‘Oh Christ.’
Alexi levered himself up in his seat. ‘What did he do to you?’ His voice was shaking.
Yola shook her head. ‘He did nothing. He didn’t have to. His threats were enough to get him everything he wanted.’
Alexi closed his eyes. He snorted. His jaw began to work behind his tightly pursed mouth as if he were conducting an angry internal dialogue with himself.
‘Did you see him, Yola? Did you see his face?’
‘No. He was on top of me. From the back. He had my arms pinned down with his knees. I couldn’t turn my head.’
‘You were right to tell him. He’s mad. He would have killed you.’ Sabir turned back to the steering wheel. He slipped the car into drive and began accelerating wildly up the road.
Alexi opened his eyes. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What am I doing? I’ll tell you what I’m doing. We know where the bastard’s going now, thanks to Yola. So I’m going to get to Rocamadour ahead of him. And then I’m going to kill him.’
‘Are you crazy, Adam?’
‘I’m Yola’s phral, aren’t I? You all told me I had to protect her.? To take revenge for Babel’s death.? Well now I’m going to do it.’
40
Achor Bale watched the blip diminish and then finally disappear off the edge of his screen. He leaned forward and switched off the tracking device. It had been a very satisfactory day’s work, when all was said and done. He had taken the initiative and it had paid off handsomely. It was a good lesson. Never leave the enemy to his own devices. Irritate him. Force him into sudden decisions that are open to error. That way you will achieve your end satisfyingly and with commendable speed.
He checked the map on the seat next to him. It would take him a good three hours to get to Rocamadour. Best to leave it until the crypt was shut and the staff had gone to their dinner. No one would expect a break-in at the Sanctuary – that would be an absurd idea. Perhaps he should crawl up the steps on his knees, like England’s King Henry II – a descendant, or so they said, of Satan’s daughter Melusine – after the priests had persuaded him to do reluctant penance for the murder of Thomas a Becket and for his dead son’s sacrilegious plundering of the shrine? Ask for dispensation. Secure himself a nihil obstat.
Mind you, he hadn’t actually killed anybody recently. Unless the girl had drowned, of course. Or the woman in the car had asphyxiated herself. Her husband had definitely still been twitching, when last he looked and Samana had been indisputably responsible for his own death.
All in all, then, Bale’s conscience was clear. He could steal the Black Virgin with impunity.
41
‘We’ve found them again. They’re heading towards Limoges.’
‘Excellent. Tell the pinheads to give us a new reading every half an hour – that way we’ll have a chance to make up for lost time and get them back on our screen.’
‘Where do you think they’re going, Sir?’
‘To the seaside?’
Macron didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He was becoming more and more convinced that he was teamed up with an unregenerate madman – someone who bent all the rules on principle, simply to suit his own agenda. The two of them should have been back in Paris by now, happily confining themselves to a 35-hour week and leaving the continued investigation of the murder to their colleagues in the south. Macron could have been working at his squash and improving on his six-pack at the police gym. Instead, they were subsisting on prepacked meals and coffee, with the occasional catnap in the back seat of the car. He could feel himself going physically downhill. It didn’t matter to Calque, of course – he was a wreck already.
‘The weekend’s approaching, Sir.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. It was just an observation.’
‘Well, confine your observations to the case in hand. You’re a public servant, Macron, not a lifeguard.’
***
Yola emerged, fully clothed, from behind the bushes.
Sabir shrugged his shoulders and made a face. ‘I’m sorry we had to undress you. Alexi was against it, but I insisted. I apologise.’
‘You did what you had to. Did Alexi see me?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Well, now he’ll know what he’s been missing.’
Sabir burst out laughing. He was astonished at how resilient Yola was being. He had half expected her to react hysterically – to lurch into a depression, or melancholia, triggered by delayed shock from the attack. But he had underestimated her. Her life had scarcely been a bed of roses up to that point and her expectations about the depths to which people would stoop in terms of their behaviour were probably a good deal more realistic than his own. ‘He’s angry. That’s why he’s gone off. I think he feels responsible for the attack on you.’
‘You must let him steal the Virgin.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Alexi. He is a good stealer. It is something he does well.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘Have you never stolen anything?’
‘Well, no. Not recently.’
‘I thought so.’ She weighed something up in her head. ‘A gypsy can steal every seven years. Something big, I mean.’
‘How did you figure that one out?’
‘Because an old gypsy woman saw Christ carrying the Cross on the way to the Calvary hill.’
‘And?’
‘And she didn’t have any idea who Christ was. But when she saw His face, she felt pity for Him and decided to steal the nails with which they were to crucify Him. She stole one, but before she could steal the second, she was caught. The soldiers took her and beat her. She cried out to the soldiers to spare her because she had stolen nothing for seven years. A disciple heard her and said, ‘Woman, you are blessed. The Saviour permits you and yours to steal once every seven years, now and forever.’ And that’s why there were only three nails at the Crucifixion. And why Jesus Christ’s feet were crossed and not spread apart, as they should have been.’
‘You don’t believe all that hokum, do you?’
‘Of course I believe it.’
‘And that’s why gypsies steal?’
‘We have the right. When Alexi steals the Black Virgin, he won’t be doing anything wrong.’
‘I’m very relieved to hear it. But what about me? What if I find the man who attacked you and kill him? Where do I stand?’
‘He has shed our family’s blood. His should be shed in turn.’
‘As simple as that?’
‘It’s never simple, Adam. To kill a man.’
42
Sabir hesitated by the car door. ‘Have either of you ever taken a driving test?’
‘A driving test? No. Of course not. But I can drive.’
‘Can you drive, Yola?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, then. We know where we are. Alexi, you take the wheel. I’ve got to map us out a different route to the shrine. Babel’s murderer obviously knows our car – he must have found it and followed us all the way from the camp. Now that he thinks he’s finally got rid of us, we don’t want to tip him off again by blundering past him in the overtaking lane, do we?’ He spread the map out in front of him. ‘Yes. It looks like we can bypass Limoges and get to Rocamadour via Tulle.’
‘This car hasn’t got proper gears.’
‘Just stick it in drive, Alexi and press on the gas pedal.’
‘Which one’s drive?’
‘The fourth one down. The letter looks like a horse stirrup, but sideways on.’
Alexi did as he was told. ‘Hey. That’s not bad. It changes gear by itself. This is better than a Mercedes.’
Sabir could feel Yola’s eyes fixed on him from the back seat. He turned towards her. ‘Are you okay? There is such a thing as delayed shock, you know. Even for tough nuts like you.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m okay.’ Then her expression clouded. ‘Adam. Do you believe in Hell?’
‘Hell?’ He made a face.
‘I suppose so.’
‘We don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘Gypsies don’t even think the Devil, O Beng, is really such a bad man. We believe that everyone will come to Paradise one day. Even him.’
‘So?’
‘I think this man is bad, Adam. Really bad. Look what he did to Babel. It’s not human to do that.’
‘So what are you telling me? That you’re changing your mind about Hell and the Devil?’
‘No. Not that. But I didn’t tell you everything he said to me. I want you and Alexi to understand exactly who you are dealing with.’
‘We’re dealing with a murdering maniac.’
‘No. He’s not that. I’ve been thinking about this. He’s cleverer than that. He knows exactly where to strike. How to damage you the most and get what he wants.’
‘I don’t get it. What are you trying to tell me?’
‘He said he would knock me out. That while I was unconscious, he would damage me inside with his knife so I could no longer have babies. No longer be a mother.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Listen, Adam. He knows about us. About gypsy ways. Perhaps he’s even part-gypsy himself. He knew that if he just attacked me and tried to hurt me, I might not have told him what he wanted to know. I might have lied. When he said what he said to me, I was so convinced that he would really do it that I wet myself. He could have done anything to me then and I wouldn’t have fought him. And with Babel. The same thing. Babel was vain. It was his main weakness. He was like a woman. He spent hours looking at himself and prettying himself before the mirror. This man marked his face. Nowhere else. Just his face. I saw him in the mortuary.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘He works on people’s weaknesses. He’s an evil man, Adam. Really evil. He doesn’t simply murder. He’s a destroyer of souls.’
‘All the more reason to rid the world of him then.’ Yola usually had an answer for everything. This time she merely turned her head towards the window and held her peace.
43
‘They don’t seem to provide tyre irons any more in cars.’ Sabir rummaged further in the rear storage compartment. ‘I can’t exactly hit him with the jack. Or the warning triangle.’
‘I’ll cut you a thornstick.’
‘A what?’
‘From a holly bush. I can see one over there. It’s the strongest wood. Even before it’s been dried. If you walk somewhere with a stick, no one will ever question you. That way, you always have a weapon.’
‘You’re a real case. You know that, Alexi?’
They were parked on the battlements above the Rocamadour shrine. Below them were gardens, set into the sheer rock of the cliffs, intersected with winding paths and viewpoints. A few tourists were strolling around in a desultory way, wasting time before dinner.
‘Look at those searchlights. We need to get in before dusk. When they turn those things on, this whole hillside will light up like a Christmas tree.’
‘Do you think we’ve beaten him to it?’
‘We’ll only know when you break into the shrine.’
Alexi sniffed. ‘But I won’t break into the shrine.’
‘What do you mean? You aren’t bottling out on me, are you?’
‘Bottling…? I don’t understand.’
‘Turning chicken.’
Alexi laughed and shook his head. ‘Adam. It’s a simple enough rule. Breaking into somewhere is very difficult – but breaking out is easy.’
‘Oh. I see.’ Sabir hesitated. ‘At least I think I do.’
‘So where will you be?’
‘I’ll hide outside, then and watch. If he comes along, I’ll whop him one with your holly stick.’ He waited for the stunned reaction, but it didn’t come. ‘No. It’s all right. I’m only joking. I haven’t gone mad.’
Alexi looked nonplussed. ‘But what will you really do?’
Sabir sighed. He realised that he was still a very long way indeed from understanding the gypsy mentality. ‘I’ll just stay hidden outside, as we agreed. That way I can warn you by wolf-whistling when I see him. When you get to the Virgin, bring her back to Yola in the car and then come down and join me again. Between the two of us we should be able to bushwhack him somewhere inside the shrine, where it’s safer and where there aren’t any people around to get in the way.’
‘You don’t think she’ll be angry with us?’
‘Who? Yola? Why?’
‘No. I mean the Virgin.’
‘Christ, Alexi. You’re not having second thoughts on me, are you?’
‘No. No. I will take it. But I will pray to her first. Ask her to forgive me.’
‘You do that. Now cut me that stick.’
44
Alexi woke up just as the evening caretaker was bolting shut the outside doors leading to the shrine. He had secreted himself, forty minutes earlier, behind the altar of the St Sauveur Basilica, which someone had conveniently covered with a long-fringed blue and white linen cloth. Then he had almost immediately fallen asleep.
For ten panic-stricken seconds he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Then he rolled himself deftly out from under the altar cloth and stood up, prior to a stretch. It was at this point that he realised that someone else was in the church with him.
He crouched back behind the altar and felt for his knife. It took him a snap five seconds to remember that he had thrown it on to the back seat of the car, after cutting Sabir’s stick. Not for the first time, Alexi found himself cursing his congenital inattention to detail.
He eased himself around the side of the altar, opening his eyes as wide as he could to gather in the last of the evening light inside the church. The stranger was hunched forward in one of the choir-stall chairs, about fifty feet from where he was crouching. Had he been asleep as well? Or was he praying?
As he watched, the man stood up and moved towards the door of the shrine – it soon became clear by the manner of his progress that he had been listening and waiting for the watchman too. He raised the latch with his hand, swung the door silently open and stepped inside.
Alexi looked wildly towards the Basilica doors. Sabir was outside them and as effectively out of reach as if someone had sealed him behind the gate of a bank vault. What should he do? What would Sabir want him to do?
He took off his shoes. Then he eased himself out from behind the altar and padded towards the shrine. He inched his head around the door.
The man had switched on a torch and was investigating the massive glazed brass plinth on which the Virgin was displayed. As Alexi watched, he began levering at the base of the cabinet. When he found that he couldn’t open the front, he turned sharply around and looked back towards the Basilica.
Alexi froze against the outside wall.
The man’s footsteps started in his direction.
Alexi tiptoed as far as the altar and hid himself in the same place he had used before. If the man had heard him, he was done for anyway. He might as well die on sanctified ground.
There was the sudden shriek of a chair leg being dragged across a stone floor. Alexi popped his head out from cover. The man was pulling two choir-stall chairs behind him. It was obvious that he intended to make a ladder for himself so that he could more easily reach the Virgin.
Using the sound of the chairs as cover, Alexi followed the stranger back into the crypt. This time, though, he took advantage of the man’s inattention to approach much closer to the display cabinet. He lay down between two pews close to the front of the main aisle, affording himself both the opportunity to see what was happening and sufficient cover from the solid oak pew-front between them should the man decide he needed to return to the Basilica for a third chair.
As Alexi watched, the man set one chair on top of the other and then tested them for sureness. He tut-tutted loudly and then muttered something to himself under his breath.
Alexi watched as the man fixed the torch into the back of his trousers and began to climb up the makeshift ladder. So this was it. This wou
ld be his one chance. If he botched it, he was dead. He would wait until the man was teetering on the apex of the chairs and then overset him.
At the crucial moment, the man reached up for one of the brass candle sconces below the Virgin’s plinth and swung himself effortlessly on to the display cabinet itself.
Alexi, who had not anticipated the sudden move sideways, found himself caught halfway between the pew and the cabinet. The man turned and stared at him full on. Then he smiled.
Without thinking, Alexi picked up one of the heavy brass candlesticks that flanked the cabinet and swung it at the man with all his might.
The candlestick struck Achor Bale just above the right ear. He let go of the side of the cabinet and tumbled eight feet backwards on to the granite floor. Alexi had already armed himself with the second candlestick but he soon saw that it wasn’t necessary. The stranger was out cold.
Alexi separated the two chairs. Grunting, he manhandled Bale on to the chair nearest the cabinet. He felt around in Bale’s pockets and withdrew a wallet stuffed with banknotes and a small automatic pistol. ‘ Putain! ’
He pocketed the wallet and the pistol and looked wildly around the Sanctuary. He noticed some damask curtains, held back with cord. He stripped the cord from the curtains and tied Bale’s arms and body to the chairback. Then he used the remaining chair to clamber up the display cabinet and secure the Virgin.
45
Sabir heard the crash clearly from his hiding place across the small square in front of the Sanctuary. He had been listening with all his attention ever since he had first heard the distant sound of barking chair legs from deep inside the Basilica. The crash, however, had come from much closer to where the Virgin was situated.
He broke cover and made straight for the heavy crypt door. It was tightly sealed. He backed away from the building and glanced up at the windows. They were all too high for him to reach.
The Nostradamus prophecies as-1 Page 9