‘I’d like to believe you. I really would. But I can’t even read, Damo. Sometimes my mind gets so mixed up thinking of these things that I want to pull it out like string and untangle it.’
Sabir smiled. ‘What do you think, Yola?’
‘I think you’re right, Damo. I think there’s something about these verses we don’t understand yet. Some reason the eye-man is prepared to kill for them.’
‘Maybe he even wants to destroy them? Have you thought of that one?’
Yola’s eyes widened. ‘Why? Why would anyone want to do that?’
Sabir shook his head. ‘That’s the hundred-thousand-dollar question. If I could answer that one, we’d be home free.’
21
There were some amongst his friends who believed that Gavril had always been angry. That some mulo had entered his body at birth and, like a surgeon worrying at a tumour, had kept on at him ever since. That this was the reason he turned out looking like a gadje. That maybe he hadn’t been kidnapped at birth after all, but had simply been cursed, way back in another life and that his looks were a result of that. He was worse than simply apatride. He was a freak even to his own community.
Bazena, anyway, believed this. But she was hot in her belly for him and so was way beyond sense in the matter.
Today Gavril seemed angrier than ever. Bazena glanced at the old woman who was acting as her temporary duenna and then back at Gavril’s hair. He was lying on the ground, his trousers around his ankles and she was stitching the wound in his leg. It didn’t look like a dog bite to her – more like a knife-wound. And the livid bruise on his neck certainly hadn’t been made escaping over any fence. What did he do – fall backwards? But who was she to argue with him. She wondered for a moment what their children would look like? Whether they would take after her and be gypsies, or whether they would take after Gavril and be cursed? The thought made her go weak at the knees.
‘When are your people leaving for Les Saintes-Maries?’
Bazena slipped in the last stitch. ‘Later. In maybe an hour.’
‘I shall go with you.’
Bazena sat up straighter. Even the old duenna began to take notice.
‘I shall travel up front. With your father and your brother. Here.’ He poked around inside his pocket and came up with a crumpled twenty-euro note. ‘Tell them this is for the diesel. For my part of the diesel.’
Bazena looked across at the old duenna. Was Truffeni thinking what she was thinking? That Gavril was making it clear that he intended to kidnap her, when they were at Les Saintes-Maries and ask for Sainte Sara’s blessing on their marriage?
She tied the stitches off and rubbed over his leg with burdock.
‘Aiee. That hurts.’
‘I need to do it. It’s antiseptic. It will clean the wound.
Protect you from infection.’
Gavril rolled over and pulled up his trousers. Both Bazena and the old woman averted their eyes.
‘Are you sure you’re not mahrime? You haven’t polluted me?’
Bazena shook her head. The old woman cackled and made a rude sign with her fingers.
Yes, thought Bazena. She, too, thinks he wants me. She, too, thinks he has lost interest in Yola.
‘Good.’ He stood up, the anger still flaring in his eyes. ‘I’ll see you then. At your father’s caravan. In an hour.’
22
‘It’s impossible. We’re on a hiding to nothing.’
Macron made a face. ‘I told you these people were useless. I told you these people were untrustworthy.’
Calque drew himself up. ‘I think we’ve discovered just the opposite. They are obviously trustworthy, as they have refused to give their own people away. And as for useless – well. Enough said.’
Macron was sitting on a stone wall, with his back hunched against a corner of the church. ‘My feet… Jesus Christ they hurt. In fact everything hurts. If I ever catch that bastard, I’m going to deglaze him with a blowtorch.’
Calque took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth. ‘An odd manner of expression for a policeman. I assume you are just letting off steam, Macron and don’t really mean what you are saying?’
‘Just letting off steam. Yes, Sir.’
‘I’m very relieved to hear it.’ Calque detected an echo of cynicism in his own voice and it distressed him. He made a conscious effort at lightening his tone. ‘How are your pinheads getting on with disentangling the tracker code?’
‘They’re getting there. Tomorrow morning at the latest.’
‘What did we do before computers, Macron? I confess, I’ve quite forgotten. Real police work, perhaps? No. That cannot possibly be so.’
Macron closed his eyes. Calque was on the same old bandwagon as ever – would he never change? Fucking iconoclast. ‘Without computers we wouldn’t have got this far.’
‘Oh, I think we would.’ More pomposity. Sometimes Calque made himself ill with it. He sniffed at the air like a bloodhound anticipating a day’s hunting. ‘I smell coq au vin. No. There’s more. I smell coq au vin and pommes dauphinoises.’
Macron burst out laughing. Despite his profound irritation with the man, Calque could always be counted on to make a person laugh. It was as if he held the secret within himself of suddenly being able to tap into a hidden conduit of mutuality – of mutual Frenchness – like Fernandel, for instance, or Charles de Gaulle. ‘Now that’s what I call police work. Shall we investigate further, Sir?’ He opened his eyes, still not completely certain of Calque’s mood. Was the Captain still down on him, or was he cutting him some slack at long last?
Calque flicked his cigarette into a nearby bin. ‘Lead the way, Lieutenant. Food, as the philosophers say, must always precede duty.’
23
‘It’s perfect.’ Sabir looked around the interior of the Maset de la Marais. ‘The brothers are crazy to have abandoned a place like this. Look over there.’
Alexi craned his neck to where Sabir was pointing.
‘That’s an original Provencal cupboard. And look at that.’
‘What?’
‘The bergere suite. Over there. In the corner. It must be at least a hundred and fifty years old.’
‘You mean these things are worth money? They’re not just old junk?’
Sabir suddenly remembered who he was talking to. ‘Alexi, you leave them alone, huh? These people are our hosts. Even though they may not know it. Okay? We owe them the courtesy of letting their stuff alone.’
‘Sure. Sure. I’m not going to touch anything.’ Alexi didn’t sound convinced. ‘But what do you think they’re worth? Just at a guess?’
‘Alexi?’
‘Sure. Sure. It was only a question.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose they would interest one of those antique dealer
