‘Oh, yeah. I get it. Sorry.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Look, want to say something to the two of you. Something important.’
‘We haven’t eaten yet.’
‘What?’
‘Never say something important when you are hungry or in pain. The hunger and pain speak instead of you and what you say is of no value.’
Sabir let out a sigh – he knew when he was beaten. ‘I’ll stop at a restaurant, then.’
‘A restaurant?’
‘Yes. And we’d better set about finding a hotel.’
Yola started laughing. Alexi began to join in, but stopped very quickly when he realised how much it cost him in rib and jaw pain.
‘No, Adam. We’ll sleep in the car tonight, as it’s too late to arrive anywhere without causing questions to be asked. Then tomorrow, first thing in the morning, we’ll drive to Gourdon.’
‘Why would we want to go there?’
‘There’s a permanent campsite. We can get food. Somewhere proper to sleep. I have cousins there.’
‘More cousins?’
‘Don’t scoff, Adam. Now that you are my phral, they will be your cousins too.’
50
Captain Joris Calque did not approve of television at breakfast. In fact he didn’t approve of television per se. But the patronne of the chambre d’hote in which he and Macron now found themselves appeared to think it was what was expected. She even stood behind them at the table, commenting on all the local news.
‘I suppose, being policemen, that you are always on the lookout for new crimes?’
Macron inconspicuously raised his eyes to Heaven. Calque concentrated even more intently on his banana fritters with apple mousse.
‘Nothing is sacred any more. Not even the Church.’
Calque realised that he would have to say something, or be considered rude. ‘What? Has someone stolen a church?’
‘No, Monsieur. Far worse than that.’
‘Good God!’
Macron nearly achieved the nose trick with his scrambled egg. He covered it up with a coughing fit, which necessitated Madame fussing around him for a couple of minutes, dispensing coffee and hearty slaps on the back.
‘No. Not a church, Inspector.’
‘Captain.’
‘Captain. As I said. Something far worse than that. The Virgin herself.’
‘Someone stole the Virgin?’
‘No. There was heavenly intervention. The thieves were stopped in their tracks and punished. They must have been after the jewels in her and the baby Jesus’s crown. Nothing is sacred any more, Inspector. Nothing.’
‘And what Virgin was this, Madame?’
‘But it’s just been on the television.’
‘I was eating, Madame. One cannot eat and look at the same time. It is unhealthy.’
‘It was the Virgin at Rocamadour, Inspector. The Black Madonna herself.’
‘And when did this attempted theft occur?’
‘Last night. After they had locked the Sanctuary. They even used a pistol. Fortunately the gardien wrestled it from one of the men – like Jacob wrestling with the angel. And then the Virgin made her miraculous intervention and drove the robbers off.’
‘Her miraculous intervention?’ Macron had stopped with the fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Against a pistol? At Rocamadour? But, Captain…’
Calque glanced meaningfully across the table at him. ‘You are right, Madame. Nothing is sacred any more. Nothing.’
51
‘And this man pretended that he was a member of the public? He pretended to help you?’ Calque was trying to estimate the gardien ’s age, but he finally gave up at around seventy-two.
‘Oh yes, Monsieur. It was he who brought my attention to the disturbance in the Sanctuary in the first place.’
‘But now you think that he was part of the gang?’
‘Certainly, Monsieur. I am sure of it. I left him behind covering the other man with the pistol. I needed to phone, you see, but the only problem is that the mobile phones the church authorities give us don’t work here underneath the cliff. They are useless. We have to go back to the office and use the old landline whenever we want to call out. They do it on purpose, in my opinion, to stop us from misusing the service.’ He crossed himself in penance for his uncharitable thoughts. ‘But then all these modern contraptions don’t really work. Take my grandson’s computer, for instance…’
‘Why didn’t they take the Black Madonna with them, if they were part of the same gang? They had ample time before either you, or the police, returned to the scene.’
‘The younger boy was injured, Monsieur. He had blood all over his face. I believe he fell while trying to steal the Virgin.’ He crossed himself again. ‘Perhaps the older man could not carry both him and the Virgin?’
‘Yes. Yes. You may be right. Where is the Virgin now?’
‘Back in her case.’
‘May we see her?’
The old man hesitated. ‘It will mean returning to the storeroom to fetch the ladder and…’
‘My junior, Lieutenant Macron, will arrange all that. You won’t have to put yourself to any additional trouble on our behalf. That, I promise you.’
‘Well, all right then. But please take care. It is a miracle she was not damaged in the fracas of last night.’
‘You behaved very well. It is entirely to your credit that the Virgin has been restored.’
The gardien hitched his shoulders. ‘You think so? You really think so?’
‘I am entirely convinced of the fact.’
‘Look, Macron. Come over here and tell me what you make of this.’ Calque was staring at the base of the Virgin. He allowed his thumb to travel over the deeply incised letters that had been chiselled into the wood.
Macron took the Virgin from his hands. ‘Well, the carving was certainly done a long time ago. You can tell that by the way the wood has darkened. Quite unlike these other marks on her breast.’
‘Those were probably done in the Revolution.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Neither the Protestants, during the Wars of Religion, nor our revolutionary ancestors, approved of graven images. In most of the churches of France they destroyed statues of Christ, the Virgin and the Holy Saints. They tried that here too. Legend has it that they tore off the silver which originally covered the Virgin and then were so astonished by the dignity of what was revealed below, that they left her alone.’
‘You don’t believe in all that rot, do you?’
Calque took back the Virgin. ‘It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of listening. History keeps its secrets on open display, Macron. Only someone with eyes to see and ears to hear can disentangle their real essence from the flotsam and jetsam that fl oat alongside them.’
‘I don’t understand what you are talking about.’
Calque sighed. ‘Let’s take this as an example. It’s a statue of the Virgin and Child, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘And we know that this particular Virgin protects sailors. You see that bell up there? When it suddenly tolls of it’s own accord, it means a sailor has been miraculously saved from the sea by the Virgin’s intervention. Or that a storm will come and a miracle occur.’
‘That’s just the wind, surely. Wind usually comes before a storm.’
Calque smiled. He spread some paper over the base of the statue and began to trace over the letters with his pen. ‘Well, Isis, the Egyptian goddess, wife and sister of Osiris and sister of Set, was also believed to save sailors from the sea. And we know that she was frequently depicted seated on a throne, with her son, Horus the Child, on her lap. Horus is the god of light, of the sun, of the day, of life and of good and his nemesis, Set, who was Isis’s sworn enemy, was the god of the night, of evil, of darkness and of death. Set had tricked Osiris, chief of the gods, into trying out a beautifully crafted coffin and had sealed him inside it and sent him down the Nile, where a tree grew around him. Later, he cut Osiris’s body into fourteen pieces. But Isis found the coffin and its contents and reassembled them, with Thoth, the mediator’s, help and Osiris came back to life just long enough to impregnate her with Horus, their son.’