The Mayan Codex

47

‘Looks like we lost them again.’ Sabir glanced down at the map. ‘We’ve got to decide fast. Do we want to take the coast road to Villahermosa, or do we risk the cuota? Put some more distance between us?’

‘What we do is stop this car right now and check for a tracker.’

‘Oh, come on, Calque. They haven’t been following us with any tracker. They just worked out which direction we were headed in, and spread out like a seine net to trap us. Lamia says that if Dakini’s here, all eleven of them are probably here by now. So they’ve more than enough manpower to do the job. Dakini just happened to luck into seeing us at Catemaco. They probably had her patrolling the coast road while the rest of them watched the cuota.’

‘I still think we should look for a tracker. Achor Bale used one on you and your friends during that trip you took down through France. So did we amateurs at the Police Nationale. The Corpus have doubtless all been trained in their use.’ He glanced at Lamia, but she contrived to ignore his leading question.

Instead, she pulled the car over into a Pemex station, edging it around behind the shop so it wouldn’t be visible from the highway. ‘I need to wash and tidy up. I’ve just been driving for three straight hours over a cattle trail, through a mountain range, with my own family chasing after me, and I’m tired, and I’m irritable, and I probably smell. You both certainly do. If you men want to look for trackers, be my guest. But I’d appreciate it if you washed and changed into fresh clothes afterwards.’ She got out of the car, grabbed her overnight bag, and disappeared into the restroom.

Sabir flapped his hand. ‘Women. It’s probably her time of the month.’

Calque gave him a look.

Sabir caught the look but chose to ignore it. It irritated the hell out of him when Calque grabbed the moral high ground for himself. ‘Come on then, Chief Inspector. Stop all your horse-arsing around. Let’s get this over and done with.’

Calque groaned, and slid out of the passenger seat. ‘I’ll take the rear. It’ll most probably be in there. You take the front.’

‘You seriously think they broke into the car and planted a tracking device? And we didn’t notice or hear anything?’

Calque straightened up from a stretch. ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you that they allowed us to get away just a little too easily, back there in Carlisle? And that they picked us up again, two and a half thousand miles later, just a little too easily too?’

‘With eleven of them potentially following us, according to Lamia’s calculations? No. That wasn’t the first thing that occurred to me.’

Calque threw open the back hatch and began to feel his way around. Sabir did the same in front.

After fifteen minutes, Lamia came back, holding a takeaway cup of coffee. She perched on the walkway watching them. ‘Any joy?’

Sabir straightened up. ‘There’s no tracker in here. If they hid it, they hid it beneath the actual fabric of the car, and we’ll never get to it like this.’

Calque shook his head. ‘No. They had neither the time nor the facility to do that.’

‘Then how about underneath?’

Calque made a face. ‘People hide bombs underneath cars, Sabir, they don’t hide trackers. It’s not professional. The first major bump, the tracker would probably fly off. It’s just too great a risk. No. They’d have put it inside. And I’m convinced now that they didn’t do that. I think we’re in the clear again. For the time being, at least.’ Seeing Lamia eyeing up his shirt, Calque sniffed at his armpits, then flared his eyes, as if the smell had overwhelmed him. ‘They’ll be spreading out, though. Trying to edge ahead of us. All any of them has to do is look at a map, draw a few straight lines, and you can see which direction we’re headed in. It might as well be lit up by a strobe.’ He started to wipe his hands on his trousers and then thought better of it. ‘We probably should have zigzagged on our way down, but you can’t have everything. It’s taken us far too much time as it is. My view is that we should drive straight through the night and try to get to Kabah in the morning. Lamia is exhausted. I’ll take the first four-hour stint, you take the second. The ones who aren’t driving, try and get some sleep.’

Sabir nodded. ‘We’ll go and get washed up then.’ He cocked a finger in Calque’s direction, then picked at his own shirt with a mock sour expression on his face. ‘Lamia, will you buy us some junk to eat on the way? You know the sort of thing Calque likes. The stuff that normal, everyday people snack on. Chocolates, and crisps, and soft drinks with e numbers. Shit like that.’ Calque shuddered as if someone had just wiped their clammy hand down the small of his back. He stood watching Lamia as she made her way back to the tiendita. Then he cocked his head at Sabir. ‘Did you notice that, Sabir? She’s wearing make-up. And she’s put on a skirt and a fresh blouse and the closest approximation to a set of high heels I’ve ever seen her in. They’re called kittens, if I remember rightly. I’ve never seen her looking so feminine.’

Sabir shrugged noncommittally. He was becoming adept at sliding out from under Calque’s elaborate traps. ‘Look. You were dead right to make us look for the tracker, Calque, and I was wrong. We’d have been made to look like complete fools if there was one in there. In fact you’ve been pretty much on the ball all the way along. I’m sorry, too, about what I said to you yesterday. All that shit about Lear complexes and daughter fixations. I don’t know what got into me. I was way out of line.’

Calque gestured towards the tiendita with his thumb. Then he spread his hands expectantly, as if it were about to rain.

Sabir followed Calque’s glance back towards the tiendita, a rueful expression on his face. He knew exactly where the conversation was heading. As usual, Calque had successfully set him up for the coup de grace. ‘I know you think that Lamia’s gone to all that effort just for me. But you’re wrong about us. I promise you that. We don’t hold out anything for each other. Lamia doesn’t even allow that I exist most of the time.’

Calque sighed. ‘Sometimes I think being a young man is the mental equivalent of snow blindness. How old is Lamia, Sabir?’

‘She’s twenty-seven. She told me so herself the other day.’

‘And how old are you?’

‘Thirty-four. Rising thirty-five.’

‘Still young enough to be a fool. Yet old enough to know better.’

‘What are you getting at, Calque?’

‘You have before you a beautiful woman who does not know that she is beautiful, Sabir. She is damaged. All her life she has seen how people look at her, and she has made some deductions about it for herself. And her deductions are these. I am not a normal woman, she says to herself, nor ever can I be. I am not worthy to be desired. If a man desires me it is because he feels pity for me, and I am a proud person, and I cannot tolerate this. So I will close myself down. Deny my femininity. Work on other aspects of myself that will make me feel valued instead. I shall learn languages. Read books. Study obsessively. Develop my brain. I will take the woman part of me and I will simply kill it off. That way I won’t be vulnerable. That way I can’t be hurt.’

‘Jesus, Calque. Where do you get all this stuff?’

Calque jabbed at Sabir with his finger. ‘I have seen the way she looks at you, Sabir. You will be mindful of this one. You won’t hurt her. You will consider her feelings. It is not enough just to be a man, and follow your hormones, and not bother to feel the need to think. If you don’t care for her, show it. If you do care for her, show it. Or else I shall be very, very angry at you, and our friendship will be at an end.’

‘We have a friendship?’

‘Isn’t that what Lamia said we had?’

‘I guess it was.’

‘Then you would be a wise man to believe her.’