‘I said slow down.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Calque brought the binoculars back-up to his eyes. The road was so winding that looking through them for more than a few seconds at a time made him feel nauseous. Yes. Macron was right. The Volvo SUV had to be the car. For twenty kilometres now it had been the only vehicle between them and Sabir. He felt a dryness in his mouth – a fl uttering in the pit of his stomach – that he usually felt only in the presence of his ruinous-to-maintain ex-wife.
When they breasted the next corner, Bale was standing eighty metres away in the centre of the road. He was holding the Star Z-84 sub-machine that he had liberated from the Catalan paramilitary at porte armes position: 600 rounds a minute; 9mm Luger Parabellum in the canteen; 200-metre effective range.
Bale smiled, braced the Z-84 against his right shoulder and squeezed the trigger.
4
Macron threw the wheel violently to the left – it was an instinctive reaction, without any basis whatsoever in driver training or in ambush coordination. The unmarked police car began to tip. He threw the wheel in the opposite direction to counterbalance it. The police car continued on its original path, but this time in a series of violent somersaults.
Bale glanced down at the weapon in his hand. Incredible. It worked even better than he had hoped.
The police car settled on its side, accompanied by a tinkling and a groaning of metal. Glass, plastic and strips of aluminium littered a fifty-metre swathe of the road. A thick oil slick was forming beneath and beyond the car, like a blood haemorrhage.
Bale glanced quickly up and down the road. Then he crouched down and swept up the discarded shell cases and put them in his pocket. He had aimed the gun high on purpose, with its trajectory towards an open field. It amused him to think that the two policemen – if they had survived the crash – would have no way of proving that he had actually been there at all.
With one further, almost idle, glance behind him, he climbed back into the Volvo and continued on his way.
5
‘What’s to stop the eye-man from simply attacking us and making us tell him where the verses are?’
‘Because we don’t know where the verses are. At least not as far as he’s concerned.’
Alexi made a puzzled face. He glanced questioningly at Yola, but she was sound asleep on the back seat.
‘Think about it, Alexi. He only knows what Yola told him. No more. And she wasn’t able to tell him about the Three Maries because she didn’t know about them herself.’
‘But…’
‘In addition, he’s only got the quatrain from the base of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour to go on. Which sent him to Montserrat. But in Montserrat he failed to get hold of the quatrain hidden at La Morenita’s feet – the quatrain which cements the gypsy connection. And neither does he know about my meeting with Calque, or that Calque gave me the text of the Montserrat quatrain as a token of good faith. So he’s got to stick with us. He’s got to assume we are on our way to somewhere specific in order to pick up another part of the message. Why should he mess with us, then? He doesn’t know we know we’re being followed. And he’s probably so bloody cocksure after eluding the Spanish police at Montserrat that he thinks he’ll be able to take on the whole of the Police Nationale single-handed if they should be dumb enough, or angry enough, to mess with him again.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Simple psychology. And the single look I got at his face in the Rocamadour Sanctuary. This is a guy who’s used to getting what he wants. And why does he get it? Because he acts. Instinctively. And with not one iota of conscience. Look at his record. He goes straight for the jugular every time.’
‘Why don’t we ambush him then? Use his own tactics against him? Why wait for him to come to us?’
Sabir sat back in his seat.
‘The police will fuck it up, Damo. They always do. It was my cousin he killed. And Yola’s brother. We swore to avenge him. You agreed to that. We have this man on a string – he follows wherever we go. Why not tug at the string a little? Draw him in? We’d be doing Calque a favour.’
‘You think that, do you?’
‘Yes. I think it.’ Alexi grinned, sarcasm oozing from every pore. ‘I like the police. You know I do. They’ve always been fair to us gypsies, wouldn’t you say? Treated us respectfully and with dignity? Given us courtesy and equal rights with the rest of the French population? Why shouldn’t we help them for a change? Return the compliment?’
‘You haven’t forgotten what happened last time?’ ‘We’re better prepared this time. And if the worst comes to the worst the police can always act as our back-up. It’ll be like John Wayne in Stagecoach.’ Sabir gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘Yeah. I know. I know. We’re not playing a game of cowboys and Indians. But I think we ought to use this guy’s own tactics against him. It nearly worked last time…’
‘… apart from your balls and your teeth…’ ‘… apart from my balls and my teeth. Yes. But it will work this time. If we plan it right, that is. And if we don’t lose our nerve.’
6
Calque eased himself out through the broken front window of the police car. He lay for a while, spreadeagled on the ground, looking up at the sky. Macron had been right. The airbag did work with the seat belt. In fact it worked so well that it had broken his nose. He put up a hand and fumbled at the new shape, but didn’t quite have the courage to yank it back into place. ‘Macron?’ ‘I can’t move, Sir. And I can smell petrol.’ The car had settled at the exact apex of the corner. Calque had an absurd vision of prising open the boot, taking out the warning triangles and then limping back to set them up so that no one would inadvertently run into the back of them. Health and safety directives insisted that he should also wear a reflective vest when he did this. For a brief moment he was actually tempted to laugh.
Instead, he struggled to his knees and craned down to peer under the wreck. ‘Can you reach the keys?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, switch off the engine.’
‘It happens automatically when the airbags inflate. But I’ve turned the thing off anyway to make sure.’
‘Good lad. Can you reach your cellphone?’
‘No. My left hand is caught between the seat and the door. And the airbag is between my right hand and my pocket.’
Calque sighed. ‘All right. I’m standing up now. I’ll get to you in a moment.’ Calque rocked on his feet. All the blood moved to his body’s periphery and for a moment he thought he would fall down in a dead faint.
‘Are you all right, Sir?’
‘My nose is broken. I’m feeling a bit weak. I’m coming now.’ Calque sat down in the road. Very slowly he lay back down and closed his eyes. From somewhere behind him there came the sudden, distant scream of over-heated brakes.
7
‘How did he get the sub-machine gun?’
‘From the Spanish paramilitary, of course. Villada never got around to telling me that bit.’
Calque was sitting beside Macron in the Accident and Emergency department of Rodez Hospital. Both of them were bandaged and taped. Calque had one arm in a sling. His nose had been reset and he could feel the residual effects of the local anaesthetic niggling away at his front teeth.
‘I can still drive, Sir. If you can get us a fresh car, I’d like to take another shot at the eye-man.’
‘Did you say another shot? I can’t remember the first one.’
‘It was only a manner of speaking.’
‘Well it was a stupid manner of speaking.’ Calque laid his head back on to the seat cushion. ‘The roadblock boys don’t even believe the eye-man was there because there are no bullet holes anywhere in the car. I’ve told them the bastard obviously cleaned up after himself, but still they amuse themselves thinking that we smashed up the car by mistake and are trying to cover our tracks.’
‘You mean he did it on purpose? He’s trying to make us into a laughing stock?’
‘He�
�s laughing at us. Yes.’ Calque ran a cigarette beneath his nose and prepared to light it. A nurse shook her head and motioned him outside with her finger. Calque sighed. ‘They want to take the case away from me. Give it to the DCSP.’
‘But they can’t do that.’
‘They can. And they will. Unless I give them a convincing reason otherwise.’
‘Your seniority, Sir.’
‘Yes. That’s convincing. I can feel every day of it in my back, in my arms, in my upper thighs and in my feet. I think there’s a place halfway up my right calf which still feels young and vigorous though. Maybe I should show them that?’
‘But we’ve seen him. We’ve seen his face.’
‘At eighty metres. From a moving car. Behind a sub-machine gun.’
‘But they don’t know that.’
Calque sat forward. ‘Are you suggesting I lie to them, Macron? Exaggerate the extent of my knowledge? Merely in order to keep a case that has threatened, on a number of occasions now, to finish us off?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Bunching his fingers like a crane clamp, Calque gently palpated his newly straightened nose. ‘You may have a point, my boy. You may have a point.’
8
‘I need access to the internet.’
‘The what?’
‘To a computer. I need an internet cafe.’
‘Are you mad, Damo? The police are still looking for you. Someone will probably read the news on the computer next to you, see your photo, call in your details and watch happily as they come to pick you up. Then, if they film the whole scene of your capture on their webcams, they can post it straight away and make their names. They will be instant millionaires. Better than the lottery.’
‘I thought you couldn’t read, Alexi? How come you know so much about computers?’
‘He plays games.’
Sabir turned round and stared at Yola. ‘I’m sorry?’
She yawned. ‘He goes to internet cafes and he plays games.’
‘But he’s a grown-up.’
‘Still.’
Alexi couldn’t see Yola’s face as he was driving but he managed to dart a few concerned glances into the rear-view mirror. ‘What’s wrong with playing games?’
‘Nothing. If you’re fifteen.’
Yola and Sabir were trying to hide their enjoyment behind faked straight faces. Alexi was the perfect subject for teasing because he took everything which referred to himself at absolute face value, whereas, when it referred to other people, he was considerably more selective.
Alexi had obviously succeeded in reading their minds for once, for he immediately changed tack to a more serious subject. ‘Tell me why you need the internet, Damo?’
‘To find a new Black Virgin. We need to pinpoint a place, well away from the Camargues, to which we can lure the eye-man. And which he will believe in. For this we need a Black Virgin.’
Yola shook her head. ‘I don’t think you should do this.’
‘But you were all for it. Back at Samois. And when we went to Rocamadour.’
‘I have a sense about this man. You should leave him to the police. As you agreed with the Captain. I have a very bad feeling.’
‘Leave him to the police? Those fools?’ Alexi rocked himself back and forwards against the steering wheel. ‘And then you both laugh at me for playing games? It is you who are the games players, not me.’ Alexi paused dramatically, waiting for a response. When it didn’t come, he forged ahead, undaunted. ‘I say let Damo go and find his Black Virgin. Then we lead the eye-man there. This time we make a plan that is foolproof. We will be waiting for him. He comes in – we shoot him. Then Damo beats him to a pulp with his stick. We bury him somewhere. The police can look for him for the next ten years – that will keep a few of them out of our hair, won’t it?’
Yola threw up her arms. ‘Alexi, when O Del gave out brains, He only had a certain amount to go around. He tried to be fair, of course, but it was difficult for Him, because your mother nagged Him so much that He forgot what He was doing and took away what little brains you had by mistake. And now look.’
‘Who did He give them to? My brains I mean? Damo, I suppose? Or Gavril? Is that what you are saying?’
‘No. I think He made a really big mistake. I think He gave them to the eye-man.’
9
‘I’ve got it.’ Sabir slid into the passenger seat of the Audi, clutching a piece of paper. ‘Espalion. It’s only fifty kilometres from here as the crow fl ies. And it’s perfectly reasonable that we should choose a roundabout route to get there – the police are still after us, as well as the eye-man.’ He allowed his gaze to travel over their two faces. ‘I don’t see why he shouldn’t swallow it, do you?’ ‘Why Espalion?’
‘Because it’s got what we need. Its in the opposite direction to Saintes-Maries, for a start. And its got it’s very own Black Virgin, called La Negrette. Okay, she’s missing a child – but you can’t have everything. She’s situated in a small chapel alongside a hospital, which means that the chapel will almost certainly have no watchman – unlike Rocamadour – as patients and their relatives will require access at all times of the day and night. It’s got miracles, too – La Negrette is prone to fits of weeping, apparently and whenever she is painted she always returns to her original colour. She was found during the Crusades and brought back to the Chateau de Calmont d’Olt by the Sieur de Calmont. It says here that La Negrette was threatened during the Revolution, when the castle was sacked, but some good soul saved her. So it’s completely believable that she was around in Nostradamus’s time. The Pont-Vieux at Espalion is even a World Heritage Site. On the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, just like Rocamadour. It’s perfect.’
‘So how do we trap the eye-man?’
‘The minute we stop at Espalion, my bet is that he’ll suspect what we’re after. And he’ll almost certainly try to get there ahead of us. He’s never more than about a kilometre behind us anyway, according to Calque, so we’ve got maybe two or three minutes to set-up a trap. That’s not enough, obviously. So Yola and I need to find a taxi now. Pronto. I’ve hatched a little plan.’
10
Sabir and Yola got out of the taxi. They had twenty minutes before Alexi was due to arrive in the Audi, with the eye-man close behind. Twenty minutes to find a fail-safe spot from which to trigger an ambush.
Yola would wait near a telephone booth in the town centre. If she didn’t hear from them within half an hour, she was to call Calque and tell him what was going down. It wasn’t an elegant plan, but with three against one, Sabir felt that it afforded them the infinitesimal edge they needed in order to turn the tables.
But it all came down to him. He had the Remington. He was a fair shot. But he knew that he wouldn’t survive a straight face-off with the eye-man. It wasn’t a matter of skill – he knew that much – but of will. He wasn’t a killer. The eye-man was. It was as simple as that. So he had to cripple the eye-man – put him out of business – before he was able to respond.
Sabir’s gaze travelled over the hospital grounds. Would the eye-man come straight in by car? Or would he leave the car and come in on foot, as he’d done at Montserrat? Sabir could feel the sweat breaking out all over his face.
No. He would have to go into the chapel. Wait for the eye-man there.
He suddenly had an intense feeling of claustrophobia. What was he doing? How had he got himself into this absurd position? He must be crazy.
He ran into the chapel, nearly overturning an elderly lady and her son who had just been in to pray.
There was a service going on. The priest was preparing for Mass. Christ Jesus.
Sabir backed out, looking wildly behind him at the car park. Twelve minutes. Sabir began jogging down the road in the direction of town. It was impossible. They couldn’t start a shoot-out in a chapel chock-full with celebrants and partakers of the Host.
Perhaps Alexi would be early? Sabir slowed down to an amble. Fat chance. And a fat success of an ambush
he’d managed. When O Del gave out brains, it wasn’t only Alexi who had found himself short-changed.
Sabir sat down on a bollard at the side of the road. At least Alexi had enough room to turn round here. At least he’d thought of that.
He took out the Remington and placed it on his lap.
Then he waited.
11
‘They’re conducting Mass. The place is packed. It’d be a bloodbath.’
‘So it’s off? We don’t do it?’
‘We’ve got three minutes to turn round and pick Yola up. Then I suggest we get the Hell out of here. Once outside town we dump the fucking tracker and head for Les Saintes-Maries. And to Hell with Calque and the eye-man.’
Alexi slewed the Audi round and headed back towards town. ‘Where did you leave Yola?’
‘She’s sitting in the Cafe Centrale. Next door to a phone booth. I took the number. I was going to phone her if everything went well.’
Alexi glanced at Sabir and then quickly forward. ‘What if we meet the eye-man coming in? He knows our car.’
‘We’ll have to chance it. We can’t leave Yola staked out in the centre of town like mouse bait.’
‘What if he sees her, then?’
Sabir felt himself go cold. ‘Stop by that phone-box over there. I’m going to call her. Now.’
***
Achor Bale threw the list on to the passenger seat. Espalion. A Black Virgin called La Negrette. Near the hospital. This was it, then.
He’d received the list of all the Black Virgin sites south of the Lyon/Massif Centrale meridian only two days ago, via his cellphone. Courtesy of Madame, his mother’s, private secretary. She had made up the list for him just in case, using research material from Monsieur, his father’s, library. At the time he’d thought she was being over-cautious – interfering, even. Now he knew she’d done the right thing.
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