As they motored the last couple of kilometres Amy asked him: ‘Why didn’t you ever try and find out more? About the crash.’
He exhaled.
‘I was young…I wanted to shield myself. From the agony. The knowledge.’
‘That’s why you didn’t ever think that the map was connected.’
‘I guess. Yep. Denial. Erasure. Repression. I avoided the details. And the Andersons protected me from the truth. I was just fifteen – and alone.’
‘Understandable.’
‘Zakly. But now I have to think about it.’
David put the car into second as he watched a man cycling down a suburban lane. There was a red car at the end of the road. He stifled the duetting cries of his grief and anxiety.
They parked at the edge of central Navvarenx; they had no choice, it was a fortified and historic town and cars were, apparently, forbidden to drive inside the centre du ville. So they locked the car, and they walked.
A town map confronted them at the edge of an empty grey square. It revealed that they were near the church. The last few hundred metres brought them to the impressive frontage of Navvarenx Saint Germain. It was austere and grey, with hints of Gothic arches, but no more, like a fading memory of Gothic.
The interior was virtually deserted, just like the other churches. An old priest was stacking books by the chancel; David noticed a portrait on the wall above the priest’s balding head. He didn’t have to go over and read beneath the painting: the portrait was exactly the same as the one in Savin. The same severe Victorian visage, frowning, disapproving, contemptuous.
Pope Pius the Tenth.
The main door of the church banged shut behind them. Alerted by the noise, the priest turned – and he stared at David. He stared with a shock of recognition whitening his aged face.
David wanted to go and talk to the man. But the priest shuffled away, and shook his head, and continued his task, as if he were avoiding their gaze, manfully ignoring their presence. He returned to stacking books.
What was this? David fretted, impatient and scared. Was he imagining it? Perhaps he was letting paranoia take over. And yet he knew Miguel was after them right now. He knew this because his heartbeat was telling him: quick-ly, quick-ly, quick-ly.
David examined the church doors. Because the plural was correct, again. There were two doors.
Amy came over.
‘OK. Campan, Luz, Savin, Navvarenx. Two doors. Two doors each time. And two cemeteries. They’re all linked. But how…?’
He shrugged.
‘Two doors maybe you could explain, I guess – but two fonts, or stoups? Doesn’t make sense.’ He sighed. ‘And the symbol. The goose’s foot. I don’t get it.’
As urgent hiss interrupted their dialogue.
It was the priest.
The old man was at his side and tugging David’s sleeve: he was gabbling in thickly accented French, keenly, urgently, saying something important. His eyes were bloodshot and yellow, like tainted egg-yolk. David replied with a desperate, apologetic shrug: he didn’t understand!
Amy stepped over; she was frowning as she listened to the priest. Then she explained, and interpreted:
‘He says he…recognizes you. Very odd, he says they have been waiting for you. But now he sees your face he feels…different? He wants to know if your father was called…Edward…’
David shivered at the revelation. He looked first at Amy, then at the old man.
‘Yes. Edward! Eduardo Martinez. Why?’
The old priest was crossing himself, and repeating: ‘Eduardo Martinez…Eduardo Martinez…’
Amy listened closely and translated the priest’s further words. ‘Apparently you look just like your father. He says everyone in Navvarenx knows what happened, the accident…Oh…oh my God…’ Amy’s face was grave with sympathy. ‘David…I don’t how to put this, it was not an accident, it was…it was something else…’
‘Just tell me.’
‘He says your mother and father were murdered.’
Her blue eyes were wide with compassion. But he just wanted the truth.
‘Ask him…’ he said. ‘Please ask him if he will sit with us. And tell me more.’
The old priest looked fretful, even frightened, but he seemed to agree.
‘He says he knows a little more. But it is dangerous. The Society is waiting for us. He is meant to tell them. I’ve no idea what this means…He wonders…can we go somewhere else, discreet, right away?’
‘Merci!’ David snapped. ‘Thank you. Thank you!’
The three of them walked to the blaze of light – the open door. The larger door, which had banged shut behind them. Before they crossed into the light, Amy lifted a hand and said:
‘Stop.’
‘What?’
There was something defensive in Amy’s stance. Something very scared.