Tom Knox - The Marks of Cain

This had to be linked. Had to. Even if it wasn't, it needed more investigating. He wrote down the details on his pad, then turned to the next news item. The article had been carried by a couple of newsfeeds a few weeks ago.

The headline was: 'Bizarre Bequest Leads to Million Dollar Basque Mystery'

A thirty-something man called David Martinez was staring out of a photo: he was holding a map. Martinez had an awkward grin in the photo, as he brandished the map, a kind of uncomfortable smile. The article said the map showed places in the Basque Country. Moreover it said the young man's grandfather had died and left him two million dollars — and according to the newspaper this had come as a complete surprise.

Simon scanned the article, feeling quite alive with excitement. He didn't want a drink any more. He wanted to know what this was about: a link to the Basques, a mysterious amount of money, a very old man — thousands of miles away — now dead.

The article gave him almost everything: it even explained that David Martinez had been a lawyer in London prior to his inheriting this mysterious sum.

It took two minutes on the net to find out the 'well known law company' where David Martinez had worked: there were lists of lawyers of every company.

Walking to the window, Simon called Martinez's firm on his mobile. A clipped voice requested his name and credentials, he handed them over: Simon Quinn from the Daily Telegraph.

He was batted around the system for a few moments, put on hold, put through to HR, put back on hold…but then he reached a superlatively snooty man, apparently David Martinez's boss, Roland De Villiers, who was more than keen to hand out Martinez's mobile number. The boss actually added, for good measure, 'I do hope he's in trouble.'

The call clicked off, abruptly.

Simon looked at his notepad, resting on the windowsill. It was a British number that the lawyer had airily handed over. He keyed the numbers, but the ensuing ringtone was long bleeps — indicating that this guy Martinez was abroad — in Spain maybe?

Then a hesitant voice came down the satellite.

'Yes…Who is this?'

The smell of congealed eels hung in the air. Mist was sidling into the room stealthy and needy. David sat in the silence and the chill, wondering at Jose's words. Then he welcomed the return of his wits. He needed to speak to Amy. To tell her all of this.

'Amy!'

His voice echoed. He tried again.

'Amy?'

Where was she? He hadn't seen her for an hour. It was hard to believe she was outside in the rain.

He called again. His voice bounced off the mouldering woodwork, and down the empty corridor. Nothing.

A swift search told him there was no one on the ground floor: all he could hear was the incessant skitter of rat tails, as the vermin fled his approach through each unsavoury chamber.

How about the room they shared? He and Amy? Where they had talked through the night?

He had to take the stairs; he had to go up the stairs. The pounding of his feet matched the pounding of his pulse as he called Amy's name again — nothing, the hallway was empty.

He pushed the door and as he did his mind filled: the imagined scene of his parents, dying in their car, came suddenly and vividly into mental view. His mother's head crushed, blood drooling politely from her slackened mouth…

Maybe the same had happened to Amy. Everyone close to him was taken away: everyone.

David scanned the room he and Amy had shared. Empty. It was bereft even of rats, or ravens cackling at the window. The bunks were still shifted together; the old picture of a Jesuit saint was still askew on the peeling wall. Slumlike dampness seeped from the ceiling.

There was one bedroom left, Fermina and Jose's room. No doubt the door was locked and barred against the world.

Maybe she was in there?

David gathered his valour and stepped down the hallway and called through the door, Amy — Amy — but the returning silence was claustrophobic.

This was intolerable. He yearned to escape, to find the truth and find Amy — and then run away, get out of this awful house, this monument to oppression; the pains and terrors of the Cagots — branded, excluded, humiliated — seemed to have soaked into the bricks and mortar. David wanted to find her, and then fly.

He poised a fist to knock on the door. He would kick the door in, if necessary.

But his knock was stayed by a voice — right behind him.

'David?'

He swivelled. It was Amy.

'Where have you been?!'

'Downstairs — ' Amy shook her head '- the cellar…to check — '

'What?'

'For passages. The chemins des Cagots. You remember? Eloise said there were passages, built by the Cagots — I thought if we were in trouble, we could use them…but I only found vaults — '

He put two hands on her shoulders.

'Jose told me, told me all of it — everything. He's locked in there — with Fermina — '

He tilted a frown, leftwards, indicating the door.

'But why?'

He began to explain.

And he stopped almost at once. Their conversation was slashed in half by a horrible and unmistakable sound.

A gunshot. And then another gunshot.

Inside the Garovillos' room.

They ran to the door and shoved against the rusted locks. The wood and metal resisted for a minute, then two minutes. But the planks were wormed, and the hinges were ancient, the doorway began to splinter, and then it swung open. They were inside.

David gazed across, and he felt his heart shrivel in bitter disgust. Amy had a hand to her face, shrouding her tears.

Two corpses were sitting in two chairs.

Jose and his wife.

Fermina Garovillo had been shot at close range through the temple, the side of her head was simply missing; the obscene wound was echoed and amplified by a splattered patch of blood on the wall nearby. Jose had shot his wife first, it seemed — and then turned the gun on himself. And his wound was worse: the entire top of his cranium, taken clean away. Burn marks on his thin white lips showed how he had done it, put the gun between his teeth, pulled the trigger — blasting away his own brains.

More blood on the ceiling and the wall behind confirmed the suicide. David took one quick look at the grey jellylike stuff balanced on top of the chair — and he felt the rising bile of nausea.

But why?

Why had they done it?

An answer, the answer, came immediately. The menacing slurch of tyres, outside.

David went straight to the window and scanned the scene, his muscles tense with alarm. And there. There it was. The reason for Jose and Fermina's suicide, maybe. A red car, driving slowly between the dripping trees. Miguel was surely inside the car. David recalled old Jose's words. One day he will kill me.

Amy joined David at the window. She cursed and shivered, simultaneously.

But there was faint hope. The red car slowed to a stop, then it started up once more, going the wrong way. David realized, with a tiny jolt of optimism, that Miguel must still be looking for them. The Wolf didn't quite know where it was, he was driving up and down. For how long he'd been doing this, who knew. However he had discovered their exile in Campan — torturing Eloise maybe? — he hadn't pinned down the precise location of the refuge.

But it wouldn't take him long. Eventually he would see the concealed turning. Miguel would drive past the bushes, and look in the right direction. And then discover the house. And then come and kill them. Epa. Epa. Epa.

'The gun!' said Amy.

'What?'

'There must be a gun.'

She was right. David scanned swiftly around the room for Jose's gun. The old man must have had a gun to shoot himself and his wife. And there — a glimpse of black metal in the greyish light. David reached between Jose's lifeless legs and picked up the pistol. It was still warm. He figured there must be bullets left inside. There had only been two gunshots.