The Nostradamus Prophecies (11 page)

Sabir dropped the asparagus and started to run.

The first thing he saw was Alexi floundering in the river. ‘Quickly, Adam. I can’t swim. She’s in the water.’

‘Where?’

‘Just below you. Her face is down but she’s still alive. I saw her arm move.’

Sabir crested the bank and executed a clumsy leap into the slow-moving river. He reached Yola with his first surge and levered her up into his arms.

She raised a hand as if toward him off, but her eyes were dead when they looked up at him and there was no real force left in the movement. Sabir clutched her to his chest and allowed the force of the river to sweep them back towards the bank.

‘I think she’s had a fit of some sort. Run up to the car and get a blanket.’

Alexi floundered out of the water. He gave a single, anxious glance backwards and then pounded up the hill towards the car.

Sabir laid Yola down on to the sand. She was breathing normally, but her face was sheet-white and her lips had already turned an unhealthy blue.

‘What is it? What happened?’

She began shaking, as if, with her retrieval from the water, some other non-mechanical process had been triggered.

Sabir glanced up to check on Alexi’s progress. ‘Look, I’m sorry. Alexi’s bringing a dry blanket. I’m going to have to get you out of these clothes.’ He had expected – even hoped for – an argument. But there was no response. He began undoing Yola’s blouse.

‘You shouldn’t do that.’ Alexi had reached Sabir’s side. He proffered the blanket. ‘She wouldn’t like it.’

‘She’s cold as ice, Alexi. And she’s in shock. If we leave her in these clothes she’ll catch pneumonia. We need to wrap her up in this blanket and then get her back to the car. I can start driving with the air conditioning set to full heat. She’ll warm up quickly then.’

Alexi hesitated.

‘I’m serious. If you don’t want to embarrass her, turn away.’ He eased off her blouse and then worked the skirt down over her hips. He was surprised to notice that she wore no underwear of any sort.

‘God, she’s beautiful.’ Alexi was staring down at her. He was still clutching the blanket.

‘Give me that.’

‘Oh. Okay.’

Sabir wrapped Yola in the blanket. ‘Now take her legs. Let’s get her up to the car before she freezes to death.’

‘Don’t you think it’s time to call in back-up?’

‘We’re forty-five minutes behind them. What sort of back-up do you think we need, Macron? A jet fighter?’

‘What if the eye-man strikes again?’

‘The eye-man?’ Calque smiled, amused by Macron’s unexpectedly creative imagination. ‘He won’t.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because he’s achieved his purpose. He’s bought himself a few hours’ leeway. He knows that by the time we’ve restored…’ Calque hesitated, searching for the right word.

‘GPS trilateration?’

‘GPS trilateration… exactly… and caught up with the car, he’ll have what he wants.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Search me. I’m after the man, not his motive. I leave all that sort of rot to the judicial courts.’ Calque made a pillow of his jacket and placed it between his head and the window. ‘But I know one thing for certain. I wouldn’t want to be in Sabir or the girl’s shoes during the next sixty minutes.’

‘Is she coming round?’

‘She’s got her eyes open.’

‘Right. I’ll stop the car but leave the engine running for heat. We can put the back seats down and stretch her out more comfortably.’

Alexi glanced across at Sabir. ‘What do you think happened? I’ve never seen her like this.’

‘She must have been picking asparagus near the water’s edge and fallen in. She probably struck her head – that’s a hefty bruise she’s got on her cheek. Anyway, she’s definitely in shock. The water was incredibly cold. She wouldn’t have been expecting it.’ He frowned. ‘Is she epileptic, by any chance? Or diabetic?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Forget it.’

Once they’d arranged the back seats and settled Yola comfortably, the two men stripped down.

‘Look, Alexi, I’ll drive while you dry the clothes on the heater. Do Yola’s first. I’ll put the thing on blow. We’ll swelter, but I can’t think of any other way to do it. If the police catch three naked people in a moving vehicle, it’ll take them weeks to figure out what we were doing.’ He reached for the automatic shift.

‘I told him.’ It was Yola’s voice.

The two men turned towards her.

‘I told him everything.’ She was sitting up now, the blanket puddled around her waist. ‘I told him we are going to Rocamadour. And about the Black Virgin. I told him where the verses are hidden.’

‘What do you mean, told him? Told who?’

Yola noticed her nakedness and slowly drew the blanket up to cover her breasts. She appeared to be thinking and acting in slow motion. ‘The man. He jumped on me. He smelt strangely. Like those green insects you crush and they smell of almonds.’

‘Yola. What are you talking about? What man?’

She took a deep breath. ‘The man who killed Babel. He told me. He said he would break my neck just like he broke Babel’s.’

‘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.’

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.

‘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.’

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.’