‘You owe the girl your life.’
‘I know I do.’ Sabir twisted his head until he was staring at the tips of the pine trees just visible outside the window of his hospital room. ‘I owe her more than that, if the truth be told.’
The remark passed Calque by. He was concentrating on something else altogether. ‘How did she know that you had taken poison? How did she know that you needed an emetic?’
‘What emetic?’
‘She fed you mustard and salt water until you brought up what was left of the poison. She saved Sergeant Spola’s life, too. The eye-man gutshot him. With gutshot victims, if they go to sleep, they die. She kept him talking while she lay with one hand hanging down into the cesspit, holding you upright – out of the sump. Without her, you would have drowned.’
‘I told you she was a special person. But, like everybody else, you distrust gypsies. It’s simply not rational. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
‘I didn’t come here to receive a lecture.’
‘What did you come here for, then?’
Calque sat back in his chair. He felt around in his pockets for a cigarette and then remembered that he was in a hospital. ‘For answers, I suppose.’
‘What do I know? We were pursued by a madman. He’s dead. Now we get on with our lives.’
‘That’s not enough.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I want to know what it was all for. Why Paul Macron was killed. And the others. Bale wasn’t mad. He was the sanest one amongst us. He knew exactly what he wanted and why he wanted it.’
‘Ask his mother.’
‘I have. It’s like kicking a dead tree. She denies everything. The manuscript we found in her hidden room is indecipherable and my superior considers it a waste of police time to pursue it any further. She’s got away scot-free. She and her aristocratic band of Devil-fanciers.’
‘What do you want from me, then?’
‘Yola admitted to Sergeant Spola that the prophecies weren’t lost. That you had secured them and were translating them at the Maset. I think she has a soft spot for Sergeant Spola.’
‘And you want to know what was in the prophecies?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what if I were to publish them?’
‘No one would listen. You would be like King Priam’s daughter, Cassandra, who was given the gift of prophecy by her suitor Apollo. Only when she refused to go to bed with him, he varied the gift so that, although her prophecies were invariably true, no one would ever believe them.’ Calque held up three fingers to silence Sabir’s inevitable riposte. He began to count off the points he wished to make by gripping each finger in the palm of his free hand. ‘One – you don’t have the originals. Two – you don’t even have a copy of the originals. You burned them. We found the ashes in the fireplace. Five million dollars’ worth of ashes. Three – it would simply be your word against the rest of the world. Anyone could say they found them. What you have is valueless, Sabir.’
‘Then why do you want it?’
‘Because I need to know.’
Sabir closed his eyes. ‘And why should I tell you?’
Calque shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t answer that.’ He hunched forwards. ‘But if I were in your shoes, I’d want to tell someone. I wouldn’t want to carry whatever it is you’re carrying to the grave with me. I’d want to get it off my chest.’
‘Why you in particular?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Sabir!’ Calque started up from his chair. Then he changed his mind and sat down again. ‘You owe me. And you owe Macron. You played me for a sucker after I trusted you.’
‘You shouldn’t have trusted me.’
Calque gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I didn’t. There were two trackers in the car. We knew if we lost one, that we could pick you up again with the other. I’m a policeman, not a social worker, Sabir.’
Sabir shook his head sadly. He was watching Calque, his eyes dark in contrast to the pristine white bandage that was protecting the side of his face. ‘Something happened to me in there, Captain.’
‘I know it did.’
‘No. Not what you are thinking. Something else. It was like a transformation. I changed. Became something other. The curandero warned me that it happens when you are about to become a shaman. A healer.’
‘I don’t know what the Hell you’re talking about.’
‘I don’t either.’
Calque sat back in his armchair. ‘Do you remember any of it? Or am I just wasting my time?’
‘I remember all of it.’
Calque’s body stiffened like a bird dog scenting its prey. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I told you that some change had occurred in me. Some transformation. I don’t know what it was or why it happened, but even now I can bring up every word of the French text that I saw. Like a photograph. I just have to close my eyes and it comes back. I spent six hours in that house, Captain. Reading those quatrains over and over again. Translating them. Trying to understand their significance.’
‘Have you written them down?’
‘I don’t need to. And I don’t want to.’
Calque stood up. ‘Fine. It was stupid of me to even ask. Why should you tell me? What can I do about anything? I’m an old man. I should retire. But I hang on in the police force because I don’t have anything else to do with my life. That’s about the sum of it. Goodbye, Mister Sabir. I’m glad the bastard didn’t get you.’
Sabir watched Calque shuffle towards the door. There was something about the man – an integrity, perhaps – that raised him above the common run of humanity. Calque had been honest according to his own lights during the investigation. He had cut Sabir far more slack than he had any right to expect. And he hadn’t blamed him for Macron’s death or Sergeant Spola’s wounding. No. He had taken those things on himself. ‘Wait.’
‘For what?’
Sabir held Calque’s eyes with his own. ‘Sit down, Captain. I’m going to tell you part of the story. The part that will not compromise any third parties. Will you be satisfied with that?’
Calque returned Sabir’s glance. Then he settled himself cautiously back in his seat. ‘I shall have to be, won’t I? If that’s all you feel you can give me.’
Sabir shrugged. Then he inclined his head questioningly. ‘Secrets of the confessional?’
Calque sighed. ‘Secrets of the confessional.’
87
‘There were only fifty-two quatrains on the parchment I retrieved from the bamboo tubing. I had initially assumed there would be fifty-eight, because that is the exact number needed to make up Nostradamus’s original ten centuries. But six are still missing. I now think that they are scattered around, like the ones at Rocamadour and Montserrat and designed to serve as clues to the main caucus.’
‘Go on.’
‘As far as I can work out, each of the fifty-two remaining quatrains describes a particular year. A year in the run-up to the End of Days. The Apocalypse.
Ragnarok. The Mayan Great Change. Whatever you choose to call it.’
‘What do you mean, describes a year?’
‘Each one acts as a pointer. It describes some event that will take place in that year – and each event is significant in some way.’
‘So the end isn’t dated?’
‘It doesn’t need to be – even Nostradamus didn’t know the exact date of Armageddon. He only knew what preceded it. So the date becomes obvious the nearer we get to it. In increments.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
Sabir sat up straighter in his bed. ‘It’s simple. Nostradamus wants mankind to escape the final holocaust. He feels that if the world can change its behaviour by acknowledging the Second Coming – by rejecting the Third Antichrist – then we might stand a faint chance of avoiding annihilation. That’s why he’s given us the clues, year by year and event by event. We’re to correlate the quatrains with the events. When each event occurs just as Nostradamus predicted, the quatrains will increase in importance and we can tick them off. The closer we get to Armageddon, the more obvious the starting date and the end date will be, for the simple reason that the events predicted for the last few years in the run-up to the End of Days haven’t happened yet. Then people will start to believe. And maybe change their behaviour. To all intents and purposes Nostradamus was giving us a fifty-two-year warning.’