“I’m going to text Mallery. The only reason those monks would go out in the middle of the night is if something’s happened to the abbot, so let’s check.”
“Good idea.”
Max Mallery had concealed himself in the nurses’ office, a place from where he could watch any comings and goings in the abbot’s room and also sit comfortably reading his latest crime novel. The nurses themselves bore no objection to the handsome inspector adorning their workplace, and a fair few gossiped behind their hands at how the man wore no wedding ring and dressed immaculately, with typical Parisian class.
At the second beep of his phone, Max pulled up the screen and read with interest. It seemed that there was movement at last.
NOTHING TO REPORT HERE. ABBOT IS FINE, he replied immediately, before stepping out into the quiet corridor to phone his colleagues.
“What’s going on?” he pressed, feeling the nurses’ eyes on him as he stood leaning against the wall.
Jack quickly explained the unusual occurrence that they’d all witnessed and asked if he was correct in thinking that they should hold their positions.
“Oui,” Mallery confirmed, “everyone stay put. Perhaps the monks are heading here, but I cannot imagine why. Abbot Arnaud is fast asleep.”
“There’s no sign of anyone else at the church either, sir.”
“It’s early yet, Jacques, tell them to give it time,” came the response.
Gabriella and Thierry received their instructions with disappointment. They’d hoped that the inspector was right in his assumptions that the monks were involved in the grave-robbing activity, but now that the suspects had been ruled out, the pair decided upon a more direct approach. Realising that they could neither see the eastern side of the graveyard from inside the car, nor catch anyone approaching from that direction, the detectives climbed out of the Mini and stalked the area on foot.
It was a freezing night, with the occasional bout of blustery wind, and both wore thick padded jackets. Gabriella had added a cashmere beanie to her outfit, while Thierry had a warm, double-knitted bobble hat covering his short afro hair, neither detective willing to catch a chill in the name of duty.
They walked silently around the side of Saint Magdalena’s, the grey walls looming like a huge fortress, keeping to the grassy verge in order to avoid the gravel path crunching under their heavy boots. In one corner, they could just make out the graves that had been disturbed on previous nights, mounds of earth still lying dormant as evidence. Remembering his previous visit with Jack Hobbs, Thierry cautiously led his blonde colleague towards the door of the crypt.
“On peut regarder d’ici,” he told her. We can watch from here.
Gabriella’s bravery knowing no bounds, she nodded eagerly at the idea of being out of the elements and waited for Thierry to push open the stiff, panelled door.
Returning to the comfort of the small nurses’ office where supplies of fresh coffee and biscuits were plentiful, Max stopped to peer through the glass window in the door to Abbot Arnaud’s room. As expected, the old man was sleeping soundly, the only noise in the room being the gentle beep of the heart monitor, and the visitor’s chair remained vacant. The inspector wondered whether the two roaming monks would be heading this way anytime soon. He couldn’t imagine why they would be checking up on the abbot at this time in the morning, which was now nearing one o’clock, but if they were, he would be ready to question them.
Stepping back around the nurses’ station to return to the comfort of his cosy corner, Mallery smiled broadly at a slim young nurse who hovered there, wondering whether he might be better to start afresh than to hang on for Vanessa and her constant manipulative games. Still, the very thought of her had Max checking his phone again, just in case he’d missed another message, but there was nothing to see.
Jack nudged Luc in the ribs and rubbed his hands together. “Your turn.”
“Okay,” the computer whizz chuckled. “Would you rather sleep with the country singer... erm, Dolly Parton, or with Tina Turner?”
“What? You must be joking, they’re both as old as the hills!”
Luc reached into his jacket and took out a pocketbook and pencil.
“What are you doing now?”
Luc licked the tip of his pencil dramatically. “As old as the hills.” He punctuated each word as he scribbled. “I’m making a note of all your strange sayings, the ones that make absolutely no sense.”
Hobbs tipped back his head and laughed loudly. “You’re as daft as a bat, Luc.”
“And there’s another one,” Luc sighed. “Touché.”
The clock on the dashboard showed that it was close to three hours since they’d witnessed the minivan drive away from Saint Augustin’s and not a single other vehicle had driven down the quiet lane since.
“You know, I was thinking,” Jack said seriously, watching Luc put his notebook away, “if the monks were heading for the hospital, wouldn’t they have gone the other way?”
Luc rubbed his chin for a second, weighing up the suggestion in his mind. “Yes, you’re right. It would have been much quicker to go through Saint Margaux and join the highway. The lanes are narrow and they would have to drive slowly.”
“So, are there any other churches on this road? After Salbec, I mean?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a church in Riberon. It’s about three miles out of Salbec, on the road heading back into Bordeaux.”
The two detectives looked at one another, obviously thinking the same thing.
“Heck,” Jack gasped, “naybe that’s where they went.”
“Too late now,” Luc told him. “Look, there’s the monk’s van turning back up the drive.”
Hobbs raised the binoculars up to his eyes but was unable to see anything, due to the thick hedge which created a natural boundary between them and the monastery. Neither could he see the two robed figures alighting, their muddy boots thick with freshly dug earth.
“Merde,” the larger of the two monks grumbled, as he heaved the tools out of the back of the van and headed for the back porch to put on his sandals.
Brother Ernest said nothing. He was exhausted, having done the majority of the digging whilst his mentor stood looking down greedily at the excavation. If truth be told, he was beginning to wonder whether the gold actually existed, or if it was a figment of the elder Brother’s imagination. Still, he had seen a portion of a map which supposedly marked the spot, although the other half was missing and most likely contained some vital clues.
The two men had squabbled on the return journey from Riberon. The younger man was beginning to lose interest in the quest for buried treasure. When he’d suggested that the elder find someone else to do his dirty work, there had been an outpouring of anger that Ernest had never encountered before in his six short years at Saint Augustin’s.
For the older man’s part, he was considering that Brother Ernest might fall ill should he refuse to toe the line. Just as Noel Van Beek had.
Gabriella rubbed her gloved fingers together and then pressed the illuminated dial on her trendy sports watch. “Il est trois heures.”
Thierry moved from his position at the crack in the crypt door and shivered, both from an eerie feeling of being in such close proximity to dead bodies, and from the relentless icy winds. “Allons téléphoner Mallery.”
The blonde agreed, stretching both legs as she moved from her cramped position in the dusty passage, disturbing ancient cobwebs with every motion and causing particles of soot to shift under her weight.
Careful to continue their vigil, the detectives walked as quietly as possible back to the warmth of the Mini, noting the vacant churchyard and silent graves. Salbec lay silent, too, the villagers tucked up in the comfort of their homes, just the odd tomcat roaming the street in search of a mate.
Mallery locked his phone screen and picked up the paperback before taking a last peek at Abbot Arnaud. No change, all quiet. There was a giggle behind him as two female nurses appraised the inspect
or’s trim figure. Max obligingly turned around and tilted his head to one side, giving a little masculine shrug of the shoulders as he said his goodbyes.
“Merci, mesdames, je pars maintenant.”
Max could have sworn he heard a groan of disappointment as he walked away from the nurses’ station, both pairs of eyes following him down the stark white corridor, but he kept his stride even as he headed for the car park.
The detectives had agreed to reconvene at police headquarters within the hour. It seemed pointless having all four of them sitting out in the dark when nothing noteworthy was happening but, in light of their sudden bright idea, he’d told Jack and Luc to drive back into town via Riberon, just in case.
This murder investigation was frustrating Mallery to breaking point. They had four suspects, three of whom were over retirement age and the other, Brother Alberon, looked as though he was the patron saint of health and wellbeing. The inspector knew that he shouldn’t always listen to his basic instincts, but there was something that told him to keep a close eye on the monastery and he just couldn’t shift it.
With a shrill beep, the red BMW unlocked its doors and Mallery settled himself inside, ready for the short drive back to police headquarters and Max’s state-of-the-art coffee machine.
Pulling up outside a small, box-shaped church in the village of Riberon, Jack and Luc scanned the area for signs of activity. Nothing. They then clambered out of the Ford Mondeo and headed through a lych gate and into the graveyard. The church was nothing as grand as those in Saint Margaux and Salbec, instead appearing as though it was built as an afterthought to accommodate the needs of the locals. A very square building, the turrets lacked the usual adornments of its era and instead gave an overall image of a house with a cross attached, the small tower having been added years later, in an attempt to give a little grandeur.
“These places scare me,” Luc confessed, “especially at night. You never know what you might see. Do you believe in ghosts, Jack?”
Jack shone a torch across the grassed area and swallowed hard. “I’m not sure really, can’t say I’ve ever seen owt.”
He paused, switching to the brightest beam. “Well, for a start, I think we’ve found two more opened graves. Look over there.”
Sure enough, set back against the far side wall, three holes stood exposed.
Luc reluctantly followed his colleague and peered down into the depths.
“Oh, dear God! They’ve opened up the box and there’s a…”
“Yes, the coffin’s been broken into. Same as those at Salbec,” Jack said, surveying the ground around their feet. “There are the same boot prints as before, too. Looks like Mallery might have been right about the monks, after all, except we got the wrong location.”
“He’s not going to be happy,” Luc tutted, folding his arms for warmth.
“Neither is Father Pierre,” Hobbs stated as they turned to leave, pointing the light at a decorative wooden sign listing services. “It looks as though he’s responsible for this church as well. God help the duty officer in the morning.”
“It’s so cold out there,” Gabriella exclaimed in French, as she ran into the incident room and pressed her body up against the lone radiator. “I don’t think I’ll ever get warm again. At least one of us was indoors tonight.”
The blonde detective turned her eyes upon her boss who, having arrived first, was distributing hot drinks and bars of chocolate from the vending machine. Mallery looked relatively unruffled compared to the other two detectives, but he was unfazed by the woman’s sarcasm.
“What can I say?” He smiled innocently. “Somebody had to watch over the abbot. It was a tough job with all those hot-blooded nurses.”
“Well, next time I volunteer to do it,” she growled. “The doctors are cute.”
“Look, warm yourself up,” Max told her, “and let’s get this whiteboard up-to-date before Jacques and Luc arrive. We still have nothing concrete.”
It was only another half hour before the final two members of the team arrived, leaving traces of mud on the shiny police station floor as they entered.
“Get those off,” Max told the men sternly, gesturing to their feet. “What is it?”
“Sorry, sir, we found two more graves that had been opened,” Jack explained, stooping to untie his walking boots. “Over at Riberon, just as we suspected.”
Luc slipped off his trainers and went immediately to his desk, clicking the keyboard as though he were tuning a piano. “Let me just check…”
“What is it, Luc?” Mallery came to stand behind the computer geek and the others followed.
“Here.” Luc showed them, pulling up a photo on the screen. “This is one of the monks that was in the van. He was driving. It’s Brother Ernest.”
A young man in his twenties stared back at them, his hair shaved to an inch-length on his head, shoulders drooping in a sullen posture.
“You’re sure?” Max pressed, putting a firm hand on Luc’s shoulder.
“Yes, definitely. When we were conducting interviews at the monastery, I added photos of every man into the system, together with their profiles and statements. I remember this guy as he’s got really unusual eyes.”
Four faces stared more closely at the picture. Brother Ernest did indeed have the most significant eyes, as one was blue and the other brown.
“Well done, Luc.” Hobbs smiled widely. “What a brilliant memory.”
“Let’s add his name to our suspect list now, then,” Max exclaimed, dashing over to the board. “Two of them are obviously working together.”
He wrote the word MAP in capital letters and circled it twice with the black pen. “And I think that this is what we need to find.”
Everyone agreed, yet Mallery had made it sound so simple. They neither knew where to find it or where it would lead.
“Right, go home, get some sleep. I don’t want to see any of you until mid-day, is that clear?” Max shouted, over the clatter of mugs and squeaking chairs.
“I thought you’d want us to get back out to the monastery to check the van and question Brother Ernest,” Jack queried, reaching under his desk to pull out a pair of clean shoes and stuff the dirty boots into a carrier bag.
“I think we should wait,” the inspector mused. “We need to find out who was with him and what they’re expecting to find in the graves. If we wait until this afternoon to pull the young monk in, we might catch him off-guard.”
The four detectives nodded, everyone exhausted from their night of continual surveillance but slightly appeased by the hot coffee and sugary snacks.
“You get some sleep, too,” Gabriella told her boss, as she headed for the door. “You can’t survive on coffee alone. What would those nurses think?”
Jack Hobbs let himself into the period apartment, dropping the plastic bag of dirty boots in the hallway as he closed the front door. He’d never heard the place so quiet and, despite the odd hour of his return, there was something strange about coming home to an empty nest. On the other hand, he was glad not to have to disturb Angélique and Thomas with his unsociable working hours and looked forward to five or six hours of uninterrupted snoozing.
The Yorkshireman slipped into the bathroom and turned the shower on full, before stripping off his clothes and letting the hot water soothe his aching joints. It still bugged Jack that they hadn’t been able to identify the monk in the passenger’s seat of the vehicle, but with any luck Brother Ernest would soon confess to his late-night gallivanting and turn in his partner in crime, too. Still, they might be able to prove that the two monks had been up to no good in the graveyards, but there was little to connect them to Noel Van Beek’s murder, except for Mallery’s hunch. There was a lot more work needed yet, the redhead conceded, and he intended to start joining the dots just as soon as he’d rested.
Ten minutes later, still wrapped in a fleecy dressing-gown, a half-drunk cup of Yorkshire tea on the bedside table, Jack Hobbs lay snoring on his marital bed, images of grave-digg
ing monks and creamy white skeletons filling his dreams.
Max Mallery placed his phone on the kitchen work surface and closed the door. He didn’t care if Vanessa called and anything work-related would come through to his land-line in the bedroom after getting no response from his mobile. He’d left a note for Commissioner Ozanne, explaining that there would be an update on the murder case just as soon as he and the team were back on duty. The only fact that niggled at him about that statement was that there was actually very little to report. They might be able to solve the case of the grave robbers, but nothing connected those crimes to the brutal murder of the Dutchman, yet.
The inspector hung his head out of the apartment window, smoking a final cigarette before turning in. The vast sprawl of Bordeaux beneath him was just starting to awaken, with streetlights switching off and cars taking to the roads. Max inhaled deeply and turned his gaze towards the area where he knew the Grand Hotel was located. He imagined Annalise Van Beek sleeping fitfully in her plush suite, tossing and turning as she swallowed the grief of her beloved grandson losing his life. Although, there was something else, too. Both Max and Gabriella had felt it; a secret, or at least a significant factor that the woman was refusing to tell them. Was it about the missing map? That’s how Mallery had initially connected the incidents of the open graves to the Bible that Noel Van Beek had been carrying. Yes, he concluded, throwing the cigarette stub over the balcony railing, Annalise must hold the key to the importance of that map.
Max closed the window and rolled into bed, inhaling Vanessa’s perfume on the pillow opposite. He was glad that the cleaning lady would be changing the bedsheets the following afternoon, as every movement caused a wave of iris and bergamot to fill his nostrils and it wasn’t the best way to try to forget his lover.
Noel Page 17