Instead, he struggled to his knees and craned down to peer under the wreck. ‘Can you reach the keys?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, switch off the engine.’
‘It happens automatically when the airbags inflate. But I’ve turned the thing off anyway to make sure.’
‘Good lad. Can you reach your cellphone?’
‘No. My left hand is caught between the seat and the door. And the airbag is between my right hand and my pocket.’
Calque sighed. ‘All right. I’m standing up now. I’ll get to you in a moment.’ Calque rocked on his feet. All the blood moved to his body’s periphery and for a moment he thought he would fall down in a dead faint.
‘Are you all right, Sir?’
‘My nose is broken. I’m feeling a bit weak. I’m coming now.’ Calque sat down in the road. Very slowly he lay back down and closed his eyes. From somewhere behind him there came the sudden, distant scream of over-heated brakes.
7
‘How did he get the sub-machine gun?’
‘From the Spanish paramilitary, of course. Villada never got around to telling me that bit.’
Calque was sitting beside Macron in the Accident and Emergency department of Rodez Hospital. Both of them were bandaged and taped. Calque had one arm in a sling. His nose had been reset and he could feel the residual effects of the local anaesthetic niggling away at his front teeth.
‘I can still drive, Sir. If you can get us a fresh car, I’d like to take another shot at the eye-man.’
‘Did you say another shot? I can’t remember the first one.’
‘It was only a manner of speaking.’
‘Well it was a stupid manner of speaking.’ Calque laid his head back on to the seat cushion. ‘The roadblock boys don’t even believe the eye-man was there because there are no bullet holes anywhere in the car. I’ve told them the bastard obviously cleaned up after himself, but still they amuse themselves thinking that we smashed up the car by mistake and are trying to cover our tracks.’
‘You mean he did it on purpose? He’s trying to make us into a laughing stock?’
‘He’s laughing at us. Yes.’ Calque ran a cigarette beneath his nose and prepared to light it. A nurse shook her head and motioned him outside with her finger. Calque sighed. ‘They want to take the case away from me. Give it to the DCSP.’
‘But they can’t do that.’
‘They can. And they will. Unless I give them a convincing reason otherwise.’
‘Your seniority, Sir.’
‘Yes. That’s convincing. I can feel every day of it in my back, in my arms, in my upper thighs and in my feet. I think there’s a place halfway up my right calf which still feels young and vigorous though. Maybe I should show them that?’
‘But we’ve seen him. We’ve seen his face.’
‘At eighty metres. From a moving car. Behind a sub-machine gun.’
‘But they don’t know that.’
Calque sat forward. ‘Are you suggesting I lie to them, Macron? Exaggerate the extent of my knowledge? Merely in order to keep a case that has threatened, on a number of occasions now, to finish us off?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Bunching his fingers like a crane clamp, Calque gently palpated his newly straightened nose. ‘You may have a point, my boy. You may have a point.’
8
‘I need access to the internet.’
‘The what?’
‘To a computer. I need an internet café.’
‘Are you mad, Damo? The police are still looking for you. Someone will probably read the news on the computer next to you, see your photo, call in your details and watch happily as they come to pick you up. Then, if they film the whole scene of your capture on their webcams, they can post it straight away and make their names. They will be instant millionaires. Better than the lottery.’
‘I thought you couldn’t read, Alexi? How come you know so much about computers?’
‘He plays games.’
Sabir turned round and stared at Yola. ‘I’m sorry?’
She yawned. ‘He goes to internet cafés and he plays games.’
‘But he’s a grown-up.’
‘Still.’
Alexi couldn’t see Yola’s face as he was driving but he managed to dart a few concerned glances into the rear-view mirror. ‘What’s wrong with playing games?’
‘Nothing. If you’re fifteen.’
Yola and Sabir were trying to hide their enjoyment behind faked straight faces. Alexi was the perfect subject for teasing because he took everything which referred to himself at absolute face value, whereas, when it referred to other people, he was considerably more selective.
Alexi had obviously succeeded in reading their minds for once, for he immediately changed tack to a more serious subject. ‘Tell me why you need the internet, Damo?’
‘To find a new Black Virgin. We need to pinpoint a place, well away from the Camargues, to which we can lure the eye-man. And which he will believe in. For this we need a Black Virgin.’
Yola shook her head. ‘I don’t think you should do this.’
‘But you were all for it. Back at Samois. And when we went to Rocamadour.’
‘I have a sense about this man. You should leave him to the police. As you agreed with the Captain. I have a very bad feeling.’
‘Leave him to the police? Those fools?’ Alexi rocked himself back and forwards against the steering wheel. ‘And then you both laugh at me for playing games? It is you who are the games players, not me.’ Alexi paused dramatically, waiting for a response. When it didn’t come, he forged ahead, undaunted. ‘I say let Damo go and find his Black Virgin. Then we lead the eye-man there. This time we make a plan that is foolproof. We will be waiting for him. He comes in - we shoot him. Then Damo beats him to a pulp with his stick. We bury him somewhere. The police can look for him for the next ten years - that will keep a few of them out of our hair, won’t it?’
Yola threw up her arms. ‘Alexi, when O Del gave out brains, He only had a certain amount to go around. He tried to be fair, of course, but it was difficult for Him, because your mother nagged Him so much that He forgot what He was doing and took away what little brains you had by mistake. And now look.’
‘Who did He give them to? My brains I mean? Damo, I suppose? Or Gavril? Is that what you are saying?’
‘No. I think He made a really big mistake. I think He gave them to the eye-man.’
9
‘I’ve got it.’ Sabir slid into the passenger seat of the Audi, clutching a piece of paper. ‘Espalion. It’s only fifty kilometres from here as the crow fl ies. And it’s perfectly reasonable that we should choose a roundabout route to get there - the police are still after us, as well as the eye-man.’ He allowed his gaze to travel over their two faces. ‘I don’t see why he shouldn’t swallow it, do you?’ ‘Why Espalion?’
‘Because it’s got what we need. Its in the opposite direc�
�tion to Saintes-Maries, for a start. And its got it’s very own Black Virgin, called La Négrette. Okay, she’s missing a child - but you can’t have everything. She’s situated in a small chapel alongside a hospital, which means that the chapel will almost certainly have no watchman - unlike Rocamadour - as patients and their relatives will require access at all times of the day and night. It’s got miracles, too - La Négrette is prone to fits of weeping, apparently and whenever she is painted she always returns to her original colour. She was found during the Crusades and brought back to the Chateau de Calmont d’Olt by the Sieur de Calmont. It says here that La Négrette was threatened during the Revolution, when the castle was sacked, but some good soul saved her. So it’s completely believable that she was around in Nostradamus’s time. The Pont-Vieux at Espalion is even a World Heritage Site. On the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, just like Rocamadour. It’s perfect.’
‘So how do we trap the eye-man?’
‘The minute we stop at Espalion, my bet is that he’ll suspect what we’re after. And he’ll almost certainly try to get there ahead of us. He’s never more than about a kilometre behind us anyway, according to Calque, so we’ve got maybe two or three minutes to set-up a trap. That’s not enough, obviously. So Yola and I need to find a taxi now. Pronto. I’ve hatched a little plan.’
10
Sabir and Yola got out of the taxi. They had twenty minutes before Alexi was due to arrive in the Audi, with the eye-man close behind. Twenty minutes to find a fail-safe spot from which to trigger an ambush.
Yola would wait near a telephone booth in the town centre. If she didn’t hear from them within half an hour, she was to call Calque and tell him what was going down. It wasn’t an elegant plan, but with three against one, Sabir felt that it afforded them the infinitesimal edge they needed in order to turn the tables.
But it all came down to him. He had the Remington. He was a fair shot. But he knew that he wouldn’t survive a straight face-off with the eye-man. It wasn’t a matter of skill - he knew that much - but of will. He wasn’t a killer. The eye-man was. It was as simple as that. So he had to cripple the eye-man - put him out of business - before he was able to respond.
Sabir’s gaze travelled over the hospital grounds. Would the eye-man come straight in by car? Or would he leave the car and come in on foot, as he’d done at Montserrat? Sabir could feel the sweat breaking out all over his face.
No. He would have to go into the chapel. Wait for the eye-man there.
He suddenly had an intense feeling of claustrophobia. What was he doing? How had he got himself into this absurd position? He must be crazy.
He ran into the chapel, nearly overturning an elderly lady and her son who had just been in to pray.
There was a service going on. The priest was preparing for Mass. Christ Jesus.
Sabir backed out, looking wildly behind him at the car park. Twelve minutes. Sabir began jogging down the road in the direction of town. It was impossible. They couldn’t start a shoot-out in a chapel chock-full with celebrants and partakers of the Host.
Perhaps Alexi would be early? Sabir slowed down to an amble. Fat chance. And a fat success of an ambush he’d managed. When O Del gave out brains, it wasn’t only Alexi who had found himself short-changed.
Sabir sat down on a bollard at the side of the road. At least Alexi had enough room to turn round here. At least he’d thought of that.
He took out the Remington and placed it on his lap.
Then he waited.
11
‘They’re conducting Mass. The place is packed. It’d be a bloodbath.’
‘So it’s off? We don’t do it?’
‘We’ve got three minutes to turn round and pick Yola up. Then I suggest we get the Hell out of here. Once outside town we dump the fucking tracker and head for Les Saintes-Maries. And to Hell with Calque and the eye-man.’
Alexi slewed the Audi round and headed back towards town. ‘Where did you leave Yola?’
‘She’s sitting in the Café Centrale. Next door to a phone booth. I took the number. I was going to phone her if everything went well.’
Alexi glanced at Sabir and then quickly forward. ‘What if we meet the eye-man coming in? He knows our car.’
‘We’ll have to chance it. We can’t leave Yola staked out in the centre of town like mouse bait.’
‘What if he sees her, then?’
Sabir felt himself go cold. ‘Stop by that phone-box over there. I’m going to call her. Now.’
***
Achor Bale threw the list on to the passenger seat. Espalion. A Black Virgin called La Négrette. Near the hospital. This was it, then.
He’d received the list of all the Black Virgin sites south of the Lyon/Massif Centrale meridian only two days ago, via his cellphone. Courtesy of Madame, his mother’s, private secretary. She had made up the list for him just in case, using research material from Monsieur, his father’s, library. At the time he’d thought she was being over-cautious - interfering, even. Now he knew she’d done the right thing.
He squeezed down on the accelerator. It would be good to get this thing over and done with. It had all taken too long. Left him too much in the frame. The longer you remained out in the field, the more likely you were to make a mistake. The Legion had taught him that. Look what happened at Dien Bien Phu against the Vietminh.
Bale hit the periphery of Espalion at seventy miles an hour, his eyes searching to right and to left, looking for red ‘H’ signs.
He slowed down towards the centre of town. Pointless drawing attention to himself. He’d have time. The three stooges didn’t even realise he was still following them.
He pulled up near the Café Central to ask for directions.
The girl. She was sitting there.
So they’d left her. Gone to do the dirty work themselves. Come back later. Pick her up when it was safe. Gentlemen.
Bale climbed out of the car. As he did so, the phone rang in the nearby booth.
The girl glanced across him at the booth. Then back towards him. Their eyes met. Bale’s face broke into a welcoming smile, as if he had just encountered a long-lost friend.
Yola stood up, knocking back her chair. A waiter started instinctively towards her.
Bale turned casually around and made his way back to his car.
When he turned to look, the girl was already running for her life.
12
Bale pulled gently away from the kerb, as if he had changed his mind about having a cup of coffee, or had left his wallet at home. He didn’t want anyone remembering him. He glanced back to his left. The girl was sprinting down the road, with the waiter in hot pursuit. Silly bitch. She hadn’t paid her bill.
He drew up beside the waiter and gently tapped his horn. ‘Sorry. My fault. We’re in a hurry.’ He waved a twenty-euro note out of the window. ‘Hope this covers the tip.’
The waiter looked at
him in astonishment. Bale smiled. His clotted eyes always affected people that way. Mesmerised them, even.
As a child, his condition had fascinated a wide variety of doctors - papers had even been written about him. One doctor had told him that before his case was brought to their attention, eyes without whites (‘no-whites’, the doctor had called them, in which only the proximal interommatidial cells were pigmented) had only ever been noted in Gammarus chevreuxi Sexton - a sand shrimp. He was an entirely new genetic type, therefore. A true Mendelian recessive. If he ever had children, he could found a dynasty.
Bale put on his sunglasses, amused at the waiter’s discomfiture. ‘Drugs, don’t you know. The young these days. Not fit to be let off the leash. If she owes more, tell me.’
‘No. That’s all right. That’s fine.’
Bale shrugged. ‘The truth is that she needs to go back to the clinic. Hates the thought of it. Always does this to me.’ He waved at the waiter as he accelerated away. The last thing Bale wanted was a new police presence dogging his every footstep. It had already cost him far too much effort getting rid of the last bunch. This way, the waiter would explain what had happened to his customers and everyone would be satisfi ed. By the time they made it home, the story would have grown wings and a dozen different endings.
THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECIES Page 20