A Love Like Blood (16 page)

They were moving again, and I knew I might have little time. I pulled my camera from my pocket and began to fiddle with the settings, worrying about how loud the shutter was, trying to work out what light was available, regretting the slow speed of the film I’d chosen, and then I forgot all about it, because something took place in front of me that stopped every other thought.

He spoke. Strange, really, that it had taken so many years for me to even hear his voice. It was a strong voice, deep, and he spoke in French, but I knew what he was saying.

‘
Faites ceci en mémoire de moi.
’

Do this in remembrance of me.

He spoke slowly, and there, once more, was that look on his face. A look I still didn’t understand, but it was the same one he’d turned on me in that hole in Saint-Germain, the same eyes, the same turn of the mouth.

A young woman had stepped forward in front of him and pulled up the left sleeve of the light dress she wore. Verovkin had stepped to the altar and now turned back, holding a cup, a brass chalice, and a small knife. She moved slightly and now I saw it was the woman from the bookshop, with her pelican tattoo.

He handed her the knife, and I watched aghast as she pressed the tip of the blade into the inside of her left wrist. I heard her give a short gasp, which caught in her breath, and then blood welled down her arm. She quickly lowered her hand, letting it run into the chalice that he held out for her.

She handed him the knife, stepped back, holding her wrist to stop the bleeding, and the next stepped forward. An older man this time, and now I saw the same tattoo on his wrist, that same tattoo. The pelican. They all had it. And they pierced it with the knife, each of them in turn allowing their blood to run into the cup.

I realised I was shaking, hard, and made an effort to still myself, tried to breathe freely, but I could not, because as the last of the twelve stepped back, he held the cup aloft, and spoke again.

‘
Puis, prenant une coupe, il rendit grâces et la leur donna, et ils en burent tous. Et il leur dit: Ceci est mon sang, le sang de l’alliance, qui va être répandu pour une multitude.
’

He lifted the cup to his lips, and he drank. Not a sip, but a mouthful.

Each of them stepped forward, and each took a sip of their mixed blood, and as each did so, he repeated the liturgy.

‘
Ceci est mon sang, le sang d’alliance. Faites ceci en mémoire de moi.
’

I lifted the camera to my face.

I held it there, then set it on the corner of a pew, and tried once more to summon the nerve to press the shutter release.

‘
Ceci est mon sang, le sang d’alliance. Faites ceci en mémoire de moi.
’

He repeated it again, and again, and the seventh or eighth stepped forward to drink. It was now or never.

‘
Ceci est mon sang, le sang d’alliance.
’

This is my blood. The blood of the covenant.

I pressed the button, but my timing was wrong. The small click rang out in a moment of silence as a middle-aged woman drank, and everyone froze, and then looked towards where I crouched. I burst from my hiding place, knowing they couldn’t really see me, knowing it would give me a small head start.

I sprinted for the curtain and burst out of the door while they were still taking in what had happened, trying to work out what to do, but even as I clambered over the iron gate, I could hear steps in the porch. I had been seen now, in the faint lamplight of the city, but I paid that no attention, and landing on the far side of the gate, I hurtled down the street and took the corner before anyone could follow.

I took as many turns as I could, and though I heard no one behind me, I didn’t stop running until I reached the door of my new hotel.

The night porter looked at me strangely, but I merely smiled and made my way up to my bed, where I lay all night, fully clothed, clutching the camera to my chest.

I listened for sounds of pursuit in the streets below, but all I could hear was my heart pounding, and his words in my head.

‘Do this in remembrance of me.’

I lay for a long time, and my thoughts drifted as I grew tired, exhaustion washing into me. If the city was a beast, I had penetrated its very centre. Seen the heart, in which was a thirst. If the city was a beast, it was now, for a short time at least, a sated one, bloated and content with its offering of blood.

Still; his words, in my head. I couldn’t get them to leave me.

‘Do this in remembrance of me.’

Chapter 12

When finally I slept, it was early morning.

At noon I left the hotel and took my camera to a small photographic shop I’d seen a few days earlier. I asked the shopkeeper how soon he could develop the photos and at my insistence he told me that, for a price, they could be ready later that afternoon.

I spent the day trying to idle time away, nervously pounding the streets, stopping for coffee once or twice. Every eye I caught I looked away from immediately, but I knew that I was safe really. No one had seen my face, no one knew who I was, what my name was, even what my nationality was. At most they had seen a figure about my height and build. I’d returned to the hotel in Villeneuve to change my clothes, trying to make myself as different as I could be.

Finally, I went back to the photographer’s. The afternoon was wearing on, and I wanted to get to the police station as soon as possible, but only once I had evidence.

As I entered the shop, I knew something had changed. The man greeted me, but in a surly manner, and I should have fled there and then.

I didn’t. Instead I asked for my photos, and he told me there were none.

I told him there must be some mistake, and he spoke very rapidly in French. I asked him to slow down, insisting that he give me my photos, and again he repeated that there had been nothing on the film.

I got angry. I was desperate, and he was playing me for a fool, though I knew it was possible nothing had turned out. The light was poor; the film was wrong; I had only taken one shot. Yet I felt a little uneasy too. I was good with a camera, I knew what I was doing. This failure reminded me of those stories of ghosts, or other creatures of fantasy, that cannot be captured on film, or seen in a mirror.

One or two other customers left the shop, and he held up a hand to placate me.

‘Monsieur?’ he said, and indicated a curtain that led to the darkroom behind the shop, I assumed. ‘
S’il vous plait . . . ?
’

And still I did not understand what was going on. I thought he wanted to take the argument out of his shop, though in fact it was now empty. And so, like a fool, I ducked under his arm and into a back room.

He opened a door that I saw led outside, and nodded at me, showing that I should go out into the alley behind the shop.

I hesitated, and as I turned, he shoved me in the back and I stumbled outside. The door slammed behind me. Two rough men faced me. One of them was Jean.

I opened my mouth but the first fist hit me before I could speak.

I fell immediately and it was all I could do to cover my head as the kicks began to fly into me. I don’t know how long it lasted, but it seemed to go on for ever, until suddenly I heard shouts, and the sound of footsteps running away, and more approaching.

I rolled over, in great pain, and saw two policemen staring down at me.

‘
Monsieur? Monsieur? Mon Dieu!
’

Of course, by the time I was able to explain what had happened and take the police around to the front of the shop, it had shut. No sign of anyone in the shop, or the flat above.

They spoke no English, and I was having great trouble communicating anything, let alone French, but I got them to understand I wanted to go to the police station, where I demanded an immediate audience with whoever was in charge.

The captain, a polite, middle-aged man called Leclerc, had a paunch and good English.

‘But monsieur,’ he repeated again and again, ‘you should go to a hospital.’

I agreed with him. My nose was bleeding still, I could barely move my neck, there was a cut behind my ear, I hurt everywhere. But I refused to go anywhere until I had told my story.

And what a story it was.

Of a murderer from Paris, of a blasphemous cult in the city, drinking blood in a church whose name, I now realised, I didn’t even know. I could take them there, I assured them, only I couldn’t show them photographic evidence because they had destroyed it and beaten me up, and in fact, if his two men hadn’t happened past, I would probably be dead, or something very like it.

I stopped.

The captain smiled at me.

‘You don’t believe me,’ I said, stupidly.

‘No, monsieur, I am of course very happy to hear what you have to say. But I think right now you are a little excited, perhaps. Maybe you could go to the hospital, get cleaned up, and come back tomorrow. And we can sort all of this out.’

He smiled at me again, and glanced at the blood I was dripping on his carpet.

‘But you can’t just ignore a crime!’ I protested. ‘I can show you the shop, I can—’

‘Monsieur? No one is ignoring you. But you are not well. Come back tomorrow, and we can talk.’

I felt idiotic. I felt like apologising for ruining his carpet, and I felt my anger subside, and as it did, I realised that I hurt. So I did what he said. I let them take me to the hospital, wondering whether it was standard police procedure. Shouldn’t they have at least taken a statement?

I hurt too much to care about it for long. So I got cleaned up. I went back to Villeneuve and checked out, and moved all my stuff to the hotel in town.

I ate early, drank a lot, and went to bed, where I passed out in my clothes.

And in the middle of the night, they came for me.

Chapter 13

What is it we are most afraid of?

Is it that harm will come to us, or that harm will come to those we love? Of the latter, I had had my share; of the former, my share was about to come.

What can we say of pain? Why do we fear it so? Why is it that we are unable to remember it when we are well and happy, just as we are unable to remember joy when we are sad?

When I woke, it must have been as my hotel-room door was kicked open. I felt fear then. Even as I struggled to wake and understand what was going on, I felt some kind of primitive fear, something that must have been planted in us aeons ago, and I rolled out of bed before they got to me. But it was no good. Strong arms held me and someone struck me on the head from behind, not enough to knock me out, but enough to make me retch and stagger.

I was dragged on my tiptoes out of the room before I could make another sound, and down a flight of stairs at the back where the night porter held a door open, nodding at the men who dragged me out and into a car right outside the hotel.

We didn’t drive far, to just outside the city walls, where the car stopped. The three men pushed me out, and tumbled after me, giving me another crack on the head to keep me in line. I tried to stand and my legs gave out. I watched the car speed off into the night, and I wondered what was going to happen to me.

They dragged me off the side of the road and down a bank, underneath the arch of the modern bridge by which I’d crossed the river every day.

And there they began to beat all hell out of me. Their fists flew at me until I could no longer stand, and then they started to kick again, and I was too weak to do anything to stop them.

But they did stop, because a voice called out.

I rolled on to my back, groaning as I did, and a torch shone in my face.

The torch flashed away and I saw him above me.

‘Who are you?’ he said, and I noticed that he used English. He already knew something about me, then.

He turned to the leader of the three, who I now saw was Jean, and whispered something.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My lips were bleeding and already swollen, blood was in my mouth.

There was some discussion and then someone reached down and began ferreting in my pockets, pulling out my wallet, some other small things. There was more discussion and I dimly saw my bag. They must have brought it from the hotel. They began rummaging through that too, throwing everything on the ground, and then they found my passport.

He, Verovkin, took it and studied it.

‘Charles Jackson . . .’

He spoke with hardly any accent, and what little there was, I couldn’t place.

I moaned, holding my hands above my head. It was a truly pathetic gesture, a gesture of supplication, and it meant that I begged not to be hurt any more.

‘Who are you?’

Again I said nothing, just squinted up into the face above me, desperately trying to think what I could do.

‘Do I know you?’ he asked.

I was too terrified, in too much pain, to even speak, but his question told me something. That unless he was playing games, it meant that he, like Jean, hadn’t connected me to Marian, and that gave me a little hope that they would leave me alone, once they’d done enough damage, once they’d scared me enough. But I was wrong.