To Sabir it seemed as if the scene had been loosely modelled on the car chase from the original Pink Panther fi lm – the one in which the old man, bewildered by the plethora of police cars and two horsepower Citroens circling the square in front of him, finally brings out his armchair, plumps it down in a prime location and watches the outcome in comfort.
Gavril, entirely unaware of Badu and Stefan, was hurrying towards Bazena. She, caught in flagrante, with a cloth laid out in front of her covered in coins, had just noticed her father and brother. She stood up and called out to Gavril. Gavril stopped. Bazena motioned him violently away. Badu and Stefan saw the movement, turned and recognised Gavril. Gavril, instead of standing his ground and simply pleading ignorance, decided to do a bunk. Badu and Stefan split up – a move that they had obviously practised on numerous occasions before – and came at Gavril from opposing halves of the square. Bazena started screaming and pulling at her hair.
Within a span of ninety seconds from the start of Yola’s plan, maybe fifty gypsies, of all sexes and ages, had converged, as if from nowhere, on the centre of the square. Gavril was backing up in front of Badu and Stefan, who had their knives out. People were flooding out from inside the Sanctuary to see what all the commotion was about. Two policemen on motorcycles were approaching from another part of town, but gypsies were already impeding them and making sure their view of the fight was spoilt. Bazena had thrown herself around her father’s neck and was hanging on for dear life, while her brother was circling Gavril, who also had his knife out but was still busy fiddling with the metal locking ring.
‘This is it. This is my moment.’ Alexi darted away amongst the crowd before Sabir could question his intentions.
‘Alexi! For Christ’s sake! Keep out of it!’
But it was too late to stop him. Alexi was already sprinting around the periphery of the crowd in the direction of the church.
31
Alexi had been a master thief all his life – and master thieves know how to use happenstance. To benefit from the moment.
He was certain that the watchman would eventually be tempted out of the Sanctuary. How could he not be, when the entire congregation of the church had exited in a drove before him, spurred on by curiosity about what might be happening above them in the square?
Alexi could imagine the sequence of thoughts that would be passing through the security guard’s head. His duty, surely, lay outside? Sainte Sara could look after herself for a few moments, could she not? There was no formal threat against her that he knew of. Nobody had warned him to take especial care. What harm would it do to break up the morning’s monotony with a breath of fresh air and a riot?
He had just secreted himself on the right-hand side of the main door when the watchman burst through at the tail of the crowd, his face alight with anticipation. Alexi darted in behind him and straight down to the Sanctuary. He had been coming to this place all his life. He knew its geography like the back of his hand.
Sainte Sara was standing in a corner of the deserted crypt, surrounded by votive offerings, photographs, candles, knickknacks, poems, plaques, blackboards with people’s names inscribed and flowers – many, many flowers. She was dressed in at least twenty layers of donated clothing, interleaved with capes, ribbons and hand-stitched veils, with only her mahogany-brown face, dwarfed by its silver crown, peeping through the stifling density of the fabric surrounding her.
Crossing himself superstitiously and casting a ‘please forgive me’ glance at the nearest crucifix, Alexi upended Sara-e-kali and ran his hand across her base. Nothing. It was as smooth as alabaster.
With a desperate glance at the entrance to the crypt, Alexi muttered a prayer, took out his penknife and began scraping.
***
Achor Bale had watched the rapid unfolding of events in the square in front of him with keen interest. First the hasty appearance of the blond idiot – then the two angry gypsies, bearing down on the begging girlfriend. Then the begging girlfriend crying out and drawing everyone’s attention to the blond boyfriend, who would otherwise have undoubtedly noticed what was happening before anyone had a chance to see him and been able to make himself scarce before the shit really hit the fan. Which it was doing now.
The two motorcycle cops were still trying to force their way through the crowd. The blond boyfriend was facing off against the younger of the two men and, if Bale wasn’t mistaken, he was waving around an Opinel penknife – which would undoubtedly break the first time it encountered anything more substantial than a wishbone. The older man – the father, probably – was busy fending off his hysterical daughter, but it was clear that he would soon succeed in struggling free, upon which the two of them would fillet the blond long before the police had a dog’s dinner’s chance of getting close.
Bale glanced around the square. The whole thing seemed somehow contrived to him. Riots almost never happened organically – of their own accord. People orchestrated them. At least in his experience. He’d even stage managed one or two himself during his time with the Legion – not under the Legion’s particular aegis, needless to say, but merely as a means of forcing their involvement in a situation which, without them, might simply have resolved itself with no recourse to violence.
He remembered one riot in Chad with particular affection – it was during the Legion’s deployment there during the 1980s. Forty dead – dozens more injured. Word from the Corpus was that he had come perilously close to starting a civil war. How Monsieur, his father, would have been pleased.
Legio Patria Nostra – Bale felt almost nostalgic. He had learned a great many useful things in the Legion’s ‘combat village’ in Fraselli, Corsica – and also in Rwanda, Djibouti, Lebanon, Cameroon and Bosnia. Things he might have to put into practice now.
He stood up to get a better view. When that failed, he climbed on to the cafe table, using his hat as a sunshield. No one noticed him – all eyes were on the square.
He glanced over towards the entrance to the Sanctuary just in time to see Alexi, who had been lurking behind the main door, dart in behind the emerging watchman.
Excellent. Bale was having his work done for him again. He looked around the square for Sabir but couldn’t mark him. Best head down to the crypt entrance. Wait for the gypsy to come back out. In the maelstrom that was the Place de l’Eglise, no one would be in the least bit surprised to find a second corpse with a knife-wound in its chest.
32
Calque was having difficulty with the Countess. It had begun when she had nosed out his resistance to her assertion that her husband’s family were responsible for protecting the Angevin, Capetian and Valois Kings from diabolical intercedence.
‘Why is this not written down? Why have I never heard of a thirteenth Pair de France?’
Macron looked on in incredulity. What was Calque doing? He was here to investigate a pistol, not a bloodline.
‘But it is written down, Captain Calque. It is simply that the documents are not available to scholars. What do you think? That all history happened exactly as historians have described it? Do you really suppose that there are not noble families all over Europe who are keeping private correspondence and documents away from prying eyes? That there are not secret societies, still secret today, about whose existence no one is yet aware?’
‘Do you know of any such societies, Madame?’
‘Of course not. But they certainly exist. You may count on it. And with more power, perhaps, than might be supposed.’ A strange look came over the Countess’s face. She reached down and rang her bell. Without a word, Milouins entered the room and began clearing up the coffee things.
Calque realised that the interview was on its final legs. ‘The pistol, Madame. The one registered in your husband’s name. Who possesses it now?’
‘My husband lost it before the war. I distinctly remember him telling me. It was stolen by a gamekeeper who had become temporarily disenchanted with his position. The Count notified the police – I am sure the records still exist. They conducted an informal inquiry but the pistol was never recovered. It was of little import. My husband had many pistols. His collection was of note, I believe. I do not interest myself in firearms, however.’
‘Of course not, Madame.’ Calque knew when he was beaten. The chances of there being records still in existence of an informal inquiry about a missing fi rearm during the 1930s were infinitesimal. ‘But you married your husband, as I understand it, during the 1970s? How would you possibly know about events that took place in the 1930s?’
Macron’s mouth dropped open.
‘My husband, Captain, always told me everything.’ The Countess stood up.
Macron levered himself to his feet. He enjoyed watching Calque fail in his first attempt at lift-off from the sofa. The old man must be feeling the accident, he thought to himself. Perhaps he’s a bit more fragile than he lets on? He’s certainly acting bloody strangely.
The Countess gave her bell a double ring. The footman came back in. She nodded towards Calque and the footman hurried to help him.
‘I’m sorry, Madame. Lieutenant Macron and I were involved in a vehicle collision. In pursuit of a miscreant. I am still a little stiff.’
A collision? In pursuit of a miscreant? What the Hell was Calque playing at? Macron started towards the door. Then he stopped. The old man wasn’t as stiff as all that. He was putting it on.
‘Your son, Madame? Might he not have something to add to the story? Perhaps his father spoke to him about the pistol?’
‘My son, Captain? I have nine sons. And four daughters. Which of them would you like to talk to?’
Calque stopped in his tracks. He weaved a little, as if he were on his last legs. ‘Thirteen children? I’m astonished, Madame. How can that be possible?’
‘It is called adoption, Captain. My husband’s family have funded a nunnery for the past nine centuries. As part of its charitable work. My husband was badly injured during the war. From that moment on it became impossible that he should ever procure an heir for himself. It is why he married so late. But I persuaded him to rethink his position on the succession. We are wealthy. The nunnery has an orphanage. We took as many as we could. Adoption is a well-established custom in French and Italian noble families in the case of force majeure. Infinitely preferable to the name dying out.’
‘The present Count, then? May I know his name?’
‘Count Rocha. Rocha de Bale.’
‘May I talk to him?’
‘He is lost to us, Captain. For reasons best known to himself he joined the Foreign Legion. As you know, Legionnaires are forced to register under new names. We never knew what that was. I have not seen him for many years.’
‘But the Legion takes only foreigners, Madame. Not Frenchmen. Apart from in the officer class. Was your son an officer, then?’
‘My son was a fool, Captain. At the age at which he enlisted he would have been capable of any folly. He speaks six languages. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that he passed himself off as a foreigner.’
‘As you say, Madame. As you say.’ Calque nodded his appreciation to the footman. ‘We certainly seem to have struck a dead end in our investigation.’
The Countess appeared not to have heard him. ‘I can assure you that my son knows nothing of his father’s pistol. He was born thirty years after the events you describe. We adopted him as a twelve-year-old. On account of my husband’s advanced age.’
Calque was never slow in seizing an opportunity. He pressed his luck. ‘Could you not transfer the title to your second son? Safeguard the heritage like that?’
‘That possibility died with my husband. The entailment is inalienable.’
Calque and Macron found themselves smoothly transferred into the hands of the capable Madame Mastigou. In a bare thirty fluidly managed seconds, they were back in their car and heading down the drive towards Ramatuelle.
Macron fl icked his chin at the retreating house. ‘What the heck was that all about?’
‘What the heck was what all about?’
‘That charade back there. For twenty minutes I even forgot the pain in my feet. You were so convincing, I almost fell for your act myself. I nearly volunteered to help you down the stairs.’
‘Charade?’ said Calque. ‘What charade? I don’t know what you are talking about, Macron.’
Macron flashed him a look.
Calque was grinning.
Before Macron could press him further, the phone buzzed. Macron pulled over into a lay-by and answered.
‘Yes. Yes. I’ve got that. Yes.’
Calque raised an eyebrow.
‘They’ve cracked the eye-man’s tracker code, Sir. Sabir’s car is in a long-term car park in Arles.’
‘That’s of very little use to us.’
‘There’s more.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘A knifing. In Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. In front of the church.’
‘So what?’
‘A check I did. Following our investigations in Gourdon. I flagged up all the names of the people we interviewed. Told our office to inform me of any incidents whatsoever involving gypsies. To cross-correlate the names, in other words.’
‘Yes, Macron? You’ve already impressed me. Now give me the pay-off.’
Macron restarted the engine. Best not to smile, he told himself. Best not to show any emotion whatsoever. ‘The police are searching for a certain Gavril La Roupie in relation to the crime.’
33
Gavril had forgotten about Badu and Stefan. In his single-minded excitement at working out the plot to kidnap Sainte Sara, he had quite overlooked the fact that Bazena boasted two of the most vicious male relatives this side of the Montagne Saint-Victoire. Stories about them were legion. Father and son always acted together, one drawing attention away from the other. Their bar fights were legendary. It was rumoured that they had seen off more victims between them than the first atomic bomb.