The Third Antichrist (27 page)

‘Listen to me, Alatyrtsev. Thirty years ago you visited Moldova. The cave monastery at Orheiul Vechi. You were driving former Russian Deputy Minister of Defence Anatoly Karaev. You were his chauffeur. You stopped at a village called Cenucenca. Is this true?’

‘A drink. I tell you.’

‘No drink. You tell me first. Then a drink – 60 per cent proof, man. Imagine what it will taste like.’

Alatyrtsev’s eyes were swimming in a bloodshot sea. He staggered across to an unmade cot in the corner of the room. He sat down and placed his head in his hands. Then he moaned.

The sound caused the hairs to rise on Milouins’s neck and forearms. He cursed Alatyrtsev inwardly – how could any person calling himself a human being allow himself to fall so low? He coughed, in an effort to clear the protective phlegm from his throat. ‘Karaev fell from the cliff. On the plateau. We have spoken to many people from the surrounding villages. His death coincided with the temporary disappearance of a boy. A boy who was later seen wearing Karaev’s astrakhan coat. A boy who had been mysteriously injured. A boy whose father vanished under suspicious circumstances. We are interested in this boy. If you can tell us about him, I will not only give you these two bottles of vodka I have with me. But many bottles. As many bottles as you can drink for the rest of your life.’

Alatyrtsev’s mouth fell open. ‘For the rest of my life?’

‘For however long it takes you to drink yourself to death.’ Milouins smiled, but his eyes were frozen. He took a small cine camera out of his pocket. Placing the vodka bottles on the floor behind him, he pointed the camera at Alatyrtsev and began filming.

Albescu, Moldova
20 November 2009

43

Abi sat at a corner table of the Crusader Coffee Bar. The bar was situated in the central square of the town that, in effect, constituted Mihael Catalin’s personal fiefdom. Around Abi, people were conducting their day-to-day affairs in what passed for normality. But there was something distinctly un-normal about the way they were going about their business. It was as if the people walking, shopping, and passing the time of day imagined that they were onstage somehow, and that everything they touched, or that surrounded them, doubled as part of a theatre set.

Abi was aware that people were watching him and his siblings with unconstrained stares. But that was hardly new. Travel anywhere with two women who looked like Nawal and Dakini, and you soon got used to stares. The fact that everyone who passed them had patriarchal crosses tattooed in the centre of their foreheads simply made the attention the Corpus was receiving a little more intrusive – sinister, even – than it might otherwise have been. Were these people really as stupid as they looked? It never ceased to amaze Abi how willing human beings were to behave like ruminants when faced with a so-called ‘strong’ leader.

Anyway, he couldn’t talk. He was, to all intents and purposes, a strong leader himself. The only thing he lacked was a congregation. In recent months, his erstwhile followers appeared to be dying around him with painful regularity. Maybe he was doing something wrong? Or maybe – and here Abi allowed himself a secret smile – he really ought to branch out on his own? His idea of sneaking back to France to assassinate Madame, his mother, had been a truly excellent one. If it hadn’t been for that bastard Milouins he would have succeeded. Anyway, there was always time. He was still technically in the United States – at least as far as the authorities were concerned. That bit of foresight would definitely stand him in good stead somewhere down the line. And as things were, he was rather enjoying himself. He liked suborning unsuspecting people. And he relished the power he was now exercising over Rudra and the girls. There was something invigorating in being able to order people around who would secretly like to kill you. It gave a little extra edge to an existence that would otherwise be deadening in its mundanity.

‘That’s her. That’s the sister all right.’ Abi jerked his chin towards a woman, dressed entirely in white, who was negotiating the heavy traffic fifty yards or so to his left.

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because I have an up-to-date photograph of her here on my cell phone, and I’m looking at it as we speak. And because everyone who sees her crosses themselves as if they’ve just seen the Virgin Mary gliding by. She’s the sister of the Second Coming, for pity’s sake. These people have been trained to view her as some sort of guardian angel. Look at that man. He’s just got down onto his knees. Have you ever seen anything like it?’

‘How do you know all this, Abi?’

‘Because Madame, our mother, has had a dozen investigators on her and her brother’s back-trail, day in, day out, for the past fortnight. I give our mother that – when she decides to do something, she does it right. And her investment has paid off. I’ve just downloaded the latest report, thanks to the excellent free Wi-Fi offered by this place. At least Catalin is good for something.’ Abi’s eyes flicked over to Antanasia – she was talking intently to two women at the corner of the market square. His eyes drifted back to his cell phone. ‘It seems that we’ve finally got what we were looking for. Milouins is even now in Odessa concluding certain financial and locational arrangements with an interested party. What he’s just sent me should give us all the edge we need to persuade Catalin to work in our interests, as well as his own.’

‘But Catalin hardly ever ventures out. How can anyone investigate him?’

‘Catalin is a celebrity. A public figure. People who don’t belong to his Church are only too happy to talk about him.’

‘So why the interest in his sister all of a sudden?’

‘Because she’s the only way to get through to Catalin. The man is surrounded by a bodyguard of young men he calls his “Crusaders”. They form an unbreachable wall around him. Catalin’s no fool. He knows there’s mystery in being elusive. This way, people fantasize about him. Because, of course, they are never given the time to sum him up for what he really is.’

‘And the sister is his weak point?’

‘Exactly. She’s not called Antanasia Catalin, by the way – she’s called Antanasia Lupei. And he’s Dracul Lupei. The Mihael Catalin bit is made up, as is so much else in this confidence trickster’s story. He comes from a village called Cenucenca, in the east of the country. Antanasia was the local good-time girl, according to the reports we have. But she’s mended her ways, thanks to her brother, and now she lives like a nun. Well, she doesn’t walk like a nun, I’ll say that much for her.’

‘But if people know he’s not who he says he is, why don’t they vote with their feet?’

‘Because they believe in him, Rudi, and true belief turns people blind. Plus, he’s expedient. He’s transformed himself, and them, into something other – something they’re proud of. And no one wants to hark back to a past they find uncongenial. Plus, our friend has taken great pains to scrub away all lingering traces of his old self. But you can’t scrub away people’s memories. They stick to the wall like dried shit.’ Abi stood up. He threw some money down on the table. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

‘What are we going to do with the sister? Kidnap her?’

‘I hardly think so, Rudi. Not after the last fiasco. No. We need to talk to her. Nawal and Dakini, go and do your stuff. Rudi and I will manage the rest.’

44

It proved nearly impossible to corner Antanasia alone. People followed her wherever she went. She was known to everybody. And everybody wished to talk to her. It was clear that she was the day-to-day face of Mihael Catalin. His public relations persona. His woman-on-the-street. His earthly representative.

Nawal and Dakini split up and shadowed her every step. They knew their moment would come. It always did.

Abi and Rudra strolled around the town. They were watched wherever they went. The fact that they sported clean foreheads was enough, paradoxically, to mark them out from the crowd. From time to time someone would sidle up and talk to them.

‘We can’t understand you,’ Abi would counter. ‘We don’t speak Romanian.’

Most would then try in broken English. ‘Are you thinking of joining us? Is that why you are here? We welcome foreigners.’

Abi turned to Rudra. ‘The sooner we are off these damned streets the better. I don’t like the feeling here. When people want something too much, it infects the air around them like a virus. Personally, I don’t think we should go anywhere near this man. He comes from a culture we don’t understand. He will react in ways we can’t anticipate. The Countess is too cut off from real life to understand this anymore.’

‘Well, why don’t you tell her so, Big Shot? You’re always the one who knows so much. The all-seeing, all-knowing Abi.’

Abi turned to his brother. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Do I detect a certain lingering resentment in your tone, Rudra? A sliver of disbelief?’

‘Of course I disbelieve you. I was there, remember? Floating amongst the dead bodies. Do you think I’m stupid? You abandoned us in that cenote. Don’t try to deny it. You might have pulled the wool over our mother’s eyes, but you haven’t pulled it over mine. I’ve come to terms, now, with what you did. I’ve had no choice. But I haven’t forgiven you. When all this is over and done with I’m coming to get you, Abi. Then we’ll see who is the best man out of the two of us.’

Abi forced himself to smile. ‘Think what you will, Rudi. I’ve told you the truth. I really did warn the old man and the boy that you were down there. How else could I have known about them? But I see that I could repeat this until the maniac we are following brings Armageddon down on all our heads, and you still wouldn’t believe me. So I simply won’t bother.’

Rudra looked up. He opened his mouth to reply just as Abi’s cell phone rang.

‘Yes, Nawal? What is it?’

‘We’ve got her.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m with her in a ladies’ toilet three blocks south of the square. It’s near a church with a golden dome. Dakini is standing in front of the door gesticulating to people that there’s a flood in here. We can’t keep this up for long. You’d better get here pronto.’

‘We’re on our way.’ Abi checked out the skyline around him. ‘Look. There’s the onion dome. Let’s go before Dakini starts a riot.’

Dakini wasn’t standing in front of the WC block – she was lurking near the church.

‘What’s up?’

‘They’re still in there. I just got fed up trying to explain the flood to people who can only manage a sort of pidgin English. Nawal is leaning against the door so that anyone who tries it thinks it’s locked. No one’s gone anywhere near the place for the last couple of minutes anyway. We’re lucky they didn’t have one of those ubiquitous old Babushkas stationed at a table inside.’

‘You stay out here. Keep watch. Act as though you’re thinking of going inside the church.’

‘Okay.’

Abi and Rudra hurried across to the service building. Both knew the thieves’ motto that looking around oneself draws attention. Make it fast and make it confident – that way potential witnesses won’t remember what they’ve seen.

Abi tapped on the door, said a couple of words to Nawal, and bundled inside.

Antanasia was standing near one of the empty cubicles. Nawal had her fighting baton out. She had taken up position a few feet away from Antanasia, as if both women suspected the other’s hidden motivations.

‘Any trouble?’

‘None. She came in here alone. I waited for her to finish her business, and then detained her. She speaks English. No French though. They’re not that civilized here.’