The Sixth Key (13 page)

‘What about Eugene, my dear, won’t he need
you?’

‘Giselle is here,’ she said, excited or so it
seemed, at the prospect.

When she returned, she was dressed in a skirt
and loose blouse, a cardigan hanging over her shoulders. On her feet were
sensible shoes and on her face she wore the flush of adventure. Deodat sat
graciously in the back, letting her have the front seat next to Rahn, who was
disconcerted, since he found her perfume and those legs peeking out from
beneath that long skirt rather distracting, but not enough to prevent him from
noticing, as he pulled out of the driveway, that a black car was parked some
way down the road.

He couldn’t remember seeing it on their
arrival. It looked like a Citroën but it was impossible to tell at this
distance. He kept an eye on it as he drove on in case it pulled out to follow
them, but it didn’t.

‘You said the church has no priest and yet it
is always open?’ Deodat asked Eva from the back.

‘It’s the tyranny of life in the country, I’m
afraid, magistrate,’ she said. ‘The locksmith can’t find the time to come all
the way from Carcassonne to Bugarach just to change three or four locks.’

‘Did something happen to the keys?’

‘When my uncle was struck down by his illness
the sacristan was given the keys to the church so that he could continue to do
the ordinary things: open it, dust and mop and keep the various vessels of the
sacrament clean. But the keys went missing.’

‘Was he just careless?’ Rahn asked.

‘It’s actually quite a sad affair,’ she said,
with a sigh. ‘The sacristan committed suicide. He threw himself rather
dramatically from the Pic de Bugarach. Things like that happen around here from
time to time. Perhaps it was boredom or melancholy, who knows? You can’t
imagine how difficult it was to find him. There was an exhaustive search that
took nearly a week. When the body was found, well, I won’t go into it. It is
too ghastly. At any rate, there was no sign of the keys on his person so it was
assumed he must have put them away in a safe place before his demise. In the
end the villagers nearly tore apart his small house but found nothing. So the
church remains open until a new priest comes who can entice the locksmith
here.’

The church was squat, old and worn out, with a
cemetery and a scattering of ramshackle houses to keep it company. Rahn parked
the car in its shadow and they got out. Even outside, he could feel that
familiar dread come over him. He spoke now more out of a desire to calm his
nerves than out of curiosity.

‘Eighth or ninth century?’

‘The fifth, the time of the Visigoths,
actually,’ she said, walking to the main entrance. ‘I see you know your history.’
There was a half smile. Was she mocking him? Her voice had that peculiar tone
that left him unable to discern one way or the other.

‘Rahn is a Cathar historian and a
philologist,’ Deodat informed her.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘You’ll be interested to know
then, that this village was once a Gallo-Celtic fort. You wouldn’t think so
now, would you?’ She opened the door with an air of irreverence. ‘The town
became a Cathar settlement somewhere along the line.’

Rahn hung back. He couldn’t remember a time
when he hadn’t felt a morbid fear of Roman churches. As a child, whenever his
mother had forced him to go to church it had been a wretched trial. Bargains
had been offered and refused, tears had been shed and punishments meted out,
but he had remained obdurate. The black cross, the dead, contorted Jesus, the
effigies of saints, the sarcophagi – all things that may have inspired
another child to pious reverence – generated panic and horror in Rahn.
And it had remained so. It was, therefore, with great effort that he entered
the cold, damp, silent space whose acrid smell of smoke from the votive candles
and whose pungent scent of laurel made him feel ill. He loosened his collar,
feeling a cold sweat on his brow, and there was that familiar tremor in his
hands. He steeled himself like a man about to go into a field of battle from
which no man had ever returned unscathed.

‘The church was dedicated to Stella Maris, Our
Lady of the Seas,’ Eva said, walking along the nave, her disembodied voice
echoing from the short vaults. ‘But originally it was consecrated to Saint
Anthony, the hermit.’

‘Why Saint Anthony?’ Rahn asked, keeping his
mind on his feet, moving them one after the other.

‘There’s a hermitage of his not far from here.
In Bugarach on Ash Wednesday there’s a procession led by a man dressed like a
hermit wearing a horse collar around his neck with bells on it and carrying a
cross that has pork sausages hanging from its arms. All rather rustic.’

Eva looked at Rahn enquiringly. ‘You don’t
look well, Monsieur Rahn.’

‘I don’t like churches,’ he said, rather
sharply.

Deodat took Eva’s arm and confided, ‘Our
friend can walk into a cave without fear of crevices or lakes. He has no
concern for bats, snakes or spiders and even rats are nothing to him, but put
him in a church and he turns pale like this and looks like he’s seen a ghost!’
He laughed a small clipped laugh. ‘Imagine!’

‘That’s very interesting,’ she said to Rahn.
‘Have you seen a psychiatrist?’

‘Freud would say,’ Deodat continued, in his
element, ‘that a fear such as this displays the psychodynamic conflict between
desire for and repulsion of the mother on the one hand, represented by the
mother church, and the idealisation and fear of the father – who is
really God on the other.’

Rahn mustered his sarcasm and said, ‘Oedipus,
of course! Nothing new in that.’

Deodat, having had his fun, now appointed
himself Rahn’s defence counsel. ‘The truth is, my dear, when one knows history,
one cannot walk into a church unperturbed. In the final analysis, thousands
were killed in a church not far from here at Béziers during the Cathar wars.

Rahn continued Deodat’s line. ‘Roman churches
are not places of asylum, nor are they holy. They are nothing more than prisons
and execution chambers; traps for the unwary.’ He paused then, realising to his
concern that he had unwittingly walked through the iron enclosures to the
altar. But before his fear could take hold he noticed two plaques that seized
his attention: one to the left of the crucifix, the other to the right. Both
showed the Book of the Seven Seals.

‘Ah! You’ve found the chief reason I brought
you here, Rahn,’ Deodat said at his shoulder. ‘It isn’t often one sees the Book
of the Seven Seals so well depicted on plaques.’ Deodat then pointed to a third
plaque over a door on the right, leading to what might be the sacristy.

Rahn smiled, despite himself. ‘For Heaven’s
sake, it’s the Grail!’

‘There’s another one over there, too,’ Deodat
said, pointing to a fourth plaque over an identical door on the left wall. ‘So
you see, this may not be a Roman church after all.’

‘This is very significant,’ Rahn said, to
himself. ‘The Book of the Seven Seals and the Holy Grail together in the same
church implies some knowledge of the Cathar treasure.’

‘That’s right,’ Deodat said.

‘What do you mean?’ Eva came over to see,
suddenly interested.

‘The treasure is purported to include both,’
Rahn explained. ‘Apparently they were brought here to the South of France for
safekeeping, and the Cathars are thought to have been their guardians.’

‘What’s this statue, my dear?’ Deodat asked
Eva.

‘That’s Saint Roch, patron of those afflicted
by plagues. Apparently, he was saved from starvation in the wilderness by a
hunting dog with a loaf of bread in its mouth, and so he is mostly portrayed
with a dog.’

Rahn turned to see. ‘Cerberus?’

‘Look at him,’ Deodat said, nodding towards
Rahn. ‘See how he comes to life as soon as there is an allusion to the myths!’

Eva smiled. ‘Myths?’

Rahn went to the badly
cast statue and looked it over. ‘The dog Cerberus is the guardian of the world
of the dead. It was Hercules’ last labour to fetch the dog and to return it to
the Underworld. Some say it’s a symbol for a guarded secret. There is an effigy
of Cerberus as large as a house in the caves of Lombrives.’

‘Really?’ Eva didn’t seem suitably impressed.

‘I can attest to that,’ Deodat said. ‘Now as
far as this one’s concerned, the bread in its mouth is likely to be an allusion
to the manna that kept the Jews alive in the wilderness. And manna is also the
same as the substance contained in the Grail, which fed the inhabitants of
Montsalvache, the panem supersubstanialem, otherwise known as the bread of
life. Now, look at this, Rahn!’ Deodat took himself to a side chapel. Above a
little altar, there was a stained-glass window depicting two men turning a
wheel in the sky, in which sat a crescent moon illuminating an ocean and a boat
sailing away from a rising sun.

‘The symbol of destiny,’ Rahn said, wiping his
brow. ‘The wheel of fortune in the tarot deck – this is quite
extraordinary.’

‘Symbols are interesting.’ Eva came to take a
look. ‘My uncle’s stroke has affected the speech centre in his brain, which not
only disturbs his speech . . .’

But Rahn wasn’t listening, he was thinking.

The boat of Hercules travels to the Underworld
towards the rising sun . . . the Underworld is the realm of death . . . the
wheel of fortune represents each man’s destiny which ends in death . . . but
this boat is travelling away from the rising sun, it’s moving away from death.

‘ ... it also affects his ability to
understand the meaning of things.’

The wheel . . . turns one way . . . and it
reverses . . .

‘For instance, he would not know what a
toothbrush is, and would just as likely use it to comb his hair – he
can’t connect the item with its purpose, so I guess he wouldn’t know symbols
either, even words can come out back to front.’ She looked around. ‘I can’t
think what my uncle could want from the church. What was that word he wrote
down – Sator? Do you know what it means?’

‘Sator means sower, creator, reaper,’ Rahn
said automatically, still thinking.

‘It’s Latin,’ Deodat informed her. ‘But I may
have to look up what other meanings there are, then we may understand what
Eugene was trying to tell us.’

‘My uncle told me about your library.
Apparently it’s full of heretical texts, the most comprehensive in all of the
Languedoc. You know, he does think very highly of you, despite what he calls
your strange leanings.’

‘And I think fondly of him too, despite him
being as stubborn as an old goat. Speaking of him, I think we should get you
back. We’ve kept you from him long enough.’

Rahn was grateful to follow the others out of
the church and once outside felt as if he had surfaced from a near drowning.
But on the drive back to Maison de Cros he had the strangest sensation that he
had missed something important in the church, and this caused him to drive in
silence all the way to the turn-off, trying to think of what it might be. By
then it was late afternoon and the sun was tilting its light over the
unforgiving landscape, creating ominous shadows in various shades of purple. He
looked for the black car but it was gone.

When they arrived at the house there were a
number of parked cars in the driveway and the housekeeper came bursting out of
the great double doors in tears. After that Rahn and the others were swept up
in a concert of cries, lamentations, imprecations and gesticulations that had
no meaning whatsoever until they came to the garden, where they found the
source of the mayhem
– and, oh, what a frightful sight it was!

The old abbé was lying on the grass. His
clothes were saturated, his hair was plastered over a bloated face turned to
one side, and his milky eyes stared wide and horrified, as if they had seen the
face of the Devil himself. Rahn wondered if it was true that one could glimpse
the image of the murderer frozen forever in the eyes of the murdered. He
staggered a little to think on it, he had seen more death in one week than many
men see in a lifetime and he was realising that his nature was a delicate one
when it came to such things.

There were several gendarmes walking around
and in a moment two ambulance men arrived to place the old abbé on a stretcher
and take him away. A sad sight, Rahn thought. The girl seemed in shock as she
accompanied her uncle’s body into the house. At this point a short, pale little
man walked towards them. He had thick brows and a wiry moustache that cut
across his long pock-marked face like a dash.

He lifted his crumpled Panama hat with the tip
of a finger in greeting and said, ‘Good afternoon, messieurs, Inspecteur
Guillaume Beliere, of the Brigade Spéciale of the Parisian Police Judiciaire.’
He took a crushed packet of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket,
revealing the gun at his belt. He shook one out and lit it without taking his
eyes off Rahn. Rahn held the gaze and tried to hide his disquiet. The man
seemed to be the antithesis of those detectives in the novels that he loved,
like Gaboriau’s detective Monsieur Lecoq. Such a man analysed clues, employed
the marvels of modern science and solved crimes by using logic and reason. Such
a man, he imagined, never wore crumpled suits, and his sensitive probing
fingers would be popping peppermint lozenges into his mouth, not holding a
cigarette with a nicotine-stained thumb and forefinger, looking as if he had
slept with an empty bottle of rum under one arm.

‘You knew the deceased?’ the inspector said
after a perfunctory cough, looking from Deodat to Rahn.

‘The abbé was more than an acquaintance, he
was a friend, actually,’ Deodat said, officious and annoyed. ‘He asked to see
me and we came today but he was unwell. We were gone only a couple of hours.’

The head tilted again and the brows arched slightly.
He took a moment to think on it, while he let his entire weight rest on his
heels. ‘Gone?’

‘To Bugarach, to visit the old church,’ Rahn
put in.

Those wet eyes fell on Rahn. The inspector
smiled without showing his teeth. ‘For religious reasons?’

‘Not in the strictest sense,’ Rahn said.

‘No?’ The man squinted through the smoke,
holding the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

‘Can you tell us, inspector, what has happened
here?’ Deodat brought his authority as a magistrate to bear on the moment.

‘A terrible accident, I’m afraid.’ But the
flat tone suggested he didn’t find it quite so terrible. Perhaps he had seen
worse ways to die. ‘The maid was inside answering the phone. When she returned,
she found the abbé in the pond. He must have tipped the wheelchair over. No one
knows how it happened. The poor woman couldn’t get him out. He was strapped to
the chair and too heavy for her, you see,’ he said, taking a long drag of his
cigarette. ‘A dead weight.’

Rahn felt Deodat bristle beside him.

‘How in the devil could he have tipped the
wheelchair?’ Deodat said. ‘The man was paralysed – he could hardly move
his lips!’

The inspector gave an uninterested sigh. ‘Who
knows? Perhaps it was a fit or an involuntary spasm? The maid said he was a
stroke victim, so this may have been another stroke. The clinical autopsy will
reveal more. I will need to take your names.’ He turned to Rahn. ‘You,
monsieur, you are a foreigner?’ Rahn felt the burning interest in those eyes.
‘Can I see your papers, your passport?’

Rahn searched his jacket and brought them out
of his wallet, dropping a card.

The inspector picked it up and read it before
giving it back. ‘Serinus?’ he said.

The blood rushed from Rahn’s head. ‘A business
associate.’

‘Serinus is the genus name of the canary, isn’t
that so?’ The skin around those bloodshot eyes wrinkled.

Rahn hadn’t thought about it and now he
hesitated. ‘I believe you’re right, inspector.’

‘May I?’ He reached for Rahn’s papers.

‘Of course.’

‘So, from Berlin, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see, and you are staying here in the south
for how long?’

‘A week or two.’

‘And your accommodation?’

‘He’s staying with me,’ Deodat put in, about
to lose his formidable temper.

‘And you might be?’

‘Deodat Roche, Magistrate of Arques, that’s
who I am! And I’d like to know, inspector, what you are doing here, so far from
Paris and in my jurisdiction?’

Inspecteur Beliere lifted that brow again, not
at all perturbed. He touched his hat in deference and said, ‘Forgive me,
magistrate, I did not know who you were. I am staying at Carcassonne for a
small time, investigating something in connection to a group called La Cagoule.
Have you heard of them?’

‘Of course,’ Deodat said, ‘everyone has heard
of them.’

‘Yes, the journalists
have made certain of that,’ the inspector said, blinking. He took a drag of his
cigarette and let it sit a thoughtful moment in his lungs before spilling it
out in a cloud around his face. He looked as if he was about to turn
philosophical but instead he continued with a certain hesitation, ‘We have information
that has led us here. In fact, it was by sheer coincidence that I was at the
gendarmerie at Carcassonne when the call came in about the deceased. I had
nothing else to do . . .’ He showed small, yellowed teeth. ‘ . . . so here I
am!’ He looked at Rahn. ‘Are you Monsieur Rahn, the celebrated author?

I think I have read your
book!’

This struck Rahn. ‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ the other man said, with a concentrated
frown. ‘The Sons of Belessina, the Troubadours, Esclarmonde de Foix – the
great Cathar Perfecta, and Montsegur.’ He took one last drag, threw the
cigarette down and stepped on it. ‘I’m rather fond of the Cathars and the
Templars, it’s a little hobby of mine. I read in my spare time. There is more
to us police than making arrests and filing reports, you know. I thought when
reading your book that only a strange twist of fate could lead a German to know
more than the French about their own history.’

‘One could look at it that way.’

‘You say in your introduction, if I’m not
mistaken, that it was Péladan who inspired you? I find that very interesting.
Wasn’t he a Rosicrucian, an occultist?’

Rahn’s book had only sold five thousand copies
and so, the fact that this man had read it, in itself, was an oddity. Moreover,
out of all the things mentioned in his book, the inspector chose to touch on
Péladan, for whom Monti had once worked. Rahn felt Monti’s notebook burning a
hole in his pocket. This had to be the inspector’s calculated way of letting
him know that he was aware of his visit to Pierre Plantard.

‘I should let you go now,’ the inspector said
forestalling Rahn’s answer, ‘I must see to some . . . formalities, as you no
doubt appreciate, magistrate.’

‘Thank you, inspector, I would like to be kept
informed of anything you find in relation to this unfortunate accident,’ Deodat
said.

‘Of course. In fact you can expect that I will
call in on you soon, to notify you of my progress.’

‘That would be desirable,’ Deodat answered
tersely.

The man tipped his hat and lingered a little
before turning to go. He paused then, as if he had just remembered something of
great importance, and spun around wearing an enquiring face.

‘Might I ask why the deceased wanted to see
you?’

‘I don’t really know,’ Deodat answered. ‘But I
have a suspicion that it was in relation to an investigation.’

‘An investigation?’

‘It was before his illness. He was
investigating the priests of this area – he had the sanction of the
Vatican; I don’t know the particular details.’

‘I see. And he said nothing to you today?’

‘Nothing intelligible; all we could ascertain
was that he wanted us to find something in the church. That’s why we went
there.’

‘And did you find anything?’ His raised brows
were expectant, his wet mouth open slightly; he appeared to be hanging on
Deodat’s next words.

‘No. I’m afraid not.’

Rahn couldn’t tell if he saw relief or
disappointment on the man’s inscrutable face. ‘I see . . . Well, I bid you a
good evening.’

And with these words the inspector walked
away, leaving them alone in that miserable garden, with the shadow cast by the
dormant volcano pouring its gloom over them.