‘Take the next turning on your left. Then slow a little and let them begin to catch up. Make it so that they are sitting directly on your tail. They will not be able to overtake. The track is narrow. You will be quite safe until it opens out either side of the mine shaft. But you will only have one chance. If you don’t turn in time we will be dead also. Can you do this?’
Lamia shook her head in wonder. ‘Adam said you were a cool customer. Now I believe him.’
‘I will not lie down for the lion. That much is true. It happened to me once. With the brother of those people back in the car. Never again.’
Lamia threw the Peugeot into a sharp left turn. Aldinach followed her, six seconds behind. Once on the straight, Aldinach was able to pick up speed, and within twenty seconds he was hard on Lamia’s tail.
10
‘What the hell was that about?’
Sabir was driving the rental car, with Alexi on the seat beside him. Calque and Radu were hunched forward in the back. Sabir had just seen two cars veer off the main road from Samois village onto a forest track fifty metres ahead of them. For one heart-stopping moment, the three cars had seemed to be heading straight for one another.
‘It’s them. I recognized Lamia’s face. She had someone in the car with her.’
‘Are you sure?’
Calque slapped Sabir on the shoulder. ‘Of course I’m sure. Lamia’s face is unmistakeable, man. I’m not blind.’
‘Did you see who was following her?’
‘No I didn’t. But I’ll give you three guesses who it was.’
Sabir floored the gas pedal, then threw the rental into a tight left-hand turn.
‘What do you think has happened? Why are Aldinach and Athame chasing Lamia? I thought they were on the same fucking side?’
Alexi turned to Sabir. ‘That was Yola inside the first car. I know it. I saw her face in profile. If they hurt her I will kill them all. I will make them eat their own entrails. I will…’
‘Okay, Alexi. Calm down. We’ll catch them.’ Sabir was having difficulty keeping the car within the confines of the track. There had been a considerable amount of rain two days before, and the thin November sun had not yet succeeded in drying it off. The top of the dirt track was like a skating rink, therefore, with the very worst potholes reserved for the corners.
‘Do you think they’ve seen us?’
‘If they haven’t yet, they will soon.’
‘You don’t think Lamia is trying to protect Yola, do you? That we’ve got it all wrong? Why would they be chasing her otherwise?’
‘Why indeed?’ Sabir swung the vehicle through a wide arc, mud and gravel spraying out beside him. ‘Where does this go to, Alexi?’
‘If you keep straight on, it goes back to the main Fontainebleau road. If you take a left turn about five hundred metres in front of you, it goes towards the old mines.’
‘The old mines?’
‘This was a quarry area a long time ago.’
As if on cue, both the cars Sabir was following curled left, down the old mine road.
‘Tell me about these mines, Alexi.’
‘They are very deep. Very dangerous.’
‘And Yola knows about them?’
‘Of course. O Beng lives down there – all Gypsies know that. We are taught it as children, to keep us away from the shafts.’
‘ O Beng?’ Calque was leaning forwards in his seat.
‘The Devil, Calque. They are going to see the Devil.’
11
Lamia threw the wheel over at the last possible moment before striking the fragile fence surrounding the open mine-shaft. The Peugeot almost coped with the unexpected centrifugal strain, but then it struck a hidden rock with one of its back wheels and flipped over onto its side. It continued on, ploughing through some seedlings, and ended up canted against a fir tree at the edge of the surrounding forest.
Aldinach saw the mine shaft at the last possible moment and attempted a handbrake turn. The rental Ford spun around twice, smashed through the wood palings, and came to rest with its tail partially down the mine shaft, and with its two front wheels caught up in the barbed wire that had interleaved the fence stakes.
Sabir was two hundred metres behind the other cars at this stage, and he had ample time to measure his braking. He pulled up beside Lamia’s Peugeot while the car was still settling.
He ran towards Lamia’s car, followed closely by the others. Grabbing what remained of one of the seedlings, he began smashing in the Peugeot’s back window. Alexi wrapped his jacket around both his hands and pulled the glass bodily out of its frame. Then he ducked in through the smashed window and began wriggling across the seats towards Yola.
Sabir ran around to the front of the car. He could see someone trying to open the sunshine roof from the inside.
‘Come on, Calque. Help me. Someone is trying to get out. Radu. You go and grab Alexi’s legs. I can smell petrol. We’ve got to get both women out of this car before it goes up.’
A hand emerged from the sunshine roof. Sabir manoeuvred his own hand inside and began to turn the handle. Soon, Lamia’s bloodied face emerged from the gap. ‘Okay. Hold on. I think we can get you through.’
Calque took one of her arms and Sabir the other. Together they manhandled her slender frame through the half-opened sunshine roof.
‘All right. We’ve got you. Alexi? How are you and Radu doing with Yola?’
‘She’s fine. She’s fine. She’s talking to me. We get her out in a minute.’
Lamia got shakily to her feet. She was leaning against Sabir. There was blood all the way down the front of her dress from a gash in her skull. But when Sabir looked closely at it, he saw that, although bleeding copiously, it was only surface deep.
‘You were saving her, weren’t you? I knew you wouldn’t harm her. It would have been impossible. Not after what we said to each other.’
Lamia looked up at him. Then her expression changed. Sabir twisted in the direction of her gaze.
Aldinach was running towards them. His hair was flowing free. He looked like a Mohican brave from one of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. A scalpel flashed in his hand. Sabir turned to face him. Both Alexi and Radu were still busy inside the car with Yola. Sabir reached down and picked up the sapling branch he had used to break through the Peugeot’s back window and brought it to bear.
Aldinach was heading straight for him. He skipped over the mud and the scattered objects between them like a dancer.
A figure ran past Sabir’s left shoulder. It was Lamia. She headed straight for Aldinach, her arms held wide.
Aldinach scarcely hesitated. One hand flashed out and the scalpel entered and exited Lamia’s breast like a rapier. She did not even fall, but stood there, her arms cradling her chest, while Aldinach continued on towards Sabir.
A violent rage overcame Sabir – a rage unlike any he had ever known in his life. He, too, ran at Aldinach, so that the two men were sprinting towards each other like rival stags. At the very last moment Sabir raised the
