Mario Reading - The Nostradamus prophecies

‘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.’