Part 24 (1/2)

'Amy?'

Where was she? He hadn't seen her for an hour. It was hard to believe she was outside in the rain.

He called again. His voice bounced off the mouldering woodwork, and down the empty corridor. Nothing.

A swift search told him there was no one on the ground floor: all he could hear was the incessant skitter of rat tails, as the vermin fled his approach through each unsavoury chamber.

How about the room they shared? He and Amy? Where they had talked through the night?

He had to take the stairs; he had to go up the stairs. The pounding of his feet matched the pounding of his pulse as he called Amy's name again nothing, the hallway was empty.

He pushed the door and as he did his mind filled: the imagined scene of his parents, dying in their car, came suddenly and vividly into mental view. His mother's head crushed, blood drooling politely from her slackened mouth...

Maybe the same had happened to Amy. Everyone close to him was taken away: everyone. everyone.

David scanned the room he and Amy had shared. Empty. It was bereft even of rats, or ravens cackling at the window. The bunks were still s.h.i.+fted together; the old picture of a Jesuit saint was still askew on the peeling wall. Slumlike dampness seeped from the ceiling.

There was one bedroom left, Fermina and Jose's room. No doubt the door was locked and barred against the world.

Maybe she was in there?

David gathered his valour and stepped down the hallway and called through the door, Amy Amy Amy but the returning silence was claustrophobic. but the returning silence was claustrophobic.

This was intolerable. He yearned to escape, to find the truth and find Amy and then run away, get out of this awful house, this monument to oppression; the pains and terrors of the Cagots branded, excluded, humiliated seemed to have soaked into the bricks and mortar. David wanted to find her, and then fly.

He poised a fist to knock on the door. He would kick the door in, if necessary.

But his knock was stayed by a voice a voice right behind him. right behind him.

'David?'

He swivelled. It was Amy. Amy.

'Where have you been?!'

'Downstairs ' Amy shook her head ' the cellar...to check '

'What?'

'For pa.s.sages. The chemins des Cagots chemins des Cagots. You remember? Eloise said there were pa.s.sages, built by the Cagots I thought if we were in trouble, we could use them...but I only found vaults '

He put two hands on her shoulders.

'Jose told me, told me all of it everything. He's locked in there with Fermina '

He tilted a frown, leftwards, indicating the door.

'But why?'

He began to explain.

And he stopped almost at once. Their conversation was slashed in half by a horrible and unmistakable sound.

A gunshot. And then another gunshot.

Inside the Garovillos' room.

They ran to the door and shoved against the rusted locks. The wood and metal resisted for a minute, then two minutes. But the planks were wormed, and the hinges were ancient, the doorway began to splinter, and then it swung open. They were inside.

David gazed across, and he felt his heart shrivel in bitter disgust. Amy had a hand to her face, shrouding her tears.

Two corpses were sitting in two chairs.

Jose and his wife.

Fermina Garovillo had been shot at close range through the temple, the side of her head was simply missing missing; the obscene wound was echoed and amplified by a splattered patch of blood on the wall nearby. Jose had shot his wife first, it seemed and then turned the gun on himself. And his wound was worse: the entire top of his cranium, taken clean away. Burn marks on his thin white lips showed how he had done it, put the gun between his teeth, pulled the trigger blasting away his own brains.

More blood on the ceiling and the wall behind confirmed the suicide. David took one quick look at the grey jellylike stuff balanced on top of the chair and he felt the rising bile of nausea.

But why?

Why had they done it?

An answer, the answer, came immediately. The menacing slurch of tyres, outside.

David went straight to the window and scanned the scene, his muscles tense with alarm. And there. There it was. The reason for Jose and Fermina's suicide, maybe. A red car, driving slowly between the dripping trees. Miguel was surely inside the car. David recalled old Jose's words. One day he will kill me One day he will kill me.

Amy joined David at the window. She cursed and s.h.i.+vered, simultaneously.

But there was faint hope. The red car slowed to a stop, then it started up once more, going the wrong way going the wrong way. David realized, with a tiny jolt of optimism, that Miguel must still be looking looking for them. The Wolf didn't for them. The Wolf didn't quite quite know where it was, he was driving up and down. For how long he'd been doing this, who knew. However he had discovered their exile in Campan torturing Eloise maybe? he hadn't pinned down the precise location of the refuge. know where it was, he was driving up and down. For how long he'd been doing this, who knew. However he had discovered their exile in Campan torturing Eloise maybe? he hadn't pinned down the precise location of the refuge.

But it wouldn't take him long. Eventually he would see the concealed turning. Miguel would drive past the bushes, and look in the right direction. And then discover the house. And then come and kill them. Epa. Epa. Epa Epa. Epa. Epa.

'The gun!' said Amy.

'What?'

'There must be a gun.'

She was right. David scanned swiftly around the room for Jose's gun. The old man must have had a gun to shoot himself and his wife. And there a glimpse of black metal in the greyish light. David reached between Jose's lifeless legs and picked up the pistol. It was still warm. He figured there must be bullets left inside. There had only been two gunshots.

He lifted the gun and held it, pointing the muzzle at the ceiling.

For a second the madness of it all gyred in David's mind: a year ago he was a lethargic media lawyer. Bored, safe, and incoherently sad. Commuting on the District Line tube, going home to a microwave chicken curry, maybe a pint with a friend. Maybe meaningless s.e.x with someone he didn't love, if he was lucky. Now he was terrified, and angry, and hunted and yet the paradox was there again: he felt more more alive than ever. alive than ever.

He wanted to live now: he wanted to live so much. To find out the deeper reasons for his parents' murder, and to take revenge for their deaths. But the first first thing was to escape. thing was to escape.

'The back garden,' said Amy, her tears visibly repressed. She was being strong, she looked angry. 'Through the garden, the ravine? We can go that way?'

They hurried out of the door and along the hall; the damp old planks thudded and creaked as they took themselves downstairs, to the rear of the house from there the garden and the gate led to the forests; but Amy pulled him back.