THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECIES
Page 11
‘You’re a real case. You know that, Alexi?’
They were parked on the battlements above the Rocamadour shrine. Below them were gardens, set into the sheer rock of the cliffs, intersected with winding paths and viewpoints. A few tourists were strolling around in a desultory way, wasting time before dinner.
‘Look at those searchlights. We need to get in before dusk. When they turn those things on, this whole hillside will light up like a Christmas tree.’
‘Do you think we’ve beaten him to it?’
‘We’ll only know when you break into the shrine.’
Alexi sniffed. ‘But I won’t break into the shrine.’
‘What do you mean? You aren’t bottling out on me, are you?’
‘Bottling…? I don’t understand.’
‘Turning chicken.’
Alexi laughed and shook his head. ‘Adam. It’s a simple enough rule. Breaking into somewhere is very difficult - but breaking out is easy.’
‘Oh. I see.’ Sabir hesitated. ‘At least I think I do.’
‘So where will you be?’
‘I’ll hide outside, then and watch. If he comes along, I’ll whop him one with your holly stick.’ He waited for the stunned reaction, but it didn’t come. ‘No. It’s all right. I’m only joking. I haven’t gone mad.’
Alexi looked nonplussed. ‘But what will you really do?’
Sabir sighed. He realised that he was still a very long way indeed from understanding the gypsy mentality. ‘I’ll just stay hidden outside, as we agreed. That way I can warn you by wolf-whistling when I see him. When you get to the Virgin, bring her back to Yola in the car and then come down and join me again. Between the two of us we should be able to bushwhack him somewhere inside the shrine, where it’s safer and where there aren’t any people around to get in the way.’
‘You don’t think she’ll be angry with us?’
‘Who? Yola? Why?’
‘No. I mean the Virgin.’
‘Christ, Alexi. You’re not having second thoughts on me, are you?’
‘No. No. I will take it. But I will pray to her first. Ask her to forgive me.’
‘You do that. Now cut me that stick.’
44
Alexi woke up just as the evening caretaker was bolting shut the outside doors leading to the shrine. He had secreted himself, forty minutes earlier, behind the altar of the St Sauveur Basilica, which someone had conveniently covered with a long-fringed blue and white linen cloth. Then he had almost immediately fallen asleep.
For ten panic-stricken seconds he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Then he rolled himself deftly out from under the altar cloth and stood up, prior to a stretch. It was at this point that he realised that someone else was in the church with him.
He crouched back behind the altar and felt for his knife. It took him a snap five seconds to remember that he had thrown it on to the back seat of the car, after cutting Sabir’s stick. Not for the first time, Alexi found himself cursing his congenital inattention to detail.
He eased himself around the side of the altar, opening his eyes as wide as he could to gather in the last of the evening light inside the church. The stranger was hunched forward in one of the choir-stall chairs, about fifty feet from where he was crouching. Had he been asleep as well? Or was he praying?
As he watched, the man stood up and moved towards the door of the shrine - it soon became clear by the manner of his progress that he had been listening and waiting for the watchman too. He raised the latch with his hand, swung the door silently open and stepped inside.
Alexi looked wildly towards the Basilica doors. Sabir was outside them and as effectively out of reach as if someone had sealed him behind the gate of a bank vault. What should he do? What would Sabir want him to do?
He took off his shoes. Then he eased himself out from behind the altar and padded towards the shrine. He inched his head around the door.
The man had switched on a torch and was investigating the massive glazed brass plinth on which the Virgin was displayed. As Alexi watched, he began levering at the base of the cabinet. When he found that he couldn’t open the front, he turned sharply around and looked back towards the Basilica.
Alexi froze against the outside wall.
The man’s footsteps started in his direction.
Alexi tiptoed as far as the altar and hid himself in the same place he had used before. If the man had heard him, he was done for anyway. He might as well die on sanctified ground.
There was the sudden shriek of a chair leg being dragged across a stone floor. Alexi popped his head out from cover. The man was pulling two choir-stall chairs behind him. It was obvious that he intended to make a ladder for himself so that he could more easily reach the Virgin.
Using the sound of the chairs as cover, Alexi followed the stranger back into the crypt. This time, though, he took advantage of the man’s inattention to approach much closer to the display cabinet. He lay down between two pews close to the front of the main aisle, affording himself both the opportunity to see what was happening and sufficient cover from the solid oak pew-front between them should the man decide he needed to return to the Basilica for a third chair.
As Alexi watched, the man set one chair on top of the other and then tested them for sureness. He tut-tutted loudly and then muttered something to himself under his breath.
Alexi watched as the man fixed the torch into the back of his trousers and began to climb up the makeshift ladder. So this was it. This would be his one chance. If he botched it, he was dead. He would wait until the man was teetering on the apex of the chairs and then overset him.
At the crucial moment, the man reached up for one of the brass candle sconces below the Virgin’s plinth and swung himself effortlessly on to the display cabinet itself.
Alexi, who had not anticipated the sudden move sideways, found himself caught halfway between the pew and the cabinet. The man turned and stared at him full on. Then he smiled.
Without thinking, Alexi picked up one of the heavy brass candlesticks that flanked the cabinet and swung it at the man with all his might.
The candlestick struck Achor Bale just above the right ear. He let go of the side of the cabinet and tumbled eight feet backwards on to the granite floor. Alexi had already armed himself with the second candlestick but he soon saw that it wasn’t necessary. The stranger was out cold.
Alexi separated the two chairs. Grunting, he manhandled Bale on to the chair nearest the cabinet. He felt around in Bale’s pockets and withdrew a wallet stuffed with banknotes and a small automatic pistol. ‘Putain!’
He pocketed the wallet and the pistol and looked wildly around the Sanctuary. He noticed some damask curtains, held back with cord. He stripped the cord from the curtains and tied Bale’s arms and body to the chairback. Then he used the remaining chair to clamber up the display cabinet and secure the
Virgin.
45
Sabir heard the crash clearly from his hiding place across the small square in front of the Sanctuary. He had been listening with all his attention ever since he had first heard the distant sound of barking chair legs from deep inside the Basilica. The crash, however, had come from much closer to where the Virgin was situated.
He broke cover and made straight for the heavy crypt door. It was tightly sealed. He backed away from the building and glanced up at the windows. They were all too high for him to reach.
‘Alexi!’ He tried to make his voice carry through the Sanctuary walls, but not further than the courtyard itself. It was a tall order - the courtyard acted as a perfect echo chamber. He waited a few more moments to see if the door would open, then, grimacing, he tried again, but louder. ‘Alexi! Are you in there? Answer me.’
‘Hey you! What are you doing here?’ The elderly gardien was hurrying towards him, a worried expression on his face. ‘This area is entirely closed off to tourists after nine o’clock in the evening.’
Sabir offered up a brief prayer of thanks that he had left his holly stick behind him in his urge to get across to the shrine. ‘Look, I’m terribly sorry. But I was passing by and I heard a terrible crash from inside the shrine. I think someone’s in there. Can you open up?’
The watchman hurried forward, relief at Sabir’s non-aggressive tone now mingling with his anxiety. ‘A crash, you say? Are you sure?’
‘It sounded like someone was throwing chairs about. Do you think you’ve got vandals?’
‘Vandals?’ The man’s face took on a curious livid quality, as if he had suddenly been vouchsafed a foretaste of Hell. ‘But how could you have been passing by? I shut the outside gates ten minutes ago.’
Sabir suspected that the gardien was probably encountering the first real crisis of his career. ‘Look. I’ll be honest with you. I dozed off. Over there on the stone bench. It was stupid, I know. I’d just woken up when I heard the crash. You’d better take a look. I’ll back you up. It may be a false alarm, of course. You’re responsible to the church authorities, aren’t you?’
The man hesitated, temporarily confused by Sabir’s plethora of different messages. Fear for his position finally won out over his suspicions, however and he began to feel around in his pocket for the keys. ‘You’re sure you heard a crash?’
‘Clear as a bell. It came from just inside the Sanctuary.’
At that exact moment, as if to order, there was another, louder crash, followed by a strangled cry. Then silence.
The watchman’s mouth fell open and his eyes widened. Hands shaking, he inserted the key into the massive oak door.
46
Achor Bale opened his eyes. Blood was trickling down his face and the runnels at the side of his mouth - he darted out his tongue and mopped some up. The coppery taste acted as a welcome stimulant.
He eased his neck against his shoulder and then scissored his jaws open and shut like a horse. Nothing broken. No real harm done. He glanced downwards.
The gypsy had tied him to the chair. Well. That was only to be expected. He ought to have checked over every inch of the Sanctuary first. Not assumed that his intervention with the girl had been enough to drive them off. He had never expected her to survive the river. Tant pis. He should have killed her outright when he had the chance - but why risk leaving traces when nature can do the job for you? The call had been a good one - the end result was just one of those things. The three of them had been incredibly quick off the mark. He must revise his opinion of Sabir. Not underestimate him again.
Bale let his chin fall back on to his chest, as if he were still unconscious. His eyes were wide open, though and taking in all the gypsy’s movements.
Now the man was clambering down the side of the display cabinet, the Black Madonna in his hands. With no hesitation whatsoever, the gypsy then upended the statue and stared intently at its base. As Bale watched, Alexi set the Madonna carefully on the floor and prostrated himself in front of it. Then he alternately kissed and laid his forehead on her feet, the baby Jesus and on the Madonna’s hand.
Bale rolled his eyes. No wonder these people were still persecuted by all and sundry. He felt like persecuting them himself.
The gypsy stood up and glanced across at him. Here it comes, thought Bale. I wonder how he’ll do it? Knife probably. He couldn’t really see the gypsy using the pistol. Too modern. Too complicated. He probably wouldn’t be able to figure out the trigger mechanism.
Bale kept his head resolutely on his chest. I’m dead, he said to himself. I’m not breathing. The fall killed me. Come over here and check me out, diddikai. How can you resist? Just think what fun you’ll have boasting about your exploits to the girl. Impressing the gadje. Playing the big man amongst your tribe.
Alexi started across the floor towards him. He stopped briefly to pick up one of the fallen brass candlesticks.
So that’s how you’re going to do it, eh? Beat me to death while I’m tied up? Nice. But first you’ll have to check if I’m still alive. Even you wouldn’t stoop to beating up a dead man. Or would you?
Alexi stopped in front of Bale’s chair. He reached out and eased Bale’s head away from his chest. Then he spat in Bale’s face.
Bale threw himself and the chair backwards, kicking viciously upwards with both feet as he did so. Alexi screamed. He dropped the candlestick and fell, first to his knees, and thew, groaning, he curled himself up in a ball on the ground.
Bale was on his feet now, hunched forwards, but with the chair still attached to his back, like a snail. He hopped towards Alexi’s writhing body and threw himself backwards, corkscrew fashion, chair foremost, on to Alexi’s head.
Then he rolled away, one eye on the main door of the church, the other on Alexi.
Twisting his body sideways, Bale managed to roll most of his weight on to his knees. Then he lurched upright and allowed the weight of the chair to carry him backwards against a stone pillar. He felt the chair begin to splinter. He repeated the exercise twice more and the chair disintegrated behind him.
Alexi was twitching. One hand was reaching out across the stone fl oor towards the fallen candlestick.
Bale shrugged off the remaining ropes from around his shoulders and started towards him.
47
Sabir pushed past the gardien and into the Sanctuary antechamber. It was dark in there - almost too dark to see.
The gardien threw some hidden switches and the place was transformed by a series of floodlights hidden in the roof joists. Broken pieces of wood and discarded rope lay scattered in an arc across the fl agstones. Alexi lay to one side, a few feet away from the Black Madonna, his face covered in blood. A man was crouching over him, feeling through his pockets.
Sabir and the gardien froze. As they watched, one of Alexi�
��s hands emerged from beneath his body, clutching a pistol. The man lurched backwards. Alexi pointed the pistol straight out in front of himself, just as if he were in the process of shooting at the man - but nothing happened. No sound emerged.
The man retreated towards the Basilica, his eyes fixed on Alexi and the pistol. At the very last moment he glanced towards Sabir and smiled. He drew a finger lightly across his throat.
Alexi let the pistol clatter to the floor. When Sabir looked again at where the man had been, he was gone.
‘Can he get out that way?’
The gardien nodded. ‘There is an exit. Yes. It’s how he must have come in.’
Sabir dropped down beside Alexi - his brain was seething with possible exit strategies for themselves now. He put one hand dramatically over Alexi’s heart. ‘This man is badly injured. We need an ambulance.’
The gardien clutched at his throat. ‘A mobile phone doesn’t work in here. It’s too near the mountainside. There’s no reception. I’ll need to phone from the office.’ He didn’t move.
‘Look. I’ve got the pistol. I’ll keep this man covered and make sure the Virgin comes to no harm. Go and phone for the police and an ambulance. It’s urgent.’
The old man seemed about to answer back.
‘Otherwise I’ll go and phone and you stay here. Here’s the pistol.’ He held it out, butt first.
‘No. No, Monsieur. They wouldn’t know who you are. You stay here. I’ll go.’ The gardien’s voice was shaking and he looked on the verge of collapse.