Bible of the Dead. Tom Knox

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СКАЧАТЬ must understand Ghislaine, he is a disappointed man. A very disappointed man, but determined too.’

      Julia knew that Annika and Ghislaine went way back. They were the same age. They had been friends, apparently, for decades. Annika had worked under the ludicrous Ghislaine since the 1970s, across France, now in Lozère.

      She leaned forward.

      ‘Annika, do you mind if I ask a personal question?’

      The older woman shrugged, in a neutral way, and pulled her grey cashmere cardigan a little tighter around her shoulders. ‘Not at all. You have told me all of your life! Why not ask me about mine.’

      ‘Were you and Ghislaine . . . were you . . .’

      ‘Lovers. Yes.’

      ‘In Paris?’

      ‘1969. We shared political ideals. We were at the Sorbonne together. We learned Maoism together! We even went to China together in the early seventies. Hence, Julia, the tea.’ The late middle aged lady pursed her slightly over-lipsticked lips, to take a hot sip, then she set down the handle-less porcelain cup.

      ‘So?’

      ‘Do not blame him, Julia, for the way he acts and is. He has . . . beliefs, even now. Beliefs which brought him here. And me. There was a time we shared ideals as well as kisses, and we were both interested in the caves, in prehistory. Archaeology.’ The two women simultaneously looked at the wall pictures, the Hands of Gargas. Open and closed, fingerless and mutilated.

      ‘Of course we are no longer together now. We do not share kisses.’ The smile was brief and unmirthful. ‘But we are still friends, after a fashion. A la mode. I will not betray him. He is a sad man, conflicted. And he has his family name.’

      Julia was frustrated, and bewildered.

      ‘Why won’t he take my find seriously?’

      ‘What makes you think he doesn’t take it seriously?’

      The way he just dismissed me! Sacked me!’

      Annika squinted at Julia, then she looked out of the window, where the wind was searching amongst the stones, lamenting its widowhood. ‘Perhaps he takes you very seriously. Therefore his reaction. He is conflicted, as I say.’

      ‘But what does that mean?’

      ‘I cannot explain. There are mysteries in Ghislaine’s past. But it is not for me to reveal, not for me to shine the lamp on the cavern wall. But do not think less of yourself. That is all.’

      Annika was always a little evasive; self consciously mysteri ous in her thoughts. But this was a seriously new level of annoying coyness. Even though she liked and admired Annika, Julia couldn’t help thinking: get over yourself.

      She tried again:

      ‘What did he mean by “the collection in Prunier”.’

      ‘You can Google this yourself.’

      ‘I did. And I found out. Prunier is a tiny village, twenty kilometres away. North Lozère.’

      ‘Yes, I know.’

      ‘So I went there, Annika. And there’s nothing there. I expected a collection of some sort. A small museum of archaeology, more skulls and skeletons, that kind of thing. But all I discovered was a boulangerie and a church. And some old lady who scowled at me. There is nothing in Prunier.’

      Her Belgian friend smiled, distantly.

      ‘So you did not find. Do not worry. It probably will not help you anyway.’

      Julia sighed and sipped Chinese tea; Annika added:

      ‘Consider it possible: some things are meant to be hidden.’

      ‘What the hell does that mean?’

      ‘The truth is hidden in the caves? But it has always been hidden there hasn’t it? And we still do not know quite what it is.’ The Flemish lady allowed herself another long, melancholy glance at a picture on the wall: at the beautiful twinned horses of Pech Merle, peculiar elegant horses cantering away from each other since the Ice Age. ‘I always think, even today: why did they paint so many animals and so few humans? Isn’t that strange, mmn, Julia? And when they do paint humans, they are so sad or forlorn, no? The poor boys of Addaura, the terrible hands of Gargas, the little stick man at Lascaux, with the slaughtered bison and his intestines, his chitterling, like so many andouillettes, pouring out of the stomach! There is some more green tea.’

      Julia flinched at the image: the spilled intestines of the wounded bison, at Lascaux, one of the more horrifying tableaux of Ice Age art. Troubling, like the hands of Gargas. Why was Annika talking this way? This was ambiguity upon ambiguity. Adding irritation to frustration.

      What should she do? Julia had more questions. And she felt she deserved straight answers. After all, Annika had invited her over, after Julia had mentioned her find, the skulls, the argument. So Julia had driven over through the autumn wind and cold, and now the older lady was being difficult and shrugging and mysterious and Gallic, even though she was Flemish Belgian.

      ‘Annika. You asked me over. Can’t you tell me? We’re friends. Tell me what is all this about? Why is Ghislaine so obstructive? If you can’t tell me anything then I don’t see what –’

      The telephone rang. Annika rose and crossed her little living room. Phone in hand, she stood under a wallposter of the Cougnac paintings. Julia tuned out from the overheard dialogue, not wishing to intrude. It looked like Annika was having a slightly painful conversation: whispering, white faced, nodding tersely.

      ‘Oui . . . oui . . . bien sur. Merci.’

      The phone receiver carefully replaced, the older woman came back to the coffee table, wrapping her cardigan even tighter – as if the wind was blowing down from the werewolf-haunted steppes of the Margeride and directly through the room. Picking up her cup Annika drank some tea and cursed:

      ‘Merde. The tea is cold.’ Then she looked at Julia. ‘That was the police. Ghislaine has been murdered.’

      Chapter 8

      Gaining. The police were gaining.

      ‘Faster,’ said Chemda. Her hand gripped Jake’s momentarily, unconsciously maybe. ‘Faster. Quicker. Please.’ Then she spoke in French, and then Khmer. Urging on the driver.

      Jake doubted Yeng knew any of these languages. He spoke Hmong. But the meaning was plain.

      Faster. Quicker. Please.

      But no matter how fast they went, the noises behind them proved how swiftly they were losing. The roar of the big police Toyotas was drowning the growl of their own wheezing vehicle.

      ‘Faster!’ said Jake, helplessly. He saw images of the blood-drained Cambodian man in his mind: did the cops really do that? Why not? Who else? Perhaps it was that thin unsmiling Ponsavanh officer. Jake could easily envisage him: briskly slashing a neck, like severing the arteries of a suspended hog, watching the blood drain СКАЧАТЬ