There was a crash from upstairs. Then silence.
Sabir sprang to his feet. The hairs on the back of his neck stood erect, like the spine fur of a dog. Holy heck, what had that been? He stood listening but there was only silence. Then, in the distance, he heard the approaching drone of a car.
With a final, furtive glance over his shoulder, Sabir hurried outside. It had probably only been a cupboard door falling open. Or maybe the police had moved something - a mosquito screen, perhaps? - and the wretched thing had stood there, teetering, until a gust of wind had finally finished off the job and blown it over. Perhaps the noise had even come from outside? From the roof, maybe?
He glanced up at the house as he stood waiting for the Audi to make its way up the track towards him. Hell. And now here was another thing - he’d have to come to a reckoning sooner or later with his friend John Tone about the theft of his car.
Sabir squinted into the headlights. Yes, there was Yola’s outline in the passenger seat. And that of Bouboul’s nephew in the driving seat beside her. Alexi was safely tucked up in his bed back in Les Saintes-Maries, with Sabir next door, in the guest bunk. Or at least that was what Sergeant Spola had been persuaded to think.
Sabir walked towards the car. He could feel the night wind pick at his hair. He motioned downwards with his hands, indicating that Reszo should douse the lights. As far as he knew, there were still policemen dotted all around the marshes and he didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention back to the Maset.
‘Do you have them?’
Yola felt inside her coat. Her face looked small and vulnerable in the light of Sabir’s torch. She handed Sabir the bamboo tube. Then she glanced towards the house and shivered.
‘Did you have any trouble?’
‘Two policemen. They were using the cabane for shelter. They nearly found me. But they were called away at the last moment.’
‘Called away?’
‘I overheard one of them talking on his cellphone. Captain Calque knows where the eye-man has escaped to. It is somewhere over towards St-Tropez. All the police are going there now. They aren’t interested in here any longer.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘Do you want me to come in with you?’
‘No. I have the fire going. And some candles. I’ll be all right.’
‘Bouboul will collect you just before dawn. Are you sure you don’t want to come back with us now?’
‘Too dangerous. Sergeant Spola might smell a rat. He’s not as stupid as he looks.’
‘Yes he is.’
Sabir laughed.
Yola glanced once more towards the house. Then she climbed back inside the car. ‘I don’t like this place. It was wrong of me to suggest it as a rendezvous.’
‘Where else could we have used? This is by far the most convenient.’
‘I suppose so.’ She raised her hand uncertainly. ‘Are you sure you won’t change your mind?’
Sabir shook his head.
Reszo eased the car back down the track. When he was near the road he switched the lights back on.
Sabir watched their glow as it disappeared over the horizon. Then he turned back towards the house.
76
Captain Calque leaned back in his chair. The document laid out before him made no earthly sense. It purported to have been written on the express instructions of King Louis IX of France - and it was, indeed, dated 1228, two years after Louis had ascended to the throne, aged eleven. Which made him just thirteen or fourteen years old at the time he was credited with its conception. The seals, however, were definitely those of Saint Louis himself and of his mother, Blanche of Castile; in those days, trying to fake such a thing as a royal seal would have seen you hung, drawn and quartered, with your ashes used for soap.
Three other signatures were appended beneath those of the King and his mother: Jean de Joinville, the King’s counsellor (and, alongside Villehardouin and Froissart, one of France’s greatest early historians); Geoffrey of Beaulieu, the King’s confessor; and William of Chartres, the King’s chaplain. Calque shook his head. He had studied de Joinville’s Histoire de Saint Louis at university and he knew for a fact that de Joinville would have been no more than four years old in 1228 - the others, well, it wouldn’t take him long to find out their ages. But it suggested that the document - which appeared to grant a charter and cognisance to an association called the Corpus Maleficus - had been, in some sense at least, post-dated.
It was at that point that Calque remembered the chalice locked inside the tantalus, with its initials of CM. The coincidence, particularly in this hidden room, with its revocations of secrets, plots and cabals, struck him as an unlikely one. He glanced again at the document in front of him.
Grunting with concentration, he turned the document over and scrutinised its reverse side through the magnifying glass. Yes. Just as he’d suspected. There was the faint imprint of writing on the back. Backwards writing. The sort a left-hander might engineer if called upon to write in the manner of an Arab - that is to say from right to left. Calque knew that in medieval times the left side was considered the side of the Devil. Sinister in connotation as well as in Latin nomenclature, the concept had been carried across from the early Greek augurs, who believed that signs seen over the left shoulder foretold evil to come.
Calque drew the document nearer to the light. Finally, frustrated, he held it up in front of him. No dice. The writing was indecipherable - it would take an electron microscope to make any sense of it.
He cast his mind back to the Countess’s words during their first meeting. Calque had asked her what the thirteenth Pair de France would have carried during the Coronation and she had answered: ‘He wouldn’t have carried anything, Captain. He would have protected.’
‘Protected? Protected from whom?’
The Countess had given him an elliptical smile. ‘From the Devil, of course.’
But how could a mere mortal be expected to protect the French Crown from the Devil?
Calque could feel the gradual dawning of some sort of understanding. The Corpus Maleficus. What did it mean? He summoned up his schoolboy Latin. Corpus meant body. It could also mean an association of people dedicated to achieving one end. And Maleficus? Mischief. Evildoing.
A body devoted to mischief and evildoing, then? Impossible, surely. And certainly not under the aegis of the saintly Louis, a man so pious that he felt that he had wasted his day if he hadn’t attended two full Masses (plus all the offices) and who would then drag himself out of bed once again at midnight to dress for matins.
Then it must mean a body devoted to the eradication of such things. A body devoted to undermining the Devil.
But how would o
ne go about such a thing? Surely not homeopathically?
Calque stood up. It was time to talk to the Countess again.
77
Achor Bale lay where he had fallen. His wound had opened again and he could feel the blood pulsing weakly down his neck. In a moment he would move. There might be something in the kitchen with which to staunch the bleeding. Failing that, he could go out to the marshes and collect some sphagnum moss. In the meantime he would lie here on the floor and recuperate. Where was the hurry? No one knew he was here. No one was waiting for him.
Outside the house there was the crunch and hiss of a car.
The police. They’d sent a watchman after all. He and his partner would be almost certain to check through all the rooms before settling down for the night. Men did that sort of thing. It was a kind of superstition. A marching of the bounds. Something inherited from their caveman ancestors.
Bale dragged himself angrily towards the bed. He would lie underneath it. Whoever drew the short straw for upstairs would probably content himself with flashing his torch about inside the room. He’d be unlikely to bother with more. Why should he? It was only a crime scene.
Bale eased the Redhawk out of its holster. Maybe there would only be one of them? In that case he would overpower him and take the car. The Maset was so isolated that no one could possibly hear the shot.
His hand brushed against the cellphone concealed in his inside pocket. It might still have some juice left in it, if it hadn’t been damaged in the fall. Perhaps he should call Madame, his mother, after all? Tell her he was coming home.
Or would the flics be monitoring the frequencies? Could they do that? He thought not. And they had no reason to suspect Madame, his mother, anyway.
No sounds from downstairs. The coppers were still outside. Probably checking the periphery.
Bale keyed in the number. He waited for the tone. The number took.
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s the Count, Milouins. I need to speak to the Countess. Urgently.’
‘The police, Sir. They know who you are. They are here.’
Bale closed his eyes. Had he expected this? Some fatalistic djinn whispered into his ear that he had. ‘Did she give you a message for me? In case I called?’
‘One word, Sir. Fertigmachen.’
‘Fertigmachen?’
‘She said you would understand, Sir. I must put the phone down now. They are coming.’
78
Bale slept for a little after that. He seemed to drift in and out of consciousness like a man given too little ether before an operation.
At one point he thought he heard footsteps coming up the stairs and he pulled himself up on the side of the bed and waited, for fi ve endless minutes, with his pistol at the ready. Then he slipped back into unconsciousness.
He awoke to a noise in the kitchen. This time it was certain. The rattling of pots. Someone was making themselves coffee. Bale could almost hear the pop of the butane gas. Smell the grounds.
He had to eat. To drink. The noise in the kitchen would disguise his footsteps. If there were two of them, tant pis. He would kill them both. He had the element of surprise on his side. The flics apparently thought he was on his way to Cap Camarat. That was a good thing. They must figure he had escaped their cordon sanitaire. They would be standing down in their droves.
If he drove out in a police car, they would be flummoxed. He could dress up in one of their uniforms. Wear sunglasses.
In the middle of the night?
Bale shook his head slowly. Why did he have no energy anymore? Why did he doze so much?
Water. He needed water. He would die without water. The blood loss had merely compounded the issue.
He forced himself to his feet. Then, holding the Redhawk down by his side, he stumbled towards the stairs.
79
Sabir held the bamboo tube out in front of him and cracked the wax seal. A strange odour assailed his nostrils. He allowed his mind to wander for a moment. The scent was sweet and warm and earthy at the same time. Frankincense? Yes, that was it. He held the tube to his nose and inhaled. Incredible. How had the scent stayed sealed inside the tube so long?
Sabir tapped the tube on the table. Some resin fell out. He felt the first pinpricks of anxiety. Could the frankincense have been used as a conservation agent? Or was the tube merely an incense container? Sabir tapped the tube again, this time a little harder and a little more fretfully. A thin roll of parchment tumbled on to his lap.
Sabir unrolled the parchment and spread it hastily out on to the table. It covered an area approximately six inches by eight. There was writing on both sides. In groups of four lines. It was the quatrains.
Sabir began the count. Twenty-six quatrains on one side. A further twenty-six on the other. He could feel the tension building inside his chest.
He pulled a sheet of paper towards him. Adhering scrupulously to the text, he copied down the first quatrain. Then he began his first tentative translation.
80
Calque looked across at the Countess. They were alone in the room, just as the Countess had insisted when Calque had requested the interview. ‘So your son wants to come home?’
The Countess waved her hand in irritation, like someone trying to disperse a bad smell. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Calque sighed. ‘My people intercepted a telephone call, Madame. Between your son and your footman, Milouins. The same footman found attempting to lock your secret meeting chamber. Your son used Milouins name, so we are certain of our facts.’
‘How do you know it was my son? Milouins may receive calls from whomever he likes. I am extremely tolerant with my servants. Unlike some people I know.’
‘Your son introduced himself as the Count.’
The Countess’s eyes went dead. ‘I’ve never heard anything so absurd. My son has not called here for years. I told you. He left to join the Legion. Against my express instructions, I should add. I can’t understand why you are harassing us in this manner.’
‘Milouins passed your son a message.’
‘Don’t be so silly.’
‘The message consisted of one word. A German word. Fertigmachen.’
‘I don’t speak German. Neither, I believe, does Milouins.’
‘Fertigmachen means to end something. Or someone.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. It can also mean to kill oneself.’
‘Are you accusing me of asking my son to kill himself? Please, Captain. Give me credit for a modicum of maternal solicitude.’
‘No. I believe you were asking your son to kill someone else. A man named Sabir. To kill Sabir and to make an end of the matter. I should tell you now that Sabir is in our protective custody. If your son att
empts to murder him, he will be caught.’
‘You said “to kill Sabir and make an end of the matter”. What matter can you possibly be referring to?’
‘I know about the Corpus Maleficus, Madame. I’ve read the document you keep in the hidden room.’
‘You know nothing about the Corpus Maleficus, Captain. And you did not read the document you cite. It is in cipher. You are trying to bluff me and I won’t have it.’
‘Aren’t you concerned about your son’s actions?’
‘Deeply concerned, Captain. Is that what you want me to say? Deeply concerned.’
‘Cipher experts will soon decrypt the parchment.’
‘I think not.’
‘But you know what it says?’
‘Of course. My husband taught it to me verbatim when we first married. It is written in a language known only to an inner circle of chosen adepts. But I am an old woman now. I have entirely forgotten both the contents and the language. Just as I have forgotten the content of this conversation.’
‘I think you are an evil woman, Madame. I think you are behind whatever your son is doing and that you are happy to consign him to the Devil, if that accords with your and your society’s, interests.’
‘You are talking nonsense, Captain. And you are entirely out of your depth. What you say is pure speculation. Any jury would laugh you out of court.’
Calque stood up.
A strange look passed over the Countess’s face. ‘And you are wrong in another thing as well. I would never consign my son to the Devil, Captain. Never to the Devil. I can assure you of that.’
THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECIES Page 39