The Nostradamus prophecies

33

Gavril had forgotten about Badu and Stefan. In his single-minded excitement at working out the plot to kidnap Sainte Sara, he had quite overlooked the fact that Bazena boasted two of the most vicious male relatives this side of the Montagne Saint-Victoire. Stories about them were legion. Father and son always acted together, one drawing attention away from the other. Their bar fights were legendary. It was rumoured that they had seen off more victims between them than the first atomic bomb.

It had been the drive down to Les Saintes-Maries that had done the damage. Both men had been in an unnaturally avuncular frame of mind. The festival was their highlight of the year – ample opportunities abounded for the settling of old scores and the creating of new ones. Gavril was so close to them and so obvious, that he didn’t count. They were used to him. And it wouldn’t have occurred to them that he could ever be so stupid as to force Bazena on to the streets. So they had drawn him into their vicious little world and made him, ever so briefly, an accomplice before the fact.

Now Stefan was coming at him and all he had to defend himself was a bloody Opinel penknife. When Badu finally succeeded in disentangling himself from his daughter, Gavril knew that he was for it. They would carve out his lights.

Gavril threw the penknife with all his might at Stefan and then legged it through the crowd. There was a roar behind him but he paid it no mind. He had to get away. He could decide how best to conduct damage limitation exercises later. This was a matter of life and death.

He zigzagged through the assembled gypsies like a madman – like an American footballer running interference through an enemy team’s defences. Instinctively, Gavril used the five bells in the open see-through tower of the church as his visual guide, meaning to sprint down towards the docks and steal himself a boat. With only three possible roads out of town and both incoming and outgoing motor traffic moving at a snail’s pace in the run-up to the festival, it was the only sensible way to go.

Then, on the junction of the Rue Espelly and the Avenue Van Gogh and just in front of the Bull Arena, he saw Alexi. And behind him, Bale.