Caravan to Vaccares

Chapter 4

When Bowman woke up the birds were singing, the sky was a cloudless translucent blue and the rays of the morning sun were streaming through the window. Not the window of an hotel but the window of the blue Peugeot which he’d pulled off the road in the early hours of the morning into the shelter of a thick clump of trees that had seemed, in the darkness, to offer almost total concealment from the road. Now, in daylight, he could see that it offered nothing of the kind and that they were quite visible to any passer-by who cared to cast a casual sideways glance in their direction and, as there were those not all that far distant whose casual sideways glances he’d much rather not be the object of, he deemed it time to move on.

He was reluctant to wake Cecile. She appeared to have passed a relatively comfortable night – or what had been left of the night – with her dark head on his shoulder, a fact that he dimly resented because he had passed a most uncomfortable night, partly because he’d been loath to move for fear of disturbing her but chiefly because his unaccustomedly violent exercise of the previous night had left him with numerous aches in a variety of muscles that hadn’t been subjected to such inconsiderate treatment for a long time. He wound down the driver’s window, sniffed the fresh cool morning air and lit a cigarette. The rasp of the cigarette lighter was enough to make her stir, straighten and peer rather blearily about her until she realized where she was.

She looked at him and said: ‘Well, as hotels go, it was cheap enough.’

‘That’s what I like,’ Bowman said. ‘The pioneering spirit.’

‘Do I look like a pioneer?’

‘Frankly, no.’

‘I want a bath.’

‘And that you shall have and very soon. In the best hotel in Arles. Cross my heart.’

‘You are an optimist. Every hotel room will have been taken weeks ago for the gypsy festival.’

‘Indeed. Including the one I took. I booked my room two months ago.’

‘I see.’ She moved pointedly across to her own side of the seat which Bowman privately considered pretty ungrateful of her considering that she hadn’t disdained the use of his shoulder as a pillow for the most of the night. ‘You booked your room two months ago, Mr Bowman–’

‘Neil.’

‘I have been very patient, haven’t I, Mr Bowman? I haven’t asked any questions?’

‘That you haven’t.’ He looked at her admiringly. ‘What a wife you’re going to make. When I come home late from the office–’

‘Please. What is it all about? Who are you?’

‘A layabout on the run.’

‘On the run? Following the gypsies that–’

‘I’m a vengeful layabout.’

‘I’ve helped you–’

‘Yes, you have.’

‘I’ve let you have my car. You’ve put me in danger–’

‘I know. I’m sorry about that and I’d no right to do it. I’ll put you in a taxi for Martignane airport and the first plane for England. You’ll be safe there. Or take this car. I’ll get a lift to Arles.’

‘Blackmail!’

‘Blackmail? I don’t understand. I’m offering you a place of safety. Do you mean that you’re prepared to come with me?’

She nodded. He looked at her consideringly.

‘Such implicit trust in a man with so much and so very recently spilled blood on his hands?’

She nodded again.

‘I still don’t understand.’ He gazed forward through the windscreen. ‘Could it be that the fair Miss Dubois is in the process of falling in love?’

‘Rest easy,’ she said calmly. ‘The fair Miss Dubois has no such romantic stirrings in mind.’

‘Then why come along with me? Who knows, they may all be lying in wait – the mugger up the dark alley, the waiter with the poison phial, the smiler with the knife beneath the cloak – any of Czerda’s pals, in fact. So why?’

‘I honestly don’t know.’

He started up the Peugeot. ‘I’m sure I don’t know either.’ But he did know. And she knew. But what she didn’t know was that he knew that she knew. It was, Bowman thought, all very confusing at eight o’clock in the morning.

They’d just regained the main road when she said: ‘Mr Bowman, you may be cleverer than you look.’

‘That would be difficult?’

‘I asked you a question a minute or two ago. Somehow or other you didn’t get around to answering it.’

‘Question? What question?’

‘Never mind,’ she said resignedly. ‘I’ve forgotten what it was myself.’

Le Grand Duc, his heliotrope-striped pyjamas largely and mercifully obscured by a napkin, was having breakfast in bed. His breakfast tray was about the same width as the bed and had to be to accommodate the vast meal it held. He had just speared a particularly succulent piece of fish when the door opened and Lila entered without the benefit of knocking. Her blonde hair was uncombed. With one hand she held a wrap clutched round her while with the other she waved a piece of paper. Clearly, she was upset.

‘Cecile’s gone!’ She waved the paper some more. ‘She left this.’

‘Gone?’ Le Grand Duc transferred the forkful of fish to his mouth and savoured the passing moment. ‘By heavens, this red mullet is superb. Gone where?’

‘I don’t know. She’s taken her clothes with her.’

‘Let me see.’ He stretched out his hand and took the note from Lila. ‘ “Contact me Poste Restante Saintes-Maries.” Rather less than informative, one might say. That ruffianly fellow who was with her last night–’

‘Bowman? Neil Bowman?’

‘That’s the ruffianly fellow I meant. Check if he’s still here. And your car.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘One has to have the mind for it,’ Le Grand Duc said kindly. He picked up his knife and fork again, waited until Lila had made her hurried exit from the room, laid down knife and fork, opened a bedside drawer and picked up the notebook which Lila had used the previous night while she was acting as his unpaid secretary when he had been interviewing the gypsies. He compared the handwriting in the notebook with that on the sheet of paper Lila had just handed him: it was indisputably the same handwriting. Le Grand Duc sighed, replaced the notebook, let the scrap of paper fall carelessly to the floor and resumed his attack on the red mullet. He had finished it and was just appreciatively lifting the cover of a dish of kidneys and bacon when Lila returned. She had exchanged her wrap for the blue mini-dress she had been wearing the previous evening and had combed her hair: but her state of agitation remained unchanged.

‘He’s gone, too. And the car. Oh, Charles, I am worried.’

‘With Le Grand Duc by your side, worry is a wasted emotion. Saintes-Maries is the place, obviously.’

‘I suppose so.’ She was doubtful, hesitant. ‘But how do I get there? My car – our car–’

‘You will accompany me, chérie. Le Grand Duc always has some sort of transport or other.’ He paused and listened briefly to a sudden babble of voices. ‘Tsk! Tsk! Those gypsies can be a noisy lot. Take my tray, my dear.’

Not without some difficulty, Lila removed the tray. Le Grand Duc swung from the bed, enveloped himself in a violently-coloured Chinese dressing-gown and headed for the door. As it was clear that the source of the disturbance came from the direction of the forecourt the Duke marched across to the terrace balustrade and looked down. A large number of gypsies were gathered round the rear of Czerda’s caravan, the one part of the caravan that was visible from where Le Grand Duc was standing. Some of the gypsies were gesticulating, others shouting: all were clearly very angry about something.

‘Ah!’ Le Grand Duc clapped his hands together. ‘This is fortunate indeed. It is rare that one is actually on the spot. This is the stuff that folklore is made of. Come.’

He turned and walked purposefully towards the steps leading down to the terrace. Lila caught his arm.

‘But you can’t go down there in your pyjamas!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Le Grand Duc swept on his way, descended the steps to the patio, ignored – or, more probably, was oblivious of – the stares of the early breakfasters on the patio and paused at the head of the forecourt steps to survey the scene. Already, he could see, the parking lot beyond the hedge was empty of caravans and two or three of those that had been in the forecourt had also disappeared while others were obviously making preparations for departure. But at least two dozen gypsies were still gathered round Czerda’s caravan.

Like a psychedelic Caligula, with an apprehensive and highly embarrassed Lila following, Le Grand Duc made his imperious way down the steps and through the gypsies crowding round the caravan. He halted and looked at the spectacle in front of him. Battered, bruised, cut and heavily bandaged, Czerda and his son sat on their caravan’s steps, both of them with their heads in their hands: both physically and mentally, their condition appeared to be very low. Behind them several gypsy women could be seen embarking on the gargantuan task of cleaning up the interior of the caravan, which, in the daytime, looked to be an even more appalling mess than it had been by lamplight. An anarchist with an accurate line in bomb-throwing would have been proud to acknowledge that handiwork as his own.

‘Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!’ Le Grand Duc shook his head in a mixture of disappointment and disgust. ‘A family squabble. Very quarrelsome, some of those Romany families, you know. Nothing here for the true folklorist. Come, my dear, I see that most of the gypsies are already on their way. It behoves us to do the same.’ He led her up the steps and beckoned a passing porter. ‘My car, and at once.’

‘Your car’s not here?’ Lila asked.

‘Of course it’s not here. Good God, girl, you don’t expect my employees to sleep in the same hotel as I do? Be here in ten minutes.’

‘Ten minutes! I have to bath, breakfast, pack, pay my bill–’

‘Ten minutes.’

She was ready in ten minutes. So was Le Grand Duc. He was wearing a grey double-breasted flannel suit over a maroon shirt and a panama straw hat with a maroon band, but for once Lila’s attention was centred elsewhere. She was gazing rather dazedly down at the forecourt.

‘Le Grand Duc,’ she repeated mechanically, ‘always has some sort of transport or other.’

The transport in this case was a magnificent and enormous handmade cabriolet Rolls-Royce in lime and dark green. Beside it, holding the rear door open, stood a chauffeuse dressed in a uniform of lime green, exactly the same shade as that of the car, piped in dark green, again exactly the same shade as the car. She was young, petite, auburn-haired and very pretty. She smiled as she ushered Le Grand Duc and Lila into the back seat, got behind the wheel and drove the car away in what, from inside the car, was a totally hushed silence.

Lila looked at Le Grand Duc who was lighting a large Havana with a lighter taken from a most impressively button-bestrewed console to his right.

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ she demanded, ‘that you wouldn’t let so deliciously pretty a creature stay in the same hotel as yourself?’

‘Certainly not. Not that I lack concern for my employees.’ He selected a button in the console and the dividing window slid silently down into the back of the driver’s seat. ‘And where did you spend the night, Carita, my dear?’

‘Well, Monsieur le Duc, the hotels were full and–’

‘Where did you spend the night?’

‘In the car.’

‘Tsk! Tsk!’ The window slid up and he turned to Lila. ‘But it is, as you can see, a very comfortable car.’

By the time the blue Peugeot arrived in Arles a coolness had developed between Bowman and Cecile. They had been having a discussion about matters sartorial and weren’t quite seeing eye to eye. Bowman pulled up in a relatively quiet sidestreet opposite a large if somewhat dingy clothing emporium, stopped the engine and looked at the girl. She didn’t look at him.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘I’m sorry.’ She was examining some point in the far distance. ‘It’s not on. I think you’re quite mad.’

‘Like enough,’ he nodded. He kissed her on the cheek, got out, took his case from the rear seat and walked across the pavement, where he stopped to examine some exotic costumes in the drapery window. He could clearly see the reflection of the car and, almost equally clearly, that of Cecile. Her lips were compressed and she was distinctly angry. She appeared to hesitate, then left the car and crossed to where he was standing.

‘I could hit you,’ she announced.

‘I wouldn’t like that,’ he said. ‘You look a big strong girl to me.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, shut up and put that case back in the car.’

So he shut up and put the case back in the car, took her arm and led her reluctantly into the faded emporium.

Twenty minutes later he looked at himself in a full-length mirror and shuddered. He was clad now in a black, high-buttoned and very tightly fitting suit which gave him some idea how the overweight and heroically corseted operatic diva must feel when she was reaching for a high C, a floppy white shirt, black string tie and wide-brimmed black hat. It was a relief when Cecile appeared from a dressing-room, accompanied by a plump, pleasant middle-aged woman dressed in black whom Bowman assumed to be the manageress. But he observed her only by courtesy of his peripheral vision, any man who didn’t beam his entire ocular voltage directly at Cecile was either a psychiatric case or possessed of the visual acuity of a particularly myopic barnyard owl.

He had never thought of her as an eyesore but now he realized, for the first time but for keeps, that she was a stunningly lovely person. It wasn’t because of the exquisite dress she wore, a beautiful, beautifully fitting, exotic and clearly very expensive gypsy costume that hadn’t missed out on many of the colours of the rainbow, nor because of her white ruched mantilla head-dress affair, though he had heard tell that the awareness of wearing beautiful things gives women their inner glow that shows through. All he knew was that his heart did a couple of handsprings and it wasn’t until he saw her sweet and ever so slightly amused smile that he called his heart to order and resumed what he hoped was his normally inscrutable expression. The manageress put his very thoughts in words.

‘Madame,’ she breathed, ‘looks beautiful.’

‘Madame,’ he said, ‘is beautiful,’ then reverted to his old self again. ‘How much? In Swiss francs. You take Swiss francs?’

‘Of course.’ The manageress summoned an assistant who started adding figures while the manageress packed clothes.

‘She’s packing up my clothes.’ Cecile sounded dismayed. ‘I can’t go out in the street like this.’

‘Of course you can.’ Bowman had meant to be heartily reassuring but the words sounded mechanical, he still couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘This is fiesta time.’

‘Monsieur is quite correct,’ the manageress said. ‘Hundreds of young Arlésiennes dress like this at this time of year. A pleasant change and very good for them it is, too.’

‘And it’s not bad for business either.’ Bowman looked at the bill the assistant had just handed him. ‘Two thousand, four hundred Swiss francs.’ He peeled three thousand-franc notes from Czerda’s roll and handed them to the manageress. ‘Keep the change.’

‘But monsieur is too kind.’ From her flabbergasted expression he took it that the citizens of Arles were not notably open-handed when it came to the question of gratuities.

‘Easy come, easy go,’ he said philosophically and led Cecile from the shop. They got into the Peugeot and he drove for a minute or two before pulling up in an almost deserted car park. Cecile looked at him enquiringly.

‘My cosmetic case,’ he explained. He reached into his case in the back seat and brought out a small black zipped leather bag. ‘Never travel without it.’

She looked at him rather peculiarly. ‘A man doesn’t carry a cosmetic case.’

‘This one does. You’ll see why.’

Twenty minutes later, when they stood before the reception desk of the grandest hotel in Arles, she understood why. They were clad as they had been when they had left the clothing emporium but were otherwise barely recognizable as the same people. Cecile’s complexion was several shades darker, as was the colour of her neck, hands and wrists, she wore bright scarlet lipstick and far too much rouge, mascara and eyeshadow: Bowman’s face was now the colour of well-seasoned mahogany, his newly acquired moustache dashing to a degree. The receptionist handed him back his passport.

‘Your room is ready, Mr Parker,’ he said. ‘This is Mrs Parker?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Bowman said, took Cecile’s suddenly stiff arm and followed the bell-boy to the lift. When the bedroom door closed behind them, she looked at Bowman with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

‘Did you have to say that to the receptionist?’

‘Look at your hands.’

‘What’s wrong with my hands – apart from the fact that that stuff of yours has made them filthy?’

‘No rings.’

‘Oh!’

‘Well might you “Oh!” The experienced receptionist notices those things automatically – that’s why he asked. And he may be asked questions – any suspicious couples checked in today, that sort of thing. As far as the criminal stakes are concerned a man with his lady-love in tow is automatically above suspicion – it is assumed that he has other things in mind.’

‘There’s no need to talk–’

‘I’ll tell you about the birds and bees later. Meantime, what matters is that the man trusts me. I’m going out for a bit. Have your bath. Don’t wash that stuff off your arms, face and neck. There’s little enough left.’

She looked into a mirror, lifted up her hands and studied both them and her face. ‘But how in heaven’s name am I going to have a bath without–’

‘I’ll give you a hand if you like,’ Bowman volunteered. She walked to the bathroom, closed and locked the door. Bowman went downstairs and paused for a moment outside a telephone kiosk in the lobby, rubbing his chin, a man deep in thought. The telephone had no dialling face which meant that outgoing calls were routed through the hotel switchboard. He walked out into the bright sunshine.

Even at that early hour the Boulevard des Lices was crowded with people. Not sightseers, not tourists, but local tradesmen setting up literally hundreds of stalls on the broad pavements of the boulevard. The street itself was as crowded as the pavements with scores of vehicles ranging from heavy trucks to handcarts unloading a variety of goods that ran the gamut from heavy agricultural machinery, through every type of food, furniture and clothes imaginable, down to the gaudiest of souvenir trinkets and endless bunches of flowers.

Bowman turned into a post office, located an empty telephone booth, raised the exchange and asked for a Whitehall number in London. While he was waiting for the call to come through he fished out the garbled message he had found in Czerda’s caravan and smoothed it out before him.

At least a hundred gypsies knelt on the ground in the grassy clearing while the black-robed priest delivered a benediction. When he lowered his arm, turned, and walked towards a small black tent pitched near by, the gypsies rose and began to disperse, some wandering aimlessly around, others drifting back to their caravans which were parked just off the road a few miles north-east of Arles: behind the caravans loomed the majestic outline of the ancient Abbey de Montmajour.

Among the parked vehicles, three were instantly identifiable: the green-and-white caravan where Alexandre’s mother and the three young gypsy girls lived, Czerda’s caravan which was now being towed by a garishly yellow-painted breakdown truck and Le Grand Duc’s imposing green Rolls. The cabriolet hood of the Rolls was down for the sky was cloudless and the morning already hot. The chauffeuse, her auburn hair uncovered to show that she was temporarily off-duty, stood with Lila by the side of the car: Le Grand Duc, reclining in the rear seat, refreshed himself with some indeterminate liquid from the open cocktail cabinet before him and surveyed the scene with interest.

Lila said: ‘I never associated this with gypsies.’

‘Understandable, understandable,’ Le Grand Duc conceded graciously. ‘But then, of course, you do not know your gypsies, my dear, while I am a European authority on them.’ He paused, considered and corrected himself. ‘The European authority. Which means, of course, the world. The religious element can be very strong, and their sincerity and devotion never more apparent than when they travel to worship the relics of Sara, their patron saint. Every day, in the last period of their travel, a priest accompanies them to bless Sara and their – but enough! I must not bore you with my erudition.’

‘Boring, Charles? It’s all quite fascinating. What on earth is that black tent for?’

‘A mobile confessional – little used, I fear. The gypsies have their own codes of right and wrong. Good God! There’s Czerda going inside.’ He glanced at his watch.

‘Nine-fifteen. He should be out by lunch-time.’

‘You don’t like him?’ Lila asked curiously. ‘You think that he–’

‘I know nothing about the fellow,’ Le Grand Duc said. ‘I would merely observe that a face such as his has not been fashioned by a lifetime of good works and pious thoughts.’

There was certainly little enough indicative of either as Czerda, his bruised face at once apprehensive and grim, closed and secured the tent flap behind him. The tent itself was small and circular, not more than ten feet in diameter. Its sole furnishing consisted of a cloth-screen cubicle which served as a confessional booth.

‘You are welcome, my son.’ The voice from the booth was deep and measured and authoritative.

‘Open up, Searl,’ Czerda said savagely. There was a fumbling motion and a dark linen curtain dropped to reveal a seated priest, with rimless eyeglasses and a thin ascetic face, the epitome of the man of God whose devotion is tinged with fanaticism. He regarded Czerda’s battered face briefly, impassively.

‘People may hear,’ the priest said coldly. ‘I’m Monsieur le Curé, or “Father”.’

‘You’re “Searl” to me and always will be,’ Czerda said contemptuously. ‘Simon Searl, the unfrocked priest. Sounds like a nursery rhyme.’

‘I’m not here on nursery business,’ Searl said sombrely. ‘I come from Gaiuse Strome.’

The belligerence slowly drained from Czerda’s face: only the apprehension remained, deepening by the moment as he looked at the expressionless face of the priest.

‘I think,’ Searl said quietly, ‘that an explanation of your unbelievably incompetent bungling is in order. I hope it’s a very good explanation.’

‘I must get out! I must get out!’ Tina, the dark crop-haired young gypsy girl stared through the caravan window at the confessional tent, then swung round to face the other three gypsy women. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face very pale. ‘I must walk! I must breathe the air! I – I can’t stand it here any more.’

Marie le Hobenaut, her mother and Sara looked at one another. None of them looked very much happier than Tina. Their faces were still as sad and bitter as they had been when Bowman had watched them during the night, defeat and despair still hung as heavily in the air.

‘You will be careful, Tina?’ Marie’s mother said anxiously. ‘Your father – you must think of your father.’

‘It’s all right, Mother,’ Marie said. ‘Tina knows. She knows now.’ She nodded to the dark girl who hurried through the doorway, and went on softly: ‘She was so very much in love with Alexandre. You know.’

‘I know,’ her mother said heavily. ‘It’s a pity that Alexandre hadn’t been more in love with her.’

Tina passed through the rear portion of the caravan. Seated on the steps there was a gypsy in his late thirties. Unlike most gypsies, Pierre Lacabro was squat to the point of deformity and extremely broad, and also unlike most gypsies who, in their aquiline fashion, are as aristocratically handsome as any people in Europe, he had a very broad, brutalized face with a thin cruel mouth, porcine eyes and a scar, which had obviously never been stitched, running from right eyebrow to right chin. He was, clearly, an extremely powerful person. He looked up as Tina approached and gave her a broken-toothed grin.

‘And where are you going, my pretty maid?’ He had a deep, rasping, gravelly and wholly unpleasant voice.

‘For a walk.’ She made no attempt to keep the revulsion from her face. ‘I need air.’

‘We have guards posted – and Maca and Masaine are on the watch. You know that?’

‘Do you think I’d run away?’

He grinned again. ‘You’re too frightened to run away.’

With a momentary flash of spirit she said: ‘I’m not frightened of Pierre Lacabro.’

‘And why on earth should you be?’ He lifted his hands, palms upwards. ‘Beautiful girls like you – why, I’m like a father to them.’

Tina shuddered and walked down the caravan steps.

Czerda’s explanation to Simon Searl had not gone down well at all. Searl was at no pains to conceal his contempt and displeasure: Czerda had gone very much on the defensive.

‘And what about me?’ he demanded. ‘I’m the person who has suffered, not you, not Gaiuse Strome. I tell you, he destroyed everything in my caravan – and stole my eighty thousand francs.’

‘Which you hadn’t even earned yet. That was Gaiuse Strome’s money, Czerda. He’ll want it back: if he doesn’t get it he’ll have your life in place of it.’

‘In God’s name, Bowman’s vanished! I don’t know–’

‘You will find him and then you will use this on him.’ Searl reached into the folds of his robe and brought out a pistol with a screwed-on silencer. ‘If you fail, I suggest you save us trouble and just use it on yourself.’

Czerda looked at him for a long moment. ‘Who is this Gaiuse Strome?’

‘I do not know.’

‘We were friends once, Simon Searl–’

‘Before God, I have never met him. His instructions come either by letter or telephone and even then through an intermediary.’

‘Then do you know who this man is?’ Czerda took Searl’s arm and almost dragged him to the flap of the tent, a corner of which he eased back. Plainly in view was Le Grand Duc who had obviously replenished his glass. He was gazing directly at them and the expression on his face was very thoughtful. Czerda hastily lowered the flap. ‘Well?’

‘That man I have seen before,’ Searl said. ‘A wealthy nobleman, I believe.’

‘A wealthy nobleman by the name of Gaiuse Strome?’

‘I do not know. I do not wish to know.’

‘This is the third time I have seen this man on the pilgrimage. It is also the third year I have been working for Gaiuse Strome. He asked questions last night. This morning he was down looking at the damage that had been done to our caravan. And now he’s staring at us. I think–’

‘Keep your thinking for Bowman,’ Searl advised. ‘That apart, keep your own counsel. Our patron wishes to remain anonymous. He does not care to have his privacy invaded. You understand?’

Czerda nodded reluctantly, thrust the silenced pistol inside his shirt and left. As he did, Le Grand Duc peered thoughtfully at him over the rim of his glass.

‘Good God!’ he said mildly. ‘Shriven already.’

Lila said politely: ‘I beg your pardon, Charles.’

‘Nothing, my dear, nothing.’ He shifted his gaze and caught sight of Tina who was wandering disconsolately and apparently aimlessly across the grass. ‘My word, there’s a remarkably fine-looking filly. Downcast, perhaps, yes, definitely downcast. But beautiful.’

Lila said: ‘Charles, I’m beginning to think that you’re a connoisseur of pretty girls.’

‘The aristocracy always have been. Carita, my dear, Arles and with all speed. I feel faint.’

‘Charles!’ Lila was instant concern. ‘Are you unwell? The sun? If we put the hood up–’

‘I’m hungry,’ Le Grand Duc said simply.

Tina watched the whispering departure of the Rolls then looked casually around her. Lacabro had disappeared from the steps of the green-and-white caravan. Of Maca and Masaine there was no sign. Quite fortuitously, as it seemed, she found herself outside the entrance to the black confessional tent. Not daring to look round to make a final check to see whether she was under observation, she pushed the flap to one side and went in. She took a couple of hesitating steps towards the booth.

‘Father! Father!’ Her voice was a tremulous whisper. ‘I must talk to you.’

Searl’s deep grave voice came from inside the booth: ‘That’s what I’m here for, my child.’

‘No, no!’ Still the whisper. ‘You don’t understand. I have terrible things to tell you.’

‘Nothing is too terrible for a man of God to hear. Your secrets are safe with me, my child.’

‘But I don’t want them to be safe with you! I want you to go to the police.’

The curtain dropped and Searl appeared. His lean ascetic face was filled with compassion and concern. He put his arm round her shoulders.

‘Whatever ails you, daughter, your troubles are over. What is your name, my dear?’

‘Tina. Tina Daymel.’

‘Put your trust in God, Tina, and tell me everything.’

In the green-and-white caravan Marie, her mother and Sara sat in a gloomy silence. Now and again the mother gave a half sob and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.

‘Where is Tina?’ she said at length. ‘Where can she be? She takes so long.’

‘Don’t worry, Madame Zigair,’ Sara said reassuringly. ‘Tina’s a sensible girl. She’ll do nothing silly.’

‘Sara’s right, Mother,’ Marie said. ‘After last night–’

‘I know. I know I’m being foolish. But Alexandre–’

‘Please, Mother.’

Madame Zigair nodded and fell silent. Suddenly the caravan door was thrown open and Tina was thrown bodily into the room to fall heavily and face downwards on the caravan floor. Lacabro and Czerda stood framed in the entrance, the former grinning, the latter savage with a barely controlled anger. Tina lay where she had fallen, very still, clearly unconscious. Her clothes had been ripped from her back which was blood-stained and almost entirely covered with a mass of wicked-looking red and purplish weals: she had been viciously, mercilessly whipped.

‘Now,’ Czerda said softly. ‘Now will you all learn?’

The door closed. The three women stared in horror at the cruelly mutilated girl, then fell to their knees to help her.