From Limousin he passed into the Midi-Pyrénées. A while later the signs for Toulouse flashed by. He left the motorway and veered south-east into Roussillon, then due south from Carcassonne, deep into the rugged landscape along ever narrower and twistier roads, slippery with ice, that led him up dizzying mountain passes where the ruins of medieval castles stood silhouetted on craggy snow-capped peaks against the winter sky; then plunged steeply down into green pine valleys, through small towns and villages and hamlets too small to feature on the map. Couiza, Quillan, Montségur. He passed within a couple of kilometres of the villa that had been Anna Manzinis base for her research on ancient Languedoc history and the mysteries of the Cathars. The same villa where Franco Bozza had almost managed to kill her.
Being back here again for the first time since that summer brought back memories hed thought hed left far behind him: he and Roberta Ryder dodging bullets and chasing clues all over the Languedoc; the deadly running pursuit on which Usbertis hired killers had led them; playing tag with Luc Simon and an army of police; finding Anna battered and unconscious after Bozzas attack; the final bloody standoff with Bozza in an underground cavern buried deep in the heart of a mountain. And Ben remembered the kindness that Father Pascal had shown him when hed turned up on the priests doorstep, badly hurt. The old man had been more of a father to him than his real one ever had. The memory sent a painful stab of guilt deep inside Ben as he replayed those images inside his head.
He should have done more to stay in contact. But keeping in touch with people who had been important in his life had never been one of his greatest talents.
If you ever find yourself in Florence, you must give me a call.
In the desert of life, you are my mirage.
Running off when people need you around is what you do best, after all.
Their voices echoed in his mind. Hed let them all down. For that, he was truly sorry.
Soon, his speeding headlights lit up a road sign for the village of Saint-Jean. Dawn was still a couple of hours away. Hed made good time.
The village was still more or less as Ben remembered it a few new houses might have sprouted up at its edges, and more of the ancient red-tiled roofs were incongruously decorated with recent add-ons like solar panels and satellite dishes. He passed the drystone wall that had been painted with blood from his gunshot wound, then winding deeper into the village he passed the little church in which hed prayed alone in the dead of night; then he saw the graveyard, and beyond it the slope of scrubland leading up the hillside where Pascal tended to his vines; and then he saw the priests cottage. The same old pale-blue Renault 14 was parked in the narrow, winding street outside. Bens spirits brightened seeing it, knowing it meant Pascal was at home.
He pulled the Alpina up at the kerbside and got out. Looked up at Pascals windows, dark and shuttered like every other window in Saint-Jean. The cold stillness seemed to hang over the place like a shroud, and he shivered. He didnt want to wake Pascal, and thought about sitting a while longer in the car, but changed his mind, walked up to the door and knocked softly.
There was no response after a couple of minutes, so Ben made his way around the back, through the neat yard, past the henhouse. A goat bleated from somewhere in the darkness. The back porch was open. He creaked the door ajar and stepped into the narrow hallway. He smelled the rich cherry and vanilla tang of aromatic pipe tobacco that had soaked into every crevice of the old stone walls. An antique case clock ticked steadily, sonorously from within. He called out softly, Father Pascal?
Arrêtez! The voice behind him made him tense and whirl around. Yellow torchlight shone in his face and glinted off something that Ben instantly recognised as a wartime French service revolver. One that was pointed right at him.
Ben froze and put up his hands. Normally, when faced with a firearm aimed in his face, he would have done either one of two things: move in faster than a striking cobra and take control of the weapon, breaking the fingers of the person holding it. Or, if that wasnt tactically favourable, he would have drawn out his own gun and fired first. And so far in his life, Ben had always been quicker.
But he wasnt about to do either of those things when the person with the gun was a little old woman as frail as a sparrow, so frightened that the weapon was fluttering in her skinny hand. Whos there? she quavered.
Dont shoot, he said in French. Its all right. Im a friend of Father Pascal. My names Ben.
The woman hesitated, then reached tentatively out and clicked on the wall light. She was in her seventies, with thinning grey hair, wearing a dressing gown topped by a shawl draped around her shoulders. Her eyes were reddened as though shed been crying.
I couldnt sleep, she said. I saw the car lights. I thought perhaps they had come back.
You thought who had come back?
Those men. The men who Her voice trailed off. She sniffed.
You dont have to point the gun at me, Ben said, eyeing the antique revolver and her finger on the trigger. It might be a relic, but if it had been good enough to kill Germans in two world wars, he didnt want to be on its business end. I promise I wont hurt you. Wheres Pascal? What men are you talking about? Is everything all right? But it obviously wasnt. He sensed something was terribly wrong.
The gun drooped in her thin hand, pointing at the floor. The old womans eyes filled with tears. And now Ben knew for sure, and he felt his own shoulders sag.
When? he asked.
Two days ago.
What happened?
There was an attack. At the church. The police think it was two intruders. Nobody knows. Nobody saw anything. She sniffed again, and shook her head. Pascal I knew him all my life. And now he is gone.
Bens throat was so tight that he could barely speak. What did they do to him?
They beat him. They killed him, les salauds. The funeral is this morning.
Ben was numb as he walked back to the car. He watched the old woman disappear inside her house, her head bowed. He sat and smoked, letting his mind become empty.
Dawn came; the sky lightened in gradual shades. A fog hung over the mountains in the background. The old woman reappeared, dressed in boots and a coat. If she was still carrying the gun out of fear that the attackers might return, it was hidden in a pocket. She let Pascals hens out and fed them, moving stiffly in the morning cold. Seeing Ben sitting there in his car, she came over with a sad smile and asked if hed like to come inside for coffee. He said no, thanks, and apologised for having scared her earlier. He told her the men wouldnt be back, and that she shouldnt be afraid.
There was nothing more to say. Nothing more to do here. Hed be on his way, after the funeral.
At ten oclock in the morning, Father Pascal Cambriel was laid to rest in the graveyard of the church of Saint-Jean where hed spent so many years caring for his community. Many had turned out to pay their final respects to the much-loved priest theyd known all their lives. Ben stood at the back of the crowd and watched with a clenched jaw as the coffin went into the ground. There were tears and sobs. A younger priest drafted in from a neighbouring town said a few solemn words. Ben spoke to nobody.
He was the last to leave the cemetery. As he knelt alone by the fresh grave, he made his promise. Then, slowly, calmly, he walked back to the car and drove away, never to return to Saint-Jean.
Gentle, kind Pascal wouldnt have approved of the vow Ben had taken at his graveside. But Pascal hadnt lived in Bens world and had only the smallest understanding of what motivated evil men and the cruelty they were capable of. Those were things Ben understood very well indeed. And whoever was doing this, whoever was hurting his friends, he was going to track them down, and find them, and destroy every single one of them.
They wanted blood. They were going to get it.
Chapter 14
Gennaro, you are a gift from God.
When Massimiliano Usberti had uttered those words six months earlier, hed meant them literally. For a man of such profound religious faith as his, there had been no other way to describe an event so serendipitous. It was the act of Divine providence he had been praying for. Now that it had come, with it came the long-cherished opportunity to start putting his plans into action.
Hed been waiting a long time.
Life was quiet when you were a disgraced former archbishop. Too quiet. For years, Massimiliano Usberti had seen almost nobody, spoken only to the small band of faithful disciples who hadnt abandoned him since his fall from grace. And what a spectacular fall it had been. The pain and humiliation of his rapid, sudden descent remained with him every waking moment. His private retreat, the villa set into its own four acres on the shores of Lake Como, was his only comfort, though for all its opulence it was a far cry from the magnificent Renaissance palace outside Rome that had been his main residence at the peak of his career as a senior archbishop.
Back in those halcyon days, it had seemed as if nothing could stop him. Hed been on track to become a cardinal. One day, perhaps even Pope. Anything, everything, he dared to dream felt within his grasp. Gladius Domini, the Sword of God, his brainchild, his lifes work, had secretly attracted powerful investors from every fundamentalist Christian enclave across the world and mighty friends in China and the USA. Its goal: to re-Christianise the globe and destroy once and for all the rising Islamic threat that was spreading everywhere like a cancer; to bring about a new golden age of holy crusade against the heathen menace in the East. Its mission statement was Necos eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet. Or, in laymans terms, Kill em all and let God sort them out.
When the crash had come, thanks to the combined efforts of Usbertis enemies, the blooming flower that had been Gladius Domini had been trampled into the dirt. All but a handful of his powerful friends in high places had deserted him in the wake of the disaster. The investors had dropped him like a hissing stick of dynamite and run a mile. His dreams had crumbled into ashes as he escaped imprisonment by the skin of his teeth, letting minions like the hapless Severini take the fall in his place.