The Black Madonna (30 page)

Marcus had the distinctly nauseating feeling of having awoken from a nightmare only to find it was really happening. At first sight the approaching headlights had seemed like a blessing, the chance of a lift to the nearest town – Biarritz, he supposed – above all to get away from the stalled train. He supposed the police would be called if the bodies were discovered. But that too was an ‘if’. As they had jumped from the train, he saw their strange unidentified rescuer pushing the bulk of the dead US colonel out of the compartment. Who had saved them, and why he had almost certainly been on their tail since Guadalupe, he had no idea. But this was not time to be challenging the existence of guardian angels. What mattered now was getting out of there, to somewhere safe, where they could catch their breath.

Hitching a lift seemed the only option. He had prepared their story: they were stranded after a day picnicking in the forest – the French, he assumed, would not query too deeply a young couple’s quest for solitude on a summer afternoon – with a broken-down car and no mobile phone to summon help. All they needed was a lift to somewhere they could get a bed for the night. That much at least was true. He felt both mentally and physically exhausted.

So it was not so much a surge of adrenalin, but a tidal wave of horrific despondency when from behind the glare of the stopped car’s headlights he saw two hooded figures armed with automatic weapons emerge, and then a tall, bearded man in a long black cloak stepped out of the front passenger seat, and spat out an order to them in no uncertain terms, in a language Marcus had little
difficulty
in recognising as Arabic. In case he was in any doubt, the man repeated it, in a harsh guttural English: ‘Get in!’

But it was Nazreem who answered him, taking a step forward and staring up at him with an unbowed, cynical look in her eyes. The tall man looked her up and down in return, scowling at her uncovered head and her figure-hugging jeans with an expression of withering disdain. He wished he had more Arabic than a smattering
of phrases, or at least the skill to recognise dialects to know which part of the Arab world this man called home.

‘You know what we want, child,’ Nazreem heard him say. ‘We want that which you, if you were a true daughter of your faith should have automatically surrendered to us, even if you were ignorant of its true nature, which I doubt. You have betrayed your faith and your nation.’

Marcus shot her a glance. He had no idea what had just been said but right now Nazreem’s face conveyed pure hatred for the man in front of her. Any moment, he realised, she was going to leap forward and scratch the man’s eyes out, an action which would lead
inevitably
and immediately to the two of them kneeling down on the sandy soil beneath their feet to receive a bullet in the back of the head and an unmarked shallow grave in the forest of Les Landes.

‘Whatever you want, deal with me,’ Marcus shouted, not so much out of bravado as to defuse the situation, ‘she is only a woman. I’m the one you want.’

‘I don’t think so,’ came a voice from the inside of the
people-carrier
, and Marcus wheeled around to see the unwelcome if slightly ridiculous picture of the Reverend Henry Parker climbing out
awkwardly
across the centre seats. The two armed men moved
fractionally
forward, but their leader motioned them back.

‘Let the American speak to him,’ he said.

Marcus felt his jaw drop open in shock at the sight of the
bespectacled
Protestant cleric: ‘You. You’re working with these people? After all you said about Islam? I thought you wanted it wiped out.’

The tall man shot a glance at the clergyman which clearly
disquieted
him, but he made a show of dismissal

‘I don’t know how you avoided the colonel, but when he gets here, we’ll deal with this properly.’ Marcus noted the flicker of a glance exchanged between one of the armed men and their imperious leader. Somehow they knew what the Reverend Parker did not: that the colonel was not going to get here any time soon. But the
American
was gloating: ‘You were a means to an end, professor, nothing more, but you may still be yet, if putting a few bullets into the
fleshier
parts of your anatomy is the only way of persuading your little friend here to reveal where she has hidden her pagan idol.’

Marcus looked at Nazreem whose face was blank. Somehow
everyone
but him seemed to believe the supposedly stolen figurine was actually in her possession.

‘Why on earth do you think she has it when she was the one who alerted the world to the fact it had been stolen?’ he said.

‘So much for no secrets between lovers,’ sneered the little
reverend
. ‘You mean she really didn’t tell you? What was stolen was the wrong figure – ask our Arab friends here, one of their men was responsible – that’s why our little archaeologist did a sudden runner, not because she was scared for herself but to get her precious idol out of harm’s way. She came running to you, not for your ineffectual help, but to find somewhere to stash the loot. Isn’t that so?’

Marcus glanced back at Nazreem expecting a look of
disbelieving
astonishment but saw instead an expression of foiled fury. In an instant he took on board what he simultaneously realised he had subconsciously always suspected:

‘Your bag … the books for the museum!’

Nazreem shot him a lethal look. Instantly Marcus realised what he had done. But Parker was laughing:

‘Don’t worry, professor, you haven’t given anything away that we didn’t already know. Mr Saladin here has been on the ball.’

But the man to whom the name apparently referred was talking Arabic again, looking down on Nazreem like some stern Victorian headmaster on a naughty pupil to whom it was his reluctant but earnest duty to deliver a thrashing.

The man whom she now realised must be the one they whispered of in the backstreets of Gaza as the Son of Saladin opened his mouth for a second wordlessly, then said to her, in a voice more quiet and measured than she had expected:

‘From the moment you first landed in London one of my men was watching you. But you knew, didn’t you, he was clumsy. He
followed
you as you headed for the museum, and realised that might be your destination, but you spotted him and told your taxi instead to leave you at an Underground station. You were clever; he was stupid. He will not be so again.

‘His colleague, however, was also stupid, but lucky. He was told to go to the museum and wait for the other to arrive. When he lost you, his colleague also forgot about him. So the man continued to wait, and was there when you arrived, carrying your precious bag. If he had known more this might all have ended there – a handbag snatch at a tourist site, it happens all the time. Allah works in mysterious ways. Yet his purpose is revealed in the end.’

‘You would do all this, just to destroy a Christian statue?’

Saladin smiled, if you could call it a smile. ‘Perhaps. But we are not just talking about an archaeological relic, are we? We are talking about a weapon. A weapon that can ignite a global conflict, which only the will of God will resolve, and which, therefore we will win.’

‘You’re not making sense.’

‘Child,’ he said scowling at her. For a minute Nazreem was
uncertain
whether he was going to smash the side of his hand across her face or caress her cheek. ‘Only Allah makes sense in the end,’ he said, lowering his hand. ‘And now it is time for us to achieve that end. Get in.’

Marcus had not understood a word; his mind was still taking in the deception he had almost wilfully failed to recognise. But the threatening gestures of the two men with the automatic weapons made abundantly clear what was expected right now. Only the
Reverend
Parker seemed nonplussed.

‘What about the colonel. And José, I mean Joseph? Freddie and I can’t go on without … wait a minute, where’s Freddie?’

On the other side of the people-carrier the door had been slid open and a cool breeze was now blowing right through the vehicle from the dark wall of the pine trees beyond. Freddie had done a runner. Marcus could see drops of what looked like blood on the rear seat, where he assumed the Mexican had been sitting. He had no idea what might have happened to Freddie – and he was not inclined to feel much sympathy – but it was clear he was a lot less trusting than the reverend of the intentions of their present company.

The armed men scanned the dark woodlands around them for a few seconds, before their leader waved them towards the car.
Whatever
had happened to the Americans’ makeweight Mexican help, he did not seem to be unduly worried. Marcus was bundled into the rear seat of the vehicle, one of the gunmen next to him. For the second time within an hour he had a gun stuck in his ribs. The other thug threw Nazreem into the front passenger seat and then climbed in beside Marcus holding his gun to the back of her head. At least Freddie’s disappearance would make the seating less of a squash: they would have trouble enough squeezing the reverend in.

Then the silent forest night exploded. Violently. In a staccato thunderburst. Marcus felt the sour taste of bile rise suddenly in his throat. Then, with the reek of cordite and a fine blue smoky vapour
still rising from his muzzle in the warm glow of the cabin light that came on when he opened the door, the man they called Saladin climbed into the driver’s seat and Marcus realised it was not going to be crowded at all. He had despised the little clergyman, but a bloody glimpse of the wreckage of his body, literally cut in half by the burst from an AK-47 made his stomach turn over.

He pressed his arm hard across his abdomen to suppress the urge to be physically sick, and looked unseeingly in the darkness towards Nazreem, huddled in the corner, immersed in thoughts of her own. Nazreem who had deceived him, dragged him with her on a wild goose chase that could cost both of them their lives without even telling him the truth.

The engine kicked into life and the tyres spun on sand as they lurched off onto the forest track, leaving the bloody remains of the Reverend Henry Parker, gone to meet his Great White Maker, on the dirt of the forest floor.

Insanely, Marcus found an old and melancholy melody running through his head and gritted his teeth: ‘I’m being followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow.’ Cat Stevens. It was with bitter irony that he recalled the singer nowadays preferred the name Yusuf Islam.

Sebastian Delahaye snatched at the phone the instant the green light indicating the secure link to Vauxhall Cross came on. He hated being dependent like this on the security service’s self-styled ‘big brother’ – in this case ‘big sister’ – across the river, but if it brought in a result then reluctantly he would be the last to complain.

Hilary’s tones were as dulcet as ever but he could sense, beneath the ebullient gloss, a hint that she might really have something
positive
to tell him. She had: ‘It looks like good news, Seb. Well, goodish anyhow. I’ll go into details later – perhaps we might do lunch in that little place in Chelsea,’ – yes, yes, just get on with it, woman,
Delahaye
thought. ‘We just got a quick message. Had to be sent
unencrypted
so it’s a bit oblique but I think the gist is quite clear. Shall I read it to you? Bit of style really, just like the old days.’

‘Yes, please.’ Delahaye fumed silently. Why couldn’t the bloody woman simply tell him what she knew?

‘It says, “Salad all packed and ready for delivery, but burgers are off and the grocery boy has gone home early.” What do you think?’

‘What?!’ It was all Delahaye could do not to scream down the phone. Bloody James Bond antics. It was as if they put wit, sarcasm and downright bloody obscurantism at the top of the list on their recruitment criteria.

‘Well obviously we’re hoping for fuller contact and a thorough brief as soon as possible, but I would have thought that was quite clear: it means our Mr Saladin has met up with your academic friends and is heading this way. Unfortunately our man has had to withdraw from the scene, at least temporarily. It’s not too clear why, but no doubt we’ll find out soon enough. At least the off-the-wall American threat has been eliminated.’

Delahaye breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had been worried about the US involvement. Part of the success story he envisaged for himself involved evoking a substantial amount of kudos among his transatlantic peer group. The sooner the ‘Box’ element was closed,
the happier he would be. In fact, the sooner the whole operation was back on British soil the better. There were still problems enough to be resolved.

‘So what do you say, Seb. How about one-thirty at Deloglio’s? I’ll get Terence to make a booking.’

Delahaye sighed inwardly. Anything you say, Hilary, anything you say.

Dr Edward Mansfield lifted his Rosetta Stone-emblazoned mug of tea from the pile of books on his desk where it had been
precariously
balanced and took a sip only to put it down in disgust. It was cold. Slowly, arthritically, he got to his feet and paced to the window. Outside the traffic crawled as ever along Great Russell Street, an endless caterpillar of carbon monoxide belching cabs, cars and buses, wholly undiminished by the mayor’s congestion charge.

Nor were there any fewer tourists camped on the steps as if the world’s greatest repository of cultural artefacts was nothing more than a neoclassical picnic venue, gawpers who ticked off the
treasures
by rote – Rosetta Stone, done that; Elgin Marbles, done them; Lewis chessmen? Most had never heard of them. As for the Assyrian friezes? He doubted any of them even knew where Assyria was. All they knew of Babylon was a song by Boney M.

Reintroduce entrance charges, that was the answer. Entrance charges to put off the freeloaders, reduce the crowds and make them put a proper worth on the experience. And do something towards topping up a staff pension fund that was on the slippery slope to bankruptcy. If bloody Madame Tussaud’s could charge a small fortune and still get crowds queuing up outside to see its stupid charade of wax dummies that were no more lifelike than the Thunderbirds puppets of his youth, then why could not the British Museum charge at least half as much to get up close and personal with the whole of human history?

Because history was bunk. That was why. Henry Ford, inventor of the production line, had said so, and today’s production line
population
went along with him. And so did the bloody government who in any case thought history began with the election before last and ended with the one after next. Mansfield was in a sour mood. As he was so often these days. He was bored, bored with his job, bored with life and bored with the museum. He would have done anything for a little excitement.

Only a few days earlier he had almost thought himself in luck, although, if he sat down and thought about it – which he had done since – he knew all along it was only a pipe dream. But the
unexpected
appearance in his office of Nazreem Hashrawi, the pretty and intelligent Palestinian woman he had met at a conference in Cairo two years ago, had been the first ray of sunshine to enter his fusty little world in ages. He should have known she was only there to ask a favour.

Time and again over the past few days his eyes had wandered to the heavy canvas bag in the corner, and wondered when she would be back to collect it. And if he dared ask her out for dinner when she did. In the meantime it simply sat there, teasing him. It was not that he begrudged it the floor space. There was enough junk on the floor, on the desk, in the cupboards, pretty much anywhere you cared to look in the grubby little glorified broom cupboard that the trustees of the British Museum dignified with the name of academic’s office.

If it had not been for the little padlock on the zip he would have been sorely tempted to take a peek inside the bag, although more out of boredom than genuine curiosity. Books, she had said. Books that were one of her fledgling museum in Gaza’s few disposable assets, assets that now indeed had to be disposed of, if it was to weather the crisis of confidence and currency that threatened its survival. It would all have been different, she had told him, very different, if only they had not suffered the catastrophic theft. He had
sympathised
, as one does, though privately he doubted that the figure she had so fervently hoped might bring her little museum international renown was anything like as rare or important as she had hoped.

As for who had stolen it, probably some nutcase Catholic
collector
who was daft enough to believe the old wives’ tales about St Luke the apostle-cum-painter-cum-sculptor. Whatever. People would always have their dreams. He wondered if there was any chance she really would accept that invitation to dinner.