The Marks of Cain

16

The cold terror flashed — as far as David's fingertips. Fight or flight. He visored a hand, and stared across the Place d'Eglise.

Amy was right. A red car had just swung into the square. The doors opened, Miguel got out, with two other dark-haired men. They walked towards the church.

David shrank back into the shadows. The fear was numbing. Amy had also crept away from the threshold.

'He hasn't seen us yet.'

'But he will. He's coming…We're trapped.'

They stared from the darkness into the ominous brightness.

Another voice intruded on their urgent dialogue. The priest was nudging Amy, saying something, very rapidly.

Amy translated:

'He says we can escape. Use the other door. The…qu'est-ce que c'est?'

'La porte des Cagots!' the priest stammered. 'La porte des Cagots! '

He was hurrying across the church, taking them to the other door. Talking wildly as he did so. Amy and David followed. Amy hissed:

'Something about the door of the…Cagots? It leads to the medieval quarter…we can get out this way. He says we can escape — '

They were at the side door, the humble door, the smaller door. Amy looked at David who looked at Amy.

'David!'

He squinted, checking the square again. At a greater distance, it was hard to tell, the light was blinding compared to the darkness of the church — but it looked like the three figures had paused.

But then they walked, fast, towards the church.

'He's coming!'

'La porte! '

The old priest was trying the door, but the doorknob obviously hadn't been turned in decades. David helped. He pulled, and twisted: nothing happened.

'It's totally rusted!'

David's hands were sweaty with the tension — the fear — he grabbed at the old iron handle and twisted again, with all the force he could manage.

Miguel was closing in, approaching the church. Any second he would enter, see them trapped in a corner…and draw his gun. But the door was unbudgeable.

'Try this!'

Amy was clutching a glass phial.

'From the altar. It's oil.'

The oil oozed over the handle as David frantically twisted. The old priest was babbling, 'Votre pere, votre pere — '

The metal grated — and sighed — and then it yielded. There were men silhouetted at the main door, but the handle of the old door was turning. With a final puff of rust, the door burst open — onto a lightwell surrounded by looming medieval houses, crooked and ancient. Various alleys led off the courtyard, disappearing into darkness.

Was that Miguel's voice behind them? A noise echoed across. The priest had slammed the door; he was still inside, blocking Miguel's way. They had a chance.

David yelled: 'Down here!'

Amy was already following. David grabbed her hand and they sprinted. He didn't dare to look back. The priest was in the church, maybe defending them, confronting Miguel. What would happen? Miguel might shoot. He would force the door open…and then…and then…

He kept on running. The alley was little more than a sheltered gutter, overhung by eaves and the bulging upper floors of ancient tenements. Shafts of sunlight speared through the slates, like rods of light they had to dodge. As he ran, half tripping, David thought of his parents. Killed. Slain. Murdered.

The fear mixed with anger; his stomach roiled with terror as he ran. At last they emerged from the alley into a space of green grass and old crumbling battlements.

'Through here?'

There was a Gothic archway — piercing the white limestone walls of Navvarenx. Beyond it was a moated dip, and beyond the dip, over a footbridge — was the car park.

'There!'

His car keys were slippery in his sweaty hands as he clicked the doors open. They piled inside. David revved and reversed — and flung them out onto the road.

South. For several minutes they drove: fast and silent. David checked the mirror. Nothing. He checked it again. Nothing. Amy sighed, urgently:

'Too much. That was too close…'

David glanced yet again in the rearview mirror as he drove. But the road was deserted. They hadn't been followed. The appalling tension eased a touch, but just a touch. They were out in the countryside, a big aluminium farm building marked a junction.

He pulled over. He handed Amy the phone he'd bought at the garage.

'Check something. Please?'

'What?'

'These people with the doors. What did he call them…the Cagots?'

Amy shook her head.

'Now? Shouldn't we just get the hell out?'

He cursed, sardonically.

'Fuck that. Where are we going to go? And if I run away…I will never know the answer. My parents died here; they were fucking killed here. It must be linked to these churches, the Cagots, otherwise why did Granddad give me the map, my dad's map, marked with the same Cagot churches?'

Amy nodded. She smiled — with unhappiness. She took a deep breath, then she picked up the phone and switched it on and went online.

'OK,' she said.

'Check the Cagots. And the symbol, the goose's foot.'

Amy went quiet as she searched the net. David looked away, and opened the car window, the damp smell of cow manure filling the car. And rotting silage. A buzzard was hunting in the distance, silhouetted by the blue distant mountains.

'Right,' said Amy. 'All I've found, not much, but it's strange. The Cagots seem to be a tribe of pariahs, that's what they're called, like untouchables. In the Pyrenees.' She paused, then added, 'They had their own doors. Marked with symbols. The pattes d'oie, of course.'

'A tribe? Of pariahs?'

'That's what it says. Yes. They had their own special small doors in the churches. There isn't much else. I think…if we want to know more — '

'Yes?'

'There's a good website here, dernieredescagots dot fr — the last of the Cagots. It's the website of a man who is a Cagot and he lives in Gurs. We could…'

David was already starting up the car. Amy protested: 'But, David…that's very near Navvarenx. Miguel?'

He answered, emphatically. 'Amy. I can drive you to the nearest station and give you ten grand and you need never see me again and I will totally understand and — '

She put her hand on his wrist.

'We're in it together. Now. No. Anyway I know Miguel.' She was shaking her head, the shine of fear or sadness in her eyes. 'I know him. He will come after me now, whatever I do. He will kill me and you. Separately or together. So…'

'So we stay together.'

David drove fast towards Gurs; Amy guided him, using the satnav on the phone.

'Down here, take a left, just here…'

Gurs was a humdrum place: a few sombre old villas, a disused railroad. Some desultory bungalows surrounded a tired-looking town hall, even the Brasserie d'Hagetmau was resolutely shut. It was a place sucked of life by bigger towns nearby. Or just a place no one especially wanted to live.

The sharpest corner brought another row of bungalows, with gardens lush from recent rain.

'This is it, the right number,' said Amy, gesturing at the last bungalow in the row. The bungalow was slightly isolated; it stood opposite a modern and rather ugly church, with offices attached. Beyond was scruffy wasteland.

They walked up the path. The front door was painted a self-consciously cheerful yellow. David had the sense of curtains twitching elsewhere in the silent suburban street; old faces peering. He turned. No one was looking.

He pressed the doorbell. A faintly ecclesiastic chime was heard. Nothing happened. Amy peered at the windows.

'Maybe no one is in…'

He pressed again. Wondering where Miguel was. Then he heard a noise. A yell. Someone was shouting at them, from inside.

'What…?'

The shout was heard, again. Angry and panicked.

He lifted the letterbox lid and peered.

A young woman was crouched in the hallway. And she had a shotgun. She was trembling, and her grip was clumsy, but she was pointing the shotgun at the door. At David and Amy.