The Company of Saints (31 page)

Lomax read the closely printed page. He found the printouts difficult to read. Christ, he thought suddenly, don't tell me I need glasses.

There had been a farming community which was suspected of continuing Easter observances and of harbouring a priest. The commissar for the district decided to make an example of them. He had drafted a dozen members of the secret police, known then as the Cheka, into the nearest town. On what was known as Holy Thursday they filtered into the suspect village. Each was wearing a medal round his neck. The medal had particular significance in the district because it was associated with a local priest, or monk in tsarist times, who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary with her heart exposed and pierced by an arrow, symbolizing the sins of the world. Lomax was focusing carefully now as he read. The story was brief and horrible. The false Christians had been accepted into the community and invited to the secret ceremonies in a barn. Inside they had produced guns and opened fire on the little congregation and the priest, killing and wounding indiscriminately. The barn doors had been bolted shut and the barn set on fire. That was the end of Christianity in the district and the commissar responsible had been commended and given a more responsible posting.

‘Well,' Poliakov demanded, ‘what would you look for, Major? I know it's not your province, but out of curiosity.'

Lomax put down the sheet of paper. ‘This heart with the arrow through it,' he said. ‘Is it common? I thought it was something connected with love – Cupid …'

‘Not in Russia,' Poliakov said. ‘In the Ukraine it was a very holy symbol. I've found the name of the commissar. Do you know what it is?'

Lomax didn't hear the excitement in his voice. He wasn't aware that Poliakov, with his love of drama, had stage-managed the moment of revelation for him. Walden had given Davina a heart pierced by an arrow. A Western symbol of unrequited love. Yes, of course it was. He could think of poems, love songs, Valentines … the medal worn by the butchers of the Cheka.

‘Major Lomax?' Poliakov sounded piqued. ‘Didn't you hear what I said? Don't you want to know the name of the commissar?'

‘Yes, in a minute. Tell me something. If you gave that to a Russian – that medal with the heart and the arrow – what would it mean to him?'

‘To most Russians, nothing. To a Ukrainian – the massacre of the people of Lukina. That has gone into folklore, you know. Major, I have made a very important discovery. Don't you want to know what it is?'

‘There's a book I read, a book of short stories …' Lomax was talking to himself, only half to Poliakov. ‘Years ago, when I was a boy. It frightened the hell out of me. It was an Edgar Allan Poe story.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
. Just a minute.' He sprang up and buzzed Davina's office on the intercom. ‘Get me Miss Graham.' Her secretary's voice replied, ‘I'm sorry Major Lomax, she's out of the office. She won't be back today. Shall I take a message in case she phones in?'

‘Where has she gone?' Lomax demanded. ‘Phyllis, this is urgent, where is she?'

‘She went down to Welton with Mr Grant.'

He hung up, and turned to Poliakov. ‘A bracelet,' Lomax exploded. ‘A bloody bracelet that she can't get off! Like the victims in that story – Jesus Christ! She's gone down to Welton – where that girl is.'

Before Poliakov could ask what he was talking about, Lomax had rushed out of the room. The old man turned to the computer operator. ‘Did you understand any of that?' he asked. ‘What was the matter with him?'

‘I don't know, sir, I wasn't really listening.'

‘Well, what were the murders in the Rue Morgue then?' Poliakov shouted.

‘Never heard of them, sir. I've got some more printouts for you.'

Poliakov snatched them. He was very angry – he felt cheated. He hated not knowing what was going on. One moment he had a brilliant revelation to make, the possible answer to the question set for him by Davina Graham, and the next he was brushed aside by that lunatic yelling about Sherlock Holmes. He took a deep breath and said, ‘I'll look at these later. I have to go out for a while.'

‘I understand you requested to see me,' Davina stated. In spite of what Humphrey had said, she was shocked by the girl's ghastly pallor and hollow eyes. She was standing by the window in the private office, with the bright summer sunshine forming a nimbus round her. She held herself like a caged animal getting ready to spring.

‘Yes. I won't be bullied by him any more.'

Davina glanced sideways at Humphrey. ‘I don't believe he bullied you,' she said quietly. ‘I know that he and Monsieur Johnson have been very patient indeed. I must warn you, I am not a patient person.'

The challenge was thrown down so quickly that it took Hélène completely by surprise. She had expected the soft approach, the preliminary tack that the two men had shown. The woman didn't give her that respect. She declared herself an adversary in the first few seconds. She was hateful, Hélène thought, glaring at her. Hateful. The dominant female with the cane held behind her back.

‘I am going to ask you some questions, Hélène,' Davina said. ‘If you don't answer them to my satisfaction, I shan't repeat them, and I shall leave. You will be taken to the airport after we have alerted the French authorities and told them to pick you up. Do you understand that?'

‘I understand that you are a worse bully than he is,' she said calmly, and made a contemptuous little gesture towards Humphrey. There was a box on the table; she opened it and took a cigarette.

‘Then you
have
understood,' Davina remarked. ‘And you can put that away. There will be no cigarettes. This is not a social call. I am here to ask you questions and you are going to answer them.'

Hélène didn't hesitate. She put the cigarette in her mouth.

Davina stepped forward and knocked the cigarette to the ground. Hélène began to tremble. ‘I told you, no cigarettes.'

Hélène didn't move. She was staring at the gleaming circle of coloured gold on the woman's wrist. And at the bright red heart with the arrow. ‘I don't feel well,' she said suddenly. The room was beginning to recede and she felt icy cold.

‘Sit down then.' She heard the voice, and it sounded muffled and far away. There was a chair and Hélène groped for it. She sat down heavily and drooped her head to bring back the blood supply. Her pulse rate was galloping and there was a thudding in her ears. With her eyes shut she could see that crimson symbol of all that she hated most in the world.

‘Humphrey,' Davina murmured, ‘get her a glass of water.' And lower still, ‘I think she's cracked.…'

Hélène felt the woman touch her on the shoulder. She went stiff all over her body. As stiff as the little girl who flinched before the blows to come. ‘Drink some of this. You'll feel better.' She took the glass, sipped at it. It was good. Her mouth and throat were dust dry. She saw the heart swinging backwards and forwards like a little metronome on the woman's wrist. Her pulse and breathing steadied. A deadly calm came over her, so different from the horrible panic of a few moments before. She looked up at Davina Graham. Strength was coming back, coming on a tide. She had been prepared for this moment. She needn't feel helpless. She wasn't a child any longer. Everything was clear to her now.

‘I will answer anything you want,' she said. She saw the triumph on the woman's face, saw the hard mouth soften into a smile. Oh yes, you always smiled like that after you'd done it. You'd look at me and smile and say, that will teach you … you won't be naughty again.…

‘That's very sensible of you,' Davina said. ‘Tell me about this institute. You were part of a special group, weren't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘And who were the other members?'

She wasn't going to tell her that. But she wanted to see her relax; she wanted to lull her so that she wouldn't be expecting anything but obedience. Obedience and fear. Take off your dress, Hélène. I'm going to punish you. She made up four names. Not made up, because they were the names of two of her teachers, and her aunt's dentist and his partner.

‘And what did they teach you in this special group?'

Hélène had begun to feel strange again. Not faint and weak, but filling up inside, as if the tension was building to explosion point. She knew the time was getting nearer. The blood-red heart gleamed as the woman moved her hand when she talked. ‘I want to see you alone,' Hélène said. ‘I don't want anyone else here if I'm going to tell you about it.' And then she added, because she used to say it so often until in the end it was a scream, ‘Please.'

Davina nodded. ‘Humphrey, do you mind?'

He hesitated. The scene disturbed him. There was a mixture of servility and antagonism in the girl. ‘Davina – there's a small inner office – you could go in there and leave the door open.' He spoke rapidly in English. ‘I don't like the look of her. I don't think you should be alone with her.'

Davina said, ‘She's just coming apart, that's all. And that's what we wanted. Nothing else was going to work. Don't worry about me, Humphrey. I'll go very gently.'

‘All right,' he said. ‘I'll look in after a few minutes.'

‘No,' Davina said quickly. ‘No don't. I'll give you a buzz in the brigadier's office when I'm ready. I don't want to interrupt anything at this stage.'

He went out reluctantly. As he closed the door he glanced back. Davina was sitting near Hélène Blond. He heard her say in a gentle voice, ‘Monsieur Grant has gone. Now we are alone and you can talk to me. What did they teach you, Hélène?'

Humphrey went to the brigadier's office. ‘I think we're home and dry,' he said. ‘She suddenly went to pieces. Miss Graham is with her now. Could I have some coffee?'

The brigadier said, ‘Of course.' He was curious about Hélène Blond. ‘That's great news. There's something pretty odd about her, isn't there? She's so full of aggression – that's the feeling she gave me. And it's so controlled. You feel it ought to burst out but it never does. Your chap Johnson said the same thing. We watched her once on the monitor, after he'd spent a morning with her, and she was in a terrible temper. She put herself into some kind of trance to calm down. Quite extraordinary. Johnson said he felt she'd have broken up the room otherwise.'

Humphrey looked up, frowning. ‘That's what I felt,' he said. ‘I really didn't want to leave Miss Graham alone with her.'

‘Don't worry, you can keep tabs on her with the monitor. You can always go in if you're not happy with the way it's progressing.'

‘She doesn't want to be interrupted,' Humphrey said. ‘And of course she's right. When the crisis comes you've got to take the fullest advantage of it and not let them have time to recover themselves. I'll keep a watch – but I'd better wait here until she rings through. I don't know.' He hunched his thin shoulders, looking rather like a grasshopper, the brigadier thought. ‘I don't know, maybe I'm getting old. I don't like this sort of thing any more.'

‘None of us does,' the soldier answered. ‘Especially when a woman is involved. But they're as deadly as the men these days. In fact, some of them are worse. Have some more coffee. And excuse me, will you? Make yourself comfortable. Ring for my orderly if you want anything.'

‘What did they teach you, Hélène?' Davina asked again. The girl was so white that she wondered if she was going to faint.

‘To kill.' The answer was given in a flat tone of voice. There was a tiny gleam in the girl's eye, and her mouth was slightly open.

Davina did not react. ‘I see,' she said. To kill. My God, she said to herself … what have we got here …? ‘Why did they teach you that?'

Hélène Blond smiled. She sat straighter, clasping her hands in her lap. ‘Why don't you ask me who I killed?' she said.

Davina felt it then. She felt the hatred coming to her, like waves of heat. And she began to feel afraid. She couldn't get up and call for Humphrey until she'd got that question answered. He would be watching and listening. She rested her hands on the arm of the chair. The red heart with its cruel little arrow lay on the polished wood like a drop of blood. Hélène could not take her eyes away from it.

‘All right,' Davina said. Whatever happened, she mustn't show that she was alarmed or shaken. She had to seem totally calm and unmoved. ‘All right, who did you kill?'

Hélène inched forward on her chair. ‘The Duvaliers,' she said. Her pulse was starting to race again. But don't hurry. Don't hurry this moment when you've waited for it so long. Last time you were cheated. She got cancer but she died in hospital. Now she's here and you can spin it out, France, you can watch her face and see her learn to be afraid of you.

‘It was funny,' she went on. ‘Those stupid fools asking me if I let someone in to do the shooting? I nearly burst out laughing. I'll tell you what happened. You'd like to know all the details, wouldn't you?'

‘Yes,' Davina answered quietly. ‘Tell me how you killed them, Hélène.' It isn't true, she said to herself. She's lying, it's all a hysterical fantasy. She looks quite unhinged. But I'll know in a minute, as soon as she starts telling how she did it.

‘I pretended to have a headache,' Hélène said. ‘They were all playing bridge. Louise was watching. I left my bag in the salon so I could get the maid to come up to my room and find me asleep. I wasn't asleep. I waited, and then I went down to the salon and opened the door. There they were, sitting there, playing cards.' She gave a throaty laugh. ‘They were so surprised to see me standing there in my dressing gown. And with the gun in my hand. I shot Isabelle Duvalier in the chest. Then the two men, and Irena Duvalier got hers in the gullet. I did it so quickly. Louise was dead in a second – it was easy, they were all sitting so close.'