The Nostradamus prophecies as-1

by Mario Reading

  ‘It’s not possible. My blood’s all over him.’ Sabir sat down in an armchair, his mouth hanging open, the throbbing in his hand uncannily echoing the throbbing of the linking electronic music that was even now accompanying the closing headlines of the evening news.

  11

  It took him ten frenetic minutes to gather all his belongings together – passport, money, maps, clothes and credit cards. At the very last moment he rifled through the desk in case there was anything in there he might use.

  He was borrowing the fl at from his English agent, John Tone, who was on holiday in the Caribbean. The car was his agent’s, too and therefore unidentifiable – its very anonymity might at least suffice to get him out of Paris. To buy him time to think.

  He hastily pocketed an old British driving licence in Tone’s name and some spare euros he found in an empty film canister. No photograph on the driving licence. Might be useful. He took an electricity bill and the car papers, too.

  If the police apprehended him he would simply plead ignorance – he was starting on a research trip to St-Remy-de-Provence, Nostradamus’s birthplace. He hadn’t listened to the radio or watched the TV – didn’t know the police were hunting for him.

  With luck he could make it as far as the Swiss border – bluster his way through. They didn’t always check passports there. And Switzerland was still outside the European Union. If he could make it as far as the US Embassy in Bern he would be safe. If the Swiss extradited him to anywhere, it would be to the US, not to Paris.

  For Sabir had heard tales about the French police from some of his journalist colleagues. Once you got into their hands, your number was up. It could take months or even years for your case to make its way through the bureaucratic nightmare of the French jurisdictional system.

  He stopped at the first hole-in-the-wall he could find and left the car engine running. He’d simply have to take the chance and get some cash. He stuffed the first card through the slit and began to pray. So far so good. He’d try for a thousand euros. Then, if the second card failed him, he could at least pay the motorway tolls in untraceable cash and get himself something to eat.

  Across the street, a youth in a hoodie was watching him. Christ Jesus. This was hardly the time to get mugged. And with the keys left in a brand-new Audi station wagon, with the engine running.

  He pocketed the cash and tried the second card. The youth was moving towards him now, looking about him in that particular way young criminals had. Fifty metres. Thirty. Sabir punched in the numbers.

  The machine ate the card. They were closing him down.

  Sabir darted back towards the car. The youth had started running and was about five metres off.

  Sabir threw himself inside the car and only then remembered that it was British made, with the steering wheel placed on the right. He plunged across the central divider and wasted three precious seconds searching around for the unfamiliar central locking system.

  The youth had his hand on the door.

  Sabir crunched the automatic shift into reverse and the car lurched backwards, throwing the teenager temporarily off balance. Sabir continued backwards up the street, one foot twisted behind him on to the passenger seat, his free hand clutching the steering wheel.

  Ironically he found himself thinking not about the mugger – a definite first, in his experience – but about the fact that, thanks to his forcibly abandoned bank card, the police would now have his fingerprints and a precise location of his whereabouts, at exactly 10.42 p.m., on a clear and starlit Saturday night, in central Paris.

  12

  Twenty minutes out of Paris and five minutes shy of the Evry autoroute junction, Sabir’s attention was caught by a road sign – thirty kilometres to Fontainebleau. And Fontainebleau was only ten short kilometres downriver from Samois. The pharmacist had told him so. They’d even had a brief, mildly flirtatious discussion about Henri II, Catherine de Medici and Napoleon who had apparently used the place to bid farewell to his Old Guard before leaving for exile on Elba.

  Better to forget the autoroute and head for Samois.

  Didn’t they have number-plate recognition on the autoroutes? Hadn’t he heard that somewhere? What if they had already traced him to Tone’s fl at? It wouldn’t be long before they connected him with Tone’s Audi, too. And then they’d have him cold. They’d simply station a few more cop cars at the toll booth exit and reel him in like a finnock.

  If he could only get the quatrains from this Chris person, he might at least be able to persuade the police that he was, indeed, a bona fide writer and not a psycho on the prowl. And why should the gypsy’s death have had anything to do with the verses anyway? Such people were always engaging in feuds, weren’t they? It was probably only an argument over money or a woman and he, Sabir, had simply got in the way of it. When you looked at it like that, the whole thing took on a far more benevolent aspect.

  Anyway, he had an alibi. The pharmacist would remember him, surely? He’d told her all about the gypsy’s behaviour. It simply didn’t make sense for him to have tortured and killed the gypsy with his hand torn to shreds like that. The police would see that, wouldn’t they? Or would they think he’d followed the gypsy and taken revenge on him after the bar fight?

  Sabir shook his head. One thing was for certain. He needed rest. If he carried on like this he would begin to hallucinate.

  Forcing himself to stop thinking and to start acting, Sabir slewed the car across the road and down a woodland track, just two kilometres short of the village of Samois itself.

  13

  ‘He’s slipped the net.’

  ‘What do you mean? How do you know that?’

  Calque raised an eyebrow. Macron was certainly coming on – no doubt about that. But imagination? Still, what could one expect from a two-metre-tall Marseillais? ‘We’ve checked all the hotels, guest houses and letting agencies. When he arrived here he had no reason to conceal his name. He didn’t know he was going to kill the gypsy. This is an American with a French mother, remember. He speaks our language perfectly. Or at least that’s what the fool claims on his website. Either he’s gone to ground in a friend’s house, or he’s bolted. My guess is that he’s bolted. In my experience it’s a rare friend who’s prepared to harbour a torturer.’

  ‘And the man who telephoned in his name?’

  ‘Find Sabir and we’ll find him.’

  ‘So we stake out Samois? Look for this Chris person?’

  Calque smiled. ‘Give the girlie a doll.’

  14

  The first thing Sabir saw was a solitary deerhound crossing the ride in front of him, lost from the previous day’s exercise. Below him, dissected by trees, the River Seine sparkled in the early-morning sun.

  He climbed out of the car and stretched his legs. Five hours’ sleep. Not bad in the circumstances. Last night he’d felt nervous and on edge. Now he felt calmer – less panic-stricken about his predicament. It had been a wise move to take the turning to Samois and even wiser to pull over into the forest to sleep. Perhaps the French police wouldn’t run him to ground so easily after all? Still. Wouldn’t do to take unnecessary risks.

  Fifty metres down the track, with the car windows open, he picked up woodsmoke and the unmistakable odour of fried pork fat. At first he was tempted to ignore it and continue on his way, but hunger prevailed. Whatever happened, he had to eat. And why not here? No cameras. No cops.

  He instantly convinced himself that it would make perfect sense to offer to buy his breakfast direct from whoever happened to be doing the cooking. The mystery campers might even be able to point him towards Chris.

  Abandoning the car, Sabir cut through the woods on foot, following his nose. He could feel his stomach expanding towards the smell of the bacon. Crazy to think that he was on the run from the police. Perhaps, being campers, these people wouldn’t have had access to a television or a newspaper?

  Sabir stood for some time on the edge of the clearing, watching. It was a gypsy camp. Well. He’d
lucked into it, really. He should have realised that no one in their right mind would have been camping out in a northern manorial forest in early May. August was the time for camping – otherwise, if you were French, you stayed in a hotel with your family and dined in comfort.

  One of the women saw him and called out to her husband. A bunch of children came running towards him and then stopped, in a gaggle. Two other men broke off from what they were doing and started in his direction. Sabir raised a hand in greeting.

  The hand was pulled violently from behind him and forced to the rear of his neck. He felt himself being driven down to his knees.

  Just before he lost consciousness he noticed the television mast on one of the caravans.

  15

  ‘You do it, Yola. It’s your right.’

  The woman was standing in front of him. An older man placed a knife in her hand and shooed her forward. Sabir tried to say something but he found that his mouth was taped shut.

  ‘That’s it. Cut off his balls.’ ‘No. Do his eyes first.’ A chorus of elderly women were encouraging her from their position outside the caravan doorway. Sabir looked around. Apart from the woman with the knife, he was surrounded entirely by men. He tried to move his arms but they were bound tightly behind his back. His ankles were knotted together and a decorated pillow had been placed between his knees.

  One of the men upended him and manhandled his trousers over his hips. ‘There. Now you can see the target.’

  ‘Stick it up his arse while you’re at it.’ The old women were pushing forward to get a better view.

  Sabir began shaking his head in a futile effort to free the tape from his mouth.

  The woman began inching forward, the knife held out in front of her.

  ‘Go on. Do it. Remember what he did to Babel.’

  Sabir began a sort of ululation from inside his taped mouth. He fixed his eyes on the woman in fiendish concentration, as if he could somehow will her not to follow through with what she intended.

  Another man grabbed Sabir’s scrotum and stretched it away from his body, leaving only a thin membrane of skin to be cut. A single blow of the knife would be enough.

  Sabir watched the woman. Instinct told him that she was his only chance. If his concentration broke and he looked away, he knew that he was done for. Without fully understanding his own motivation, he winked at her.

  The wink hit her like a slap. She reached forward and ripped the tape off Sabir’s mouth. ‘Why did you do that? Why did you mutilate my brother? What had he done to you?’

  Sabir dragged a great gulp of air through his swollen lips. ‘Chris. Chris. He told me to ask for Chris.’

  The woman stepped backwards. The man holding Sabir’s testicles let go of them and leaned across him, his head cocked to one side like a bird dog. ‘What’s that you say?’

  ‘Your brother smashed a glass. He pressed his hand into it. Then mine. Then he ground our two hands together and placed the imprint of mine on his forehead. He then told me to go to Samois and ask for Chris. I wasn’t the one that killed him. But I realise now that he was being followed. Please believe me. Why should I come here otherwise?’

  ‘But the police. They are looking for you. We saw on the television. We recognised your face.’

  ‘My blood was on his hand.’

  The man threw Sabir to one side. For a moment Sabir was convinced that they were going to slit his throat. Then he could feel them unbandaging his hand – inspecting the cuts. Hear them talking to each other in a language he could not understand.

  ‘Stand up. Put your trousers on.’

  They were cutting the ropes behind his back.

  One of the men prodded him. ‘Tell me. Who is Chris?’

  Sabir shrugged. ‘One of you, I suppose.’

  Some of the older men laughed.

  The man with the knife winked at him, in unconscious echo of the wink that had saved Sabir’s testicles two short minutes before. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll meet him soon. With or without your balls. The choice is yours.’

  16

  At least they’re feeding me, thought Sabir. It’s harder to kill a man you’ve broken bread with. Surely.

  He spooned up the last of the stew, then reached down with his manacled hands for his coffee. ‘The meat. It was good.’

  The old woman nodded. She wiped her hands on her voluminous skirts but Sabir noticed that she did not eat. ‘Clean. Yes. Very clean.’

  ‘Clean?’

  ‘The spines. Hedgehogs are the cleanest beasts. They are not mahrime. Not like…’ She spat over her shoulder. ‘Dogs.’

  ‘Ah. You eat dogs?’ Sabir was already having problems with the thought of hedgehogs. He could feel the onset of nausea threatening.

  ‘No. No.’ The woman burst into uproarious laughter. ‘Dogs. Hah hah.’ She signalled to one of her friends. ‘Heh. The gadje thinks we eat dogs.’

  A man came running into the clearing. He was instantly surrounded by young children. He spoke to a few of them and they peeled off to warn the camp.

  Sabir watched intently as boxes and other objects were swiftly secreted beneath and inside the caravans. Two men broke off from what they were doing and came towards him.

  ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

  They picked him up between them and carried him, splay-legged, towards a wood-box.

  ‘Jesus Christ. You’re not going to put me in there?

  I’m claustrophobic. Seriously. I promise. I’m not good in narrow places. Please. Put me in one of the caravans.’

  The men tumbled him inside the wood-box. One of them drew a stained handkerchief from his pocket and thrust it into Sabir’s mouth. Then they eased his head beneath the surface of the box and slammed shut the lid.

  17

  Captain Calque surveyed the disparate group in front of him. He was going to have trouble with this lot. He just knew it. Knew it in his bones. Gypsies always shut up shop when talking to the police – even when it was one of their own who had been the victim of a crime, as in this case. Still they persisted in wanting to take the law into their own hands.

  He nodded to Macron. Macron held up the photograph of Sabir.

  ‘Have any of you seen this man?’

  Nothing. Not even a nod of recognition.

  ‘Do any of you know who this man is?’

  ‘A killer.’

  Calque shut his eyes. Oh well. At least someone had actually spoken to him. Addressed a comment to him. ‘Not necessarily. The more we find out, the more it seems that there may be a second party involved in this crime. A party whom we have not yet succeeded in identifying.’

  ‘When are you going to release my brother’s body so that we can bury him?’

  The men were making way for a young woman – she manoeuvred herself through the closed ranks of women and children and moved to the forefront of the group.

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘Babel Samana.’

  Calque nodded to Macron, who began writing vigorously in a small black notebook. ‘And your name?’

  ‘Yola. Yola Samana.’

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘They are dead.’

  ‘Any other relatives?’

  Yola shrugged and indicated the surrounding sea of faces.

  ‘Everyone?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So what was he doing in Paris?’

  She shrugged again.

  ‘Anyone know?’

  There was a group shrug.

  Calque was briefly tempted to burst out laughing – but the fact that the assembly would probably lynch him if he were to do so, prevented him from giving in to the emotion. ‘So can anyone tell me anything at all about Samana? Who he was seeing – apart from this man Sabir, of course. Or why he was visiting St-Denis?’

  Silence.

  Calque waited. Thirty years of experience had taught him when and when not, to press an issue.

  ‘When are you giving him back?’

  Calque summoned
up a fake sigh. ‘I can’t tell you that exactly. We may need his body for further forensic tests.’

  The young woman turned to one of the older male gypsies. ‘We must bury him within three days.’

  The gypsy hitched his chin at Calque. ‘Can we have him?’

  ‘I told you. No. Not yet.’

  ‘Can we have some of his hair then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you give us some of his hair, we can bury him. Along with his possessions. It has to be done within three days. Then you can do what you like with the body.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Will you do as we ask?’

  ‘Give you some of his hair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Calque could feel Macron’s eyes boring into the back of his head. ‘Yes. We can give you some of his hair. Send one of your people to this address…’ Calque handed the gypsy a card. ‘Tomorrow. Then you can formally identify him and cut the hair at the same time.’

  ‘I will go.’ It was the young woman – Samana’s sister.

  ‘Very well.’ Calque stood uncertainly in the centre of the clearing. The place was so completely alien to him and to his understanding of what constituted a normal society, that he might as well have been standing in a rainforest discussing ethics with a group of Amerindian tribesman.

  ‘You’ll call me if the American, Sabir, tries to make contact with you in any way? My number is written on the card.’

  He glanced around at the assembled group.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’

  18