‘Pierre’s dead?’ Sara asked pathetically.
‘I’m sorry,’ Luc said. ‘And Jeremy. And Marie. And Elizabeth Coutard. And-’
She burst into tears and whispered, ‘Horrible, horrible,’ over and over.
‘And what was your justification for raping the women?’ From the look on Sara’s face, he wished he hadn’t said that. He told her the rest of the story, ‘The gendarmes said the rapists had immotile sperms.’
Bonnet did his usual shrug. ‘Boys will be boys.’
Luc simply said, ‘You’re a piece of shit.’
That only stoked Bonnet’s fires. He became animated, waving his arm. ‘Pelay said it would have been better if my men had flattened you two like bugs in Cambridge! I say what’s going to happen to you tonight is better.’
‘And the company?’ Luc asked. ‘You blew that up too?’
‘Nothing to do with us,’ Bonnet shrugged. ‘A happy coincidence. We were after you. What do we know about blowing up buildings? Pelay persuaded me we had an opportunity to get rid of you before you could do us more damage. If it happened in another country, it wouldn’t track back to us. So I said, why not? When they failed and the two of you split up the next morning, we decided to take her to get you to come to us. What a load of trouble you’ve caused us!’
Luc wasn’t sure if he believed him about their lack of involvement in PlantaGenetics. His water-tight theory was leaking.
‘And Prentice? You didn’t kill him?’
‘Fred’s dead?’ Sara cried.
‘I’m sorry,’ Luc said. ‘He died in hospital.’
‘I don’t know anything about that either,’ Bonnet barked, ‘but you know what?’ he continued. ‘None of your people would have died if we’d shot you and your chum Hugo the first time you set foot into my cafe. Just like we did when two jackasses found the cave for the first time, back in 1899.’
Sara curled her mouth into a smile of pure contempt. ‘You’ve got another secret, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes? What’s that?’
‘You’re infertile, aren’t you? All of you men are infertile sons-of-bitches.’ She laughed at his hurt expression. ‘Luc, it’s got to be a side-effect of the tea. They all shoot blanks!’
Luc managed a smile too. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen children in Ruac. How many children are there?’
Bonnet stood up, spouting a look of discomfort. ‘Not many, not enough. It’s a problem, it’s always been a problem. The men make the tea for a year or two and our little fish stop swimming. But we get by. We make it work.’
Luc thought for a moment. ‘You’re matrilineal, aren’t you?’ he asked.
‘We’re what?’ Bonnet challenged, as if someone had insulted his mother.
‘The men can’t reproduce,’ Luc said. ‘Your bloodlines go through the women. So you’ve got to bring in outside males to keep the maternal bloodlines going. Who fathered your own damned children, Bonnet? Do you use stud service, like horse breeders?’
‘Shut up!’ Bonnet shouted. He pulled his gun again and waved it at Luc.
Luc taunted him; he had nothing to lose, ‘Does your little pistol shoot blanks too?’
Bonnet was shouting now, drowning out the incessant musette rhythms. The villagers stopped talking, turned, and watched him. ‘You think you’re so damned clever. You come from Paris, you come from Bordeaux, you come to our village and try to destroy our way of life! Let me tell you what’s going to happen to you tonight!’ He pointed his gun at Sara. ‘My son is going to screw this bitch good, then he’s going to put a bullet in her head! And she won’t even care because she’s going to be in love with the tea in a few minutes. And you, you’re going to be the stallion. You’re going with Odile. You’re going to be high as a paper kite and you’re going to give me a grandchild, thank you very much. Then I’ll personally put a bullet in your head! Then I’m going to march up to the top of the cliffs and set off the charges we planted tonight. With all the fancy new gates and locks and cameras they installed we can’t get inside it but that doesn’t mean we can’t blow the cliff up from above and collapse it into the cave! And then I’m going to burn this goddamned manuscript! And then no one else is going to ever know our secret! I don’t believe you wrote a letter to anybody. It’s a stupid bluff. No one else will ever know! And then I’m going to go back to my cafe and my fire brigade and my pile of Nazi gold and my quiet village and my tea and my good times and I’ll keep on living for so long I might forget that you bastards even existed!’
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 matelasse 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
