Sepulchre (70 page)
Léonie smiled, remembering the words on the page. She was not frightened, now, she was curious. And for a fleeting moment, as she looked up to the octagonal apse, she thought perhaps that she saw the face of La Force move. The faintest smile had come across the painted face. And for an instant, the girl looked precisely like her - like her own face she had painted into her copies of the Tarot images. The same copper hair, the same green eyes, the same direct gaze.
Around her now, Léonie was aware of movement. Spirits, or the cards come to life, she could not say. The Lovers, to her hopeful and willing eyes, so clearly taking on the beloved features of Anatole and Isolde. For a fleeting moment, Léonie thought she could recognise the features of Louis-Anatole shimmering behind the image of La Justice, sitting with her scales and a run of notes around the rim of her long skirts, the boy she knew contained within the outline of the woman on the card. Then, out of the corner of her eye, only for a second, the features of Audric Baillard -Sajhë - seemed to imprint themselves upon the young face of Le Pagad.
Léonie stood completely still, letting the music wash over her. The faces and the costumes and the landscapes seemed to move, to shift and shimmer like stars, revolving in the silver air as if held by the invisible current of musk. She lost any sense of herself. Dimension, space, time, mass, all vanished now to insignificance.
The vibrations, the rustling of the air, the ghosts, she supposed, brushed against her shoulders and neck, skimmed her forehead, surrounded her, gentle, kind, but without ever really touching. A silent chaos was growing, a cacophony of noiseless whispering and sighing.
Léonie reached her arms out in front of her. She felt herself weightless, transparent, as if floating in the water, although her dress still hung red around her, the cloak black on her shoulders. They were waiting for her to join them. She turned over her outstretched hands and saw, quite clearly, the infinity symbol appear on the pale skin of her palms. Like a figure of eight.
He poked the ground with his walking stick. Two horses had stood here - and recently. The wheel ruts suggested only one carriage and appeared to lead away from, rather than towards, the sepulchre.
Constant felt the curious force of the wind insinuating itself between the tightly knit trunks of the avenue of yews that led to the door of the tomb. With his free hand, he held his greatcoat tight around his throat against the strengthening currents of air. He sniffed. His sense of smell was almost gone, but he could just pick out an unpleasant odour, a peculiar mixture of incense and the malodorous scent of rotting seaweed on the shore.
Though his eyes were watering with the cold, he could see there were lights burning inside. The thought that the boy might be hiding there powered him forward. He strode ahead, paying no attention to the rushing sound, almost like water, nor to the whistling, like wind chasing down the telegraph wires or the vibrating of the metal track as a train approaches.
Constant approached the heavy door, turned the handle. At first, it did not shift. Assuming it was bolted or furniture had been piled up as a barricade, he nonetheless tried again. This time, all at once, it opened. Constant almost lost his balance and half stepped, half fell into the sepulchre.
Straight away he saw her, standing with her back to him in front of a small altar set within an eight-sided apse. Indeed, she was making no attempt to conceal herself. Of the boy, there was no sign.
His chin jutting forward, his eyes darting to left and right, Constant processed up the nave, his stick tapping on the flagstones as his feet fell awkwardly from step to step. There was an empty plinth just inside the door, jagged on the top as if the statue had been torn from it. Familiar plaster saints, set around the walls behind the modest rows of empty pews, marked his passing as he drew nearer to the altar.
Now Léonie turned to face him. The hood fell from her face. Constant threw up his diseased hands to shield his eyes from the light. The smile slipped from his lips. He did not understand. He could see the girls features, the same direct gaze, the hair now tumbling loose as it had been in the portrait he had stolen from the rue de Berlin, but she was transformed into something other.
Something swooped down upon him and the silence he had not recognised as silence was broken in a cacophony of shrieking and howling. He clamped his hands over his ears, to stop the creatures from entering into his head, but his fingers were pulled away by talons and claws, even though not a mark was laid upon him.
It seemed as if the painted figures had stepped down from the wall, each now transformed into a dark version of their fairer selves. Nails turned to talons, fingers to claws, eyes to fire and ice. Constant buried his head in his chest, dropping his stick as he curled his arms over his face to protect himself. He fell to his knees, gasped for breath as his heart began to lose its rhythm. He tried to move forward, out of the square on the ground, but an invisible force, like an overwhelming wind, kept pushing him back. The howling, the vibrating of the music was getting louder. It seemed to come from outside as well as in, echoing inside his head. Splitting open his mind.
But the voices were increasing in volume and intensity. Uncomprehending, he looked for Léonie. He could no longer see her at all. The light was too bright, the air around shimmering with incandescent smoke.
Then, behind him, or rather from beneath the very surface of his skin, came a different noise. A scraping, like the claws of a wild animal, grating along the surface of his bones. He flinched and jerked, crying out in agony, then fell to the floor in a rushing of air.
And suddenly, crouched on his chest, with a reek of fish and pitch, was a demon, gaunt and twisted, with red leathery skin, a horned brow and strange, penetrating blue eyes. The demon that he knew could not exist. Did not exist. Yet the face of Asmodeus was looking down upon him.
Instantly, the air in the sepulchre was still. The whisperings and sighings of the spirits grew fainter until at last, there was silence. The cards lay scattered on the ground. The faces upon the wall became flat and two-dimensional once more, but their expressions and attitudes had shifted subtly. Each bore an unmistakable resemblance to those who had lived -and died - in the Domaine de la Cade. Like Léonie's paintings.
Outside in the clearing, Constant's manservant cowered from the wind, the smoke and the light. He heard his master scream, once, then again. The inhuman sound kept him too petrified to move.
Only now, when all had fallen quiet and the lights within the sepulchre had steadied, did he summon the courage to come out of his hiding place. Slowly, he approached the heavy door and found it slightly ajar. His tentative hand encountered no resistance.
He saw the body of his master immediately. He was lying face down on the ground, in front of the altar, a deck of playing cards scattered all about him. The servant rushed forward and rolled his master's emaciated form on to its back, then recoiled. Across Constant's face were three deep and red gashes, like the savage marks of a wild animal.
The man crossed himself mechanically and leant forward to close his master's wide, horrified eyes. Then his hand stopped as he noticed the rectangular card lying across Constant's chest, over his heart. Le Diable.
Uncomprehending, the servant's hand went to his pocket where he could swear he had placed the card his master had instructed him to leave with the body of Curé Gélis in Coustaussa. The pocket was empty.
There was a moment of recognition, then the manservant staggered back from his master's body and started to run down the nave, past the unseeing eyes of the statues, out of the sepulchre, away from the grimacing face on the card.
Dr O'Donnell,' Hal shouted again. It was ten past twelve. For more than fifteen minutes he'd been waiting outside Shelagh O'Donnell's house. He'd tried knocking. Neither of her neighbours was in, so he'd gone for a walk and come back, started knocking again. Still, nothing.
Hal was certain he was in the right place - he'd checked the address several times - and he didn't think she could have forgotten. He was trying to keep positive, but it was becoming more of a challenge with every second that passed. Where was she? The traffic was bad this morning, so maybe she'd got held up? Maybe she was in the shower and hadn't heard him?
The worst-case scenario - and, he had to admit, the most likely - was that Shelagh had thought better of going with him to the police. Her dislike of authority was clear and Hal could easily see her losing what little nerve she had without him and Meredith there to back her up.
He pushed his fingers through his mop of hair, took a step back and looked up at the shuttered windows. The house stood in the middle of a pretty row next to the River Aude, overlooking the water, shielded on one side from the walkway by a fence of green angle-iron and split bamboo canes. It occurred to him that he might be able to see into the garden from the back. He followed the line of the buildings, then doubled back on himself. It was hard to tell which house was which from the back, but he matched the colour wash of the walls - one house was painted pale blue, another a thin yellow - until he was confident he knew which was Shelagh O'Donnell's property.
She appeared to be lying face down on the small terrace next to the house. It was a sheltered spot and the sun was surprisingly warm for the tail-end of October, but it was hardly sunbathing weather. Perhaps she was reading a book; he couldn't see. But whatever she was doing, he thought with irritation, she had clearly decided to ignore him - to pretend he wasn't there. His view was obscured by a pair of unkempt planters. 'Dr O'Donnell?'
'At least someone's having a productive morning,' he muttered, then went back to the matter in hand. He wasn't going to let it drop. After all the effort he'd put in to persuading the commissaire to see them this morning, he wasn't going to let Shelagh duck out.
'Dr O'Donnell!' he called out again. 'I know you're there.' He started to wonder. Even if she had changed her mind, it was odd that she was taking no notice at all. He was making enough noise. He hesitated, then pulled himself up and climbed over the wall. There was a heavy stick lying on the terrace, half pushed under the hedge. He picked it up, then noticed there were marks at the top. Blood, he realised.
He ran across the terrace to where Shelagh O'Donnell was lying motionless. One look was enough to see she'd been hit, and more than once. He checked her pulse. She was still breathing, although she didn't look great.
Hal disconnected. He rushed into the house, found a blanket draped over the back of the sofa, ran back outside. He laid it carefully over Shelagh to keep her warm, knowing he shouldn't attempt to move her, then went back into the house and out the front door into the street. He felt guilty about what he was about to do, but he couldn't wait around in Rennes-les-Bains for the paramedics. He had to get back.
He hammered on the neighbour's door. When she answered, he told the startled woman what had happened, asked her to stay with Dr O'Donnell until the ambulance arrived, then bolted to his car before she had a chance to object.