They sprinted out of the churchyard, hurling themselves down the humble main street of Campan, beyond the last dilapidated villa, running into the countryside. And still running.
After twenty minutes Amy called a halt, she had her hands on her knees. Gasping and gulping. Almost puking. David stopped, exhausted, and looked around, they had reached a junction, where traffic slashed past, burning down the main road.
But now Amy was running on.
'We can hitch! We need to hitch a lift — '
'Where?'
'Biarritz. Somewhere busy, with lots of people, where we can get lost. This road goes to Biarritz.'
He followed her, as she ran to the road, with her thumb out, hoping for a lift. David was desperate: who the hell would stop for them? Dressed like scarecrows, faces frightened, half smeared with some unspeakable effluent.
Five minutes later a French apple truck stopped; the driver leaned over, pushed the door open. They climbed in, profusely thanking the man. He glanced at their clothes, he sniffed the air, and then he shrugged. And drove.
They were escaping. Down the thundering autoroute to Biarritz. David sat back, his arms aching, his mind spiralling, waiting for the sense of relief. But then he heard a beep. A message. He patted his scarecrow jeans: his phone! He'd forgotten that he'd turned his phone on, to use the light: he'd been keeping the phone off all this time, just in case Miguel was tracing his own number, too.
As he took the phone from his pocket, he felt the wild incongruity, a clash of modernity, and madness. He had been drenched with the vile distillation of many dead bodies, and yet his phone was bleeping.
The flashing number was British. He clicked.
And then he had one of the strangest phone calls of his life. From a journalist in England. A journalist called Simon Quinn. The phone call lasted an hour; by the time it was done they were in the depths of the Gascon hills, near Cambo-les-Bains.
David shut the call down. And then he rang a random number: and as soon as it answered he opened the window, and he threw the damp and mudded phone into the long grass of the verge, with a fierce relief. If anyone was tracing his calls, they would trace them to Cambo-les-Bains.
Amy was asleep in the seat next to him. The truck driver was furiously puffing a cigarette, oblivious.
He sat back, pensive. The phone call from the journalist. What did it all mean? Murders in Britain? Scientists? Genetics?
Deformity?
25
At the end of the bizarre phone call, his hand weary from scribbling notes, Simon thanked David Martinez and clicked off, falling back on the bed, his eyes bright with thoughts and ideas.
Extraordinary. It was truly extraordinary. And the tension in the young man's voice. What was he going through? What was happening down there, in the Pyrenees?
Whatever the answer, the phone call was a revelation. A breakthrough — and it needed celebrating. He almost ran downstairs. He needed to speak to Sanderson, and he needed a cup of triumphant coffee.
Spooning dark brown Colombian coffee grounds into the cafetiere, he called New Scotland Yard. It occurred to him, as he did so, that Sanderson might be angered by Simon's persistent pursuit of the story; it occurred to him that Sanderson would be mightily interested in this latest information.
But he couldn't reach Sanderson. Instead he was put through to Tomasky. The young DS seemed to listen with appreciative and gratifying interest; as he told the story, Simon felt almost exultant at his success. The best bit was the toes. They now had an explanation: the syndactyly. Yes.
Even as Simon explained his discoveries, he cursed himself for his own failure in not making this connection before — as soon as Emma Winyard had mentioned the Cagots, he should have looked them up! Then he could have strung the pearls himself: webbed toes. Cagots. The Pyrenees.
Still, he had at least got there in the end.
The coffee had brewed and the mug was full. It was Tomasky's turn to talk, as the journalist sipped.
'So, Simon,' the DS said, 'you're saying these people, the…Cackots…'
'Cagots. Ca-gots.'
'Right. You're saying these Cag…ots are all deformed? They all have webbed fingers or toes?'
'Not all. But some, certainly — and it is one of the characteristics of the Cagots. Since medieval times. That's why they were given the, ah, goose's foot to wear. To symbolize and epitomize their malformation.'
'Why? Why do they have webbed fingers and toes?'
'Genetics. They are a mountain people, inbred! Deformities like this are common in isolated communities with smaller gene pools. They don't get bred out. Fascinating right?'
'Sure.' Tomasky went quiet. Then he added. 'And you're saying our victims…are Cagots then. Someone is killing the Cag…ots?'
'Seems that way, Andrew. We don't know why, but we know that some of them are Cagots, and the ones who are Cagot and deformed get tortured. And the killings are happening all over. France, Britain, Canada.' He paused. 'And some of them are old, and they were in Occupied France during the war, maybe in this camp called Gurs. Maybe that's what links them as well. And some of them have lots of money…' Simon wanted to laugh at the bewildering evidence, but at least it was evidence. 'I need to speak to Bob Sanderson. He needs to know this.'
'Sure. I'm on it. I'll tell the DCI as soon as I see him.'
'Excellent. Thanks, Andrew.'
Simon rang off. He set down the mobile and stared out of the window. For half an hour he exulted in his discovery. Then his hymn of happiness was joined by the chime of the doorbell. The journalist breezed down the hall and opened the door. Behind it was Andrew Tomasky. Surprising.
'Hello, DS. I thought — '
The policeman pushed through the door and kicked it shut behind. Simon stood back.
Tomasky had a knife.
26
Tomasky growled with anger as his first stab of the knife missed Simon's neck — by an inch.
The journalist gasped as he sensed another slashing cut, and he swerved, again, batting away the blade — but Tomasky came at him for a third time, jumping forward, and this time he got a hand on his victim's throat and the knife was aimed directly at an eye.
Choking and spitting, Simon caught the stabbing arm at the last moment. The knife was poised just millimetres from the pupil, shaking with the violence of their struggle.
Tomasky was thrusting down, his victim was holding the wrist and grinding the hand upwards. They were on the floor. The knife was too close to see, it was just a menacing silver blur in his vision: a looming greyness. The knifepoint came closer, the journalist shuddered — he was going to be blinded, then killed. Drilled into the brain through the optical bone.
His eye was blinking reflexively, shedding tears. Loud noises rumbled behind. The bladepoint trembled with the strength of two men opposed. Simon screamed and made a final effort to force the blade away, but he was losing the battle. He shut his eyes and waited for the steel to sink into the softness, popping open the eyeball, then crunching into his brain.
Then his face was covered with splattering wetness, like he'd been slapped with heavy blancmange: and suddenly Tomasky was just a body, dead weight, sagging down, and he forced the dead policeman off his chest and he stared upwards.
