Missing Dad 3

by J Ryan

  ‘What else could it be? The bowl was hidden behind the picture. She didn’t want just anyone to find it.’

  She whispers, ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘This.’ Carefully, I put everything back in the bowl the way it was. Then I swing the picture slowly back against the wall. It won’t quite close. I give it a firmer shove. No deal. ‘God, it’s got to close or we’ll blow everything!’

  ‘How did you open it?’

  ‘Of course.’ I touch the centre of the laurel wreath, still pushing at the picture. There’s that quiet click again and Napoleon looks sternly down at us. ‘Looks like Talia’s mother is just who we think she is.’

  Becks says in a dull voice, ‘I suppose there’s the same little prezzies tucked away in my room, somewhere.’ I look at her pale face. She’d been really enjoying our first ever trip to Paris. And now the worms are starting to come out of the can.

  ***

  As we tiptoe down the stairs, Becks whispers, ‘It’s so quiet. Where are all the other guests?’

  ‘They probably won’t turn up till this evening.’

  ‘So why did she want us here so early?’

  ‘To make sure we’d turn up? I bet Freddie’s telling her now.’

  ‘Do you think Arnaud’s here yet? Should we go look for him?’

  ‘Let’s eat first. I’m so hungry my brain’s not working.’ We reach the gloom of the hall below. A thin ray of sunshine peeps through the open door from the street outside.

  ‘I’ve forgotten my bag.’ As Becks starts to turn back, there’s a faint, swishing sound on the landing above us.

  ‘Let’s go, Becks!’

  ‘Ah, my dear young friends. How lovely to see you again.’ The husky voice comes from above our heads. It’s soft and caressing, like a rider approaching a nervous horse. We retreat backwards towards the door. Grey, high-heeled shoes appear on the stairs, then the folds of a grey silk dress. The Pashmina shawl is glittering black. The eyes are the same cold blue that we saw on the plane and in that coded email she sent to Monsieur, sixteen years ago. My nostrils fill with the sickly scent as the Contessa Palestrina floats towards us through the shadowy hall. Her face looks like a mask, with the blonde hair pulled back as tightly as ever. She smiles but her eyes don’t change. ‘Talia has told me all about you. What a coincidence that we’ve met before.’

  For a horrible moment, I think she’s going to peck at my cheek in the French style, but she holds out her hand. It glitters with diamonds. On her little finger, the gold signet ring gleams dully. I daren’t not take her hand. It’s cold and bony.

  ‘I am so very grateful to you both for helping Talia to settle into her new school.’

  ‘We didn’t do much. She’s good at making friends.’ I don’t add, ‘And losing them, as well.’

  Becks mumbles, ‘Thanks for the tickets.’

  ‘The least I could do, my dear. We couldn’t let a triviality keep you from Talia’s party, could we? Now, can I order some food for you? You must be hungry after your journey.’

  I shudder at the thought. ‘We were just going out, thanks.’

  ‘Would you like James to drive you?’

  ‘It’s OK, really. A walk would be good.’

  ‘As you wish. I’ll tell Talia that you’ve arrived.’ The heavy scent hangs in the air as she disappears through a door behind the reception desk. Wordlessly, Becks and I slip outside into the open air. It’s hard not to break into a flat out run.

  ***

  ‘Do you think she knows we found that cupboard?’

  ‘Only if she’s got the room wired for sound.’ I remember the Bentley, with its tiny cameras and mikes.

  ‘So she could know, couldn’t she?’

  ‘It’s no good worrying about it. We’ll just turn into nervous wrecks.’

  ‘I AM a nervous wreck!’

  At the end of the street, a small brasserie has tables and chairs outside. A few people are taking an early lunch. The sun barely reaches the tables in this tall, narrow street. But the smell of beef in wine makes my mouth water. ‘How about here, Becks?’

  She shivers. ‘Let’s get further away from that place. Why don’t we get the Metro and find Freddie’s ‘fab little bistro’ by the Catacombs?’ As we leave the street called La Boucherie, the brooding hulk of Notre Dame fills the sky.

  ‘That M sign, over there?’

  The Paris Metro’s not a bit like the London Tube with its cramped, jostling escalators. The steps are wide and clean and it doesn’t smell down here. It’s quiet, too. We stand in front of the ticket machine. ‘Hey, this is cool. I think I can actually work out what kind of tickets we need.’

  ‘You’ve got way better since last night, then. I had to do all the work on the Tube.’

  ‘Leave it to your expert French guide, Becks.’

  ‘Just get on with it, Napoleon!’

  Tickets in hand, we wait on the platform. I look up at the digital display. ‘I don’t believe it. There’s a train in this direction every three minutes!’

  ‘When’s the next one?’

  ‘One minute.’

  ‘And, what is our direction?’

  ‘The Catacombs are in Place Denfert-Rochereau.’

  Becks walks over to a map of the Metro. ‘It’s way more logical than the Tube.’

  The rails start to hiss. Then the train glides quietly into the station. I stare. ‘Catch this, Becks. It’s on rubber tyres!’

  ‘How do they do that?’

  ‘Dunno. I thought you had to have, like, iron wheels to run on iron rails.’

  As we get on, a female French voice over the tannoy warns everyone that the doors are closing. A girl who looks like an art student gets on with us and sits at the other end of the carriage. Becks and I flick cautious looks at her outfit. She has huge army boots, black tights and a kind of knee-length tunic, with a massive, studded leather belt round her hips. Her hair is black, with one broad white stripe over her right ear. And she has absolutely no makeup. Her skin looks grey. I whisper to Becks, ‘The Next Big Thing in rural Gloucestershire?’

  ‘Don’t stare. She probably thinks we look weird.’

  Hardly anyone else gets on before we arrive at Denfert-Rochereau. We climb wearily up more immaculate steps and emerge into a wide street, flanked by old, six-storey buildings. Ahead of us is a kind of square that’s also a roundabout. In the middle, there’s a pedestal with a huge statue of a lion. He’s raising himself up, like he’s waking and just about to roar. I look around. The only sign I can see says, ‘Les Catacombes.’ And just across the street, there’s our restaurant. ‘Come on, Becks. This is our stop.’

  ‘A bit posh, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t care. We’re gonna eat!’

  Two businessmen are sat at one of the tables outside, skilfully dissecting plate loads of lobster. A couple with three unnaturally quiet children look solemnly at the menu. Nervously, we enter the restaurant. A waiter approaches, as we hover at the door. ‘Monsieur, Mademoiselle. Vous désirez?’

  ‘Une table à deux, s’il vous plait.’

  ‘En dehors, Monsieur?’

  ‘Oui.’ I choose the table behind the family.

  ‘Why outside, Joe?’

  ‘We can get a better view.’

  ‘What of?’

  ‘The lion, maybe. Or whatever else.’

  ‘Why? Do you think we were followed?’

  ‘Just what DIW would call ‘a sensible precaution’.’ The waiter nods approvingly as I order Boeuf Bourguignon for two. Twenty minutes later, my stomach also approves.

  Becks wipes her bread round her plate to soak up the last drops of fragrant gravy. ‘D’you think it’s worth trying to call Monsieur again? We might get through, now we’re in France.’

  I p
unch in the number. ‘I’ve got his voicemail, Becks!’

  ‘I regret that I am not available. If it is urgent, please leave a brief message.’

  ‘Monsieur, it’s Joe and Becks. We’ve got to talk to you. There’s this woman…’ The signal crackles and dies. ‘Damn!’

  ‘Try again!’ Nothing, this time. Becks says quietly, ‘I hope Arnaud doesn’t arrive before we get back.’

  ‘You’re right. We better go.’ I look around for the waiter. He’s nowhere in sight. ‘I’ll pay inside.’ When I get back to our table, Becks’ chair is empty. My heart does a somersault. I stare around. Then I see her on the pavement. She’s gazing down the street. The two businessmen have finished their lobster. They sip their cognacs, watching her with sideways glances. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The white Merc. It just went past. And she was in the driving seat.’

  ‘Which way did it go?’

  ‘It’s stopped – look. On the other side of the square with the lion.’ Keeping close to buildings and flitting quickly across the road, we edge towards the Merc. It’s empty, parked outside a green metal one-storey building. Next to the entrance door, a sign displays opening times. A few yards down from the entrance, a far older stone doorway is sealed off with concrete barriers.

  ‘Is it some kind of museum?’ Becks carefully approaches the entrance door.

  I stop, staring at that old doorway; and at the words carved into the stone at the top: ‘Arrête! C’est ici l’Empire de la Mort.’ Becks is looking at the sign outside. ‘The Catacombs. Looks like it’s an underground graveyard.’

  I try to joke away the cold fingers stroking my neck. ‘The Empire of Death? Sounds like a two-star computer game.’

  ‘What do we do, then? Go back in case Arnaud’s arrived, or…?’

  ‘Check out our hostess’s unhealthy interest in death?’ Even as the flip words leave my mouth, I wish we’d gone for Becks’ option.

  Chapter 8

  Empire of the Dead

  The entrance is deserted as we hand over our euros and begin our descent into the underworld. The wide stairs soon become a narrow spiral. After a few minutes, my head’s swimming as we go endlessly round and round and down and down. The air’s getting colder. The silence roars in my ears and icy fingers crawl all over my neck. Suddenly my foot slips and I grab the rail.

  ‘You alright, Joe?’

  ‘These stairs…’

  ‘I don’t like them, either.’

  The further down we go, the more it feels like some kind of force is tugging at me, trying to make me fall headfirst all the way down. My hand shakes as I grip the rail, trying to stay upright.

  ‘Do you want to stop for a minute?’

  ‘Let’s just get this done.’ By the time we get to the bottom, my face is trickling with sweat despite the clammy cold. Hearing the steady drip, drip of water, we walk down a passage lit dimly by lamps that are clamped to the rocky walls. The roof is only a few feet above our heads. It reminds me of the suffocating slave tunnel below Bristol.

  ‘The sign said this used to be a huge quarry. It goes right back to Roman times. There’s a hundred and eighty five miles of tunnels.’

  A hundred and eighty five…. All I can think of is the darkness that must lie beneath every single street of this place that’s called the City of Light. Beneath her house too, with all its secrets. Ahead of us, the passage takes a sharp turn to the left. My feet slow down and the roaring’s back in my ears. Something’s waiting round that corner. I don’t want to see it. I jump as Becks touches my arm. ‘Joe, shall we go back? This place is really getting to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s this place or something inside me…I hate myself for being such a wuss!’

  ‘Wait a minute…’ Becks sniffs. ‘Can you smell something?’ We stand completely still, staring down the silent passage.

  ‘It’s her…isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s very faint but I’m sure it’s her perfume. If you could call it perfume.’ Becks turns to me. ‘Maybe you could smell it all the time but you didn’t realise. And that’s what’s spooking you?’

  ‘I guess…that could be it. Come on.’

  I force my feet to walk round that corner.

  ***

  Death has many faces. In this solid wall of bones, the rows of skulls stare out at me. The shock of it makes me dizzy. My eyes blur and I’m swaying. The skulls rise up and dance around in front of my face. I breathe hard. Keep looking and they’ll go back into the bone wall.

  Becks grabs my hand. ‘It’s only poor old bits of skeleton, Joe! They can’t hurt us.’

  I blink and all the skulls are back in the wall. That awful tugging pulls me towards them, step by leaden step. A few inches away, I make myself gaze right into the sightless eye sockets. ‘I don’t need to be afraid of you!’ But I am afraid. Because I know, one day, I’ll be like them.

  Becks says quietly, ‘The scent. It’s stronger here.’

  In a daze, I wander on with her. All the way, down passage after passage, the walls of bones go on. Hollow eyes that were faces, once. Faces that laughed and cracked jokes. Eyes that could cry. ‘How many?’

  ‘It said, six million.’

  ‘Bones?’

  ‘Dead people. In seventeen hundred and something, the graveyards had started to overflow. Disease was spreading. So they brought them all down here.’

  Death has six million faces.

  We walk on, hearing nothing but our footsteps on the rock floor. ‘I can’t smell it now.’

  ‘No. But there’s nowhere she could have turned off.’

  I look at Becks’ intent face as she impatiently pushes her hair back behind her ear. ‘You feel sorry for those bones, don’t you?’

  ‘All jumbled up like that? No memorials? Yes, I feel sorry for the people they were.’ The anger in her voice almost smothers the pounding in my ears. We come to a simple tombstone, set into the rocks. Becks shines her torch onto the engraving. ‘Still no name. Just a pious warning from this French poet that we’re all going to die.’

  ‘Well, I never knew that.’

  A few minutes later Becks comes to a stop, sniffing the stuffy air. ‘There it is again.’ On our right is a tunnel that leads off this one. There’s a rope barrier across it and a sign; ‘Défense d’entrer’. Becks unhooks the barrier, her eyes sparkling in the dim light. ‘I bet, wherever she’s going, it’s not on the tourist trail.’

  As soon as we enter the unlit tunnel, the cloying scent is unmistakeable. We grab our mobiles and switch on the torch lights. Mine is very dim. ‘Should’ve recharged. Sorry.’

  Her whisper floats back to me through the darkness. ‘Keep your voice down.’ The bones lie in heaps in this tunnel. Like, they gave up in the end on building walls out of six million skeletons. After around ten minutes, the tunnel divides into a Y. Becks walks a few yards into the one on the right then comes out. ‘Nothing here.’

  We try the left tunnel and that perfume is getting steadily stronger. Then we enter a chamber that brings us to an abrupt halt. The torch beams pick out graffiti on the rock walls. Grotesque, grinning faces leer down at us like a 2D version of the gargoyles on Notre Dame. Scattered around are burnt candles and empty wine bottles. A battered sleeping bag lies on the floor. Becks stares. ‘Looks like some kind of squat.’

  ‘Like people actually live down here?’

  ‘Maybe they hold raves. How weird is that?’ Gingerly, she picks up an apple from the sleeping bag. ‘It’s quite fresh.’

  ‘So our party people could be back tonight.’

  Becks looks thoughtfully at the sleeping bag. ‘I guess it’s impossible to police a tunnel network this huge.’

  ‘Which means our hostess could be heading for her own little place. Wherever that is.’ We walk on to the far side of the ch
amber. Three tunnels lead off it. The one with her smell in it is on the left. As it hits my nostrils again, I shudder. The further we go into this dark, silent warren, the more I want to get the hell out. The hammering’s back in my ears. The fingers on my neck are ice cold. ‘Can you remember how we got here?’

  ‘Course I can.’

  ‘What time does this place close?’

  ‘Four.’

  I look at my watch. It’s quarter to three. We’ve taken more than an hour to get this far. ‘Becks, we…’

  ‘Shhh! There’s a light up ahead. In the rocks.’ The light shines over a metal door. It’s slightly ajar. Inside, there’s a dim, blue glow. Becks turns to me. ‘D’you think she’s in there?’

  ‘I know she is.’ The fingers have grown longer. They’re small snakes, coiling round my throat. ‘We’ve seen enough, Becks. Let’s get out while we can. Remember, Arnaud’s the reason we’re here.’

  ‘We’ve got to find out what she does in there. You can be sure it isn’t knitting.’

  ‘Look, Becks…’ I don’t know how to tell her about the snakes. About why we mustn’t go through that door.

  ‘I’m going in, Joe. Before she comes out!’

  I know I can’t stop her. ‘Alright. But only if I go first.’ My neck still crawling, I peer round the door. Nothing moves in the blue shadows. We slip quickly inside.

  ***

  As we enter the underground room there’s a sudden rumble overhead, like distant thunder. It fades into silence. Switching off the torches, we look around. The sickly scent mingles with the smell of chemicals. The room reminds me of the science labs at school. Around the rock walls are bench tables with rows of tall jars. Inside the jars are different coloured liquids. They glimmer in the blue light. On the large table in the middle of the room, three Bunsen burners are lined up next to a stand holding a pipette. A small glass saucer lies below the pipette, with a puddle of clear liquid inside it. On the far side of the room, two gas cylinders stand next to another door. A beam of white light starts to flood into the room. The door is opening.