Bright Angel (12 page)

I ran towards the paramedics, stumbling and crying out Daniel's name. But before I reached them, the door opened and Daniel came out, flanked by what I assumed were two plains-clothes policemen. I stopped, dead. He saw me. For an instant, our eyes met. I couldn't move, or speak. His face was like a mask, his eyes like two black holes. I could not read their expression – fear or anger or horror or suffering, I could not tell. The image of the stone mask on the church wall suddenly came into my mind, and I could not help taking a step back. He turned away and went with the policemen into their car. They started up the engine.

And then I found my limbs again. My voice. I ran forward, shouting, ‘Daniel! What's happening? What's wrong?' But I didn't get to the car in time. And as I passed the ambulance I saw the head of the person on the stretcher, just as they lifted it into the vehicle. It was Pilar, Gabriel's nanny. There was blood smeared across her forehead, her eyes were closed, her skin grey. She wasn't moving. I could not see her breathing. There was an oxygen mask on her and all that but she looked ... she looked
dead.

My legs nearly gave way then. As the police car with Daniel accelerated away, and the ambulance men shut the doors and also sped away, all I could think of was, surely, no, please God, don't let it be Daniel. Don't let it be him who did this. Don't let it be ... And then, my God, where was Gabriel? What had happened to Gabriel? He'll be so frightened.

I ran up to the front door. A burly uniformed policeman stood there. He said, ‘No, mademoiselle. No-one is to enter.'

‘I am friend,' I said, my French coming out bad and jerky in my agitation. ‘Friend of family. Gabriel, the little boy.'

‘You cannot come in, mademoiselle,' he repeated.

‘Please? Gabriel must be scared. Please let me...'

‘Go, please, mademoiselle,' he said, without a change of expression. ‘A crime has been committed. Nobody can go in.'

I tried to ask him what had happened, but he wouldn't say, of course. He just glared at me and told me to go away. I had to leave, though I was shaking like jelly and felt so sick I thought I would throw up.

There were all sorts of people gathered around now, of course, and they stared curiously at me as I tottered away from the house and up the road, but I took no notice of them. I went blindly on, not noticing where I was going. I couldn't even think. Not even feel. I felt like I was sleepwalking, like nothing around me was real.

I found myself in the square in front of the cathedral. Still putting one foot in front of the other, numbly, not thinking, I went up the steps. I pushed open the door and went inside, blindly seeking the cathedral's warm, peaceful semi-darkness, for the light hurt my eyes and made them sting. I sank into a seat at the back of the cathedral, half-sitting, half-kneeling, my head in my hands, my heart beating not fast but so slowly and heavily it was like a dead weight inside me, dragging me down. My mind was full of images I could neither shake off nor make sense of. But I couldn't even weep. I couldn't pray. Not properly. I could do nothing except for just sitting like that, shaking, my heart seemingly turned to stone inside me.

There were other people in the cathedral, tourists mostly, but a few others praying. Nobody looked at me, or seemed to find it strange I was here. That was what a church was like, after all, I thought, faintly. It's a haven. A refuge. You don't have to explain why you're here or why you've got your head in your hands.

An image suddenly came into my head, of Daniel with his head in his hands, back at St-Just. That's how he'd been sitting, when he came around the corner. He'd said it was to do with thinking about going away – or at least that's what I'd suggested, and he'd not denied it. But now I wondered if it was not that, but something else – something else wrong in his life. Something badly wrong that might make him attack Pilar and–

A dark fear washed over me. Pilar had been attacked. His uncle had been attacked. What if both times it had been Daniel? But no, that was monstrous. Hideous. How could I think such a thing? But Daniel doesn't like his uncle, said a small voice inside. His crooked uncle. He's been worried about Gabriel. Maybe he found out Pilar was also a crook or something like that. Or maybe he just had a bad temper and he was even worse because he saw me and Mick and–

I groaned. I put my head deeper in my hands and tried to pray. Please, God, let it be all right. Please God, don't let Daniel be ... don't let it be his fault. Please God, look after him. And Gabriel. Poor little Gabriel, who must be so frightened by what was going on. Please God, let there really be a guardian angel with him. Make his Kyriel look after him. Cover him with her wings. Make him safe. And Daniel, too.

All at once, my heart clenched. But not with fear.
You have a bright angel,
Gabriel had said to me, that first day here in the cathedral. A bright angel and it seemed to me, suddenly, that I could feel her there – feel a presence, close by me, close by my shoulder.

I turned my head, half-expecting to see her standing there, dazzling in the darkness. See her wings, streaming from her shoulders. See her gentle smile as she looked at me. But of course I saw nothing. Except for the light streaming in coloured patterns through the stained-glass windows, and that sense of a living, breathing presence. I clenched my fists. What good was that to me – to us? What good was a smiling, gentle guardian angel anyway? What I needed was a warrior angel – a real helper – not a Kyriel – but a Michael.

A Michael.
There was a buzzing in my ears. Heat in my throat. It was a sign, I thought. I got to my feet, unsteadily. Without taking much notice of where I was going, I walked out of the cathedral, through a side door, finding myself not in the square but in a kind of small courtyard. I took out my mobile from my pocket, and the piece of paper on which Mick had written his number. I hesitated. Should I try Daniel first? But even if he had his mobile with him, and was allowed to take calls despite being under arrest – what would I say to him? The words would dry up in my throat.

So I took a deep breath, and dialled Mick's number. He answered almost immediately. He said, ‘Sylvie. I was hoping it was you. What's up?'

‘It's ... it's Daniel,' I said, and then my throat did dry up, and I could only stammer out a word or two about the ambulance and the police cars – nothing coherent or helpful at all.

Mick said, ‘Where are you? Don't move, I'm still in town, I'll come straightaway,' and then he rang off and I felt suddenly so much better, though just for an instant, because then the terrible images raced into my head again and I thought I'd be sick.

He must have been less than five minutes, but it felt like an eternity. A few people came into the courtyard and stared a bit at me but to my relief they said nothing, instead either going to the loos, which were in one corner, or continuing on through another door into a room that led on to the cloisters, which are much bigger courtyard gardens set around with carved pillars, where the monks and priests and so on used to walk. I'd seen a sign for the cloisters before, and Freddy had told Claire and me that they were worth visiting too. But you had to pay money to visit, and so I hadn't bothered that first day.

I was filling my head with trivial stuff like that cos I didn't want to think about all that had happened. It was best not to until I'd spoken with Mick, because I couldn't trust myself to think at all clearly on the subject or begin to plan anything at all. But as soon as I saw his white-blond head poke around the corner, I rushed over to him and hugged him tight, and he hugged me back, looking a bit surprised, as you might imagine. He was still wearing his sunglasses, but he pushed them up so I could see directly into his eyes, which were full of anxiety and kindness and something else I didn't want to think about right now.

He pushed me gently from him and said, ‘Now tell me properly. What happened? Slowly, Sylvie.'

So I started telling him – jerkily at first and then a bit more fluently. When I'd finished, he said, ‘My God. So that's who it was. I heard the sirens.'

‘We've got to do something, Mick. About Gabriel.'

‘Gabriel?' he said, looking at me in a startled sort of way. ‘I thought it was Daniel.'

‘Yes. Later. I don't know what to do about that. Not right now. Not until I know what happened to Pilar. It's Gabriel, though, Mick. He'll be on his own. At least, just with the maid. The cook. The police. He'll be frightened. Upset.'

‘Mmm,' he said. ‘I see what you mean. Of course. What do you think we should do?'

‘I thought maybe you – you speak much better French than me. You can talk to the police, maybe get them to understand that Gabriel needs me, that he knows me–'

‘I expect they'll be sending a social worker to look after him,' he said gently.

‘Oh, no, Mick, that's not the same! That'll be a stranger, and I'm not ... surely they can just let me comfort him, be there for him a bit. That's not breaking the law and, besides, a social worker might take ages to come – and meanwhile he'll be alone, the poor little boy.'

‘Of course,' he said. ‘Okay, let's go there. I'll do what I can. I can't promise anything, okay, cos the police can be pretty hard-headed – but we can try, okay?'

‘Oh, Mick, you're an angel!' I said, and impulsively kissed him on the cheek.

Something flickered in his eyes. ‘Yeah, well, I was named after one of them, eh?' he said, and then he took my hand and I didn't pull it away but, glad of his friendly touch, followed him out of the courtyard.

When we got back to Daniel's house, the same burly policeman was standing at the door, but there were other cars pulled up outside too – another police car, and a white van – and the crowd outside had grown too. There was a bald fat man in a rumpled suit, holding a notebook, who I took to be media of some sort and he stared at us and scribbled in his book as we hurried through the crowd towards the policeman.

Mick tried. He really did. But it was no good. The policeman refused point-blank to let us in no matter what and another policeman came out and told us the same thing. They wouldn't tell us anything and so we gave up. We were walking back towards my house when we heard footsteps behind us and turned to see the man with the notebook hurrying after us.

‘Monsieur, mademoiselle,'
he puffed.
‘Je peux vous parler?'
Can I talk to you?

‘Je suis journaliste,'
he went on when we didn't answer, and I was just saying, to Mick, ‘God, let's go, I don't want to speak to a journalist, no way,' when he interrupted me, saying, in French-accented but passable English, ‘Look, I hear there is a kidnap in that house. A child taken. But there is no more information. The police will not speak. I see you go to them. Are you family? Friends? Neighbours? Do you know more? Please?'

We stared at him, stunned. I said, feebly, ‘What did you say?'

‘A child was kidnapped,' he said, patiently, looking at us oddly. ‘The woman looking after him was attacked by the criminals and is gravely injured.'

‘His brother?' I croaked. The reporter's eyes lit up at once.

‘You know them, then, mademoiselle? I have heard they are important people. Foreigners. Tell me, who are they exactly? What's the story? I have heard that once they'd taken the boy, the kidnappers released a statement to the police saying they'd done it. That is strange, is it not? Usually kidnappers tell the family not to tell anyone. But they didn't work it that way at all. Now it is the police who are desperate to keep it from the media. They confirm the kidnap but nothing else. They have threatened my editor with dire consequences if he prints anything. But I'm independent, so I can go sniffing around. They might stop us printing but they can't stop me finding out. Go on, tell me what you know.'

‘Don't say anything, Sylvie,' said Mick sharply. ‘He's a chancer.'

‘I can pay, if that's what you're worried about,' said the reporter with a nasty smile. He took out his wallet. But he never had a chance to pull out any money because Mick whirled round and took a wild swing at him. It didn't connect but the man dropped his wallet and backed away, growling, ‘What the hell's the matter with you, young madman?'

Mick picked up the wallet and flung it at him. ‘Get lost, you revolting vampire!' he shouted. ‘And don't let me catch you near her again,' he yelled, looking so fierce that the man didn't stop to argue any more, but shambled off, mumbling darkly about ‘young idiots'.

‘Jeez, journalists are the pits,' said Mick, putting an arm around me. ‘You okay, Sylvie?'

‘No, not really.' The little scene with the journalist had been absurd, but that wasn't what made my teeth chatter and my head swim. I said, ‘Gabriel, my God, Mick – Gabriel. Do you think it's true?'

‘I don't see why he should have lied,' said Mick. ‘It must be what happened.' He looked at me. ‘Well, at least–' He broke off.

‘At least what?'

‘Daniel's off the hook, isn't he? You were afraid he'd hurt the nanny.'

‘Yes,' I said, a hollowness in the pit of my stomach. I knew what it was. It was shame. Shame that I had believed Daniel was capable of doing something like that to someone – that ignorantly I'd spun a whole horrible story out of what I'd seen and the dark fear washed over me again.

‘But why would they take him away like that? The police, I mean?'

‘To ask him questions, I suppose.'

‘But they can't think–'

‘That he had anything to do with the kidnap of his own brother? I don't know. But I doubt it. Why should he do such a terrible thing?'

I shook my head, feeling wretchedly ashamed. ‘But the way they were taking him away...'