‘You don’t look too fresh yourself, my friend. You should rest.’
‘There’ll be time for that later,’ Ben said.
‘Yes, in the grave,’ Rabier chuckled. ‘Then have another drink. This stuff of mine clears your head.’
Ben somehow doubted that. He showed Rabier the sketch pad. The Frenchman gazed sadly at his dead friend’s artwork, then his brow furrowed as he turned the pages to the drawings of the sword. ‘What kind of sword is this?’ he murmured, scratching his beard.
‘One I don’t think you’ll find in the war museum in Paris. My guess is it’s eastern. Let’s see if we can find anything like it.’ Ben ran another web search on his phone, entering ‘middle eastern sword’ and clicking ‘images’.
A host of material came up on the tiny screen. He scrolled down through dozens of pictures featuring Islamic shamshirs and mamelukes, wicked-looking Afghan warrior sabres and daggers; there were several images of scantily clad female belly dancers, some thin, some fat, performing with a variety of great curved scimitars balanced on their heads. He saw nothing that very closely resembled the sword in the priest’s sketches, the nearest match an ancient Egyptian sickle sword called a khopesh.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, returning to study the more detailed of Lalique’s two sketches. ‘Whatever it is, it’s old. Really old. Nobody’s used swords like this for a thousand years, or maybe even longer.’
They sat and smoked a while, and talked about dead friends, lost wives. ‘My Brigitte was eaten by the crab, you know, cancer,’ Rabier said. Ben told him a little about Leigh. It felt good to talk. Finally, it seemed that even Rabier’s appetite for his homebrewed rocket fuel had abated, and he bubbled up a pot of espresso on the gas stove. Ben gratefully accepted a cup of the scalding coffee. ‘About your offer, Jacques. To look after Jude for a while. If it still stands…’
‘He can help me on the farm. There will be plenty to occupy him here. You were thinking of going somewhere?’
Ben nodded. ‘This isn’t over yet. And it’s not going to get any easier or less dangerous.’
Rabier reached across to a fingermarked drawer of the kitchen dresser, yanked it open and lifted out the black powder revolver. ‘Take it,’ he said, sliding the gun across the tabletop.
‘Thanks, Jacques, but I can’t take that where I’m headed. Nor the shotgun. You can hang onto it for me.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Toulouse airport, then Jerusalem via Paris. But say nothing about that to Jude. He’s liable to come after me and I don’t want him any more involved in this than he has to be.’
Rabier grinned. ‘I have already forgotten. And now, my friend, I am going to bed.’
‘In which case I’ll say au revoir, Jacques. I won’t be here when you awake. And thanks again.’
Ben napped for an hour on a lounger in Rabier’s living room, resting his head on a mildewy cushion and covered with an old blanket that smelled of mould. When he awoke and returned upstairs to the spare bedroom, he found Jude still sleeping off the trauma of the last two days. He said a silent goodbye and left.
Ben slipped outside into the pre-dawn gloom to the Laguna, rolled quietly down the track to the road and set off on the eighty-mile journey to Toulouse airport. The snow had stopped and the roads were clear, piles of brown slush caked high at the roadsides. Traffic was heavy in the lead-up to Christmas.
Ben regretted having gone off without offering any explanation to Jude, but it was the only way. He would have insisted on coming along. Ben had already placed him in too much danger, and the risks were mounting. The farm was the best place for Jude while Ben followed the trail. Thanks to Jacques Rabier, the only potential witnesses to the incident at the ruined church were now languishing under several tons of well-rotted manure. Nobody could implicate Rabier, and nobody could have any idea where Jude was. The Frenchman might be a bit crazy, but Ben trusted him.
Twenty minutes from Toulouse airport, a strange irregular knocking sound started up from the back of the car. It paused for a moment, then started up again. Ben pulled off the busy road into a layby, got out and walked around the car. He could see nothing. Then he heard it again: thump, thump. Coming from inside the boot. Ben stared at the back of the car for a moment, then swung open the boot lid.
Jude’s face peered up from inside. ‘You bastard, you were going to leave me behind, weren’t you?’ He jumped up and hopped out onto the slushy verge. Traffic whooshed past as he squared up to Ben at the roadside. ‘Now who can’t be trusted?’
‘What the hell are you playing at?’ Ben said angrily. He felt like stuffing Jude back in the boot and returning him to Rabier’s.
‘Don’t you get it yet? I’m going to see this through. I don’t care about anything else.’
‘How did you know I was leaving?’
‘I heard you and Rabier talking.’
‘You were asleep.’
‘Oh, sure. And just because I don’t speak French, doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I got the gist. Jerusalem?’
‘You’re not coming,’ Ben said, though he already knew it was futile. ‘No chance.’
Jude ripped his passport out of his pocket as if he were drawing a knife. ‘You can’t stop me. I’ll pay you back the cost of the ticket. That’s if we get out of this alive,’ he added darkly.
The traffic streaked by. Ben gazed up the road in the direction of Toulouse, then turned and looked back the other way. He’d come too far to double back to the farm, and there was no time. Jude had him. He let out a long sigh. ‘There’s no need to pay me back.’
‘So I’m coming?’
Ben looked at him. ‘You really are a stubborn sod.’
The worst thing was knowing exactly where Jude had got it from.
Chapter Forty-Three
The water was roaring in Ben’s ears and the current threatened to drag him away as he struggled across the bonnet of the sinking car to tear away the shattered windscreen. The two figures sat immobile before him, strapped into their seats. Michaela’s hair floating around her face in the murk. He called their names, but all that came out of his mouth was an explosion of air bubbles. He felt the car sinking deeper, deeper, under him. Reached inside to take his friends’ hands and haul them to safety.
Their eyes opened and stared into his.
‘Ben,’ they said, their echoing voices merging into a single plaintive moan that filled his head. ‘Beeeeen…’
Ben woke with a start. For a few moments he glanced about him, disorientated, as the shockingly vivid dream rapidly faded away and the reality of the present came flooding back. He could feel the soft rumble of the aircraft through his seat and the soles of his shoes; the presence of Jude sitting next to him, gazing down into his lap, ignoring the clouds passing by outside the window. People all around. The flight from Paris to Jerusalem was crowded with travellers flocking to Bethlehem for the festive season.
An Air France hostess passed by with a smile and asked Ben if everything was all right. He mumbled a reply, then checked his watch. It was almost three in the afternoon, nine hours since he’d slipped away from Jacques Rabier’s place thinking he was setting off alone.
Jude slowly turned around to face him, and Ben saw that his eyes were rimmed with red. ‘My dad,’ Jude said.
Ben just looked at him. He felt panic stab through his guts. Did Jude know? How could that be? What was he going to say?
‘My dad,’ Jude said again. ‘He was a good man, wasn’t he?’
Ben’s panic subsided. He blinked and tried to shake away the last remnants of his stupor. ‘Yes, he was, Jude.’
‘And I was a shit. To both of them. But especially him.’
‘You shouldn’t think that way.’
‘It’s true, isn’t it? He always supported me. Even when we argued, he was there for me. And I knew how
