The Mayan Codex

7

The clutch on Sabir and Calque’s hire car burnt out just north of Melun.

‘I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it.’ Sabir hammered on the steering wheel. ‘Fucking rentals. Fucking assholes. Why don’t they fucking service their fucking cars?’

Calque stared at him. ‘Have you finished, Sabir? There is nobody here but me to hear you. And I’m all for swearing alongside the next man, but at 2.30 in the morning, it can be a little hard on the nerves. And you’ve been riding this car like it’s a Formula 1 Ferrari. Not an imported hatchback that has been used by a hundred people already. And all of them with markedly different gear-changing techniques.’

Sabir collapsed back into his seat. ‘What do we do now?’

Calque pondered for a moment or two. ‘We find a telephone. We phone the rental company. They send a trailer out here with a new car on it. They winch the old car up on the trailer. Then we continue on our way.’

‘But what about Lamia? And the other two maniacs?’

‘We can do nothing about that, Sabir. Yola has no phone. It is in the lap of the gods.’

‘Did we pass an emergency telephone recently?’

‘No.’

‘So what do we do? Flag down a passing car?’

‘No one will stop for us at this time in the morning. We are on the outskirts of Paris, surrounded by bidonvilles. Are you crazy, man?’

‘All right. You stay in the car in case the police want to know what we are doing parked here. I will go walkabout.’

‘Okay.’

Sabir got out of the car. He started up the hard shoulder.

‘Sabir?’

‘What now?’

‘You’d better take the number of the rental agency with you.’