Perhaps, thought Sabir, it was all true and Yola really was a witch after all?
65
That morning Sabir walked from the encampment into the outskirts of Gourdon. He was wearing a greasy baseball cap he had liberated from a cupboard in the caravan and a red-and-black stitched leather jacket with lightning stripes, a plethora of unnecessary zips and about a yard and a half of dangling chains. If anybody recognises me now, he thought to himself, I really am done for – my credibility is shot for ever.
Still. This was his first time alone and in a public place since the camp at Samois and he felt awkward and nervous. Like an impostor.
Carefully skirting the main streets – in which the market was in full swing and law-abiding people were taking their breakfast in cafes, like regular citizens – Sabir was suddenly struck by how detached he had become to the so-called real world. His reality was back in the gypsy camp, with the dusty children and the dogs and the cooking pots and the long dresses of the women. The town seemed almost colourless by comparison. Up itself. Anally retentive.
He bought himself a croissant at a mobile stand and stood eating it on the town ramparts, looking back over the market, enjoying his rare taste of solitude. What madness had he let himself in for? In little more than a week his life had changed tack in its entirety and he was now certain, in his heart of hearts, that he would never be able to return to his old ways. He belonged to neither one world nor the other now. What was the gypsy expression? Apatride. With no nationality. It was their word for gypsyhood.
He spun abruptly around to face the man standing behind him. Did he have time to reach for his pistol? The presence of innocent bystanders in the square decided him against it.
‘Monsieur Sabir?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Capitaine Calque. Police Nationale. I’ve been following you since you left the camp. In fact you’ve been under continuous observation ever since your arrival from Rocamadour, three days ago.’
‘Oh Jesus.’
‘Are you armed?’
Sabir nodded. ‘Armed, yes. But not dangerous.’
‘May I see the pistol?’
Sabir gingerly opened his pocket, stuck two fingers in and retrieved the pistol by the barrel. He could almost feel the sniper scopes converging on the roof of his skull.
‘May I inspect it?’
‘Hell, yes. Be my guest. Keep it if you want.’
Calque smiled. ‘We are alone here, Monsieur Sabir. You may hold me up, if you wish. You do not have to give me the pistol.’
Sabir ducked his head in wonder. ‘You’re either lying through your teeth, Captain, or you’re taking one heck of a risk.’ He offered Calque the pistol, butt first, as if it were a piece of rotting fish.
‘Thank you.’ Calque took the pistol. ‘A risk, yes. But I think we’ve just proved something quite important.’ He hefted the automatic in his hand. ‘A Remington 51. Nice little pistol. They stopped making these in the late 1920s. Did you know that? This is almost a museum piece.’
‘You don’t say?’
‘It’s not yours, I take it?’
‘You know very well that I took it off that guy in the Rocamadour Sanctuary.’
‘May I take the serial number? It might prove interesting.’
‘How about the DNA? Isn’t that what you people swear by these days?’
‘It’s too late for DNA. The pistol has been prejudiced. I simply need the serial number.’
Sabir exhaled in a long, ragged outpouring of breath. ‘Yes. Please. Take the serial number. Take the gun. Take me.’
‘I told you. I’m alone.’
‘But I’m a killer. You people had my face splashed all over the TV and newspapers. I’m a threat to public safety.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Calque put on his reading glasses and took down the serial number in a small black notebook. Then he offered the pistol back to Sabir.
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘I’m very serious, Monsieur Sabir. You will need to be armed for what I am about to ask you to do.’
66
Sabir squatted down beside Yola and Alexi. It was more than obvious that they were on speaking terms again. Yola was roasting some green coffee beans and wild chicory root over an open fire in preparation for Alexi’s breakfast.
Sabir handed her the bag of croissants. ‘I’ve just had a run-in with the police.’
Alexi laughed. ‘Did you steal those croissants, Damo? Don’t tell me you got caught first time out?’
‘No, Alexi. I’m serious. A captain of the Police Nationale just picked me up. He knew exactly who I was.’
‘ Malos mengues! ’ Alexi slapped himself on the forehead with his flattened palm. He reared up, prepared for flight. ‘Are they already in the camp?’
‘Sit down, you fool. Do you think I’d still be here if they really intended to take me?’
Alexi hesitated. Then he dropped back on to the tree stump he had been using as a seat. ‘You’re crazy, Damo. I nearly threw up. I thought I was going straight to prison. It’s not funny to joke that way.’
‘I wasn’t joking. You remember that guy who came to talk to you in the camp at Samois? With his assistant? About Babel? While I was in the wood-box?’
‘The wood-box. Yes.’
‘It was the same guy. I recognised his voice. It was the last thing I heard before I blacked out.’
‘But why did he let you go? They still think it was you that murdered Babel, don’t they?’
‘No. Calque doesn’t. That’s his name, by the way. Calque. He was the police officer Yola saw in Paris.’
Yola nodded. ‘Yes, Damo. I remember him well. He seemed a fair man – at least for a payo. He accompanied me down to the place where they keep the dead to make sure that they allowed me to cut Babel’s hair myself. That they didn’t give me somebody else’s hair. Otherwise Babel wouldn’t have been properly buried. He understood this, when I told him. At least he pretended to.’
‘Well, Calque and some of his Spanish cronies have just had a run-in with the maniac who kicked Alexi in the balls. Only guess where it happened? Montserrat. The bastard went back to Rocamadour after we’d left and worked the riddle out for himself. He’s been on our tail ever since Samois, apparently. Tracking our car.’
‘Tracking our car? That is impossible. I’ve been watching.’
‘No, Alexi. Not by sight. With an electronic bug. Which means he can follow us at a distance of, say, a kilometre and never be seen. That’s how he got to Yola so fast.’
‘ Putain. We’d better take it out of there.’
‘Calque wants us to keep it in.’
Alexi screwed his face up in concentration as he tried to disentangle the different elements Sabir was giving him. He looked down at Yola. She was filtering the coffee and chicory through a sieve as though nothing had happened. ‘What do you think, luludji?’
Yola smiled. ‘I think we should listen to Damo. I think he has something more to tell us.’
Sabir took the cup Yola offered him. He sat down beside her on the log. ‘Calque wants us to act as bait.’
‘What is bait?’
‘As a lure. For the man who killed Babel. So that the police can trap him. I have told him that I am willing to do this, in order to clear my name. But that you must both be allowed to decide for yourselves.’
Alexi drew his hand across his throat. ‘I am not working with the police. This I will not do.’
Yola shook her head. ‘If we are not with you, the man will know something is wrong. He will be suspicious. Then the police will lose him. Is this not so?’
Sabir glanced at Alexi. ‘He nearly crippled Calque’s assistant back at Montserrat. He also cold-cocked one of the Spanish paramilitaries out on the Sierra. And he killed a security guard back at Rocamadour two days ago. Which serves us damned well right for not checking out the newspapers or the radio during the wedding. Back on the road, before he attacked Yola, he ran over and injured an innocent bystander and half throttled his wife, merely in order to create a diversion. The French police want him and they want him bad. This is a big operation now. And we’re to be a major part of it.’