For some time now Alexi had been feeling some discomfort in his right leg, just above the ankle. He had chosen to ignore it, assuming that it was merely part and parcel of his larger injuries. Now he stopped abruptly and reached down to pull up his trousers. Please God he hadn’t broken something. His ankle bone, perhaps - or his shin.
There was a solid object jutting out of the gaping top of his cowboy boots. Alexi felt inside and brought out the bamboo tube. He had stuck the tube into his belt and it had been funnelled down inside his trousers by the force of the water and from there into his boots. The wax seal holding both halves of the tube together was still intact, thank God.
He looked up at the sky and laughed. Then he moaned in pain as the laughter tore at his damaged ribs.
Clutching his stomach, Alexi began to trudge slowly back in the direction of the Maset de la Marais.
45
Thirty minutes into his walk he saw the saddled horse. It was standing near one of the gardien’s cabins, grazing.
Alexi fell back behind a nearby tree. Sweat dripped down his forehead and across his eyes. He had walked right into the trap. It had never occurred to him that the eye-man might be lying in wait for him again on this side of the bank. What had been the chances that he would return across the river after escaping on the Bac? One in a million? The man was crazy.
Alexi peered out from behind the tree. There was something strange about the horse. Something not quite right.
He squinted into the sunset. What was that darker mass lying near the horse’s feet? Was it a figure? Had the eye-man fallen off and knocked himself unconscious? Or was it a trap and the eye-man was simply waiting for Alexi to blunder over before finishing him off?
Alexi hesitated, thinking things through. Then he crouched down and buried the bamboo tube behind the tree. He took a few tentative paces and checked back to see if he could still mark its location. No problem. The tree was a cypress. Visible for miles.
He stumbled on for a few yards and then paused, rustling his pockets as if he were feeling for a titbit. The horse nickered at him. The figure at its feet didn’t move. Maybe the eye-man had broken his neck? Maybe O Del had listened to his prayer and settled the bastard for good?
Alexi shuffled forwards again, talking quietly to the horse - gentling it. He could see that the figure’s foot was twisted through one stirrup. If the horse walked towards him and all of a sudden felt the dead weight of the body holding it back, it would panic. And Alexi needed that horse. He wouldn’t make it back to the Maset otherwise - that much had become obvious in the last twenty minutes.
With each step he was becoming weaker and more desperate. His clothes had dried on him, stiffening his wounds. His right shoulder had seized up and he could no longer raise it further than his navel. In his present condition, he wouldn’t be able to outrun a tortoise.
Alexi reached the gelding and allowed it to nuzzle him - it was obvious that it was disturbed by the presence of the body, but that the grazing and Alexi’s whistling, had temporarily calmed it. Alexi took the reins and knelt down beside the horse. He already knew by the clothes who he was dealing with. Nobody else wore belts that big or buckles that showy. Gavril. Jesus. He must have tried to follow them and then somehow fallen off his horse and struck his head. Or else he had run into the eye-man coming back from the ferry and the eye-man had assumed he knew more than he did. Alexi retched and spat out the excess saliva. Flies were already congregating around Gavril’s nostrils and the massive dent in his temple. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Alexi unhooked Gavril’s foot from the stirrup. He attached the horse to the hitching post and glanced around, searching for something capable of inflicting such a crippling wound. The gelding couldn’t have strayed far, weighed down with Gavril’s body.
He hobbled over to the stone. Yes. It was covered in blood and hair. He lifted it up in his arms, using only his sleeves - he knew enough not to smear any fingerprints. He returned and placed the stone near Gavril’s head. He was briefly tempted to feel inside Gavril’s pocket for any spare cash, but decided not to. He didn’t want to provide the police with a possible false motive for the murder.
When he was satisfied with his scene-setting, Alexi levered himself up on to the gelding. He swayed in the saddle, the blood pulsing round his head like a ballbearing in a pinball machine.
Two-to-one the eye-man was responsible for the killing - it was too much of a coincidence otherwise. He’d obviously run into Gavril on his way back. Questioned him. Killed him. In which case there was an outside chance that he now knew of the Maset, for Gavril, like any other gypsy his age who regularly visited the Camargue, would have known of the famous card game between Dadul Gavriloff and Aristeo Samana, Yola’s father. He might not know exactly where the house was, but he’d sure as Hell have known of its existence.
For one brief instant of uncertainty Alexi had been tempted to head back to the tree and retrieve the bamboo tube. But caution finally won out over vainglory. Now, setting the gelding’s reins, he allowed it to follow its head back towards the house.
46
Yola had devised a novel way of hitchhiking. She waited until she saw a likely gypsyowned vehicle approaching, made a snake-like sign with her left hand - followed immediately by the sign of the cross - and then walked out into the middle of the road to where the driver’s window would be. The vehicles nearly always stopped.
Yola would then lean in and discuss where she wanted to go. If the driver was travelling in a different direction - or not far enough - she would wave him impatiently on. The fourth vehicle she flagged down fitted her parameters perfectly.
Feeling like Clark Gable to Yola’s Claudette Colbert, Sabir followed her into the straw-littered rear of the bétaillère. He had to admit that even a stinking Citroën H van was marginally better than walking. He had originally tried persuading Yola that they ought to cut corners and take a taxi back to the Maset, but she had insisted that, this way, no one would have a record of where they had gone. She had been ahead of him, as usual.
Sabir leaned against the lath-framed interior of the H van and toyed with the Spanish-made Aitor lock-bladed knife that he was hiding in his pocket. He had bought the knife off Bouboul, twenty minutes earlier, for fifty euros. It had a four-and-a-half inch razor-sharp cutting edge, which latched into place with a comforting click when you swung it open. It was clearly a fighting knife, for it had an indentation for the thumb about half an inch behind the blade - which Sabir presumed was to allow the knife to be stuck into one’s enemy without the disadvantage of cutting off one’s own finger in the process.
Bouboul had been reluctant to part with the knife, but greed - he had probably bought it for the equiva�
�lent of about five euros thirty years before - and being on the receiving end of one of Yola’s tongue-lashings, had been enough to force him into capitulate. She had claimed to hold him personally responsible for the loss of the horses - and, anyway, in her opinion, he was far too old to carry a knife. Did he want to end up like Stefan, with his eye hanging out on a string? Best get rid of the thing.
It was late afternoon by the time Yola and Sabir made it back to the Maset de la Marais. Predictably, the place was empty.
‘What do we do now, Damo?’
‘We wait.’
‘But how will we know if the eye-man catches Alexi? Once the eye-man has the prophecies, he will leave. We will never know what happened.’
‘What do you expect me to do, Yola? Wander out into the Marais and yell out Alexi’s name? I’d lose myself in no time. There’s three hundred square kilometres of absolutely nothing beyond that treeline.’
‘You could steal another horse. That’s what Alexi would do.’
Sabir felt himself reddening. Yola appeared to understand how men ought to behave, in extremis, somewhat better than he did. ‘Would you wait here? Would you be prepared to do that? Not go gallivanting off so that I’ve got two people to find?’
‘No. I would stay here. Alexi might come back. He might need me. I shall make some soup.’
‘Soup?’
Yola stood and watched him, a disbelieving expression on her face. ‘Men always forget that people need to eat. Alexi has been on the run since this morning. If he manages to get back here alive, he will be hungry. We must have something for him to eat.’
Sabir hurried around to the outhouse to see if he could find another saddle, a rope and some more tack. With Yola in this sort of mood, he understood exactly how Alexi felt about marriage.
***
Within fifteen minutes of starting his horse hunt, Sabir realised that he was not going to get anywhere fast. He wasn’t trained in the use of the lariat, like Alexi and the horses were becoming more skittish the closer dusk approached. Each time he lined one up it would watch him trustingly until he came to within about ten feet, upon which it would twist around on its hind legs and disappear, farting and kicking, into the undergrowth.
Sabir dumped the saddle and bridle at the edge of the Clos and started back along the trail in disgust. When he came to the junction that led towards the house he hesitated, then struck out to the left, down the track they had all three taken that morning to get to Les Saintes-Maries.
He was deeply worried about Alexi. But there was also something about the man which inspired confidence, especially when it came to managing out in the wild. True - according to Bouboul’s version of the story, the eye-man had been a bare minute’s ride behind Alexi when they had left town at the gallop. But a minute was a long time on horseback and Sabir had seen Alexi dealing with the ponies that morning and the way that he rode… well, suffice it to say that he was a natural. Plus he knew the marshes like the back of his hand. If his horse held up, Sabir would bet good money on Alexi giving the eye-man the slip.
In Sabir’s view, therefore, it was only a matter of time before Alexi came riding down the track, the prophecies raised triumphantly in one hand. Sabir would then retire to some quiet spot - preferably near to a good restaurant - to translate them, while the police did what the police were paid to do and dealt with the eye-man.
In due course he would contact his publishers. They would put the prophecies out to tender. Money would come flooding in - money he would share with Yola and Alexi.
And then, fi nally, the nightmare would be over.
47
Achor Bale decided that he would approach the house from the east, via an old drainage ditch that ran the length of one untended field. With Alexi away, Sabir and the girl would be on the lookout - on the qui vive. Perhaps there was even a shotgun in the house? Or an old rifle? Wouldn’t do to take unnecessary risks.
He was fleetingly tempted to return for the horse, which he had left tethered in a clump of trees a hundred metres or so behind the property. The horse would follow him perfectly easily along the ditch and the sound of its hoofes might even mask his approach. Perhaps the pair of them might emerge from the house, thinking Alexi had returned? But no. Why complicate matters unnecessarily?
For Alexi would return. Bale was certain of that. He had seen the gypsy risking his life for the girl at Espalion, when she had collapsed in the road. If she was inside the Maset, the gypsy would home in on her like a wasp to a honey-pot. He had only to kill Sabir, put the girl out as bait and conjure up some creative way to pass the time.
He edged towards one of the main windows. Dusk was falling. Someone had lit an oil lamp and a pair of candles. Thin slivers of light emerged through the closed shutters. Bale smiled. Thanks to the residual glow of the lamps, there was no chance whatsoever of anyone making him out from inside the house. Even as close as six feet from the window and with their eyes glued to the slats, he would be next to invisible.
Bale listened out for voices. But there was only silence. He moved across to the kitchen window. That, too, was shuttered. So Gavril had been right. If this house were conventionally occupied, there was no way the shutters would be closed so early in the evening. One only had to look around at the yard and the outbuildings to see that the house had been abandoned for years. No wonder the gypsies valued it. It would be like a free hotel to them.
For a moment he was almost tempted to enter by the front door. If Sabir and the girl were acting in character, it would doubtless be unlatched. There were times when Bale felt almost irritated by the unprofessionalism of his opponents. Take the case of the Remington, for instance. Why had Sabir agreed to give it back to him? It had been madness. Did he really believe that Bale would have fired at him, with the Redhawk, on the outskirts of a town blessed with only two main exits, and two relatively minor ones? And before checking out the Black Virgin? That single decision of Sabir’s had left the three of them unarmed and without the slightest clue to Bale’s real identity, thanks to his unforgivable - but happily rectified - mistake about the serial number. It had been Slack thinking on Sabit’s part to overlook where the serial number could potentially have led them. Monsieur, his father, would have had something to say about that.
For Monsieur had always abhorred slack thinking. He had taken the cane to slack thinkers. There were days when he had beaten all thirteen children in a row, one after the other, starting with the largest. That way, when he came to the smallest - and factoring into account his advanced age and his medical condition - he would already be tired and the blows wouldn’t be nearly so painful. Now there was consideration for you.
Madame, his mother, had not been so thoughtful. With her, pu
nishment had always been a one-on-one affair. That’s why - after Monsieur, his father’s, death - Bale had run away to join the Legion. Later, the move had proved unexpectedly useful and she had forgiven him. But for two years they had not spoken and he had been forced to carry out the duties of the Corpus Maleficus in isolation - without management or regulation. He had developed tastes, during that anarchic period, which Madame, his mother, later considered at variance with the movement’s aims. That was why he still hid things from her. Unfortunate details. Unavoidable deaths.
Things like that.
But Bale didn’t enjoy causing pain. No. It certainly wasn’t that. As with the horse at the ferry, he loathed seeing the suffering of animals. Animals couldn’t protect themselves. They couldn’t think. People could. When Bale asked questions of people, he expected answers. He might not have been born to his position in terms of blood but he had certainly been born to it in terms of character. He was proud of the ancient title of nobility, Monsieur, his father, had passed down to him. Proud of his family’s record in anticipating - and thereby counteracting - the Devil’s work.
For the Corpus Maleficus had a long and noble history. It had included amongst its rank of central adepts the papal inquisitors Conrad of Marburg and Hugo de Beniols; Prince Vlad Dr culea III; the Marquis de Sade; Prince Carlo Gesualdo; Tsar Ivan Grozny (The Terrible); Niccoló Machiavelli; Roderigo, Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia; Count Alessandro di Cagliostro; Gregor Rasputin; the Maréchal Gilles de Rais; Giacomo Casanova; and the Countess Erzsébet Báthory. All had been grossly and continually misrepresented by succeeding generations of cavalier historians.
THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECIES Page 29