative I didn’t give it another thought.”
    “Nevertheless, her passport’s missing and she may have gone abroad, mm? I take it she’s not done anything like this before?”
    “No.”
    “No history of mental instability?”
    “Of course not. She’s a barrister.”
    “She is a barrister. Not the sort of person who goes off the rails. Furthermore, we have your categorical assurance that she does not know the combination of your safe. Yet, when she drops out of sight, your first reaction is to connect her disappearance with the missing file. Why?”
    “I’ve told you, we’d had a tiff. I was worried for her. I still am, worried out of my skin, and nobody seems to care.”
    “When you quarreled, did she mention the possibility of going away?”
    “No. And I said tiff, not quarrel.”
    “In any case, what you’re giving us is merely your interpretation?”
    “If you like.”
    “What do you think has happened to her?”
    Albert waited with great interest to hear the answer to that one. He sensed that Lescombe was angry with his wife, as well as with Fox.
    “How the hell should I know? Kidnap, murder, anything’spossible. Perhaps she came in while whoever it was burgled my safe was on the job and they made off with her, to make sure she didn’t talk.”
    “Oh, come, come. Taking her passport for good measure?”
    “It happens! We know there was a break-in, that cellar window was smashed, that’s how they got in.”
    “We know that, do we?”
    “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
    When Fox declined to answer, David rushed on, “These things happen!”
    “If you say
that,
I have to tell you that your experience of these matters is greatly superior to mine.”
    “That wouldn’t surprise me in the least. You’ve got a bloody nerve, coming in here—”
    “Mr. Lescombe.”
    “Accusing me of lying.”
    “Nobody’s—”
    “Destroying our house. Have you any idea what we’ve spent on this place? And what are you doing about finding her?”
    “Her? Nothing. Krysalis is another thing. Your stewardship of that file appears to have been rather less than perfect, does it not?”
    Fox tilted his head, awaiting an answer, but Albert, whose instincts were ultra-sharp, sensed that David had begun to eye him sideways, as if trying to fathom who he might be and what he was doing. Lescombe seemed very acute. He did not look to Albert like a man who was guilty of anything.
    “Mr. Lescombe?” Fox prompted.
    “I … you’re referring to …” David lowered his eyes. “Am I allowed to name it? I mean, I don’t know who this—”
    “You may speak freely in front of this gentleman, indeed, I hope you will do so. I beg you to do so.”
    Somewhere up above glass shattered. Everyone froze into silent, embarrassed immobility. Then a distant voice shouted,
“Fuck!”
    David ran toward the door, but—“Krysalis, yes,” Fox said smoothly, as if nothing had happened. “For the benefit of my colleague, perhaps you would be so good as to outline what Krysalis is.”
    David reluctantly stopped his headlong progress and half turned, so that his gaze could embrace