The Nostradamus prophecies

82

Sabir awoke with no idea of where he was. He tried to move but could not. A fearful, noxious odour assailed his nostrils. He attempted to free his arms but they were immersed in a kind of mud. The mud reached to just above his collarbone, leaving his head free. Sabir frantically tried to lever himself out, but he only slipped deeper into the morass.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

Sabir looked up.

Bale was squatting above him. Six inches above Sabir’s head was a small hole, little more than the width of man.

Bale was balancing the trapdoor that normally sealed the hole against his side. He shone his torch directly down on Sabir’s face. ‘You’re in a cesspit. An old one. This house has obviously never been on mains sewerage. It took me a while to find it. But you’ll have to admit that it’s perfect of its kind. There’s ten inches between the level of the shit and the roof of the pit. That’s just about the size of your head, Sabir, with a couple of inches left over for wastage. When I close and seal this trap you’ll have enough air for, oh, half an hour? That’s if the carbon monoxide from the decomposition of the food sugars doesn’t kill you first.’

Sabir became aware of a pain in his right temple. He wanted to put up his hand to feel for damage, but could not. ‘What have you done to me?’

‘I haven’t done anything to you. Yet. The damage to your face was from a ricochet. My bullet struck the fireplace just as you were turning to destroy the prophecies. The deformed slug sprang back and took part of your ear off. It also knocked you cold. Sorry for that.’

Sabir could feel the claustrophobia begin to take hold of him. He tried to breathe normally but found himself entirely incapable of that measure of control. He began to whoop, like the victim of an asthma attack.

Bale tapped Sabir lightly across the bridge of the nose with the barrel of his pistol. ‘Don’t go hysterical on me. I want you to listen. To listen carefully. You’re already a dead man. Whatever happens, I will kill you. You will die in this place. No one will ever find you in here.’

Sabir’s nose had begun to bleed. He tried to turn his head away from Bale’s pistol, fearing a second blow, but the sudden admixture of blood and excrement triggered his gag reflex. It took him some minutes to regain control of himself and stop retching. Eventually, when the fit was over, he raised his head as far as he could and dragged in some marginally fresh air from above. ‘Why are you still speaking to me? Why don’t you just get on with whatever you are intending to do?’

Bale winced. ‘Patience, Sabir. Patience. I am still speaking to you because you have a weakness. A fatal weakness that I intend to use against you. I was there when they put you in the wood-box back at Samois. And I saw your condition when they brought you out. Claustrophobia is what you fear most in this world. So I offer it to you. In exactly sixty seconds’ time I shall lock and seal this place and leave you here to rot. But you have one chance to buy back the girl’s life. The girl’s – not your own. You can dictate to me all that you know of the prophecies. No. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You had more than enough time to copy down the verses and translate them. I found the dictionary you threw at me. I heard your car arrive. I have estimated how long you were down in the sitting room and it runs into hours. Dictate what you know to me and I will shoot you through the head. That way you won’t die of suffocation. And I will promise to spare the girl.’

‘I didn’t…’ Sabir had trouble getting the words out. ‘I didn’t…’

‘Yes you did. I have the pad you were pressing on. You wrote many lines. You translated many lines. Later, I will have the pad analysed. But first you will give me what I want. If you fail to do this, I will find the girl and I will do to her exactly what was done to the pregnant woman by the Hangman of Dreissigacker. Right down to the very last lash – the very last scalding – the very last screw of the rack. She told you about that, didn’t she, your little Yola? The bedtime story that I read to her while she was waiting to die? I can see by your face that she did. Haunting, wasn’t it? You can save her from that, Sabir. You can die a hero.’ Bale levered himself up on to his feet. ‘Think about it.’

The trapdoor slammed shut, returning the cesspit to a condition of total darkness.