place.’
‘But now you think that he was part of the gang?’
‘Certainly, Monsieur. I am sure of it. I left him behind covering the other man with the pistol. I needed to phone, you see, but the only problem is that the mobile phones the church authorities give us don’t work here underneath the cliff. They are useless. We have to go back to the office and use the old landline whenever we want to call out. They do it on purpose, in my opinion, to stop us from misusing the service.’ He crossed himself in penance for his uncharitable thoughts. ‘But then all these modern contraptions don’t really work. Take my grandson’s computer, for instance…’
‘Why didn’t they take the Black Madonna with them, if they were part of the same gang? They had ample time before either you, or the police, returned to the scene.’
‘The younger boy was injured, Monsieur. He had blood all over his face. I believe he fell while trying to steal the Virgin.’ He crossed himself again. ‘Perhaps the older man could not carry both him and the Virgin?’
‘Yes. Yes. You may be right. Where is the Virgin now?’
‘Back in her case.’
‘May we see her?’
The old man hesitated. ‘It will mean returning to the storeroom to fetch the ladder and…’
‘My junior, Lieutenant Macron, will arrange all that. You won’t have to put yourself to any additional trouble on our behalf. That, I promise you.’
‘Well, all right then. But please take care. It is a miracle she was not damaged in the fracas of last night.’
‘You behaved very well. It is entirely to your credit that the Virgin has been restored.’
The gardien hitched his shoulders. ‘You think so? You really think so?’
‘I am entirely convinced of the fact.’
‘Look, Macron. Come over here and tell me what you make of this.’ Calque was staring at the base of the Virgin. He allowed his thumb to travel over the deeply incised letters that had been chiselled into the wood.
Macron took the Virgin from his hands. ‘Well, the carving was certainly done a long time ago. You can tell that by the way the wood has darkened. Quite unlike these other marks on her breast.’
‘Those were probably done in the Revolution.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Neither the Protestants, during the Wars of Religion, nor our revolutionary ancestors, approved of graven images. In most of the churches of France they destroyed statues of Christ, the Virgin and the Holy Saints. They tried that here too. Legend has it that they tore off the silver which originally covered the Virgin and then were so astonished by the dignity of what was revealed below, that they left her alone.’
‘You don’t believe in all that rot, do you?’
Calque took back the Virgin. ‘It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of listening. History keeps its secrets on open display, Macron. Only someone with eyes to see and ears to hear can disentangle their real essence from the flotsam and jetsam that fl oat alongside them.’
‘I don’t understand what you are talking about.’
Calque sighed. ‘Let’s take this as an example. It’s a statue of the Virgin and Child, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Of course it is.’
‘And we know that this particular Virgin protects sailors. You see that bell up there? When it suddenly tolls of it’s own accord, it means a sailor has been miraculously saved from the sea by the Virgin’s intervention. Or that a storm will come and a miracle occur.’
‘That’s just the wind, surely. Wind usually comes before a storm.’
Calque smiled. He spread some paper over the base of the statue and began to trace over the letters with his pen. ‘Well, Isis, the Egyptian goddess, wife and sister of Osiris and sister of Set, was also believed to save sailors from the sea. And we know that she was frequently depicted seated on a throne, with her son, Horus the Child, on her lap. Horus is the god of light, of the sun, of the day, of life and of good and his nemesis, Set, who was Isis’s sworn enemy, was the god of the night, of evil, of darkness and of death. Set had tricked Osiris, chief of the gods, into trying out a beautifully crafted coffin and had sealed him inside it and sent him down the Nile, where a tree grew around him. Later, he cut Osiris’s body into fourteen pieces. But Isis found the coffin and its contents and reassembled them, with Thoth, the mediator’s, help and Osiris came back to life just long enough to impregnate her with Horus, their son.’
‘I don’t understand…’
‘Macron, the Black Virgin is Isis. The Christ figure is Horus. All that happened was that the Christians usurped the ancient Egyptian gods and transformed them into something more palatable to a modern sensibility.’
‘Modern?’
‘Osiris was resurrected, you see. He came back from the dead. And he had a son. Who pitted himself against the forces of evil. Doesn’t that sound familiar to you?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Both Jesus and Horus were born in a stable. And their births are both celebrated on the 25th of December.’
Macron’s eyes had begun to glaze.
Calque shrugged. ‘Well. Anyway. Here is what Sabir and your eye-man were looking for.’ He held up the sheet of paper.
‘It’s in gobbledegook.’
‘No it’s not. It’s written in reverse. All we need to do is to find a mirror and we should be able to disentangle it.’
‘How do you know they were looking for it?’
‘Logic, Macron. Look. They broke in here for a purpose. That purpose was to steal the Virgin. But the eye-man was also here. They succeeded in driving him away, though, leaving Sabir, the gypsy and the gardien alone in the Sanctuary. But the old man is bewildered by it all and is too old to take charge, so he obeys Sabir and trots off back to the office to phone. The two of them could easily have managed to take the Virgin with them then. She’s only around seventy centimetres tall and hardly weighs anything. But they don’t. They leave her behind. And why do they do that? Because they already have what they came for. Bring me that torch.’
‘But it’s evidence. There may be fingerprints on it.’
‘Just bring me the torch, Macron.’ Calque turned the paper over. ‘Now we’ll shine it against the writing.’
‘Ah. That’s clever. No need of a mirror.’
‘Take this down in your notebook:
‘Il sera ennemi et pire qu’ayeulx Il naistra en fer, de serpente mammelle Le rat monstre gardera son secret Il sera mi homme et mi femelle’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Don’t you understand your own language?’ ‘Well, of course I do.’ ‘Then you decipher it.’
‘Well, the first line reads “He will be an enemy and worse…’’ ’ Macron hesitated. ‘ “…than anyone before him.” ’
‘ “He will be born in iron…” ’
‘ “…of Hell’, Macron. Enfer means Hell. Ignore the fact that it’s been split in two. People aren’t born of iron.’
‘ “…of Hell,’ then, ‘with the nipple of a serpent…” ’
‘ “…he will suckle from a serpent’s breast.” ’
Macron sighed. He exhaled loudly, as if he had just hefted a set of massive weights in the gym. ‘The monstrous rat will hide his secret…” ’
‘Go on.’
‘ “ He will be half man and half woman.” ’
‘Excellent. But the last line may also be read as “He will be neither man nor woman.” ’
‘How do you work that one out?’
