‘And you were first on the scene?’
‘Yes, Sir. My colleague and I.’
‘And what did you see?’
‘Very little, Sir. The gypsies were impeding us on purpose.’
‘Typical.’ Macron glared around the square. ‘I’m surprised they get any tourists at all in this place. Look at the filth around here.’
Calque cleared his throat - it was a habit he had recently got into whenever Macron made one of his more offensive public observations. After all, he couldn’t actually tie the man’s bootlaces for him, could he? Couldn’t tell him what - or what not - to think? ‘What did you deduce, then, Officer? If you couldn’t see.’
‘That the perpetrator, La Roupie, had thrown his knife at the victim, Angelo, catching him in the eye.’
‘Alexi Angelo?’
‘No, Sir. Stefan Angelo. There was no Alexi involved, as far as I understand it.’
‘Is Monsieur Angelo pressing charges?’
‘No, Sir. These people never press charges against one of their own. They sort out their differences privately.’
‘And of course Monsieur Angelo was no longer carrying his own knife when you went to his assistance? Someone had divested him of it? Am I right?’
‘I don’t know that for certain, Sir. But yes. In all probability he’d palmed it off on to someone else.’
‘I told you.’ Macron stabbed his finger in the air. ‘I told you this wouldn’t get us anywhere.’
Calque glanced across at the church. ‘Anything else of note?’
‘What do you mean, Sir?’
‘I mean did anyone notice anything else happening at the same time? Thefts? A chase? Another attack? Could it have been a diversion, in other words?’
‘No, Sir. Nothing of that sort was brought to my attention.’
‘Very well. You can go.’
The gendarme saluted and returned to his motorcycle.
‘Shall we go and interview Angelo? He’ll still be in hospital.’
‘No. No need. It would be an irrelevance.’
Macron made a face. ‘How do you work that one out?’ He seemed disappointed that his initiative over La Roupie had led them to a dead end.
But Calque’s attention was elsewhere. ‘What is actually going on here?’
‘I’m sorry, Sir?’
‘Why are all these gypsies here? Now? This minute? What is happening? Why have they come? It’s not another wedding, is it?’
Macron looked in amazement at his chief. Well. The man was a Parisian. But still. ‘It’s the annual festival of Sainte Sara, Sir. It takes place tomorrow. The gypsies follow the statue of their patron saint down to the sea, where it is immersed in the water. It’s been going on for decades.’
‘The statue? What statue?’
‘It’s in the church, Sir. It’s…’ Macron hesitated.
‘Is it black, Macron? Is the statue black?’
Macron breathed deeply through his nose. Here we go again, he thought. He’s going to scold me for being an idiot. Why can’t I think laterally, like him? Why do I always go everywhere in straight lines? ‘I was going to mention it, Sir. I was going to make that suggestion. That we look at the statue. See if it has any connection with what Sabir is after.’
Calque was already striding towards the church. ‘Good thinking, Macron. I’m so glad that I can count on you. Two minds are always better than one, are they not?’
The crypt was packed with acolytes. Candle smoke and incense were thick in the air and there was the continual murmur of people at prayer.
Calque made a quick appraisal. ‘Over there. Security. Yes? The one in plain clothes? With the name tag?’
‘I should think so, Sir. I’ll go and check.’
Calque moved to the side of the crypt, while Macron picked his way forwards through the crowd. In the dim, flickering light, Sainte Sara seemed almost disembodied beneath her many layers of clothing. It was next to impossible that anyone could get to her under these conditions. A hundred pairs of eyes were fixed on her at all times. The security guard was a massive irrelevance. If someone had the temerity to run across and molest her, they would probably be lynched.
Macron was returning with the security guard. Calque exchanged identity details and then motioned the man up the stairs towards the main body of the church.
‘I can’t leave. We’ll have to stay in here.’
‘Don’t you ever leave?’
‘Not during the festival. We take four-hour shifts. Pari passu.’
‘How many of you are there?’
‘Two, Sir. One on, one off. With a standby in case of illness.’
‘Were you in here when the knifing occurred?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘What did you see?’
‘I didn’t see anything at all. I was down here in the crypt.’
‘What? Nothing at all? You didn’t go out in the square?’
‘More than my job’s worth, Sir. I stayed in here.’
‘And what about the congregation? Did they all stay?’
The security guard hesitated.
‘You’re not trying to tell me that with a near riot going on outside in the square, everybody simply stayed in here and kept on praying?’
‘No, Sir. Most of them went out.’
‘Most of them?’
‘Well. All of them.’
‘And you followed, of course?’
Silence.
Calque sighed. ‘Look here, Monsieur…’
‘Alberti.’
‘…Monsieur Alberti. I’m not criticising you. And I’m not here on behalf of your employers at the Town Council. What you say to me will not go any further.’
Alberti hesitated. Then he shrugged. ‘Okay. When the crypt emptied, I did go up for a short look-see. I stood right outside the church door so that no one could come past me, though. I thought it might be a matter for Security. I thought I ought to look.’
‘And you were right. It might very well have been a matter for Security. I would have done the same.’
Alberti didn’t seem convinced.
‘And when you came back. Still empty?’
Alberti blew out his cheeks.
Calque felt around in his pockets and offered him a cigarette.
‘We can’t smoke in here, Sir. It’s a church.’
Calque cast a jaundiced eye at the plumes of candle smoke rising towards the low-slung ceiling of the crypt. ‘Answer my question then. Was the crypt still empty when you came back inside?’
‘As good as. There was just one man here. Stretched out in front of the statue. Praying.’
‘One man, you say? And you definitely hadn’t seen him when you left?’
‘No, Sir. I’d missed him.’
‘Right. Macron. Hold this man here while I check out the statue.’
‘But you can’t, Sir. This is a religious festival. Nobody touches the statue until tomorrow.’
But Calque was
already striding through the massed phalanx of penitents like Old Father Time with his scythe.
43
Calque stood outside the church, squinting into the late-afternoon sunshine. ‘I want six detectives. You can second them from Marseille.’
‘But that’ll take time, Sir.’
‘I don’t care how long it takes. Or how unpopular it makes us. They are to visit every chef de famille amongst these gypsies. Every caravan. Every lean-to, tent and cabanon. And I want them to ask these questions…’ He scribbled rapidly on a sheet of paper and handed it to Macron. ‘… these specific questions.’
Macron eyed the sheet. ‘What did you find, Sir?’
‘I found a hole in the base of the statue. And fresh shavings scattered in and amongst the knickknacks surrounding it. Also this piece of linen. See how it curls up when you let it hang free? Not surprising, really, seeing as it’s been shoved inside a statue for the past five hundred years and used as a stopper.’
Macron whistled through his teeth. ‘So Sabir finally found what he’s been looking for?’
‘And what the eye-man is looking for. Yes. Almost certainly.’
‘Won’t he get in touch with you, Sir?’ Macron couldn’t quite keep the sarcastic undertone out of his voice.
‘Of course he won’t. The man has no idea who he is really dealing with.’
‘And we do?’
‘We are beginning to. Yes.’
Macron started back towards the car.
‘Macron.’
‘Yes, Sir?’
‘You wanted to know what I was up to? Back at the Domaine de Seyème? With the Countess?’
‘I did. Yes.’ Macron was uncomfortably aware that he was missing something again. Something his boss had managed to tease out and which he had misapprehended altogether.
‘Tell the pinheads back in Paris that I’ve got a little test for them. If they succeed at it, I’ll acknowledge that computers might be of some use after all. I’ll even agree to carry a mobile telephone whilst on duty.’
Macron widened his eyes. ‘And what test might that be, Sir?’
‘I want them to trace the Countess’s eldest adopted son. Bale. Or de Bale. Firstly, through the nuns at the orphanage - that should be easy enough. The boy was already twelve when he was adopted. Secondly, I want them to get me a full rundown of any career he might have had with the Foreign Legion, including a complete physical description, with particular attention paid to his eyes. And if they find that he did belong to the Legion, I want someone to go and talk personally to his commanding officer and ask him - no, tell him - that we want access to the man’s military records. As well as to his own personal summing-up.’
‘But, Sir…’
‘They are not to take no for an answer. This is a murder inquiry. I want no nonsense from the Legion about security and promises they may or may not make to their men on sign-up.’
‘You’ll be lucky, Sir. I know for a fact that they never share their records with anyone. I come from Marseille, remember - I grew up with stories of the Legion.’
‘Go on.’
‘Their HQ is at Aubagne, only fifteen kilometres from where my parents live. My second cousin even became a Legionnaire after he was let out of prison. He told me that they sometimes bend the rules and let French people join under a false nationality. They even change the men’s names when they join. They get a new Legion name by which they’re known throughout their tour of duty. Then, unless they are shot and become Français par le sang versé - meaning French by virtue of spilled blood - or unless they take advantage of the right to become French citizens after three years’ service, their own names are buried forever. You’ll never find him. For all we know he might even have become French for a second time around, but under a new identity.’
‘I don’t believe it, Macron. Their own names are not lost forever. And certainly not to records. This is France. The Legion are like any other godforsaken bureaucracy. Up their own arses with paperwork.’
‘As you say, Sir.’
‘Look, Macron. I know you don’t agree with some of my methods. Or some of my decisions. That’s inevitable. It’s what hierarchies are for. But you’re a lieutenant and I’m a captain. That makes whether you agree or disagree with me irrelevant. We need to find Sabir and the two gypsies. Nothing else counts. If we don’t, the eye-man will kill them. It’s as simple - and as fundamental - as that.’
44
The ticket collector gazed down at Alexi as if he were an injured wild animal unexpectedly encountered on an afternoon’s stroll. He was joined by the river pilot and the occupants of the van and two of the cars. The other two cars had driven off the ferry, obviously preferring to avoid a scene. The river pilot was preparing to use his cellphone.
Alexi struggled out of the life ring and threw it on to the deck. He bent forwards at the waist and cradled his ribs in his arms. ‘Please don’t call the police.’
The pilot hesitated, the phone halfway to his ear. ‘It’s not the police you need, my boy. It’s an ambulance, a hospital bed and some morphine. And maybe a set of dry clothes.’
‘Not them either.’
‘Explain yourself.’
‘Can you take me back across?’
‘Take you back across?’
‘I’ve dropped something.’
‘What? You mean your horse?’ Both men laughed.
Alexi sensed that if he stuck to concrete facts and flippancy, he might just be able to gather himself on firmer ground - dilute the men’s memory of the event and turn it into a prank that had gone wrong, rather than into the near-tragedy it so obviously was. ‘Don’t worry. I can arrange for the horse carcase to be taken away. There’s a lot of fresh meat there. I know people in Les Saintes-Marie who will come to pick it up.’
‘What about our barrier?’
‘I will pay you whatever I get for the meat. Cash. You can tell your employers that someone drove into the barrier and then skedaddled.’
The pilot squinted at the ticket collector. Already, three cars were waiting to board the ferry for the return journey across. Both men knew that the barrier got belted three or four times a year at least - usually by drunks. Or foreigners in rented cars. The repairman was on a rolling contract.
The van driver and the occupants of the two incoming cars had detected the wind-down in tension. They drifted away to get on with their journeys. The injured man was only a stupid gypsy, after all. And gypsies were all crazy, weren’t they? Lived by different rules.
‘You can keep your cash. We’ll take you back across. But get rid of that horse carcase, do you understand? I don’t want it stinking up the terminus for the next two weeks.’
‘I’ll call now. Can I use your phone?’
‘All right. But no international calls, mind? Do you hear me?’ The pilot handed Alexi his cellphone. ‘I still think
you’re crazy not to go in for a check-up. You’ve probably got a rack of cracked ribs after that fall. And concussion, maybe.’
‘We’ve got our own doctors. We don’t like going to hospitals.’
The pilot shrugged. The ticket collector was already waving his new customers aboard.
Alexi punched in a number at random and pretended to make arrangements about the horse.
***
Alexi had never known such pain as he was feeling now. Cracked ribs? Concussion? He felt as if both his lungs had been punctured with an awl and then stretched out on an anvil and pounded with a mallet for good measure. Each breath he took was agony. Each step he took echoed through his right hip and shoulder like an electric shock.
He squatted down on the concrete slope of the ferry slipway and began searching for the bamboo tube. People gave him curious glances as they drove past him in their cars. If the eye-man comes back now, Alexi thought, I will simply lie down and surrender. He can do whatever he wants with me. O Del, please take this pain away. Please give me a break.
The bamboo tube was nowhere to be seen. Alexi struggled to his feet. The ferry was full. It was leaving once again on its outward journey. He limped off the slipway and began following the course of the river, his eyes fixed on the waterline nearest to the bank. The bamboo tube might have floated downstream. With luck, it might even be caught up in the vegetation at the edge of the flow.
Or it might have sunk. If it had sunk, the verses would be spoiled - Alexi knew that much. He would break open the tube and out would come a wadge of damp paper blotted with ink. He wouldn’t simply have the eye-man to fear under those circumstances - Sabir and Yola would slaughter him personally.
THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECIES Page 28