The watchman looked around. The crypt was deserted. People’s attention was still obviously focused on what was happening up in the square. ‘Okay. But make it quick.’
35
Bale had moved in on Alexi almost immediately the gypsy had left the church. But the gypsy was hyper-alert. Like a greyhound after a race. Whatever he’d been doing in there had psyched him up and his adrenalin was pumping.
Bale had half expected the gypsy to turn immediately back into the square, to check out what was happening and to find Sabir. But the gypsy had hurried down through the Place Lamartine towards the sea instead. Why? Had he found something in there?
Bale decided to shadow Alexi out of town. It was always a good idea to get well clear of the most populated areas. The location of the killing would matter as little as the end result, as far as the police were concerned. It would still be merely another gypsy knifing. But this way he would have ample time to rifle through Alexi’s pockets and find whatever it was he’d filched or copied down from inside the crypt. He quickened his pace, therefore and sacrificed invisibility, counting on the crowd to protect him.
It was then that Alexi saw him. Bale knew he’d been seen because the gypsy missed his footing in shock and fell briefly down on to one knee. Alexi was no Johnny-Head-in-the-Air, like Gavril.
Bale started running. It was now or never. He couldn’t let the man get away. The gypsy was clutching something tightly to his chest - the loss of the use of one of his arms was actively hampering his speed. So whatever it was, was important to him. Therefore it was important to Bale.
Now he was heading for the Arena. Good. Once he was out on the Esplanade it would be far easier to see him. Far easier to mark him out from the crowd.
People turned to stare as the two men pounded past them.
Bale was fit. He had to be. Ever since the Legion he’d realised that fitness equated with health. Your body listened to you. Fitness freed it from the oppression of gravity. Find the right balance and you could very nearly fl y.
Alexi was light on his feet but nobody could call him fit. In fact he had never consciously exercised in his life. He merely lived an unconsciously healthy life, in natural harmony with his instincts, which drove him more towards feeling healthy than to feeling unwell. Gypsy men traditionally died young, usually as a result of smoking, genes and alcohol. In Alexi’s case he had never taken to smoking. His genes he could do nothing about. But alcohol had always been a weakness and he was still feeling the after-effects of both the wedding blow-out and being fallen upon from a considerable height by a man in a chair. The same man who was now following him.
He could sense himself starting to flag. Five hundred metres to go until he reached the horses. Please God they had left the saddles on. If he knew Bouboul’s family, no one would have even bothered to touch the horses after he, Yola and Sabir had arrived in town from the Maset de la Marais, two hours before and left them in Bouboul’s care. The horses offered him his only chance of escape. He had had the opportunity to check out all three and he knew that the mare with the four black socks was by far the best. If the eye-man didn’t catch him before he reached Bouboul’s, he would still be in with a chance. He could even ride bareback if the worst came to the worst.
One thing Alexi was supremely good at was coping horses. He had done it ever since he was a child.
Now all he had to do was to reach the beach and pray.
***
Gavril could feel the anger of outrage building up in him as he followed Bale and Alexi. It was their fault that this succession of tragedies had happened to him. Without falling foul of Alexi he would never have met the gadje. And without the gadje spearing him in the leg with his knife he would never have had the run-in with the police. And, in consequence, he would never have heard of the reward. Or had it been the other way around? Sometimes Gavril’s mind ran away with him and he lost track of things.
Either way, he would still have come to Les Saintes-Maries, it is true, but he would have been in control of events and not have allowed events to control him. He could have confronted Alexi at his leisure, when the fool was good and drunk. Gavril was a Master of low shots - of playing to the gallery. What he didn’t like were sudden changes to established patterns.
Perhaps he could still pull the pig from the fire? If he allowed the gadje to deal with Alexi, the man would lose concentration. It would cause him to be vulnerable. With both of them in hand, Gavril would really have something to sell to the policemen. A simple phone-call would do it. Then, after they paid him the reward, he could negotiate with the policemen so that Badu and Stefan would be warned off messing with him. All gypsies were scared witless of prison. It would be the one thing capable of controlling them.
Maybe he could still marry Yola? Yes. This way his plans needn’t be changed after all. All could be well again.
Hurrying after the two men, he idly he wondered how much money Bazena had been able to inveigle from the tourists before her interfering father had managed to put a stop to it.
36
Sabir looked vainly around for Alexi. What had the idiot done? Last seen, he had been heading off towards the church. But Sabir had checked out the crypt and found him nowhere. And this crypt wasn’t like the one at Rocamadour. Here, there was nowhere to hide - unless he’d somehow managed to secrete himself beneath Sainte Sara’s multi-layered skirts.
He returned to the town hall as arranged. ‘Have you found him?’
Yola shook her head.
‘Well what do we do then?’
‘Maybe he’s gone back to the Maset? Maybe he found something? Did you see him actually enter the church?’
‘You couldn’t see anything in that bedlam.’
Instinctively, without saying a word to each other, they turned down the Avenue Léon Gambetta towards the Plage des Amphores and the horses.
Sabir glanced across at Yola. ‘You did brilliantly by the way. I just wanted to tell you that. You’re a born agent provocateur.’
‘Agent provocatrice. Who taught you your French?’
Sabir laughed. ‘My mother. But her heart wasn’t in it. She wanted me to be an All-American, like my father. But I let her down. I turned into an All-or-Nothing instead.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I.’
They’d reached Bouboul’s caravan. The picket where the three horses should have been tethered was conspicuously empty.
‘Great. Someone’s made off with the bloody lot. Or maybe Bouboul’s sold them for dog meat? Do you know what shanks’s pony is, Yola?’
‘Wait. There’s Bouboul. I’ll ask him what happened to them.’
Yola hurried across the road. Watching her, Sabir realised that he was missing something - some clue th
at she had already picked up. He crossed the road behind her.
Bouboul threw his hands up in the air. He was talking in Sinti. Sabir tried to follow but was unable to do more than understand that something unexpected had happened and that Bouboul was loudly disclaiming any responsibility for it.
Finally, tiring of Bouboul’s harangue, Sabir drew Yola to one side. ‘Translate, please. I can’t make out a word of what this guy is saying.’
‘It is bad, Damo. As bad as it could be.’
‘Where have the horses gone?’
‘Alexi took one. Twenty minutes ago. He was exhausted. He had been running. According to Bouboul he was so worn out he could hardly mount the horse. Thirty seconds later another man came running up. This man was not tired at all. He had strange eyes, according to Bouboul. He didn’t look at anybody. Talk to anybody. He simply took the second horse and rode off after Alexi.’
‘Jesus Christ. That’s all we needed. Did Bouboul try and tangle with him?’
‘Does he look like a fool? They were not Bouboul’s horses. They weren’t even ours. Why should he risk himself for someone else’s property?’
‘Why indeed?’ Sabir was still trying to figure out what might have triggered the chase. ‘Where is the third horse? And was Alexi carrying anything? Ask him.’
Yola turned to Bouboul. They exchanged a few brief sentences in Sinti. ‘It’s worse than I thought.’
‘Worse? How can it be worse? You already said it was as bad as it could be.’
‘Alexi was carrying something. You were right. A bamboo tube.’
‘A bamboo tube?’
‘Yes. He had it clutched to his chest like a baby.’
Sabir grabbed Yola’s arm. ‘Don’t you see what that means? He found he prophecies. Alexi found them.’
‘But that is not all.’
Sabir closed his eyes. ‘You don’t need to tell me. I picked up the name while you were talking. Gavril.’
‘Yes, Gavril. He was following both of them. He arrived about a minute after the eye-man. It was he who took the third horse.’
37
Gavril was twenty minutes out of Les Saintes-Maries when he remembered that he didn’t have a weapon. He had thrown it at Stefan in the scuffle.
The thought struck him with such an impact that he actually stopped his horse, mid-canter and spent a full half minute debating with himself whether to turn back.
But the thought of Badu and Stefan persuaded him to continue. The pair of them would be baying for his blood. They would be out scouring the streets of Les Sainte-Maries for him at this very moment - or else having their knives sharpened at Nan Maximoff’s pedal-stone. At least, on horseback, in the middle of the Marais, no one would have a hope in Hell of catching him.
The two men in front of him had no idea that he was following them. In fact, now that they’d finally left the roadway, he didn’t need to get within five hundred metres of them, such was the impact of the trail they were leaving behind them through the brush. Two galloping horses churned up the ground in a very satisfactory manner and Gavril could easily tell new horse tracks from old ones.
He would simply follow Alexi and the gadje’s trail and see what occurred. If the worst came to the worst and he lost them, he could always ride on through to the outskirts of Arles and hop on a bus. Make himself scarce for a while.
After all, what did he have to lose?
38
Alexi was making up some ground ahead of the eye-man - but not quite as fast as he had hoped. The mare had had ample time to recuperate from that morning’s ten-kilometre ride, but Alexi suspected that Bouboul had neither fed nor watered her, for her tongue was already hanging loose at the side of her mouth. She was clearly on her last legs.
His only comfort lay in the knowledge that the gelding the eye-man was riding would be in a similar condition. The thought of being forced back on foot, however, in such an isolated environment and pursued through the marshes by a madman with a pistol, didn’t bear contemplation.
So far he had stuck to the exact reverse of the path that they had followed that morning, on their way from the house. But Alexi knew that he would soon have to veer off and strike out into the unknown. He couldn’t risk leading the eye-man back to their base - for when Sabir and Yola discovered the two horses gone, they would have no option but to return to the one place they knew he might come back.
His only hope lay in eluding the eye-man completely. To have any chance at all of doing this, Alexi knew that he needed to gather his wits about him. To control his rising sense of panic. To think clearly and constructively and at full gallop.
On his left, beyond the Etang des Launes, was the Le Petit Rhône. Alexi knew it well, having fished there with a succession of male relatives on and off since childhood. To his knowledge, there was only one ferry-crossing nearby - at the Bac du Sauvage. Saving that, you were forced to cross the long way round, by road, maybe ten kilometres further upriver, at the Pont du Sylvéréal. There was, quite literally, no other way into the Petite Camargue - unless you flew, of course.
If he could time the ferry exactly right, he might stand an outside chance. But what were the odds? The ferry made the trip every half-hour, on the half-hour. It might already be positioned on the far side of the river, gearing up for the return journey - in which case he was trapped. The river, as he remembered it, was about two hundred metres wide at that point and flowed far too strongly for an exhausted horse to manage. And he didn’t have a watch. Should he throw all his eggs into one basket and try for the ferry? Or was he mad?
The mare stumbled and then caught herself. Alexi knew that if he carried on in this way she would simply burst her heart - he had heard of horses doing this. She would drop like a stone and he would break his neck in a flat-out fall over her shoulders. At least that way the eye-man would be saved the trouble of having to torture him, as he’d obviously done with Babel.
Alexi was two minutes ride from the ferry-crossing. He simply had to chance it. He cast one final, despairing glance over his shoulder. The eye-man was fifty metres behind him and gaining. Perhaps the gelding had snatched a drink of water at Bouboul’s? Perhaps that was why he wasn’t tiring as fast as the mare?
The barriers were down at the ferry-crossing and the ferry was just putting off from the shore. There were four cars and a small van on board. The crossing was so short that no one had bothered to climb out of their cars. Only the ticket collector saw Alexi coming.
The man raised a warning hand and shouted, ‘Non! Non!’
Alexi launched the mare at the single-barred barrier. There was a steep slope leading down to it. Perhaps she would be able to get a firm enough grip on the asphalt and launch herself over? Either way, he couldn’t afford to let up his pace.
At the last possible moment the mare lost her nerve and jinked to the left. Her back legs slid out from under her and her hi
p dropped, exaggerated by the downward slope of the slipway. She slid underneath the barrier, all four legs thrown up into the air, shrieking. Alexi hit it back on. He tried to curl himself into a ball, but failed. He smashed through the barrier, which partially broke his fall. Then he struck the asphalt with his right shoulder and side. Without allowing himself to think or to count the cost in pain, Alexi launched himself after the ferry. If he missed the metal landing plank, he knew that he would drown. Not only had he damaged himself, somewhere, somehow - but he couldn’t swim.
The ticket collector had seen many crazy things in his life - what ferryman hadn’t? - but this took the biscuit. A man on a horse trying to leap the barrier and get on board? He transported horses all the time. The ferry company had even set-up a semi-permanent tether for the summer months - tilted away from the cars so that the horses wouldn’t damage anyone’s paintwork if they kicked out backwards. Perhaps this man was a horse thief? Either way, he’d lost his prize. The horse had shattered her leg in the fall, if he wasn’t mistaken. The man, too, was probably injured.
The ticket collector reached down and unhooked the life ring. ‘It’s tied to the ferry! Grab it and hang on!’
He knew, now the ferry was under way, that it was all but impossible to stop the trawling mechanism. The pull of the river was so strong that the ferry had to be anchored to a guiding chain, which prevented it spinning out of control and down towards the Grau d’Orgon. Once the mechanism was triggered, it became risky to stop it, thereby loading the long loop of the chain with the dead weight of the ferry, backed up by the full driving force of the river. In conditions of heavy rain, the ferry could even burst its stanchions and drift towards the open sea.
THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECIES Page 26