Désespoir turned his back on her to face the tunnel again as she continued. “There I was, looking for my son in the Bois de Boulogne just before the Pope’s Mass, when along comes the caring, concerned Saint Agnès.” Her sarcasm made him start. “She lures me and Nelly into what we thought was an ordinary hostel, but my friend here got out early. She was lucky, while I was drugged and taken to your special Hell hole...”
“What a loyal friend you have,” he sneered. “Who needs enemies?”
Colette bit her lip. Let it go.
“Now I want all my things back. My money, 900 francs, two credit cards and a photo of my boy. I also had a car. A turquoise Peugeot 306. God knows what’s happened to that.”
Christian Désespoir turned round to smile first at Nelly and then Colette. It stretched his dry lips but left his eyes untouched.
“But we’re sure that St. Anne’s hostel has something to do with all this.” Colette was undeterred. “Who’s that Antoinette woman that your Agnès obviously knew? And why were those swastikas daubed in the Refuge’s cellar? Someone’s harmless doodling? Hardly. So what the Hell’s going on?” she shouted. “Because Hell is where I’ve been.”
“My dear, Madame, you’re in danger of committing a slander. I have not the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Distressing as all this sounds...”
“Distressing? My God!” Colette glared up at him. “If it wasn’t for Nelly here, I’d have died.”
“Ah, Nelly. Such a charming name,” yet he spoke as if it was shit on his shoe. “Such a pity, too. Oh dear...”
“What do you mean?”
“I think, Madame, your companion is feeling unwell. Perhaps it’s the air, or lack of it. Shall I call Madame Gramme?”
Colette saw her friend now sprawled motionless in her chair. A smile of red wine augmented her mouth. Her glass was empty.
Merde…
“Wake up! Wake up!” She looked at Désespoir who was still smiling. “What have you done?”
“Tiring of your accusations, Madame. Your friend is merely sleepy.”
But the pulse was low, both eyes open, unseeing behind her comical glasses. Colette remembered Nelly’s gun, and on the pretext of loosening the waist of her leggings, felt for it while his gaze followed her every move. Suddenly, it was in her hand. Something she’d never done before. Now it pointed at his head. He didn’t flinch.
“Let us out of here so she can get to hospital.”
“Now wait a moment...”
But she’d already grabbed Nelly around the chest and backed towards the door. Her friend’s weapon still dangerously poised. “Turn the bloody lights on for a start. You’re as evil as the rest of them.”
“Madame, you’ll regret these words. You came to me, remember, under a gross misapprehension, when in fact it is your actions which are evil, and worse. Heretical.”
That word again. He knows. Gentle Mother Mary, when is this going to end?
“You spoke of priests – our Brothers in God – who are fornicators and murderers who use the Lord’s church on earth as a cover for their aberrations. Madame, what in Heaven’s name do you expect us to do?”
Us?
His own weapon came from nowhere. Bigger than hers in every way. And unlike her, he probably knew how to use it. His hand steady. Yes, he knew alright.
“Our women injured by your friend here, have just informed me you’d be armed.”
Our women? They must have sent that fax. Oh, Jesus.
To save her own life, Colette propped Nelly up in front of her. The most cowardly thing she’d ever done and, in that split second, prayed for forgiveness.
“So you’d rather kill both of us? See where that’ll get you.” Her voice had shrivelled with fear.
“It may have escaped your notice that I have considerably less far, chronologically, to go than you, but it’s not that which pre-occupies me. You are troublesome, Madame Bataille, just like your son, I’m sorry to say. And more’s the pity you didn’t properly savour your wine. At least Mademoiselle Augot has co-operated.”
“So you’ve drugged her?”
Another sick, sick smile.
“And you’ve just called my son troublesome. Why?”
“Because it’s true.”
A wave of panic suddenly swamped Colette’s every nerve, every muscle. This was the Devil himself, with velvet wrinkles under each knee. “Hand over the gun,” he snapped, taking aim again. “Now.”
“Do it,” breathed Nelly. “Just do it.”
Damn you.
She did.
“Thank you, Madame. That’s one less worry to deal with.”
Colette helped Nelly regain her balance, then tried to think.
“This bastard’s got a phone. I could try Guy Baralet’s number, but I’ve forgotten it. What about your mama?”
“We can’t rely on her.”
“I’ll have to.”
“What are you doing, pray?” Désespoir’s pistol still at her eye level.
“Keep away from me.”
She pushed sideways against his desk, loaded with books and papers.
He watched as she dialled the prostitute in St. Denis.
No reply. Not even an answerphone.
Dammit.
“I told you...” Nelly sagged against her, draining what little strength she had, as Colette felt the forces of darkness engulf them both again. She was Eve once more, seeking the shadow of trees while a black-winged angel chased her from the Garden; out of Paradise and into everlasting torment. Childless and withering to dust.
The Abbot’s smile returned to partner Schumann’s Kinderszenen flowing into the room. Nelly began to moan and heave in turn.
“If she dies...” said Colette. “Then…”
“She won’t. This is a temporary lapse. You’ll see...”
“Uuuurrggh!” Nelly couldn’t help herself.
“Oh dear. My precious carpet.” He fished inside his collar and pressed his panic button. Immediately, sounds of rabbit feet nearing the door. Then Madame Gramme appeared, wiping her hands.
“Yes, your Lordship?”
“A bowl, towel and carpet cleaner, please.”
“Very well.”
“Madame!” Colette yelled after her. “Help us, please.”
She tried to reach her while the door was still ajar, but like the Gates of Hell, it slammed shut in her face. Nelly’s eyes flickered. Drenched in sweat, she trembled like something wild, newborn, but Colette held her tight while the Abbot settled himself back in his chair and prepared his pipe. Once his thin, white fingers had pushed the last wayward strand of tobacco into the polished, wooden nest, he began his story like the summer snake peeling off its slough.
How his name – in true mediaeval fashion – was eponymous with a hamlet near St. Èmilion, and how as ‘un haut fonctionnaire’ in Bordeaux in 1943, his paperwork had earned him the title ‘Le Génie des Documents.’ How, after the Abbey he’d founded at Vivray in 1952 had succumbed to the lack of faith and commitment shown by the country’s young men, he’d turned to susceptible women. The Pauvres Soeurs des Souffrances were a small cog in the wheel to save France from its Zionist stranglehold.
Just then, Nelly lurched from Colette’s grasp sending another spray of vomit over the floor as the front door bell chime filled the room and the housekeeper scuttled in to whisper in his ear.
“Where’s the bowl etcetera?” he demanded.
“I’ve been too busy watching out...”
“What for?”
Their eyes met. Tense, fearful. Not needing words.
“Take them both to the scullery. Vite, Madame.”
This time she nodded.
How could they protest? The old witch had a gun too, deep in her apron pocket, and as the bell chimed again, in frantic impatience, Nelly and Colette found themselves in a cold room next to the kitchen, where, apart from a large white sink and a frayed old towel, wall-to-wall tins of everything under the sun had been arranged in size
order, as if a siege was expected. With icy water thrown at her face, Nelly began to revive, and the vomiting stopped.
“Why didn’t you help when I begged you?” Colette challenged the housekeeper. “She could have choked on her own sick.” Then realised she’d probably gone to fetch her gun. As scared as they were.
“Too busy.”
“Here?”
“You’ve no idea. Always entertaining is the Abbot. Has to keep up appearances with those who matter. And as he can’t cook, it’s down to me.”
Meanwhile, Christian Désespoir had picked up his phone on the third ring, staring warily at the lounge door as he did so.
“Many happy returns, my good friend,” said the man who’d just faxed him. The man he hated most. “Are we alone?”
A trick question. Be careful.
“Apart from Madame Gamme, both troublemakers are out of sight, out of mind. They arrived here forty minutes ago.”
“Excellent. Just checking. Backs up what I’ve seen. And as a thank you, I can reveal you’re about to receive an even better birthday gift. The most perfect ever.”
“When?”
“Soon. Just listen, and I’ll call you again.”
XLVII
At 13.32 hours, not everyone heard the booming blast and terrified shrieks coming from the Seine. Certainly not the three women in the scullery of 50, Rue St. Aubin where the sound of running water had grumbled and spurted its way from the antediluvian tap.
The din of death was borne on an easterly breeze which, during the morning, had cleared the haze over the city, giving the thirty-eight revellers on Roquette IV a perfect view of the city. Then sirens like sopranos singing from Hell suddenly tainted the early afternoon, shredding autumn’s fragile beauty into shrouds, while ten minutes later, helicopters of the Terrorist Police added the bass to the symphony of despair.
The phone again as promised. Désespoir’s hand shook on the receiver.
“Happy New Year.” His caller shouted above a background tinkling of glasses and laughter a-plenty.
“I hope it will be.”
“Oh, come on Christian. Lighten up, do.”
“I’ll try.”
“Good. Right, places to go. People to see. You know how it is, dear friend.”
“Indeed.” The Abbot looked at the wine in his glass. The same red porphyry that now bathed the pleasure boat. ”Tell me, Georges. That other friend – on your face...”
“What of it?”
“I know someone who can treat it. A very good man in Auxerre.”
“My dear Christian, we’ve had enough surgery for one day, don’t you think? By the way, I found some Tintin get-well cards for Claude and Romy – ma souris rouge. What do you think? A good idea?”
“Quite charming.”
“Well, I’m glad to say both our girls are almost back to active service. A few more days of physio, then we move in... Oh, by the way, my friend...”
“Yes?”
“Keep our Verräteren – our traitors – secure until the 16th, when all the fuss will have died down. Understood? You’ll be getting instructions.”
“Good.”
Yet the Abbot felt an old stomach ulcer reassert itself, and tension constrict his throat. Normally, on another less important day, he and the général would have both eaten well in the dining room, courtesy of Madame Gramme, on a large oval table decked out in Breton lace. Dark foods – at the général’s request, unlike the recent banquet on the Bateau-Mouche. olives and cêpes with the earth still on their skins, pork studded in prunes, and for dessert, a roulade of chocolate and blackberries.
But with this NATO official there was always the maggot in the apple, he thought, surveying the rat-infested tunnel in the aftermath. One can give too much and it becomes demeaning. However good his, Désespoir’s organisation, it was never enough. Besides, the main interest, the Refuge in Libourne had become too burdensome, Marie-Ange too zealous, deflecting from the real purpose. And God knew he was weary of it all.
He and Madame Gramme could perhaps slip away to a cottage in the Quercy, a favourite region, for he’d remained unmarried except to the host of Guardian Angels above, and she a widow who’d known only his roof over her head for the last twenty-four years. Désespoir finished the général’s wine, retied his grey pony tail and allowed a thin smile to cross his face.
Something was beginning to rot in the state of Denmark.
Déchaux had seemed more than a little perturbed that the Eberswïhr police had arrested Robert Vidal’s father. They were sniffing dogs who couldn’t be bought. That was disappointment number two, and if the Général was perturbed, it was time to reassess. Time to cut his losses. He rang for Madame Gamme who brought in both nuisance bitches and closed the door behind them.
“Come here ladies, please,” he said. “Both of you. There’s something you should see.”
***
“Why?” complained Nelly with her hair still damp, pressing her nose on that unusual glass oblong behind which seemed to be an ancient, poorly-lit brick tunnel, alive it seemed, with scampering rats. “What are we supposed to be looking for, apart from vermin?”
“Patience, please,” said Désespoir, before explaining that when the Foundation of the Brothers in God had first occupied the house some hundred years before, this section of tunnel had been set aside as a cell for ‘the contemplation of sins.’
“Why aren’t you in it, then?”
“That is disrespectful, Mademoiselle. But on this occasion, I’ll let it pass.”
The old Abbot returned to his vantage point. The one-way mirror now bristling with erratic torchlight from the confining space beyond the glass.
Nelly, feeling groggy, crouched below her chair, as if convinced that whoever was in that tunnel would be able to see her. “Get down,” she said to Colette, who obeyed.
“Ah, at last.” Désespoir leaned towards the glass as five figures, the fourth with a bloodied bandage round his head, stooped almost double, filed past. “Our patience is rewarded. Here come our very brave friends.”
Colette’s mouth fell open.
It’s them. What in Hell’s name have they been doing?
Robert Vidal came first, checking behind him all the time. A shaven head like hers, the whites of his eyes like those of some hunted animal. Next, Duvivier, the Breton, Plagnol and Cacheux. She continued to watch as they stumbled like the blind until they’d passed from sight.
“I smell a problem.” Désespoir smiled to himself. “Tut tut. Too clever by half I shouldn’t wonder. As you know, ladies, life at its most important moments is a lonely business – they didn’t need five. Too many cooks, said I. But there we are.”
“Too many cooks for what?”
No reply, just a small, strange noise from his throat.
Colette’s mind was on fire. Why were Robert and the other priests in that tunnel? Where were they going, and what had they done to seem so agitated? Of course, she’d pretended not to recognise the bedraggled quintet, but Nelly must have realised something was up. Perhaps when they were both free again, back in Lanvière, they could talk.
No. Must talk.
XLVIII
Unbeknown to the priest from Ste Trinité, Colette was now watching her former lover move with a frantic purpose on all fours despite the tunnel’s confined space, the sweating bricks that condensed the stench of centuries in his nostrils.
Neither could he see her turn away, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
***
Below the Rue St. Aubin in this cramped tomb, there was no sky, no birdsong, yet always some bird or other persevered in the trees by his church. Vidal remembered this with such searing clarity, the pain of it drove him on, until a moment later, Cacheux piled into his rear.
“Pardon, Father.”
“Watch it, or I’ll finish you off.”
The white suit duly hung back, his head like the weight of the world, its pulse the pulse of millions.
“How much further?”
”Till I say so.”
He was longing for some widening, some offshoot of the tunnel where they could spread out rather than lie vulnerably in a line.
“You stupid shit,” he shouted back to Plagnol. “This is all your bloody fault.” And he noticed the priest of Notre-Dame-de-la-Consolation had actually stopped laughing.
Vidal could also hear Duvivier breathing badly – the man looked like he’d shat himself when they’d met up near the Ibis, and nothing would make him talk about the black Toyota. Whose it was and why they’d been shot at.
“Mother of God.”
“She’s busy. Try again later.” Mathieu muttered, feeling a strange delirium grip him.
“Fuck.”
“Precisely.”
“I can’t go on,” Cacheux announced, his voice small in the dark.
“You have to.” Mathieu nudged him along, his once pristine whites as filthy as the rest of them. Rendered the same by the nature of their sin, but sixteen hours in the stench was no penance. That was for the rest of his life, and he who could no longer be the priest of St. Jean de Motte Mauron saw how vile was the company in that Godless place.
The distance between Vidal and the others increased as the Breton attended to Cacheux, and Plagnol who’d earlier felt Duvivier’s fists and were still smarting, before stopping to relieve himself.
“This way. Move it.” Vidal’s words rolled through the tunnel with a force of a high tide. They’d reached a bifurcation which, according to his compass, led south-east, on the one hand, and west, on the other. Either way could mean more space. He chose west. Here, brick became stone, the mortar damp and unstable under his fingers. He checked his watch for the hundredth time. Then Duvivier.
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