Mario Reading - The Mayan Codex

Calque cocked his head questioningly. ‘Why the change of attitude all of a sudden?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘I really do. Yes.’

Macron snorted smoke through both nostrils. ‘Because you’re not a flic any more. I like you better this way. They kick you out because of Paul’s death?’

‘Indirectly.’

‘Fuckers. It wasn’t your fault. If it had been, you wouldn’t have made it past the front gate.’

‘I suspected that.’ Calque lit the proffered cigarette.

The two men stood staring at each other, smoking.

‘So what do you want, Monsieur l’ex-Capitaine?’

‘Want?’

Macron scrubbed his fingernails across his razor-stropped head. ‘Don’t fuck with me, Inspector. You haven’t come around here to see how I’m getting on. Or to chew the fat about all those happy times you shared with Paul. Neither of you could stand each other.’

Calque could sense himself about to go on the defensive – he wrestled the instinct down. ‘You’re right, Macron. I need more than information this time. I need your help.’

Macron allowed himself the ghost of a smile. ‘Paul’s killer is dead. What do you need me for?’ His face changed expression. ‘You need someone nobbled, don’t you? That’s it, isn’t it? And you remembered that good old Aime Macron was on the prison register for GBH, and maybe he hadn’t forgotten some of his old tricks in the years since they let him out?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Then what is it?’

Calque felt like a fool. What was he doing here, talking to a compete stranger about breaking the law, after spending his entire working life as its bondservant? He swallowed. Might as well get it out. What did he have to lose? His pension? It was hardly enough to keep him in toilet paper. His good name? What was that worth in this brave new world they called France? His integrity? He’d lost that when he’d trousered his badge back at the station. ‘Do you have any ex-Legionnaire friends who are firemen? Down St Tropez way, maybe?’

‘Firemen? Are you serious?’

Calque flicked his cigarette into the puddle of water left over after Macron’s frenetic ablutions. ‘Perfectly.’

Abiger de Bale sat on the bed across from his sister.

Lamia de Bale had her back to him, and was staring pointedly out of the window.

‘I’ve never liked you, Lamia. I’ve always considered you the weakest link in our family chain.’ Abi threw himself back on the bed and lay there, staring up at the ceiling.

Lamia turned towards him. ‘Why not kill me then? That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Just like Rocha. Both of you, born killers.’

‘I only kill vermin. You should view me like a terrier, trained to kill rats. I’m sweet when you get to know me. Cuddly, even.’

‘Get out of my room. You’re dirtying my bed.’

‘I’m waiting for Milouins. He’s coming up to take over keeping an eye on you.’

‘I don’t need keeping an eye on. What do you think? That I’m going to betray you all?’

Abi shrugged. ‘What’s to betray? We all work separately. None of us has a record of any sort. If you said anything, nobody would believe you. What we do makes no logical sense, unless one understands the Mysteries.’

‘What Mysteries? You don’t actually believe in a Second Coming, do you? Or the emergence of the Third Antichrist?’

‘Of course not. But Madame, our mother, does. And she holds the purse strings.’

Lamia shook her head. ‘So it’s just an excuse, then? For you and Vau?’

‘No. Vau really believes in all that hogwash too. I do it for the fun of it. He does it out of conviction. The result’s much the same.’

‘You make me sick.’

‘Why? The others all believe it too.’ Abi grinned. ‘Gather together a bunch of freaks. Then brainwash them from birth. Tell them they’re special – that they’ve been handpicked by God, and that everyone else is inferior to them. Then shower them with money and privileges. Works every time.’

Lamia glanced towards the open door. ‘If Madame, our mother, heard you talk like this, it wouldn’t be me whom she imprisons.’

‘But she won’t ever hear me talk like this. I’m not going to kill the golden goose. Do you think I’m insane?’

‘I refuse to answer that.’ Lamia hesitated. Against her better instincts she allowed herself to frame the question uppermost in her mind. ‘What do you think she will do with me?’

Abi laughed. ‘If I were you, I’d change my tune. Fast. That way you won’t need to find out.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this, because it’s not to my advantage in any way to do so. But you are my sister. Even if not by blood.’ Abi sat up straighter on the bed. ‘Do you know what I would do if I were her?’

Lamia took a step towards him. ‘Tell me.’

‘I’d ask someone like me to kill you.’

Lamia stopped. The unmarked side of her face turned deathly pale. ‘Is that what you’ve been sent to do?’

‘Me? No. You’d be dead already. I wouldn’t have bothered warning you either. We’ve got a jellyfish plague out in the bay. I’d simply have dumped you out there, in the middle of the biggest school of lashers I could find, and dragged you around on a rope and a life-ring. Everybody would think you’d been caught out swimming. Enough jellyfish stings, and you go into anaphylactic shock and drown. It’s happened hundreds of times. There are no EpiPens out at sea.’

She stared at him. ‘Why? What’s so vital about now? What could possibly be important enough to kill your own sister for?’

Abi shrugged. ‘I’d have thought it was obvious. This is the moment our family has been waiting eight hundred years for. Madame, our mother…’

A voice at the door interrupted him. ‘Yes, Abiger. You are right. Madame, your mother, does think that this is the moment the Corpus has been waiting eight hundred years for.’ The Countess swept in, accompanied by Milouins and Madame Mastigou. She inclined her head first towards Abiger, and then towards her daughter. ‘But Niobe did not kill her own children, did she, Lamia? It was the immortal gods who decided on their fate.’ She glanced around the room, her eyes strangely unseeing. ‘You will remain here at the house for the foreseeable future. Or at the very least until such time as you can convince me that you’ve seen reason. Milouins will see that you are adequately looked after, and he and the men will watch over you in shifts. You will take your meals with me of course. That will give us time to talk. Aside from that you may use the library and the games room. But not the telephone or a computer. Do you understand me?’

Lamia’s eyes flared briefly. Then she lowered her gaze in acquiescence. ‘Perfectly, Madame.’

‘This is all highly inconvenient, you understand? I have more important things to think of.’

Abi, who had sprung to attention the moment his mother had entered the room, flashed his sister an old-flashioned look.

The Countess turned towards her son. ‘Abiger. You have your orders. You and your brother are no longer needed here.’

‘No, Madame.’

‘Do you have adequate funds?’

‘Ample, Madame. As you are well aware.’

‘Then don’t let me down.’

‘Yeah. I know a fireman. He works in Draguignan, though. Not in St Tropez. He’s a communist. Wears red underpants. Is that any good?’

Calque closed his eyes. I must be insane, he thought to himself. Why am I doing this? I should be in Tenerife, living in one of those long-let apartments they lease out at peppercorn rents to the silver-haired brigade for the winter. I could play dominoes every morning with retired bank managers and redundant civil servants, and then flirt over the lunchtime aperitif with their wives. I wouldn’t even notice when the infarct took me. And my terminally uncommunicative daughter would only find out her father had finally cashed in his chips when they brought her my medals and the accompanying life-insurance cheque on a velvet-covered tray.