Malediction

by Sally Spedding

  ”You’ve also got the Abbott’s address, the Hostel and the Refuge, so something’s bound to turn up,” she said softly.

  Both men exchanged glances. Sedan smiled.

  “Indeed. We are moderately optimistic. And of course, Monsieur Baralet’s been most zealous on your behalf. Oh, by the way,” he fished in his back pocket and pulled out a pink envelope, still warm, moulded from his buttock. “For you. He didn’t want to send it, just in case...”

  “Oh?”

  “Fan mail.” Nelly peered over to see it.

  GET WELL COLETTE, AND WE HOPE TO SEE YOU BACK SOON.

  OUR KINDEST WISHES, GUY AND LISE BARALET.

  Colette placed it next to the withered flowers.

  “Unlike Lanvière, we took him seriously when he reported you missing, but at Eberswïhr we pride ourselves on a quick response. It’s the only way these days. Now then,” the Captain lowered his voice, “this is strictly entre nous.” He looked first at Colette then Nelly.” The Préfet’s gone to Paris today to liaise with Interpol. They’re not talking Muslim or Ultra-Orthodox, they’re talking Hakenkreuz, and closer to home than you think.”

  Colette closed her eyes.

  “Bloody Interpol are dodgy, too.” Nelly said, unimpressed.

  “Now we really are in fantasy land. I’m afraid most students still harbour these rather immature notions. It’s just not helpful, especially in your case.” Prêtre’s tone suddenly stern. “One other important thing, Colette. Your guard will be in disguise. An odd job man round the place – bit of this, bit of that, you know the sort of thing. Didier Molinari. ‘Didi.’ to you. Best if you don’t mention this to anyone. He’s trained and armed. OK?”

  “Thank you.”

  “And your car, in case you’re wondering...” Prêtre leafed through a small hide-covered notebook. “Found in the 17th, near the Square des Bagatelles. Whoever took it was obviously surprised. Looked like there was a plan to burn it.”

  “What about my son’s baby blanket? Pathetic, she knew, when there’d been others of his age who’d just died, but Prêtre coughed tactfully and made a note.

  “Not sure about that, I’m afraid, but the vehicle is salvageable. Be back tomorrow.” Sedan touched her arm solicitously. “Someone’s had it in for you in a big way, and not only you.” He looked at his superior. “Shall we tell them about the girls?”

  “What girls? Chloë? Victorine?”

  “No. These two were found near the Gare de Lyon. Quite smart, knew their rights and all that. They’re now under surveillance at the Salpêtrière. Both shot in the leg, somewhere, somehow. Both expertly bandaged up.”

  Nelly looked at Colette, her eyes widening as Sedan continued.

  “One of the nurses got suspicious about their phone calls and managed to listen in. False IDs for a start. Romy Kirchner and Claude Lefêbvre whose real names are Christine Souchier and Antoinette Ruffiac. Do any of these mean anything?”

  And that was the sluice gate opening on the current of loss and pain that Colette and Nelly allowed to run, to fill the small apartment of faded flowers and a stranger’s evil seed, until they could speak no more. Just as they finished, with Nelly holding Colette’s hand like some precious object of devotion, the telephone rang. Sedan picked it up. He set Record, unsure what to expect.

  “Madame Bataille? Sure. Hold on.” He set the tape and winked at his companion as Nelly turned down the TV. Then he passed the receiver to Colette for the priest’s three hurried words.

  “I love you.”

  Then silence.

  “Where the Hell did that come from?” Sedan asked, seeing Colette white and hard, her lips pursed in silence.

  “Better ask Madame.”

  After all, she’s the best bait we’ve got.

  LII

  At four o’clock precisely, with Vidal’s message still haunting her, Colette unlocked the door of her apartment to Doctor Didier Blanco. Of similar age to Guy Baralet, but unlike her former boss, any remnant of youthful good looks had been subsumed into recent widowhood and a medical practice swelled by the malaise of unemployment and asylum seekers from Algeria and the east. Crumbs had also lodged in both wings of his moustache.

  Although he’d not seen Colette for two years since her last ‘frottis,’ the native of Norvillers couldn’t disguise his shock at her appearance.

  “Madame Bataille, do we have somewhere private?” He cast around, keeping himself busy putting his case and file on the table. Anything rather than focus on the woman who’d always lent a certain style to the streets of Lanvière.

  “Yes, my bedroom, there. The door next to Bertrand’s.”

  Nelly had tactfully debunked to the boxroom sorting out her few things.

  “Fine. My nurse will be along in a minute.”

  “Nurse? Oh God, no…”

  His weak brown eyes widened in surprise. “Madame, I’m not permitted to carry out any, how shall I say, an intimate examination without her. Even as your humble family doctor, I do have regulations.”

  “Nelly, my friend’s here. Won’t she do?” Colette stared and he wished then he’d simply come to take her pulse.

  “I’m afraid not. Ideally after your ordeal you should have gone straight to hospital, but your situation is to say the least, unusual.”

  Thank you for telling me that, Doctor. You can now add perception to your list of attributes.

  “The sooner we start, the sooner we finish. Are you eating normally, by the way?” he asked, extracting her medical card as the doorbell rang again.

  “Yes,” she lied.

  Because every day’s a death day until he’s home.

  “Bowels?”

  “Good.” Another lie.

  “Ah, here she is. Sister Patrice.”

  “Sister? No. No way.”

  “Please, Madame Bataille, I can do nothing without her. She’s the best agency nurse I’ve got.”

  Colette reluctantly let in a slender young woman in a white overall who smiled as though she was a long lost friend. Not a single golden blonde hair strayed from her neat chignon and, as Colette studied her badge, the infirmière Patrice Sassoule slipped her long fingers into a pair of surgical gloves and followed the Doctor into the bedroom.

  After weighing and blood pressure, the nurse spread out a paper sheet on the bedspread.

  “Be so good as to step out of your things and lie down. Just some basic procedures to go through, nothing you’ve not already had before...” He peered through a gap in the curtain as his patient prepared herself, keeping a wary eye on the young nurse.

  She lay back in the room that she and Bertrand had decorated in vert anis and pink. He’d sneered, saying it was just like the Ibis he’d stayed in for the Futuroscope trip, but to her it represented a calm sanctum at the end of a working day, and more so with its print of the ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ facing the bed.

  Now she wanted to tear it down. Mary and her infant like everything else, no longer any comfort.

  “Blood pressure, normal. Excellent.” Then Dr Blanco paused. He’d started examining her arms, his hands surprisingly cool and light. He looked closer, moving his glasses up his nose. his moustache touching her skin. She stiffened then bent her elbows protectively over each basilic vein as he frowned.

  “They gave me Natolyn. At least four shots, maybe more. Bastards.”

  “Natolyn, eh?” he nodded to his nurse. ”What makes you so sure?”

  “I saw the box. I should know.”

  “Indeed. I’d not forgotten. You work for Medex.”

  “Used to.”

  ”Well, whoever did this was obviously experienced. A very neat job, I’d say.”

  “A neat job?” Colette reared up. “They were trying to bloody kill me!”

  The nurse eased her back down on to the paper, her beatific smile still shaping her face, her teeth large and even as she tightened a band on the upper arm.

  “Right. Let’s see what else we can glean. Just a little prick now.”
/>   “Thank you Madame. Just relax for a moment.” Doctor Blanco then leant over to let his fingers lift the edge of her slip and travel her ribs and abdomen. Below her navel he stopped, before backtracking to the right and the left. It felt to Colette like the sign of the Cross, but too deliberate, fearful almost.

  “When is your next period due?”

  “Next week. Why? Is anything wrong?” She tried to glimpse his face beyond the nurse.

  “Er...no, Madame. Everything seems en bonne forme.”

  But Hélas, I cannot tell her, the way things are at present...

  For his hands had told a different story.

  “You’re not telling me the truth, are you, Doctor Blanco? What’s the matter?”

  ”My dear Madame Bataille, if you’d forgive me, but I did this very same thing twenty four years ago. I remember you came to me in great distress believing you were pregnant. That it was some kind of punishment for being unmarried.”

  “What the Hell’s that got to with now?” she shouted. “Anyhow, it’s none of her business!” Colette glared at the nurse who instantly blushed.

  “Madame, Sister Sassoule works with me, and is therefore entrusted with my patients’ confidences. Some people are quite relieved and more eager to talk when there’s a woman present. Now we’re just going to take a smear to reassure ourselves.” He coughed discreetly. “Please just let your knees fall apart.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, having promised to send her the results with a hospital appointment if necessary, and refusing any refreshment, the Doctor and his nurse left the apartment. He let the young woman go on ahead while he rested his notepad on a balcony edge to record details still fresh in his mind. His pen was slippery with perspiration, his words wayward on the page.

  Nothing in writing for her at the moment. Poor woman. I fear cauterization of the fallopians has been expertly done. Keyhole, through the abdomen, and not a mark to be seen. It’s obvious these Sisters of Suffering are not only adept in matters of the soul. But why?

  Then he wrote POLICE in block capitals, and was so anxious to reach his car phone as quickly as possible, he didn’t notice the attractive and efficient Patrice Sassoule had disappeared.

  LIII

  If Cacheux had been fit enough to drive, it would have been the Xantia not the Laguna reaching the hamlet of St. Julien at twenty past four in the morning. No longer white but two-tone black and grey from the journey, it suddenly stalled outside the garage of Leclerc et Fils. One pump, a defunct jet wash, and total silence.

  Inside the sweating car, the latest news bulletin on the Bateau-Mouche bombing ended and Duvivier pulled his hat down over his ears before slinking low in the passenger seat as Plagnol’s foot pumped the gas.

  To no avail.

  “Fuck this thing.” Cacheux signed a cross on his own forehead then tried his door handle. The shit from the tunnel had made him a leper even to himself. The stuff was in his nails, up his nose. Everywhere, and his head was making him dizzy.

  “No you don’t!” Vidal held him fast, and like a first-date lover, Cacheux made no effort to free himself.

  “We can walk from here,” he said. “Two kilometres, that’s all.”

  Duvivier turned round, keeping his lips together. “My friend, this may be your cherished abode, but my first impressions are unfortunate. This is at best un trou aux rats.”

  Cacheux began to protest.

  “What should we have done, then? Drancy?” Vidal countered. “And had The Pigface’s skinny maman peck all over us?” He was pleased to see Plagnol’s neck redden. “Move!”

  The carburettor whimpered the first of several false promises.

  “We’re getting somewhere.” The Pigface’s thigh pumping up and down as though on a leg toner in the gym, not coaxing a top-of-the-range saloon.

  “Good oh.” Vidal stared gloomily out of the window at the one-horse place with Dégustation lit by a single flickering bulb. The rest, scrubland and vineyards flattened by the recent storms, lay in semi-darkness as far as the eye could see. Easy pickings for the wild boar before the start of La Chasse. Not for much else.

  “You’ll have to push.” Plagnol breathless.

  “Your penance for taking a pot shot at me,” said Cacheux.

  “For God’s sake. It wasn’t me.”

  “Could have ruined everything,” snapped Duvivier, nevertheless thinking thoughts he shouldn’t. Thinking black Celica…

  Vidal didn’t believe The Pigface, but it was too late now to go looking for the bullet. He scanned the desolate scene for other signs of life but there was no-one else around, just a light dry wind off the sea and the smell of soil, as the Renault finally spluttered into life and took off down the street.

  “Run!” Vidal yelled, and eight weary legs chased the tail lights past the few shuttered houses and a stone trough with its dripping tap. Deserted, like an open grave, Vidal thought, getting in last.

  “Told you to lose this damned thing all along,” Duvivier snapped again. “It’s too bloody visible.”

  “Won’t matter where we’re going.” Cacheux gripped Plagnol’s seat in front and saw close up the driver’s hair shine with neglect. “Now, next left.”

  The road suddenly narrowed to a track and tarmac became stones as it climbed nearer the lightening sky. Réserve de Chasse signs stood on either side, and by the first gateway, a placard with the faded letters, Domaine de Fourcat. Its vines crushed by a recent storm.

  “In here.” Cacheux craned forwards in readiness for his lie. “Like I said, the genitori aren’t in residence. Feel free.”

  “Dream on.” Mathieu murmured, trying to distance himself from the one he despised most. Vidal was too close, his presence stifling. No more ‘Bijou.’ No more even meeting him a quarter of the way for a conversation. He had finished with it all.

  Duvivier, showing the inconsistencies of power, continued to ignore him, his hidden eyes roaming from one window to the next.

  “Château de Fourcat, king of the Corbières.” Cacheux announced, the sole inheritor of three hundred hectares of the grenache grape and a trout farm beyond the garden. “Romans, Saxons, Moors, it’s seen the bloody lot.”

  “Don’t tell me, no Jews?”

  “Not bloody likely.”

  “OK, spare us the history, Father,” said Vidal. “More importantly, where do we kip?”

  “Outside somewhere. I don’t trust the place,” Duvivier had decided.

  The car shuddered round to the back of the chȃteau where a mountain of old vine roots writhed in the labouring light. Plagnol yawned like a hippopotamus and parked under the furthest lean-to, covered by fig trees.

  “Take your gear, your bags. Everybody out.” Cacheux was aping Vidal’s more authoritative tone. “Remember we’re paysans. Vineyard workers from Maisons, just tidying up for Monsieur Cacheux senior. Émile’s his name in case you’re asked. My maman’s called Sophie.”

  Vidal let the native show the way, crouching against the dark spur of land.

  The sound of a faraway dog heightened the tension as nose to tail they crept over the slipping stones until an opening led down to a small cabane overrun with weeds. Its tiles lay in chaos, and inside reeked of dung, so they used its northerly wall as a windbreak and fell in a heap of exhaustion amongst the fescues and yellow rattle.

  The vast tie-and-dye sky grew lighter with every second, rendering the night shift and the land they’d commandeered as one. Cacheux’s mobile suddenly delivered a polyphony of voices.

  “Abort.” Duvivier rolled his bulk to face the heavens. It was probably meant for him, but he wasn’t in the mood. “Sleep. Four hours minimum, thanks to the fucking truckers lording it over their compatriots. And then, mes amis, the icing on the cake, we move Heaven and earth to find the tart.”

  Such disobedience was therapeutic and a snore soon germinated in his throat.

  “Should have given Limoges a wide berth.” Vidal tried to deny the lurch in his stomach. “But as ever, I
’m a lone voice.” He placed his worker’s hat over his face, not just to exclude the beginnings of day but more important now, to wonder in secret why Colette wasn’t answering. Not even giving him the chance to warn her. But unlike his contribution for the Feast for the Guardian Angels, he wasn’t going to let her drift away. It was bad enough missing the sweet innocent irony of his twelve trebles reaching the highest gilded star as Roquette IV had fouled the Seine. And worse that their God hadn’t been given the chance to hear Pérotin’s clausulas above the cries of his Jews. Toussirot had put paid to all that, and now no-one was going to stand in his way.

  The choirmaster listened hard. Heard the sleeping breaths then checked his watch, a neon disc in Plagnol’s shadow. Three hours fifty-one minutes to go, and from beneath his hat rim, one lizard eye saw the Breton keeping his distance, trying to stay awake. Vidal missed nothing as Dominique Mathieu changed from one elbow to the other as if rehearsing how best to stand. Never mind they’d all be back with their parishes until the Presentation of The Virgin, researching their third target in Alsace – this man was restless.

  All at once, without warning, Mathieu drew out his Samsung. The flash of new film seized on the crumpled bodies, the startled eyes, once, twice, three times, and before Vidal could wrench his leg from under Plagnol’s weight, the newly-fit priest from Perros Guirec was gone.

  LIV

  06.04 hours on the Feast of Gedaliah, and a call from Déchaux competing with a rush of late swallows heading east. With a shaking hand, Duvivier groped for his phone. The Judas from Perros Guirec was his problem and his alone, and he wasn’t going to share it.

  “Melon, my friend. Some news.” The général got in first, his communications technology making Reims seem as if it was the next vineyard.

  The Provençal crept away from the others who’d returned too easily to sleep, and the way their faces caught the first sun, reminded him of his mistake at father’s funeral. He too had let its rays kiss his cheek. Wrong place, wrong time, marked out as the next to die, and the fright of it altered his voice.