Day of Atonement

by Alex Archer

  If she wasn’t careful this segment for the show was just going to end up a puff piece that would have Doug threatening to keep her desk-bound for months and have that bimbo Kerstie in her bikini strutting all over the next great story.

  “Annja,” she said, flashing him her widest smile, “please.” Though the odds of a blast of full-on Annja Creed charm at its brightest was unlikely to do the trick, she wasn’t about to walk away without giving this one shot her absolute all.

  It took him a heartbeat to respond, but he replied with a thin weak smile of his own. “Armand,” he said, the ice barely broken.

  He led the way through the museum, sweeping along the corridors, clearly master of this particular domain.

  He sidestepped a party of schoolchildren that a single teacher was struggling to control, but then it was mission impossible.

  Armand tut-tutted as he walked, giving the children a withering look that shrunk them to the size of ants. The teacher looked mortified.

  “So, I am led to believe you want to talk to me about Bernard Gui?” he said, opening the door to his office. He ushered her inside before she could answer.

  “That’s correct,” Annja replied. “Or more specifically about his book on the conduct of the Inquisition.”

  “Practica inquisitionis heretice privitatis,” the curator recited, giving it its full and original title. “Conduct of the Inquisition into Heretical Wickedness. We only have a facsimile copy here, I’m afraid.”

  “Even so, you boast some of the world’s premier resources when it comes to the inquisitor, and, if I understand correctly, there is additional material relating to the writing of that book?”

  “Ah, of course. Yes, we do indeed have a copy of the original handwritten draft of the final chapter in our possession.”

  “Would it be possible for me to take a look at it?”

  “Of course, though I regret to say that we do not have a complete translation of the document. If you had said that was what you were interested in, I would have made arrangements for a Latin scholar to join us.”

  Clearly, he assumed she was just a pretty face to go in front of the camera. It would be amusing to disabuse him of that notion. While she didn’t claim to be fluent, she had more than a passing fair acquaintance with the dead language, and had read enough ecclesiastical documents to be confident in her abilities to get by.

  “That’s fine. I’m sure we’ll cope between us.” She smiled.

  “Out of curiosity, may I ask why you are interested in this particular document?”

  “As I explained on the phone, I’m doing a segment for my show, Chasing History’s Monsters. This isn’t the first piece I’ve done about the Inquisition, but I wanted to go back to the root of its involvement in witchcraft.”

  He raised a curious eyebrow. “Then aren’t you better consulting the Malleus Maleficarum? Surely that will have more to say about witchcraft than the writings of Bernard Gui?”

  “It does, absolutely, but if the contents of that final chapter are as I suspect, it will prove that some of the assumptions in the Malleus Maleficarum may have been incorrect.”

  “One book contradicting another? Hardly seems like gripping television.”

  “You’d be surprised. Think about it this way, Bernard Gui wrote his book more than a hundred and sixty years before the other one. What I’m hoping is that there’s confirmation in there about the state of suspected witchcraft during his time, or perhaps more pertinently, the lack of it.”

  “Lack of it?”

  “If Gui says that there was little or no evidence of such practices during his day, then isn’t it reasonable to posit that witchcraft and devil worship are as much a product of the Inquisition as a target for it?”

  “Ah, so you think they looked for it where none existed? Interesting, but perhaps dangerous from a scholarly perspective to come up with theories before you have examined the evidence,” he said.

  He was right, of course, and she knew it. “Confirmation bias.” She nodded. “Yes, I’ll admit I want this story to be true, but I won’t manufacture evidence to support the supposition.” There was more than enough material to do a segment without it, but it was the meat of what she wanted the episode to be about. And then she wanted to link back to the atrocities of modern day, showing how monsters of all stripe will manufacture their truths if it helps them get away with murder.

  “Then perhaps the best thing to do would be to take a look at it.”

  He got back to his feet, but as Annja rose to join him he gestured to her seat.

  “Please,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable. I will bring it to you. There is no need to trouble yourself.”

  She could hardly insist otherwise, but documents as precious as this should be kept in controlled environments, not brought out for casual inspection in a room like this where they would be exposed to all sorts of potential contaminants. And, admittedly, she’d been hoping to have a bit of a poke around in the archives. There had been times when she had stumbled across things, connections long since lost, simply because she’d seen the label on a neighboring box that had filled her mind with all kinds of possibilities and sparked the idea that had led down an unexpected alley to something wonderful.

  She would have to make do with browsing the shelves here while he was gone.

  Most of the titles were in French, but she was intrigued to see copies of Plutarch’s Lives and Suetonius’s Twelve Caesars in Latin.

  At first, it seemed like an odd collection of books, especially given that the man hadn’t revealed he was able to read the language, but on closer inspection it became obvious that the books clearly hadn’t been read. An inscription on the title page of the first of them showed that it had been a gift.

  Hearing footsteps approaching, she returned it to its rightful place in the stack.

  She had only just taken her seat when the door opened.

  The curator entered, carrying a leather-bound ledger.

  She assumed it wasn’t Gui’s last chapter, which surely wouldn’t have been bound. “Problem?” she asked. The look on his face was answer enough. Of course there was a problem.

  He set the ledger on his desk, and sat before he spoke. “I am afraid someone else must be using it at the moment.”

  He was lying to her—or to himself.

  “You mean it’s not where it should be?” she suggested. She wanted to give him the chance to voice his own fears rather than have her put words into his mouth.

  “I’m sure we will be able to locate it for you, assuming you can call back again later in the week?”

  The man was in denial. Documents like this didn’t just go missing. There were processes in place to stop that from happening. The identity of everyone who examined the chapter would be carefully documented somewhere—she assumed in the ledger he had brought with him, the archival boxes signed for, then checked and double-checked when they were reshelved. That these measures had failed almost certainly meant someone had stolen the papers.

  “I’m only supposed to be here for another day or two, but perhaps it would be possible for me to contact the person who has signed it out, to arrange a quick look? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

  “I’m afraid…” He stumbled to find the words, all the coldness he had shown earlier melting away as he struggled to keep the sense of panic from his voice.

  He was failing badly.

  He didn’t need to say anything else. Those two words spoke volumes. There was a pleading look in his eyes.

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to recover it before it’s noticed,” she said.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, nodding a little too rapidly. “I’m sure. After all, it can’t be far.”

  “Do you know who last looked at it?” Annja asked.

  The man nodded, opening the ledger. She watched as he ran his finger down column after column of signatures, looking for the entry he needed to find.

  “Here, and for some reason it hasn’t been signe
d back in.”

  “A misunderstanding, then,” she offered.

  “Let’s hope so.” He breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  She read the name over his shoulder.

  Roux.

  18

  Roux was frustrated.

  Annja wasn’t at the hotel.

  He’d asked her to do one thing for him.

  He tried her number, but as usual it went to voice mail.

  The valet found a parking space for his car close to the entrance of the hotel and carried his bag in for him while Roux waited in the reception area drinking a thick black coffee. He had no intention of checking into a room until he’d seen Annja. There was no guarantee either one of them would be staying here. He hadn’t heard from Cauchon again. That didn’t set his mind at ease, either. The man was out there, somewhere. It was only a matter of time before he made contact, either by phone or by arranging another almost-accident.

  Even as the thought crossed his mind, his phone vibrated on the tabletop in front of him. He snatched it up, but before he could say anything Annja cut across him.

  “Where are you?”

  “Me? I am at your hotel. The more pertinent question would be where are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter where I am.”

  “Au contraire.”

  “Have you checked in?”

  “I was waiting for you.”

  “Don’t use your name when you check in.” She hung up on him.

  He hadn’t been planning to; he seldom did when he traveled, often enjoying the anonymity of a Smith or Jones if he wasn’t in the mood for some fun with a Derrida, Foucault or Comte.

  He had no idea if she was already on the way, or what had been bothering her. He couldn’t do much more than wait. She’d get here when she got here. He pulled out a passport and credit card from his bag, choosing Jean Joseph Mounier, a politician and judge from Bonaparte’s day he’d had the pleasure of punching square in the jaw once upon a time, and returned to the receptionist to book into a room.

  The receptionist offered a practiced smile, not recognizing the name.

  In a place like this his normal habit was to ask for the best room they had, but that would have been following predictable patterns, and the last thing he wanted to do was be predictable right now, so he booked two rooms, a suite on the upper floor, and a single closer to the ground, small but adequate for his needs. The receptionist didn’t bat an eye at his request, returning with four keys for him, two for each room.

  He booked them for a week, even though he was hoping the stay in Carcassonne would be a short one. Memory was a tricky thing. It made you forget the worst of times, so when it came time to do horrible things all over again, to experience the worst life had to offer, you did it willingly. He really couldn’t remember when anything had affected him like this. But then, he’d experienced threats and betrayal in less than twenty-four hours. How was he supposed to react?

  The receptionist offered to get a bellman to show him to his room, but Roux shook his head, assuring her he could make his own way there. He had no intention of leaving the small room until Annja arrived. Then they’d reassess the situation. He sent her a text with the room number and waited, lying on the bed, feet crossed at the ankles, hands behind his head.

  He hated waiting. There was nothing in the world worse than that. It didn’t matter what you were up against. Once you knew, you could act, fight, but when you were waiting you were helpless, and waiting had taken up so much of his life lately.

  He needed to take control of it again.

  His phone beeped. An incoming text. Annja.

  She was only a couple of minutes away, but he shouldn’t open the door to anyone, not even the police, until she had spoken to him.

  It meant things were starting to get interesting.

  19

  Cauchon watched the video feed again and again, still not completely believing the evidence of his own eyes.

  The tiny hidden surveillance cams he’d paid to have fitted to the front and rear of the Mercedes had paid dividends beyond imagining. They were better than eyes and ears. They couldn’t be fooled. He saw exactly what went down when his men had to deal with Annja Creed. In an ideal world he would have been there himself, but now he was glad he had been nowhere near the scene; and, of course, there was always the risk she might remember him. It was too soon to show his hand. He wasn’t about to risk losing everything.

  He clicked frames backward and forward, trying to work out how she could possibly have achieved the trick—because that’s what it had to be, surely?

  In the flicker of a frame her hands went from being empty and unthreatening to gripping a wicked sword drawn out of thin air, like one of the great illusionists conjuring it from nowhere.

  He watched it again and again and again, unable to zoom in any tighter on the image, which lost focus as he tried to adjust it.

  He lost count of how many times he had flicked the image backward and forward; now she had it, now she didn’t. A hundred, a thousand? It hadn’t taken more than a couple viewings to grasp the truth, that somehow, some impossible how, this was no conjuring trick.

  This was something more than that.

  Something altogether more wonderful.

  This was proof of greatness.

  This was proof of witchcraft, and in his mind there was no greater heresy.

  He had held his suspicions for so long that he felt a sense of euphoria at the evidence unfolding there on the screen, everything he had ever suspected, confirmed, and so much more besides.

  For years he traveled the world in search of substantive evidence, of fact, of something that would prove beyond the shadow of any doubt and stand up to the most rigorous scrutiny, that witchcraft was real, but every single time he had been disappointed. Every avenue he followed had led to hoaxes and scams set up to relieve the gullible of their hard-earned money or to prey on the emotionally vulnerable.

  He had dreamed of finding the divine among the mundane.

  He had dreaded the presence of evil to be lurking in every shadow, but the only evil he ever encountered was man-made, greed and avarice, the allure of fame.

  Until now.

  Until Annja Creed.

  In her, he had found more than he had dared hoped.

  Even the sword matched the descriptions he’d been able to find from contemporary accounts.

  He was sure of it now. Sure that the proof was his. There could be no doubt.

  An agent of the devil possessed Annja Creed and that agent bore the name of Joan.

  He had chosen his own name well.

  20

  “Are you going to tell me what all this cloak and dagger stuff is about?” Roux asked.

  Annja had finally arrived at the hotel.

  Time was elastic at the best of times, but at the worst it seemed to stretch into infinity. He had taken the gun from his overnight bag and slipped it under his pillow, not that he expected trouble or that he was particularly comfortable with guns. That was more Garin’s territory. Even so, his hand had reached for it instinctively as she tapped on the door. It was only the sound of her voice, muted by the door between them, that stopped him from drawing it from under the pillow.

  “I was hoping you’d tell me,” she said bluntly.

  He inclined his head, furrowing his brow. It was hardly the picture of innocence, even when he said, “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, girl.”

  “Really? I find that incredibly hard to believe. I know you don’t answer to me. Why would you? But just this once, try telling the truth.”

  “Be careful, Annja. What you say can’t be unsaid. There are no ‘take-backs’ in life. I am not in the habit of lying to you.”

  “Then tell me about your last visit to Carcassonne.”

  He thought about it for a moment, trying to recall the last time he’d set foot inside the cursed fortress. It had been a long time ago. He had been a different man, almost literally. “My last visit?�
�� He shook his head. “That was more than a hundred years ago. What do you expect me to remember? Not very much.”

  Annja said nothing.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and looked him straight in the eye.

  “I’m going to ask you again,” she said, sounding more like an interrogator than a friend. “Tell me about your last visit. The one you made more recently, not some visit from a century ago. Think in terms of the past month or so.”

  “Month or so? I haven’t been here in years and years, girl.”

  “So you didn’t visit the museum and fail to return a precious artifact?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, someone did, and signed your name.”

  “My name?”

  She nodded.

  “What did they steal?”

  “The final chapter of Practica inquisitionis heretice privitatis, handwritten by Bernard Gui.”

  Roux’s mind was racing, making a logical connection he’d missed when he’d been obsessing over what Garin had stolen. He had a collection of Gui’s writings in his vault. Was that what Garin had taken?

  “Garin,” he said.

  “What about him?”

  “It’s got his sticky fingers all over it,” Roux muttered, and filled her in on the events of the past twenty-four hours, leaving nothing out, not the call, not Garin’s visit, not the theft from his vault.

  She didn’t seem that surprised

  “And you think he took Gui’s papers from the museum?”

  “Who else? And typical of him to use my name to cover his tracks. I assume he produced some kind of credentials to get away with the theft. And like it or not, Garin does nothing without strong motivation, if not good reason, so to steal multiple documents, I fear we’ll never see them again.”

  “Money.”

  “It must mean that he has a buyer.”

  Annja shook her head. “Surely he wouldn’t steal from you just for money.”

  “I think that’s the only reason why he’d do it, my dear,” Roux said. “Money is the strongest motivator of all in the mind of Garin Braden. But that means that someone must have offered enough money to make it worth his while. And enough in this instance is a small fortune. That limits the possibilities.”