Mario Reading - The Nostradamus prophecies

‘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.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘Listen, Adam. He knows about us. About gypsy ways. Perhaps he’s even part-gypsy himself. He knew that if he just attacked me and tried to hurt me, I might not have told him what he wanted to know. I might have lied. When he said what he said to me, I was so convinced that he would really do it that I wet myself. He could have done anything to me then and I wouldn’t have fought him. And with Babel. The same thing. Babel was vain. It was his main weakness. He was like a woman. He spent hours looking at himself and prettying himself before the mirror. This man marked his face. Nowhere else. Just his face. I saw him in the mortuary.’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘He works on people’s weaknesses. He’s an evil man, Adam. Really evil. He doesn’t simply murder. He’s a destroyer of souls.’

‘All the more reason to rid the world of him then.’ Yola usually had an answer for everything. This time she merely turned her head towards the window and held her peace.

‘They don’t seem to provide tyre irons any more in cars.’ Sabir rummaged further in the rear storage compartment. ‘I can’t exactly hit him with the jack. Or the warning triangle.’

‘I’ll cut you a thornstick.’

‘A what?’

‘From a holly bush. I can see one over there. It’s the strongest wood. Even before it’s been dried. If you walk somewhere with a stick, no one will ever question you. That way, you always have a weapon.’

‘You’re a real case. You know that, Alexi?’

They were parked on the battlements above the Rocamadour shrine. Below them were gardens, set into the sheer rock of the cliffs, intersected with winding paths and viewpoints. A few tourists were strolling around in a desultory way, wasting time before dinner.

‘Look at those searchlights. We need to get in before dusk. When they turn those things on, this whole hillside will light up like a Christmas tree.’

‘Do you think we’ve beaten him to it?’

‘We’ll only know when you break into the shrine.’

Alexi sniffed. ‘But I won’t break into the shrine.’

‘What do you mean? You aren’t bottling out on me, are you?’

‘Bottling…? I don’t understand.’

‘Turning chicken.’

Alexi laughed and shook his head. ‘Adam. It’s a simple enough rule. Breaking into somewhere is very difficult – but breaking out is easy.’

‘Oh. I see.’ Sabir hesitated. ‘At least I think I do.’

‘So where will you be?’

‘I’ll hide outside, then and watch. If he comes along, I’ll whop him one with your holly stick.’ He waited for the stunned reaction, but it didn’t come. ‘No. It’s all right. I’m only joking. I haven’t gone mad.’

Alexi looked nonplussed. ‘But what will you really do?’

Sabir sighed. He realised that he was still a very long way indeed from understanding the gypsy mentality. ‘I’ll just stay hidden outside, as we agreed. That way I can warn you by wolf-whistling when I see him. When you get to the Virgin, bring her back to Yola in the car and then come down and join me again. Between the two of us we should be able to bushwhack him somewhere inside the shrine, where it’s safer and where there aren’t any people around to get in the way.’

‘You don’t think she’ll be angry with us?’

‘Who? Yola? Why?’

‘No. I mean the Virgin.’

‘Christ, Alexi. You’re not having second thoughts on me, are you?’

‘No. No. I will take it. But I will pray to her first. Ask her to forgive me.’

‘You do that. Now cut me that stick.’

Alexi woke up just as the evening caretaker was bolting shut the outside doors leading to the shrine. He had secreted himself, forty minutes earlier, behind the altar of the St Sauveur Basilica, which someone had conveniently covered with a long-fringed blue and white linen cloth. Then he had almost immediately fallen asleep.

For ten panic-stricken seconds he wasn’t quite sure where he was. Then he rolled himself deftly out from under the altar cloth and stood up, prior to a stretch. It was at this point that he realised that someone else was in the church with him.

He crouched back behind the altar and felt for his knife. It took him a snap five seconds to remember that he had thrown it on to the back seat of the car, after cutting Sabir’s stick. Not for the first time, Alexi found himself cursing his congenital inattention to detail.

He eased himself around the side of the altar, opening his eyes as wide as he could to gather in the last of the evening light inside the church. The stranger was hunched forward in one of the choir-stall chairs, about fifty feet from where he was crouching. Had he been asleep as well? Or was he praying?

As he watched, the man stood up and moved towards the door of the shrine – it soon became clear by the manner of his progress that he had been listening and waiting for the watchman too. He raised the latch with his hand, swung the door silently open and stepped inside.