‘Typical man. What can you do.’ Angus gazed at nothing, then went on: ‘So, I suspect, Miguel has some obscure combination of Klein Levin and Hallervorden-Spatz syndromes, not unknown to the average Cagot. This syndrome will get worse over time. And one of the psychosexual symptoms can be anthrophagy. Cannibalism! I realized he had cannibalist urges when I saw him sniffing the smoke…last night.’
David checked the mirror: there was some obvious and shocking sadness in the Scotsman’s aggressive humour, his determined smile.
Amy said: ‘So that’s why the euphorbia worked.’
‘Exactly. After I watched him with poor Alfie, I knew he would want to sniff the smoke again, the smell of burning…human flesh. I realized he would do that when they started to toast you, David. Wouldn’t be able to resist.’
‘And euphorbia?’
‘Euphorbia virosa. Also known as Bushman’s poison. Eating the leaves will kill you quickly. The woodsmoke can kill over time and knock you out very quickly. My gamble was that Miguel would step forward and inhale, try and smell the delicious scent.’
David felt a profound queasiness, like vertigo:
‘But Angus. If Miguel hadn’t stepped forward and…inhaled…the euphorbia smoke would have killed me.’
‘Yes, well. I figured you wouldn’t mind dying quicker by poison rather than waiting to be chargrilled.’
The car was quiet. The old dirt track turned onto a proper road. Black and tarmacked and murderously straight: like a fine needle of jet pointing due south. The sun was azimuthal in the sky, the shapes of running ostriches spotted the far and desolate horizon. David thought of his frail grandfather, back at the hospice in the desert: desolada, desolada, desolada.
The sadness and shame of his grandfather; the terrible fate of his parents.
Amy spoke: ‘Where are we going?’
‘Rehoboth. City of the Bastards.’
‘Sorry?’
David checked in the mirror, Angus was still wearing that odd, cocky smile.
‘I’m going to see Alphonse’s mother, just for a minute. To tell her what happened. Alphonse was a Baster. A Bastard. His mother lives in Rehoboth and we need to get there soon because Miguel is not dead and his men will find a way out of the desert and they will come to the Sperrgebiet, they will come for Eloise –’
Amy interjected: ‘Why didn’t he believe you? When you told him Eloise was in the Forbidden Zone? Why did he continue to…do what he did? He had his answer.’
Angus scoffed.
‘You still don’t see? This man is driven by his shameful urges, his Cagot cannibalism. Probably he has kept a hold on it for years, but as the syndrome worsens the most primal and evil of his desires are surfacing –’
‘He bit the hand of the Cagot woman he killed in Gurs. Eloise’s grandmother. The cop called it “experimental” –’
‘There you are. In one. He’s yielding to these base desires, at last, as he goes finally mad. The syndrome tightens and grips. You can overtake this car – we need to keep moving.’
It was the first vehicle they had seen in an hour. David sped by, the car driver was a big, German-looking man. Who flashed his headlights as they passed: two blinks of silver in the shimmering heat.
Angus continued: ‘So you see, Miguel used our predicament as an excuse to…cook someone. He had his answer but his impulses were predominant. What he really wanted was human flesh. As much as possible. A chance to feed his worst urges. He couldn’t help himself.’
‘And now?’
‘He will be after Eloise. He still has a job to do, after all. Destroy the experiments and stop our tests and then kill Eloise, the last of the Cagots.’
A terrible thought struck David.
‘Angus…Is Eloise also mad?’
‘No. Not every Cagot suffers these syndromes. She’s fine. And plenty of Cagots are – or were – perfectly healthy. Especially at the beginning of their…isolation.’
‘But then?’
‘As the gene pool dried up, over centuries, the bad genetic stuff recrudesced, healthier Cagots became rarer, and so the poor mad Cagots were shunned with ever greater severity, as a pariah tribe, and so the vicious genetic circle tightened. They were forced to inbreed, due to lack of partners; perhaps they were reduced to incest. Thus creating more cannibals and cretins and web-toed rapists. We better get petrol.’
The fuel station was a sudden outpost of sophisticated business in the bleak empty desert. One minivan was decanting half a dozen nuns, black nuns with smiling black faces, laughing. A couple of motorbikers were sitting in the shade, pouring bottles of water over their sunburned foreheads.
Watered and refuelled, they bought nuts and wizened apples and sticks