He was blue from the tirade, puffing and wheezing.
But Luc wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at the villagers. It didn’t matter whether they were young or old. They were beginning to ignore their mayor’s rant. They were gyrating to the music, grinding themselves against each other, pairing off. Clothes were shed. Moans and grunts. Rutting sounds. Older couples were heading into corridors, away from the main room. Younger ones were falling to the carpets, laying into each other with abandon out in the open.
‘That’s what we do,’ Bonnet said proudly. ‘And we have done it for hundreds of years! And, Professor, look at your friend!’
Luc looked over and shouted, ‘Sara!’
Her eyes were rolling. She was limp in her chair, making short breathy moans.
Bonnet unlocked her handcuff and pulled her upright onto unsteady feet. ‘I’m taking her to Jacques now. By the time I come back you’ll be ready for Odile. Make me a granddaughter if you’re able. Then go to hell.’
THIRTY-SIX
Bonnet led Luc by the hand. He had no need for weapons or protection. Luc was shuffling like an automaton, distant, eyes searching, passive and compliant.
‘There you go,’ Bonnet coaxed, as if addressing a dog. ‘This way, follow me, good lad.’
Bonnet headed down a corridor off the main chamber. He opened a door.
It was one person’s idea of a fantasy.
The windowless room was lined in heavy apple-red and gold matelassé fabric, giving it the appearance of an Arabian harem. The only light came from two standing lamps in the corners glowing with low-wattage bulbs. Gauzy peach-coloured fabric billowed from the ceiling, covering the plaster. A large bed took up much of the floor, its box springs lying on a rug, the bedspread orange and satiny. Shiny red pillows everywhere.
In the middle of the bed, Odile was naked and slowly writhing like a snake looking for a place to bask in the sun. She was creamy and voluptuous, a good, tight body, her pubic hair as black as her long tresses.
‘Here, Odile,’ her father said proudly. ‘I’ve got him ready for you. Stay with him as long as you like, have him as many times as you can. I’ll be back to check.’
She appeared too dreamy to understand, but when her eyes found Luc she began touching herself and moaning.
Bonnet pushed Luc forwards. ‘Okay, do a nice job. Have some fun then bon voyage. Enjoy the Ruac tea, Professor.’
With that, he shoved both of Luc’s shoulder blades hard and sent him flopping onto the bed.
Odile reached for him, grabbing at his clothes, popping the buttons off his shirt with uninhibited force, working on his jeans.
Bonnet watched for a few moments, laughed heartily and left. He checked his wristwatch and went back to the main chamber to change the record on the phonograph, sit and watch the carnal nakedness of the couples who chose the basic comfort of rugs on the floor.
In about an hour he’d finish off Luc and Sara and lay them out for Duval to reward his pigs in the morning. Where was that old codger? Bonnet searched the floor, looking for a particularly wrinkled, skinny nakedness. He wasn’t there. Probably went into one of the private rooms. And where was Bonnet’s wife? He scanned for a big pink rump with long grey hair down to her keister. ‘Don’t tell me she went off with Duval!’ he said to himself, laughing. ‘That old man’s a scoundrel!’ Then he spotted the wife of the village baker, a redhead a hundred years younger than himself who looked a bit like Marlene Dietrich in her prime.
She was astride one of the men, a farmer by trade, who’d done the botched car job in Cambridge then kidnapped Sara. He was a hard man Bonnet trusted for hard jobs. He’d killed more Germans during both world wars than any man from Ruac. Now, his eyes were closed and his teeth gritted. Her breasts were bouncing up and down to the beat of the musette drums.
‘Hey, Helene,’ Bonnet shouted to the redhead over the music. ‘Later on. You and me! I’ll find you.’
Odile was alternatively clawing at Luc, stroking him, moving her hands over the broad expanse of his back down to his waist, trying to wriggle off his tight jeans.
Her eyes were glassy, her lips moving as if talking, but nothing was coming out. Then a word formed, and another, ‘ Cheri, cheri.’
Luc’s eyes snapped open.
He looked around the room then took her head in his large hands and said, ‘I’m not your cheri, and I’m not going to screw a great-grandmother.’
He tried to shake her off but she grabbed him tighter, her nails digging into his back.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ he said angrily.
He scowled and slammed his fist into her jaw.
Thankfully, she went limp immediately so he didn’t have to pummel her to unconsciousness.
He lifted himself off the bed and rearranged his clothes, watching the naked woman quietly breathing. ‘You look pretty good for one hundred and sixteen,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that.’
He fished inside his pockets for his mobile and as expected, it was gone.
He twisted the door knob open. Bonnet had thought his daughter was enough of a honey pot to keep him in an unlocked room, Luc figured.
The corridor was empty, the music wafting from the large hall.
His head was perfectly clear. It was clear when he drank the tea. It was clear twenty minutes later. It was clear now.
He’d put on an act. He’d faked being zoned. He watched Sara and the villagers and did his best imitation. Bonnet had been fooled, that’s all that mattered.
Why wasn’t he affected?
No hallucinations, no other-worldliness, no nothing. Just a headache.
Sara was convinced he’d be immune? How did she know?
Sara.
He had to find her. The thought of Jacques pawing her body made him sick with rage.
He started twisting door knobs.
One after another, the same thing: old, overweight people having it on, oblivious to his intrusion. It was beyond unappetising.
After he tried all the private rooms off that corridor, he crept to the main hall. Bonnet was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room, resting drowsily. There was no sign of Pelay. There was enough floor-squirming going on between him and Bonnet to make him think he could slink low and make it to the next corridor.
He dropped down, frog-walked along the wall.
He was level with the tea-service table. The Ruac Manuscript was so close.
He didn’t even think. He just acted, dropping to his belly, starting to crawl.
He was swimming in a sea of naked bodies who were oblivious to his presence. He gritted his teeth and kept going.
He looked over for Bonnet.