The Nostradamus Prophecies (26 page)

First thing on his wish-list was to get her begging outside the church – that way no one could go past into the Sanctuary without her noticing. And she would be making money for him at the same time. A double whammy.

Yes. Gavril had it all worked out. He was finally coming into his own – he could feel it. Now, after all these years, he would make the bastards pay. Pay for a lifetime of grief and petty humiliations because of his blond hair.

With the idea still burning in his head, Gavril hurried back through the town towards Bazena’s father’s caravan.

Achor Bale watched Gavril’s antics with something close to bemusement. He had been following the idiot ever since figuratively firing him out of the gun at Gourdon – but the last three hours had finally and categorically persuaded him that he had never in his life trailed a man so sublimely unconscious of everything that was going on around him. Talk about a one-track mind. This gypsy merely had to think of a thing and, from then onwards, he would concentrate on it to the exclusion of all else – his thought processes almost clanked each time they fell into place. He was like a racehorse fitted with blinkers. The man had been ridiculously easy to trail from Gourdon, after the leg-skewering. Now, in the tourist-infested streets of Les Saintes-Maries, the thing took on a simplicity quite out of kilter with the potential end results. Bale spent a happy fifteen minutes watching Gavril browbeating a young woman into agreeing with some new plan or other he had hatched. Then a further twelve as she settled herself on a patch of cleared ground in a corner of the square nearest to the entrance to the church. The girl almost immediately began begging – not from the gypsies, you understand, but from the tourists.

You devious little bastard, thought Bale. That’s the way. Get other people to do your dirty work for you. Now I suppose you’re going off to catch your forty winks?

Ignoring Gavril, Bale settled himself down in a nearby cafe, put on a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses as a sop to the local police force and began watching the girl.

‘ Putain! Look at this place. It must be worth a fucking fortune.’

Calque winced, but said nothing.

Macron hobbled out of the car. He stared out at the mass of Cap Camarat ahead of them and then at the wide crescent of clear blue water leading to the Cap de St-Tropez on their left. ‘It’s just the sort of place Brigitte Bardot would live in.’

‘Hardly,’ said Calque.

‘Well I think it is.’

A middle-aged woman in a tweed and cashmere twinset walked towards them from the house.

Calque gave a small inclination of the head. ‘Madame La Marquise?’

The woman smiled. ‘No. I am her private secretary. My name is Madame Mastigou. And Madame’s correct title is Madame la Comtesse. The Marquisate is considered the lesser title by the family.’

Macron flashed his teeth in a delighted grin behind Calque’s back. That would teach the snotty bastard. Serve him right to be such a snob. He always had to know everything about everything. And still he messed up.

‘Have you both been in a car accident? I notice your assistant is limping. And you, if I may say so, Captain, look as though you’ve come straight from the wars.’

Calque gave a rueful acknowledgement of his arm sling and of the tape still criss-crossing his newly-shaped nose. ‘That is just what happened, Madame. We were in pursuit of a criminal. A very vicious criminal. Which is why we are here today.’

‘You don’t expect to find him in the house, surely?’

‘No, Madame. We are investigating a pistol known to have been in his possession. This is why we wish to talk to your employer. The pistol may well have belonged to her father. We need to trace its itinerary over the past seventy-five years.’

‘Seventy-five years?’

‘Since its first registration in the early 1930s. Yes.’

‘It was registered in the 1930s?’

‘Yes. The early 1930s.’

‘Then it would have belonged to Madame la Comtesse’s husband. He is dead.’

‘I see.’ Calque could sense rather than see Macron rolling his eyes behind him. ‘Madame la Comtesse is a very elderly lady, then?’

‘Hardly, Monsieur. She was forty years younger than Monsieur le Comte when they married in the 1970s.’

‘Ah.’

‘But please. Come with me. Madame la Comtesse is expecting you.’

Calque followed Madame Mastigou towards the house, with Macron limping along behind. As they reached the front door, a hovering footman reached across and opened it.

‘This can’t be happening,’ whispered Macron. ‘This is a filmset. Or some sort of joke. People don’t live like this anymore.’

Calque pretended not to hear him. He allowed the footman to steady him up the front steps with only the lightest of touches on his uninjured arm. Secretly, he was rather grateful for the support, for he had been disguising from Macron just how fragile he really felt for fear of losing ground. Macron was a product of the bidonvilles – a street fighter – always on the lookout for weakness. Calque knew that his only real advantage lay in his brain and in the depth of his knowledge about the world and its history. Lose that edge and he was dead meat.

‘Madame la Comtesse is waiting for you in the library.’

Calque followed the footman’s outstretched arm. The secretary, or whatever she was, was already announcing them.

Here we go, he thought. Another wild goose chase. I should take the sport up professionally. At this rate, when we get back to Paris – and with Macron’s gleeful input around the office – I shall become the laughing stock of the entire 2eme arrondissement.

‘Look. It’s Bazena.’ Alexi was about to throw up his arm, but Sabir stopped him.

The two of them stepped back, in tandem, behind the screen separating two outside shopfronts.

‘What’s she doing?’

Alexi craned around the screen. ‘I don’t believe this.’

‘Believe what?’

‘She’s begging.’ He turned to Sabir. ‘I’m serious. If her father or her brother saw her, they’d take a horsewhip to her.’

‘Why? I see gypsies begging all the time.’

‘Not gypsies like Bazena. Not from families like hers. Her father is a very proud man. You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him. Even I would think twice.’ He spat on his hands superstitiously.

‘Then what’s she doing it for?’

Alexi closed his eyes. ‘Hold it. Let me think.’

Sabir darted his head around the corner of the screen and checked out the square.

Alexi grabbed him by the shirt. ‘I’ve got it! It has to be something to do with Gavril. Perhaps he’s got her looking out for us?’

‘Why doesn’t he look-out for us himself?’

‘Because he’s a lazy sonofabitch.’

‘I see. You’re not prejudiced, by any chance?’

Alexi cursed under his breath. ‘What do we do, Damo? We can’t go into the Sanctuary with Bazena there. She’ll run off and tell Gavril and he’ll blunder in and mess everything up.’

‘We’ll get Yola to talk to her.’

‘What good will that do?’

‘Yola will think of something to say. She always does.’

Alexi nodded, as if the comment seemed self-evident to him. ‘Okay then. Stay here. I will find her.’

Alexi found his cousin seated with a gaggle of her girlfriends, exactly as prearranged, outside the town hall, on the Place des Gitans. ‘Yola. We’ve got a problem.’

‘You’ve seen the eye-man?’

‘No. But nearly as bad. Gavril has staked out the church – he’s got Bazena begging near the doorway.’

‘Bazena? Begging? But her father will kill her.’

‘I know that. I already told Damo.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I’m not going to do anything. You are.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You are going to talk to her. Damo says you always know what to say.’

‘He says that, does he?’

‘Yes.’

One of the other girls started to giggle.

Yola tugged at the girl’s breasts. ‘Be quite, Yeleni. I’ve got to think.’

It surprised Alexi that the girls hearkened to Yola and didn’t simply answer her back, as they customarily did to anyone her age who was still of spinstress rank. Normally, the fact that she was so late unmarried would have diminished her status in the female community – for some of these young women had already given birth, or were pregnant for the second or third time. But he had to admit that Yola had a particular air about her which commanded attention. It would certainly reflect well on him, were he to marry her.

Still. The thought of Yola keeping an eye on all his doings filled him with a prescient dread. Alexi acknowledged that he was weak-willed when it came to women. It was next to impossible for him to pass up any opportunity whatsoever to sweet-talk gadje girls. Yola was right. And that was all very well as things went. But once they were married, she was not the sort of woman to turn a blind eye to such proceedings. She’d probably castrate him while he was asleep.

‘Alexi, what are you thinking about?’

‘Me? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.’

‘Then go and tell Damo that I shall clear the way for us to go to the Sanctuary. But not to be surprised at how I do it.’

‘Okay.’ Alexi was still thinking about what it would be like to be poisoned or castrated. He didn’t know which he would prefer. Both seemed inevitable if he married Yola.

‘Did you hear me?’

‘Sure. Sure I heard you.’

‘And if you see Gavril and he doesn’t see you, avoid him.’

‘Captain Calque? Please sit down. And you, too, Lieutenant.’

Calque collapsed gratefully on to one of the three large sofas set around the fireplace. Then he levered himself back-up while the Countess sat down.

Macron, who had at first been tempted to perch on the arm of one of the sofas and dangle the soles of his painful feet in the air, thought better of it and joined him.

‘Would you both like some coffee?’

‘That’s quite all right.’

‘I shall order some for myself then. I always have coffee at this hour.’

Calque looked like a man who had forgotten to buy his lottery ticket and whose numbers had just flashed up on the television screen.

‘Are you sure you won’t join me?’

‘Well. Now that you mention it.’

‘Excellent. Milouins, a pot of coffee for three, please. And bring some madeleines.’

‘Yes, Madame.’ The footman backed out of the room.

Macron made another incredulous face but Calque refused to meet his eyes.

‘This is our summer house, Captain. In the nineteenth century it used to be our winter house, but everything changes, does it not? Now people seek out the sun. The hotter the better, no?’

Calque felt like blowing out his cheeks, but didn’t. He felt like a cigarette, but suspected that he might simply set off a hidden smoke alarm – or trigger a ruckus about ashtrays – if he gave in to his craving. He resolved to forgo both and not subject himself to any more stress than was strictly necessary. ‘I wanted to ask you something, Madame. Purely as a matter of record. About your husband’s titles.’

‘My son’s titles.’

‘Ah. Yes. Your son’s titles. Simple curiosity. Your son is a Pair de France, is he not?’

‘Yes. That is correct.’

‘But I understood there to be only twelve Pairs de France. Please correct me if I am wrong.’ He held up his fingers. ‘The Archbishop of Reims, who traditionally conducted the Royal crowning. The Bishops of Laon, Langres, Beauvais, Chalons and Noyons, who, respectively, anointed the King and bore his sceptre, his mantle, his ring and his belt. And then there were the Dukes of Normandy, Burgundy and Aquitaine (also known as Guyenne). The Duke of Burgundy bore the crown and fastened the belt. Normandy held the first square banner, with Guyenne holding the second. Finally there were the Counts: Champagne, Flanders and Toulouse. Toulouse carried the spurs, Flanders the sword and Champagne the Royal Standard. Am I not correct?’

‘Extraordinarily so. One would think that you had just this minute looked these names up in a book and memorised them.’

Calque fl ushed. He could feel the blood churning through his damaged nose.

‘No, Madame. Captain Calque really does know his stuff.’

Calque gave Macron an incredulous stare. Good God. Were we talking class solidarity here? That had to be the answer. There could be no other possible reason for Macron to defend him so sedulously and in so public a manner. Calque inclined his head in genuine appreciation. He must remember to make more of an effort with Macron. Encourage him more. Calque even felt the vestige of a slight affection clouding his habitual irritation at Macron’s youthful brashness. ‘And so we come to your husband’s family, Madame. Forgive me.

But I still don’t understand. This would surely make them the thirteenth Pair? But no record of such a Pair exists, as far as I am aware. What would your husband’s ancestor have carried during the Coronation?’

‘He wouldn’t have carried anything, Captain. He would have protected.’

‘Protected? Protected from whom?’

The Countess smiled. ‘From the Devil, of course.’

Yola felt that she’d timed her two interventions just about perfectly. First she’d sent Yeleni to wake Gavril and tell him that Bazena needed to speak to him. Urgently.

Then she’d allowed five minutes to go by before hurrying to tell Badu, Bazena’s father, that his daughter had just been seen begging outside the church. The five minutes were to allow for the fact that Badu and Stefan, Bazena’s brother, would undoubtedly hit the ground running the moment they heard the news. Now Yola was running herself, unwilling to miss the unravelling of her plot.

Alexi saw her coming. ‘Look. It’s Yola. And over there. Gavril. Oh shit. Badu and Stefan.’