The Nostradamus prophecies

17

Achor Bale took a bite of his sandwich, then refocused the binoculars on the gypsy camp, chewing speculatively. He was up in the church tower, allegedly rubbing brasses and copying memorials. The priest was what the English might have called a ‘good egg’ and had seen no particular objection to Bale’s spending the day up there with his charcoal and his etching paper – the hundred-euro donation towards church funds had probably helped, though.

So far, however, Bale had seen no one he recognised from the Samois camp. That would have constituted his first line of attack. The second line depended on incongruities. Find someone or something that didn’t fit in and make an approach through them. Things that didn’t conform to established norms always represented weaknesses. And weaknesses represented opportunities.

So far he had identified a married girl with no children, an old woman whom nobody spoke to or touched and a blond man who looked as if he had stumbled off the set of a movie about Vikings – either that, or straight from the parade ground of the SS training camp at Paderborn, circa 1938. The guy looked like no gypsy Bale had ever encountered. But still they seemed to accept him as one of themselves. Curious. It would certainly bear investigating.

Bale felt no particular rancour about the blind alley of the statue at Espalion. It was a fair cop, as they say. The three of them had played him for a sucker and he had fallen for it. It had been an outstanding set-up and he had been forced to re-evaluate his view of them yet again. Particularly the girl, who had truly led him on – to such an extent that he had been entirely convinced of her terror of him. She had played the wooden horse to perfection and he must never underestimate her again.

Tant pis. He had Monsieur, his father’s, Remington back – before it occurred to anyone to try and trace it – and he had cleared his back-trail of policemen. So his time had not been entirely wasted.

But he was forced to admit that Sabir’s choice of Espalion had been nothing short of inspired. Everything about it had been right. In consequence, he was sure that the real clue to the location of the verses must be in the exact opposite direction to the one in which the trio had allegedly been travelling. That’s what book-learning intellectuals like Sabir always did – think things out in unnecessary detail. Which gave the true Black Virgin a home somewhere down in the south of France. That narrowed the field considerably. Which made Bale’s enforced return north – towards Gourdon – even more irritating. But it had to be.

He had lost the trio on his tracker almost from the start. Personally, he reckoned that Sabir had headed down the D920 towards Rodez and had then veered east, on the D28, to Laissac. From there he could easily have contrived his way down to Montpellier and the meeting of the three autoroutes. Perhaps they were still intending to head for Montserrat after all? That would make a kind of sense. In which case they’d be in for an awful shock. If he understood the mentality of the Spanish police correctly, they’d have the place staked out for a good six months yet, with everybody – officers and men – on copious amounts of overtime and making the most of any opportunity to be seen wandering around in shiny leather jackets and riding breeches, lugging sub-machine guns. Latins were the same the world over. They loved the show far more than the substance.

The blond man was making his way out of camp towards the centre of town. Very well. He would try him first. He would be easier to get to than either the girl or the old woman.

Bale finished his sandwich, collected up his brass-rubbing kit and binoculars and started down the steps.