by Lazlo Ferran
Within twenty minutes I was back at the house. I tied down the tonneau cover and drove north. I never saw the red DAF again. After traveling north for ten miles I turned east and later south towards Lyon. I turned up an isolated track and unhitched the trailer. I could travel much faster without it, and further than they would estimate if the Gendarmes were to set up road blocks. I transferred the tent, and a few other things into the back of the car. As I drove towards Lyon, and Henry, I turned something over in my mind, something that had really started to bother me. Annie’s was the only death by the Warg that I knew of, which didn’t fall into the pattern of the sixty year cycles. What did it mean? Were there other deaths which hadn’t been recorded, or was Annie in some way special? And then another thought started to nag at the very edge of my brain. Was I special? Was Annie just, in fact, a victim in some larger struggle, an innocent bystander? I mulled over this morosely for some time and then let it drop.
One other thing that I had filed away for thought in a quiet moment like this, was, who told the Gendarmes that I was in Lyon the night of the most recent murder? I puzzled this out in my mind but I could find no answer that made sense. I reached Henry’s flat in the middle of the afternoon. I parked some way off in another street.
“Henry. You will never guess what has happened to me.”
“The Gendarmes have been here dear boy!”
“What? When?”
“Yesterday afternoon, about three.”
“Hm. About the same time I was taken in for questioning.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. They didn’t have any evidence but they took a long time to release me, and have been following me ever since.”
“They followed you here?” Henry was trying to sound calm but the timbre of his voice rose slightly at the end of his question.
“No. I lost them. I want to go away though, for a few days. Somewhere they won’t find me. They suspect me of the murders Henry. I don’t know why. I don’t know how they even knew I was here on the night of the last murder. I think, no, I am sure they believe I killed Annie. Which makes me really angry!”
“Yes. My dear boy. We have to do something!”
“What did they ask you? Did they ask you about me?”
“Yes, they asked about you. But mainly they wanted to know what we were doing together that night and exactly what time you left, which actually I told them I couldn’t remember.”
“But what I don’t understand is how they even came to suspect me in the first place!”
“I don’t know dear boy.” Henry wasn’t meeting my gaze as he said this. For a moment I thought even Henry was starting to suspect me.
“Anyway I can’t stay long. I just wanted to pick up everything you have translated. I won’t tell you where I am going.”
“It’s all over there.” He pointed to the writing table in the corner of the room and I picked up the heavy pile of sheets.
“See you later Henry.”
“Take care, dear boy.”
I drove north on the main road towards Beaune, but before I reached it, at about lunchtime, I turned left towards Autun, and drove to the place where Rose and I had camped when I had seen the wolf. Lying on my side after finishing some sandwiches, I heard the rustling of the thick envelope in my jacket pocket. I took it out and opened it. My heart sank. It was divorce papers. It didn’t come as a complete surprise of course, I had seen Rose’s Volkswagen parked outside a solicitors in Nevers several times so I suspected we were close to this point. Had we become so distant, so strange to each other that she felt a letter was enough to end our marriage? I read it. It was mostly the usual sort of thing, and at the end, next to a gap for mine, there was Rose’s signature in neat blue script. She never used black ink. She disliked black and never wore it if she could avoid it because there had been ‘too much death’ in her family. This little detail about our life together tore at my heart, and my lips trembled. Attached, was a sheet with a statement by Rose, but I didn’t want to read it.
“Rose!” I called out loud. The forest answered me with the gentle sound of trees swishing in the cool summer breeze and after a long while, I felt better. The thought entered my mind that perhaps Rose couldn’t bear the thought of confronting me herself. I wanted to find out what had happened to Annie more than ever. After the loss of Annie, losing Rose’s respect was the hardest thing to bear. I still wanted that back.
When it was almost dark, I walked to the rock where I had seen the wolf, and I stood there, listening and watching until my feet hurt and it was completely dark. In my disappointment, walking back to camp, I understood that I hadn’t gone there just to think, but to find something I had lost.
Lying on the sleeping bag, that night, watching the branches making shadow plays across the canvas in the moonlight, I wondered again why Annie had been chosen, and in fact whether I was mad, taking these Serpents seriously. Another thing that puzzled me, was why the police questioned Henry and I? His flat wasn’t so close to the crime scene that he would have been routinely questioned by the Gendarmes. It was just possible that he told them about me. It seemed so unlikely though. Henry had been a good friend so far.
I must have fallen asleep with these uncomfortable thoughts going around my head because I awoke with a stiff back and the sound of a pheasant, rattling, outside.
There was nothing here, and I had experienced my moment of solitude. Now I needed to decide what to do. I went for a walk to think things through. I hadn’t gone far before I came across an old man walking his collie. He stooped on a long stick, with both hands, as I gestured to him to stop for a moment, and eyed me curiously beneath hairy brows.
“Have you seen any wolves here lately?” I asked him.
“They sometimes come this far north from the Pyrenees, during harsh winters, and stay for a while but I haven’t seen any for years.”
As the sun reached its highest point in the sky, an idea, and then a plan formed in my mind. It felt that I was in somebody else’s game. I didn’t know the rules and I didn’t know the aim of the game, but it seemed to me that there was something I could use to help myself, if I accepted the game. Somewhere, hidden in some crypt was some kind of weapon such as a sword perhaps. And possibly in that crypt I might find the answer to another question; what had happened to my grandfather’s body. If indeed he was a member of this secret society called Ordo Lupus, then perhaps I should become one too. Perhaps he meant to initiate me and never had the chance. In any case my life seemed irrevocably entwined with their fate now. I needed to find somebody in this Brotherhood, but the only thing I had to go on was the clues about the whereabouts of this crypt. I would try to find this Secret Crypt and hope that this would lead me to someone, or at least something, that could help me. The place to start looking was Paris so I would go there. Pleased with myself for at last forming a plan, I whistled, as I walked back to the camp.
I had to pull up my trousers several times as I walked. Henry would normally have been shocked at my appearance but I guess he’d had too much on his mind. I packed the tent and other equipment into the car and drove west, intending to turn onto the main road heading north for Beaune and from there, on to Paris. I stopped at a trucker’s café where I hoped I would not be recognised, and, after a lunch of burgers, eggs and chips, I tried to call Rose at our home. After ten rings, I hung up, and called Cosette in the office.
“Cosette?”
“Ah. Hello Monsieur.” She always mixed her English and French quite delightfully.
“Cosette. Can you do me a favour? I cannot get hold of Rose and I am going away, possibly for a few weeks. Please can you keep trying our home number until you can tell her, but if you can’t get hold of her within three days, send her a letter.”
“Okay. Ah! Monsieur? Can I tell her where you ah going?”
“I would rather not Cosette. I want some privacy.”
“Ah. I see. I am very sorry what has happened to you Monsieur. The Gendarmes, the way they t
reat you is very unfair.”
“Thank you Cosette.”
“There is a letter has come for you.”
“Ah yes? Could you open it please and tell me what it says?”
“Yeser.” I heard the sound of paper being torn. “Hm mm. It is from a Mr Barton-Brown.”
“Ah. The researcher. What does he say?” I only later found out that the man who loaned me the book for two hours in Paris was Barton-Brown.
“He says thank you for the fax. He found it very interesting. Da da da dah. Then he says that he has found something you maybe do not know about. De de de dah. Let’s see. Yes, he says that he wanted to prove it wasn’t false document so he had it testeder. Um hm. With ultra-violet light they could see hidden marks on the paperrer – one on the bottom of each page. He says the characters were ‘U’ ‘S’ ‘U’ ‘S’ and that this made him check the other pages in the book. Nearly all pages have these characters which spell words in Latin. He hasn’t finished the other chapters but here is the Latin verse for all the pages in the Chapter which yourer pages came from.”
“Yes. Go on Cosette!”
She started to read the Latin words to me, but I had to stop her and borrow a pen and a napkin from the nearest customer of the café because I couldn’t possibly remember it all. After many mistakes and repetitions, and many centimes later, I had the full verse.
“Merci beaucoup, Cosette. You’re a star!”
“Au revoir, Monsieur. Take very great care.”
I stuffed the napkin in my pocket and left the café. My plan, once I reached Paris, was to translate the verse Cosette had read to me, and see where that led. I also thought I would contact Georgina. Perhaps she could help me.
Georgina. Tall slim and black-haired with eyes of cinnamon.
Later that night, in a cheap hotel room, decked out with pale pink and white, vertically striped wall-paper, and reproduction baroque furniture, I took out the napkin and laid it on the bed. I read the Latin and wondered at it.
Unus super parietis,
Per securis, conicio oppugno in vallum,
Is quisnam semotus vexillum.
Iterum vexillum eram perspicuus,
Nostrum vir remuneror Le Pilon.
I was frustrated that Barton-Brown had chosen not to translate the text for me; he knew I could not read Latin, but then again perhaps he felt this was just too easy. In any case I could telephone Henry in the morning and get it translated over the telephone. I stared hard at the text but I could not understand any of it, so eventually I went to bed.
I called Henry but he didn’t answer. I tried again half an hour later and still he didn’t answer. So I went for a walk. It started drizzling lightly as I walked, the sort of drizzle that brings no relief from summer heat, and I reached the river Seine, and turned to walk northwards along its Eastern bank, watching the water dappling in the rain.
I decided I would call Henry one last time at 11 am and if he wasn’t there, I would call Georgina. I told myself I needed to make some progress somewhere, and that this was the only reason I would call her. I felt so restless, as 11 am approached, that I couldn’t stand still, and kept asking passers-by the time. I made the call at 10.59 am and still there was no answer. I took out the folded sheet of paper with Georgina’s number on and dialed it. There was a long pause, in which I had time to reflect that although I told myself over and over again my interest in Georgina was strictly professional, my thumping heart told another story. I almost put the phone down, hesitated, and then heard a velvety voice at the other end.
“Oui?”
It was only a week ago, and I remember I found myself smiling, and cradling the receiver like a lover as I spoke softly into the mouthpiece.
“Georgina?”
“Ah. Hello. I recognize your voice. It’s my favourite murderer!” She giggled like a little girl with delight at her joke. Her accent was slight, and her pronunciation of English was impeccable.
“Yes” I laughed too. It was the first time for ages that somebody had disbelieved the idea of me as a murderer, to the extent that they could joke about it. I was warmed by her trust in me. “You said you had some information for me?”
“Oh. Yes.”
I knew that I had used this information to sidestep the more formal procedure of asking her to meet me somewhere. I must have sounded awfully callous, and I immediately regretted it. “Sorry. That was very impolite of me. It’s just that I am very nervous talking to beautiful women on the telephone.”
“Beautiful, strange women too,” she corrected.
“Yes. Would you like to meet for a drink somewhere? Tonight?”
“Ha! Ha! Yes, that is the more confident approach that I am used to. Wait.” She seemed to be thinking for a moment. “Yes. I could meet you tonight but it would have to be late. Around ten o’clock, perhaps ten thirty. You won’t mind if I am a little late will you?” She added the question almost as an afterthought, her tone solicitous.
“I will cope. Where would you like to meet?”
“Ah yes. You don’t know Paris very well? How about the Café Jardin de Paris, on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, near the Muse Eugene Delacroix. Do you know it?”
“No. But I will find it. I will be there.”
“Okay. I will see you later.”
“Yes.”
“Good bye.”
“Yes. Bye.” I found myself listening to the end-of-call tone, its steady hum somehow reassuring.
Towards the end of the afternoon, after a balmy few hours drifting along the Seine, looking at paintings, and flicking through the dusty pages of secondhand books, I suddenly glanced at my string belt and knew I didn’t have anything decent to wear that night. Most of the men’s boutiques on the long Boulevard de Sébastopol stayed open late so luckily I didn’t have to rush, and after some indulgent or disapproving looks from the assistants, I was kitted-out in a nice blue suit with a white shirt and black, polished shoes in an expensive-looking boutique. I had even bought cufflinks and as I walked into the Café Jardin de Paris fifteen minutes early, shaved, using a disposable razor, and doused in cologne, I thought I was ready for even this sultry beauty. At eleven I began to have doubts. After a while, the noisy heat inside had become uncomfortable so I had moved to a vacant table outside, and now I sat watching passers-by suspiciously or the occasional flashing light of an airliner in the darkness above.
“Hi!” The soft but clear voice was right next to my ear and I turned just as Georgina passed me to sit in the seat opposite. “Really, I must apologize completely for my late arrival. I was at the opera with a friend, a man, and I could not get away politely before now.”
“At the opera? But you didn’t tell me. You shouldn’t have left just for me. Whatever will your companion think?”
She blew air through her lips dismissively and rather endearingly.
“He a friend of my boss and really I felt obliged to go on this date. We met at work and that’s where it should stay as far as I am concerned.”
“I am not sure he will agree.”
“Ah well he may have wanted to make love to me, it is true, but I think in this case he was more interested in being seen with a pretty young woman than actually doing anything.” She was already breaking a crust of brown bread as she spoke. “I am starving. Have you ordered?”
“No. I was waiting for you, of course.”
“Ah a gentleman, or at least someone who is prepared to pretend, and even that is rare enough these days.”
I raised my arm and a waiter brought the menu and then left us. I was flattered by her candidness discussing her relationships and I felt confident enough to let my eyes range quickly over her, while she scanned the menu. She had a long and very dark blue, possibly purple, evening dress on, with a silver tiara around her hair, which was carefully piled into a bun. This revealed two lovely ears with silver peal-drop earrings of extraordinary size, probably fake, I guessed. Her long white gloves were folded on her black velvet purse on the table and occ
asionally she played with her left earring, rolling it between finger and thumb. She was an unusual picture of both sophistication and youthful rebellion which showed in her movements. These seemed deliberately inelegant. Her cleavage showed a swooping valley of promising pale flesh, where my eyes lingered for just a moment too long.
“You look very elegant tonight.” She paused. “Your eyes are the most beautiful pair of blue and brown eyes I have ever seen,” she said without looking up from the menu.
I may have turned a pale shade of red at that moment although she wouldn’t have been able to see.
“What are you drinking?” she asked
“Ouzo.”
“How quaint. An artist’s drink. May I order some wine?”
“Please do.” Without even asking for the wine menu, she ordered an expensive bottle of red, one I had heard of.
She rolled the glass around in her hand, and grinned, as if the wine were chocolate.
It really was very good, full-bodied and slightly spicy, with an oak aroma. She looked for my approval. “Yes.”
“Ah ha ha. You English men are so restrained. When I saw you in the library and then you spoke to me I thought at last here is an informal English man, but no, you are formal like all the rest.” I must have looked slightly hurt because she added, “Sorry. I am slightly drunk and I sometimes get a little bit rude when I am drunk.”
The waiter returned and we ordered two rounds of fresh mackerel with oyster dressing, followed by profiteroles.
Georgina cleared her throat and sat up straight. “I have heard you have a certain talent.”
“Oh?” I nearly choked on the mackerel. She peered at me from under those exquisite black eyelashes with a look halfway between playful glee and intellectual curiosity.