The Countess looked as though she had been bitten by an adder.
‘Sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s a roll of parchment here. With seals on it. It’s heavy, too. It must have wooden rollers or something.’
Calque indicated that the parchment should be spread out on the table.
‘Please don’t touch that, Captain. It is very valuable.’
‘I have a search warrant, Madame. I may touch anything I please. I will endeavour not to smear it with my fingers however.’ Calque bent forwards and perused the document.
The Countess and Madame Mastigou stood frozen against the interior wall of the sanctum.
‘Lavigny. Would you kindly escort the Countess and Madame Mastigou out of the room. This may take some time. And fetch me a magnifying glass.’
75
The first thing Sabir did when Bouboul dropped him back at the Maset was to light the fire for comfort. The night was cold and he felt an indefinable frisson overtake his body as he glanced up the corridor towards the place where Macron’s body had lain. Shaking his head in disgust at his own susceptibilities, he began the search for candles.
The old house seemed to echo back his footfalls as he padded round the room – so much so that he found himself curiously unwilling to venture further up the corridor towards the kitchen. After a desultory five-minute search he was relieved to discover three candles still lying on the floor, where they had been overset by the eye-man’s use of the fire extinguisher, two nights before.
Lighting them and then seeing his shadow reflected around the room like a torchlit danse macabre, Sabir wondered, not for the first time, how he had ever allowed Yola to persuade him to come back and use the Maset? The rationale was certainly there – for Les Saintes-Maries remained tightly sealed by the police in their search for the eye-man, with egress relatively easy and ingress more controlled.
But since he had last been here the Maset seemed to have transformed itself into a place of doom. Sabir now felt distinctly uncomfortable in using the location of someone’s brutal murder for what he understood might well turn out to be a flippant journey up a no-through-road. In fact it brought home to him, yet again, just how differently the Manouche viewed death when compared to the rather sentimental, post-Victorian way he still viewed it himself.
It was all very well for him to sit here and fantasise about the nature of the prophecies – in reality there was a fair chance that the bamboo tube didn’t even contain them and would instead prove full of dust. What if the weevils had got in? Four hundred and fifty years was a long time for anything to survive, much less parchment.
He sat down on the sofa. After a moment he straightened up the French dictionary which he had brought with him until its edges accorded with the border of the table. Then he lined up his pen and paper beside the dictionary. Bouboul had loaned him a large-faced, gaudy watch and Sabir now laid this on to the table next to the other accoutrements. The familiar movements provided him with some measure of comfort.
He glanced back over his shoulder towards the corridor. The fire was burning well by this time and he began to feel a little more secure in his isolation. Yola would find the prophecies if anyone could. When she arrived at the Maset, he would take the prophecies, from her and send her straight back to Les Saintes-Maries with Reszo. He was fine alone here. He would have the rest of the night in which to translate and copy the prophecies. From that moment on he would not let them out of his sight.
Come morning, he would send the originals by courier to his publisher in New York. Then he would work on the copies until he had milked out their full meaning. With the prophecies skilfully interleaved with the story of their discovery, he would have a sure-fire bestseller on his hands. It would easily bring in enough to make them all rich. Alexi could marry Yola and end up Bulibasha and Sabir could write his own ticket.
Twenty more minutes. It couldn’t take longer than that. Then he would have one of the great untold secrets of the world within his grasp.
There was a crash from upstairs. Then silence.
Sabir sprang to his feet. The hairs on the back of his neck stood erect, like the spine fur of a dog. Holy heck, what had that been? He stood listening but there was only silence. Then, in the distance, he heard the approaching drone of a car.
With a final, furtive glance over his shoulder, Sabir hurried outside. It had probably only been a cupboard door falling open. Or maybe the police had moved something – a mosquito screen, perhaps? – and the wretched thing had stood there, teetering, until a gust of wind had finally finished off the job and blown it over. Perhaps the noise had even come from outside? From the roof, maybe?
He glanced up at the house as he stood waiting for the Audi to make its way up the track towards him. Hell. And now here was another thing – he’d have to come to a reckoning sooner or later with his friend John Tone about the theft of his car.
Sabir squinted into the headlights. Yes, there was Yola’s outline in the passenger seat. And that of Bouboul’s nephew in the driving seat beside her. Alexi was safely tucked up in his bed back in Les Saintes-Maries, with Sabir next door, in the guest bunk. Or at least that was what Sergeant Spola had been persuaded to think.
Sabir walked towards the car. He could feel the night wind pick at his hair. He motioned downwards with his hands, indicating that Reszo should douse the lights. As far as he knew, there were still policemen dotted all around the marshes and he didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention back to the Maset.
‘Do you have them?’
Yola felt inside her coat. Her face looked small and vulnerable in the light of Sabir’s torch. She handed Sabir the bamboo tube. Then she glanced towards the house and shivered.
‘Did you have any trouble?’
‘Two policemen. They were using the cabane for shelter. They nearly found me. But they were called away at the last moment.’
‘Called away?’
‘I overheard one of them talking on his cellphone. Captain Calque knows where the eye-man has escaped to. It is somewhere over towards St-Tropez. All the police are going there now. They aren’t interested in here any longer.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘Do you want me to come in with you?’
‘No. I have the fire going. And some candles. I’ll be all right.’
‘Bouboul will collect you just before dawn. Are you sure you don’t want to come back with us now?’
‘Too dangerous. Sergeant Spola might smell a rat. He’s not as stupid as he looks.’
‘Yes he is.’
Sabir laughed.
Yola glanced once more towards the house. Then she climbed back inside the car. ‘I don’t like this place. It was wrong of me to suggest it as a rendezvous.’
‘Where else could we have used? This is by far the most convenient.’
‘I suppose so.’ She raised her hand uncertainly. ‘Are you sure you won’t change your mind?’
Sabir shook his head.
Reszo eased the car back down the track. When he was near the road he switched the lights back on.
Sabir watched their glow as it disappeared over the horizon. Then he turned back towards the house.
76
Captain Calque leaned back in his chair. The document laid out before him made no earthly sense. It purported to have been written on the express instructions of King Louis IX of France – and it was, indeed, dated 1228, two years after Louis had ascended to the throne, aged eleven. Which made him just thirteen or fourteen years old at the time he was credited with its conception. The seals, however, were definitely those of Saint Louis himself and of his mother, Blanche of Castile; in those days, trying to fake such a thing as a royal seal would have seen you hung, drawn and quartered, with your ashes used for soap.