The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  ‘They may already know.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘The fact you’re here and they’re leaving you alone means you’re safe. For now.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Call it a hunch.’

  ‘A hunch, are you serious? I’ve got a news flash for you, this isn’t the Middle Ages, sanctuary went out with Quasimodo. I’m getting the fuck out of here!’

  ‘And what about the lad with the lantern?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He is giving you sanctuary and there’s every chance he’ll be slaughtered for doing it. That’s what Komarovsky’s goons told you, didn’t they? They’d kill anyone who helped you escape.’

  Katherine jumped up and off her sweater.

  ‘Fuck you, Harper! Look what they did to me!’

  Harper saw the scratches and bite marks on her breasts and stomach.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Taylor. I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. Doesn’t change the fact that if you run, a helpless lad will be slaughtered.’

  Katherine slammed her fists on the table. She fell into the chair and put on her sweater. She dropped her head in her hands, took a few calming breaths.

  ‘You really know how to make a girl feel guilty, don’t you?’

  ‘Just telling you the way it is.’

  She looked at Harper a moment.

  ‘Why don’t you ever call me Katherine, or just Kat?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘My name’s Katherine. You never say it.’

  Harper said the name in his head, couldn’t quite get it past his lips.

  ‘Don’t really know. Feels like it’s against the rules, like no laundry on Sundays.’

  ‘That makes sense, not.’

  Harper lit a smoke.

  ‘No, I suppose not. What’s the lad call you?’

  ‘Marc? Come to think of it he’s never said my name either. Then again, it’s not what he calls me, it’s what he thinks I am.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Promise you won’t laugh?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Marc thinks Lausanne is full of lost angels. Last night, he lit up the nave with candles to tell me I was an angel too. His mother told him a story once, about an angel coming to the cathedral and how he had to protect her.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘I know. Poor guy can hardly stand up straight and he’s got it in his head it’s his duty to protect me till I find a way home. Kind of funny, huh?’

  ‘Actually, I’d say it’s quite the compliment.’

  ‘I know. I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘Don’t be hard on yourself, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘No?’ She touched the tin can with the picture of the Matterhorn on the lid. ‘You know what’s in here? Nearly a hundred thousand Swiss.’

  ‘Nest egg from the flat?’

  ‘Isn’t mine, it’s Marc’s. His family was rich. His grandmother lived in a castle of some kind. Anyways, know what I was doing when you showed up?’

  ‘Stealing the money and taking off?’

  ‘That’s right, leave him thinking he’d imagined the whole thing. Or I thought I might fuck him silly as trade in kind. Truth is, I didn’t give a damn what happened to him.’

  Harper took a thoughtful draw from his smoke.

  ‘You’re still here, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘Yeah, so?’

  ‘Maybe the lad wasn’t too far off about you.’

  ‘Nice try, Harper, but I’m only here because you showed up in the nick of time.’

  Harper looked at the clock on the wall: eleven forty-five. He gathered his notes.

  ‘Speaking of which, I have to meet someone, I’ll be back this evening. We’ll try and figure a way to get you out of here. A way that doesn’t get the lad killed.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘See the man with the bloody answers.’

  ‘What kind of answers?’

  ‘The kind that tell me why nothing in this bloody town feels like an accident.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Intersecting lines of causality, Miss Taylor. Things happening in this place for a reason we can’t see.’

  ‘Wow, where’d that one come from?’

  ‘No idea, just something I heard somewhere.’ Harper stood, slid the bottle of vitamin E towards her. ‘Four times a day, Miss Taylor. I’ll be back this evening.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He ground out his smoke, picked up his notebook and stuffed it in his mackintosh. He looked at her without speaking.

  ‘What is it, Harper?’

  ‘I don’t ever remember making a promise.’

  ‘What, like in your entire life?’

  ‘Not the life I can remember at any rate.’

  ‘Well, for the record you just did. To me and Marc both.’

  Harper opened the door, an almost blinding light filled the loge. He turned back to Katherine again.

  ‘How did the lad’s mother know he’d be in the cathedral one day?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said the lad’s mother told him a story about an angel coming to the cathedral. How did she know?’

  ‘Gee, I don’t know.’

  ‘Is he a local?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Was he born in Lausanne?’

  ‘No, Quebec. His mother died when he was a little boy. His father and grandmother were Swiss, they brought him here and put him in a school with kids like him.’

  ‘Like him.’

  ‘Well, let’s face it, Marc is a little out there. I don’t mean that in a bad way.’

  Harper stared at her a moment.

  The lad with a lantern, a hooker on the run, a drunk who couldn’t remember ever making a promise. We few, we happy few, he thought. Three more lines of intersecting causality in Lausanne.

  ‘Does he see things, things that aren’t there?’

  ‘Oh yeah, big time. He calls it imagining.’

  ‘Imagining.’

  ‘Yeah. In Marc’s world the cathedral is full of imaginary friends. Knights in armour, teasing shadows, dead bishops, lost angels. He tried to get me to go down into the crypt to say hello to the skeletons under the altar. All sort of freaked me out at first. Now it’s part of his charm. And he keeps drifting off to something he calls before times, but he says it like one word, beforetimes. He sort of zones out and sees himself somewhere in the past. Always comes back with the funniest stories. But you know something? He really loves this place. You should see him with the bells. It’s as if Marc thinks this place is alive. And he’s got it into his head that if he doesn’t protect the cathedral and the bells and keep his lantern going at night, then the angels would be lost for ever. Funny, huh?’

  Harper looked at her without speaking for a long moment.

  He turned, stared out of the door and off the balcony.

  The midday sun reflecting off the ice-covered peaks above Évian.

  Fierce light coming back and hitting him straight in the eyes.

  ‘Harper?’

  ‘Hell of a view from up here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sept cent deux … sept cent trois … sept cent quatre …’

  Rochat stepped on to the esplanade and looked at the cathedral. The prophets and saints carved in the façade stood motionless in the chilly shade, waiting for the winter sun to swing round and wake them from their sleep. He looked down Escaliers du marché. Nothing but empty planks.

  ‘All is well, Rochat.’

  He shuffled to the great arch above the main doors and stood beneath the statues in their niches. He rapped Monsieur Moses on his toes.

  ‘Pardonnez-moi, I know you’re still sleeping. But if you see any bad shadows coming up Escaliers du marché, please stomp your feet and toss your tablets at them and chase them away, d’accord? Merci, à bientôt.’

  He shuffled along the façade to the corner of the belfry tower. He stopped. Something
caught his eye on the cobblestones. A long unmoving shadow stretching over the esplanade. His eyes followed the shadow to a pair of shoes and up to the detectiveman. He was standing near the fountain.

  ‘Hello, mate.’

  ‘Bonjour, monsieur.’

  ‘Do you have a minute for a chat?’

  ‘I have a minute for a chat.’

  Rochat shuffled over with the shopping bags as Harper took a drink of water from the fountain. Harper stood, dabbed at his lips with the back of his hand.

  ‘You know, this really is very good water.’

  ‘Merci. We have our own source in Lausanne.’

  ‘So everybody in Lausanne gets the same water in their kitchen taps?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Then why do the locals drink water from plastic bottles in this town?’

  Rochat thought about it.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘More for us then, eh?’

  ‘Oui.’

  Harper leaned down for another drink, wiped his lips and straightened up. He looked towards Escaliers du marché and then down towards Café de l’Évêché.

  ‘Are you here to come to the cathedral now, monsieur?’

  ‘No, I have to meet someone in the nave after the noon bells. Just checking to see if I’m being followed.’

  Rochat looked around the esplanade, back towards Escaliers du marché.

  ‘I don’t see anyone, monsieur.’

  ‘Probably because they already know where I am.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Good guys, bad guys.’

  Rochat thought about it.

  ‘Pardonnez-moi, monsieur, but you are real?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I don’t mean to be impolite. I’m just a little confused.’

  ‘Some days are better than others in the imagining-things department?’

  Rochat nodded. Harper smiled.

  ‘In that case, I’m as real as the last time you saw me.’

  ‘D’accord.’ Rochat set down the shopping bags. Harper pointed to the boxes inside, all wrapped in ribbons and bows.

  ‘You’ve been shopping for Miss Taylor.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I had a chat with her in the belfry before you got here.’

  Rochat pulled the ring of keys from his overcoat to make sure they were there. He shook them to make sure they were real.

  ‘Did I leave the tower door unlocked?’

  ‘No, it was locked, but I managed. Reminds me, I saw heavy iron braces in the alcove behind the door.’

  ‘From the days of invadermen.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Invadermen who came to Lausanne and it was the duty of le guet to set the braces at the door to protect the cathedral.’

  ‘Invadermen, right. Well, it might be a good idea to reset the braces after you go in. What do you think?’

  ‘About what, monsieur?’

  ‘When you go inside. You could set the braces against the doors. Can you manage on your own?’

  ‘I can manage on my own, I’m very strong from my legs up.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Harper watched the lad again, seeing a maze of crooked wheels in his head trying to spin. ‘Something on your mind, mate?’

  Rochat looked towards Escaliers du marché, turned back.

  ‘Those men from the bad shadows, the ones who crushed her wings, they’re back. I saw their shadows. They followed me and chased me at Place de la Palud. That’s why I asked Monsieur Moses to keep the watch at the old staircase.’

  ‘Moses?’

  Rochat turned, pointed to the stone statues at the cathedral doors.

  ‘He’s the grumpy-looking one holding the stone tablets. His feet are made of stone, so if he stomps his feet and throws his stone tablets at them he can make a lot of noise and chase away the bad shadows. That’s what I imagined. Sometimes the things I imagine are real and sometimes they’re just imaginations. And sometimes it’s very confusing because there was an accident when I was born. But I’m very sure the bad shadows were real. Do you imagine things, monsieur?’

  ‘Does a rough night followed by watching the sun come up five or six times in one morning count?’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘Me neither but it’s time to find out. Listen, later, I’d like to take you up on your offer to hide in the cathedral. Would that be all right? We could take turns keeping an eye out for any bad—’

  ‘Invader—’

  ‘—shadows.’

  ‘—men.’

  Harper chuckled, Rochat watched him closely.

  ‘Did we make a joke, monsieur?’

  ‘I believe we did.’

  Rochat thought about it.

  ‘It was funny.’

  ‘It was at that. So after my meeting in the nave I’ll collect my kit and run around town till nightfall, then I’ll come back. You’ll need to keep an eye out for me. I’ll be waiting right here after dark, all right?’

  ‘D’accord.’ Rochat picked up the shopping bags. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, monsieur, who are you meeting in the cathedral?’

  ‘Monsieur Gabriel.’

  ‘I don’t know who he is.’

  ‘He stands at the crossing square every day at noon. Watches the light through the rose window.’

  ‘I’ve never seen him.’

  ‘You must have. Bit of a tramp. The nun in the gift shop tells me he comes to the cathedral every day around noon for meditations.’

  ‘Sœur Fabienne?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s her.’

  Harper saw Rochat’s eyes lose focus for a few seconds. He slowly blinked.

  ‘Something wrong, mate?’

  ‘I imagined beforetimes to remember something about Sœur Fabienne.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She died three years ago. Madame Buhlmann works in the gift shop now.’

  ‘I just saw her, three days ago.’

  Rochat looked at the cathedral, then back at Harper.

  ‘That’s how imagining works, monsieur. I hear the timbers.’

  A great, deep sound exploded in the sky. Harper raised his eyes to the belfry as pigeons scattered and Marie-Madeleine rang out over the esplanade, obliterating every sound in the world till the twelfth bell faded away. Harper lowered his eyes, the lad was gone. He heard the sound of iron braces falling into place behind the red door to the belfry.

  ‘Bloody hell, just keeps getting better.’

  He walked to the cathedral entrance, pulled open the heavy wood door. The smell of old earth rushed out and the heavy purple curtain hanging in the archway billowed in the draught. Harper stepped into the narthex and waited for the wood door to close behind him with a coffin-like thud. The curtain settled. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light he couldn’t keep them from looking up at Headless Mary, Mother of God. Watching him with her unseen eyes. He moved ahead and pulled the curtain aside. He stepped into the nave. His whole being instantly drawn into the illusion of infinite space. He saw the long shaft of tubular light rushing through the giant stained-glass window in the south transept wall. Cutting through the dull grey gloom of the nave and falling on the decrepit form standing at the centre of the crossing square.

  ‘Right. Monsieur Gabriel, I presume.’

  book four

  the thing in the well

  thirty-two

  Harper walked up the main aisle, watching the billion bits of dust floating in the tubular light. The light hit the flagstones of the crossing square with the tramp spot-on centre. Arms extended from his sides, palms turned to the light, his face with the same gobsmacked expression as before.

  Closer to the crossing square Harper slowed his steps. The light slipped from under the tramp’s heels and raced over the flagstones and up the chancel columns. It settled in the arcades of the crescent dome high above the altar. Monsieur Gabriel lowered his arms, bowed his head. Harper could hear his whispering voice.

  ‘Transit umbra, lux permanet �
��’

  Shadow passes, light remains.

  A prayer, Harper thought. To a God, a saint, the runaway light maybe. The tramp coughed.

  ‘And so, finally, you have come.’

  ‘Didn’t realize I was late. But seeing as I’m here, maybe we could get to it.’

  Gabriel stared again at the still-radiant stained-glass window.

  ‘It’s comforting to see the light as the living thing, no?’

  Harper leaned back, searched the crescent dome high overhead. The runaway light now hiding behind the pillars.

  ‘A sane man would tell you it isn’t the light. A sane man would tell you it’s the pitch and rotation of the earth on its axis. The window just happens to be in the right place at the right time.’

  ‘And the insane man would ask which is the greater miracle? That the universe was so created, or that men built this window to be in the right place at the right time?’

  Harper glanced up to the giant stained glass. Same universe divided up into seasons and months of the year, same signs of the zodiac, same white-bearded Almighty in the middle watching it all spin round and round.

  ‘Is that what the window’s about, right place at the right time?’

  ‘Sœur Fabienne didn’t tell you?’

  Harper looked over his shoulder to the gift shop at the back of the nave. Lights out, no one home. The woman was real as beans on toast a few days ago. Standing behind the counter in her nun’s habit, hawking her cardboard cathedrals, showing off her collection of unanswered prayers. He turned back towards the tramp.

  ‘Seen her lately, have you?’

  ‘What did she tell you about the window, English?’

  ‘She said it’s a cosmology representing the sum of man’s knowledge.’

  ‘When the world was flat, English, you forgot to say when the world was flat.’

  ‘And you forgot to say she’s dead.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘So I’m told by a lad with a lantern. But then again he thinks this place is a hideout for lost angels.’

  The tramp walked towards Harper, stopping at the edge of the crossing square.

  ‘Do you realize that at this very moment, in this hideout for lost angels, we breathe from the last breath of Christ on the cross?’

  ‘Now that would be a neat trick.’

  ‘The nature of death isn’t a trick, English, it’s chemistry.’