might have finished on a query. But the answer was obvious, to Simon. Form follows function: that was Le Corbusier’s lifelong belief. The function of this building was maybe to shelter facts, maybe appalling facts. The building was a subtly authentic statement of that sinister function. Herein lies evil. Do not come near. Like the vivid and offputting colouration of a poisonous insect.
He recalled Professor Winyard’s exact words about those vital documents: the materials relating to the blood tests of the Cagots and the burning of the Basque witches. The documents suppressed and hidden by the Papacy.
‘They were kept at the Angelicum, the Dominican University in Rome. For centuries they were safe. But then after the war, after the Nazis, they were felt to be less safe, too provocative. There are rumours that they were spirited away, to somewhere more secure. But no one knows where.’
No one knows where? Really? How about a strange Dominican monastery, built after the war, and associated with Vichy and the Nazis?
The mystery was now a nightflower, slowly opening beneath the moon. Scenting the midnight garden.
But he needed one more confirmation. He had to reach David Martinez and confirm the star on the map. Had to reach him now.
Simon tried to calm himself. He stood up, walked to the kitchen, and made himself a cup of camomile tea, as he had once heard that camomile tea was calming.
Fuck camomile tea. He hurled the tea in the sink, ran back to his study and pointlessly called Martinez’s phone number. The tone was dead. He tried again three seconds later, as if that would change something. The tone was dead. As he well knew, David had junked his phone: very sensibly.
So what now? Surely David Martinez would ring again at some point, from Biarritz, unless he was unable?
Simon paced his study, from one wall to the other. Fretting about David and Amy, trying not to remember the attack of Tomasky.
Walking from wall to wall took him three and a half seconds. Their house was so damnably tiny. It was way too small. Maybe if Simon cracked this remarkable story he could write that great book and buy a bigger house and…
Enough. Simon sat down at the computer and sent David Martinez an email. Then he exited his study, and joined his son on the sofa in the living room, and they watched, for the seventeenth time, Monsters, Inc.
Then they watched it again.
It was seven p.m. and Conor was in bed when his mobile rang – with a French number on the screen. Trying to convince himself that his heart wasn’t beating like a Burundi drum, Simon took the call.
‘Yes…hello?’
‘Simon?’
‘David? Thank God you called. Are you OK? Are you and Amy OK?’
‘Yes – we’re OK – we’re still in Biarritz, but we’re flying out. But what about y—’
‘Nothing. I’m fine, I mean, ah, there’s something I need to know.’ Simon felt guilty for cutting so brutally to the chase, but his anxiety allowed him no option. ‘David, tell me – do you have the map on you?’
‘Yeah, of course. Everyone wants to look at this map…’
‘Please. This is important. Get it out. You said there was
a star, marked near Lyon…’
‘That’s right. Near Lyon…We never managed to work out what it meant.’ ‘Please take another look.’
Simon could hear the obedient unfolding of paper, and traffic in the background. David was obviously using a land-line. An anonymous payphone in a little Basque city.
David came back on.
‘Here’s the star. What do you want to know?’
The moment of tension dilated.
‘Tell me,’ Simon said. ‘Where exactly it is. What, ah, village, what town…’
The journalist could almost hear David peering closely at the map.
David came back on.
‘It’s quite distinct. It’s next to a tiny village called Eveux.’
‘Eveux?’
A pause.
‘Yes, Eveux…that’s near L’Arbresle…northwest of Lyon.’ David’s voice was now sharpened. ‘Why do you want to know this?’
Simon didn’t answer, because he was stooping to look at his computer screen, at the entry on La Tourette. The website gave the monastery its full and sonorous French title.
Le Priore de Sainte Marie de La Tourette.
De Eveux-sur-L’Arbresle.
30
The hire car was slotted in row 3B of the airport car park at Lyon Saint Exupéry. Bags stowed, Simon pulled out into the midday traffic, and made for the autoroute that took him away from Lyon.
North along the Rhone valley.
He considered his moody impulsiveness. Was this all a mistake? He had asked Suzie what she thought of this journey, this sombre adventure; and she’d told him, with a certain languish in her