Tom Knox - The Marks of Cain

'It's too late now.' He grabbed Amy's wet hand. 'Quick — '

A few metres further, the dirty passageway began to broaden, and gain height until it was almost possible to walk. Until it was almost possible to run.

They ran. The passage curved to the left and the right and then it stopped at some stairs of impacted soil. At the top of the stairs was a trap door.

'It could open anywhere,' said Amy. 'Someone's house. The boulangerie.'

'We're gonna surprise them — '

David climbed the earthen steps and shoved a shoulder violently upwards; the doorflap began to yield, a slant of light striped his face, and the trap door slapped open, with a bang. He looked across — as four faces stared back at him, grinning.

What?

But it wasn't four faces. It was four rag dolls: Campan mounaques. The family of rag dolls installed in the front pew of the church.

The dolls smiled forever. Smiling at David's soiled face as he hoisted himself out of the trap door, then leaned down and hauled Amy to the surface. She gazed about.

'The church — of course.'

David nodded. 'We better get out of these — clothes — now, get out of them now — let's use these — '

He pointed at the rag dolls. Within a minute they had stripped themselves, extracted money and possessions, and jumped into the ordinary clothes of the rag dolls, the baggy jeans and jumpers; David kicked away his clothes, trying not to imagine what kind of…things…what kind of fetid silt…had touched his skin.

'OK?' he said.

Amy was using her discarded jumper to wipe her head. She shivered.

'Jesus. David. What…was…that stuff? In the cellar?'

'Body liquor.'

'What?'

'If you store bodies in an airtight space, for centuries, they decay…in a certain way. But — '

'They turn to liquid?'

'Eventually.' He glanced around the church, trying to work out what to do next. Amy pressed him: 'Explain!'

'The corpses slowly become adipocere — corpse wax. A sort of cheesy wax. Grave wax. Then over centuries they turn again, into…a…' He was trying not to think about it. 'A sort of soup. With flesh. I'm sorry. But that's what we found — '

'How do you know that?'

'Human biochemistry.'

She was trembling.

'Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.'

Her eyes were shut, absorbing the ghastliness. He decided not to tell her his darkest fears. One of the reasons you might store human bodies so diligently and carefully was if you feared they carried severe disease. Infectious disease.

'OK,' she said, opening her eyes. 'I'm OK. But Jose…' She inhaled deeply, to calm herself. 'Poor Jose.' Then she said: 'What now?'

'We get the fuck out of Campan.'

He crept to the main door, and creaked it open. They stealthily walked the path through the overgrown churchyard to the main iron gate. And gazed. There was not a person or a car to be seen; the only sign of humanity was one solitary old woman hurrying under an umbrella, way down the grey and lonely main street.

'Run for it — '

They sprinted out of the churchyard, hurling themselves down the humble main street of Campan, beyond the last dilapidated villa, running into the countryside. And still running.

After twenty minutes Amy called a halt, she had her hands on her knees. Gasping and gulping. Almost puking. David stopped, exhausted, and looked around, they had reached a junction, where traffic slashed past, burning down the main road.

But now Amy was running on.

'We can hitch! We need to hitch a lift — '

'Where?'

'Biarritz. Somewhere busy, with lots of people, where we can get lost. This road goes to Biarritz.'

He followed her, as she ran to the road, with her thumb out, hoping for a lift. David was desperate: who the hell would stop for them? Dressed like scarecrows, faces frightened, half smeared with some unspeakable effluent.

Five minutes later a French apple truck stopped; the driver leaned over, pushed the door open. They climbed in, profusely thanking the man. He glanced at their clothes, he sniffed the air, and then he shrugged. And drove.

They were escaping. Down the thundering autoroute to Biarritz. David sat back, his arms aching, his mind spiralling, waiting for the sense of relief. But then he heard a beep. A message. He patted his scarecrow jeans: his phone! He'd forgotten that he'd turned his phone on, to use the light: he'd been keeping the phone off all this time, just in case Miguel was tracing his own number, too.

As he took the phone from his pocket, he felt the wild incongruity, a clash of modernity, and madness. He had been drenched with the vile distillation of many dead bodies, and yet his phone was bleeping.

The flashing number was British. He clicked.

And then he had one of the strangest phone calls of his life. From a journalist in England. A journalist called Simon Quinn. The phone call lasted an hour; by the time it was done they were in the depths of the Gascon hills, near Cambo-les-Bains.

David shut the call down. And then he rang a random number: and as soon as it answered he opened the window, and he threw the damp and mudded phone into the long grass of the verge, with a fierce relief. If anyone was tracing his calls, they would trace them to Cambo-les-Bains.

Amy was asleep in the seat next to him. The truck driver was furiously puffing a cigarette, oblivious.

He sat back, pensive. The phone call from the journalist. What did it all mean? Murders in Britain? Scientists? Genetics?

Deformity?

At the end of the bizarre phone call, his hand weary from scribbling notes, Simon thanked David Martinez and clicked off, falling back on the bed, his eyes bright with thoughts and ideas.

Extraordinary. It was truly extraordinary. And the tension in the young man's voice. What was he going through? What was happening down there, in the Pyrenees?

Whatever the answer, the phone call was a revelation. A breakthrough — and it needed celebrating. He almost ran downstairs. He needed to speak to Sanderson, and he needed a cup of triumphant coffee.

Spooning dark brown Colombian coffee grounds into the cafetiere, he called New Scotland Yard. It occurred to him, as he did so, that Sanderson might be angered by Simon's persistent pursuit of the story; it occurred to him that Sanderson would be mightily interested in this latest information.

But he couldn't reach Sanderson. Instead he was put through to Tomasky. The young DS seemed to listen with appreciative and gratifying interest; as he told the story, Simon felt almost exultant at his success. The best bit was the toes. They now had an explanation: the syndactyly. Yes.

Even as Simon explained his discoveries, he cursed himself for his own failure in not making this connection before — as soon as Emma Winyard had mentioned the Cagots, he should have looked them up! Then he could have strung the pearls himself: webbed toes. Cagots. The Pyrenees.

Still, he had at least got there in the end.

The coffee had brewed and the mug was full. It was Tomasky's turn to talk, as the journalist sipped.

'So, Simon,' the DS said, 'you're saying these people, the…Cackots…'

'Cagots. Ca-gots.'

'Right. You're saying these Cag…ots are all deformed? They all have webbed fingers or toes?'

'Not all. But some, certainly — and it is one of the characteristics of the Cagots. Since medieval times. That's why they were given the, ah, goose's foot to wear. To symbolize and epitomize their malformation.'

'Why? Why do they have webbed fingers and toes?'

'Genetics. They are a mountain people, inbred! Deformities like this are common in isolated communities with smaller gene pools. They don't get bred out. Fascinating right?'

'Sure.' Tomasky went quiet. Then he added. 'And you're saying our victims…are Cagots then. Someone is killing the Cag…ots?'