mobile. When Simon pressed Accept, the worry in his chest was like an incipient heart attack. Only his wife had this new number. What had happened?
But it was David.
‘Simon…Where are you? Suzie gave me the new number.’
The journalist looked around. At the grey concrete walls. Patched with ugly dampness. He stepped outside into the corridor, to get a better signal.
‘I’m in that monastery.’
‘With the archives?’
‘Well I hope so, David. I hope so.’
A monk came striding down the corridor. A wooden cross hung around his neck, contrasting with the surfing T-shirt underneath. He smiled, vacantly, at Simon. Who smiled keenly in return.
David was whispering into the phone. ‘We’re going to Namibia. Now.’
‘Eloise is already there? Correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. Well…’ The journalist sighed. ‘Please be careful. It’s, ah, clearly ludicrous. You’re being pursued by a bloody madman. But…Be careful!’
A silence. Then David said: ‘Same for you, Simon. I know I never met you, but…y’know…take care of yourself?’
‘Thank you.’
The journalist closed the call. And began his exploration of the building. Le Priore de Sainte Marie de La Tourette.
Two hours of wandering told him that the rest of La Tourette was as bizarre, and intimidating, as the cells. Odd doors opened into misshapen rooms. Occasional skylights showed the grey clouds from startling angles. Concrete joists thrust into empty space: they seemed to have no purpose other than to knock an unwary pilgrim on the head.
It was intriguing enough, but also disappointing. There was no intimation of mystery, no sense of any concealed archives. And the library was just a library – on the third floor of the building. It was not hidden at all and the contents were thoroughly ordinary. There were no ancient texts chained to shelves. No papal parchments in mahogany chests. No musty manuscripts bound in goatskin. There was nothing but racks of regular books and large metal tables. Even a drinks machine.
It felt positively municipal.
Sighing, heavily, Simon sat down at one of the tables, to search in some of the books – but his lifeless research was interrupted by another phone call.
Why so many?
He stepped outside into another bleak concrete corridor.
It was Bill Fanthorpe, the psychiatrist from St Hilary.
‘Hi, Bill, I –’
‘Hello, Simon. I’m sorry to bother you. But…’ The doctor’s voice was tinged with anxiety.
‘What is it, Bill?’
‘I’m afraid Tim has disappeared.’
A faint rumble echoed through the building. The sound of the Lyon–Paris TGV rumbling in the forested distance.
‘Disappeared?’
‘Yes. But please do not concern yourself, not overly.’
‘Jesus. Bill –’
‘This happens all the time, of course.’ Fanthorpe’s tone of worry had quickly faded, replaced by studied calmness. ‘Schizophrenics can be exceptionally perambulatory. And of course Tim wandered off before, two years ago.’
‘But when? When did he run away? How?’
The doctor hesitated.
‘We think last night. As I was saying –’ A thoughtful pause. ‘I understand you have personal concerns for the safety of your family. Your wife told me. Therefore…We have been in touch with the police but they assure us there is no question of…’ Another, slightly awkward pause. ‘No question of foul play, as it were. But it was a serious lapse in security. My apologies.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Please. Calm down. We will find him. Quite likely by tonight. Just as we found him the last time.’
Simon stared at the damp grey patch on the opposite concrete wall. This was all his fault. He had run off. He had left his family unprotected for no good reason. Why was he even here?
He had quit the house in the early morning, not telling the cops what he was doing – taking a taxi, then the train, then the first plane from Heathrow to Lyon – just so he could chase the wildest of geese, the ludicrous dream that he was some Watergating superjournalist, going to crack the biggest story in a decade.
What a fool he had been. In reality he was just a second-division crime reporter, already in his forties, who’d wasted too many years on booze, and was all-too-desperate to catch up with his peers, by pursuing some deluded fantasy. He was going nowhere. And his brother was now…escaped, on the run, in the wilds. Doing what? How was he surviving?
Now he thought of Tomasky; he tried not to think about Tomasky. Tried very hard.
With a jolt, he realized he was still holding the phone in his hand – and Bill Fanthorpe was still on the line. He apologized to the doctor, rang off, and instantly called his wife.
She confirmed what Fanthorpe had said: it seemed innocent enough, Tim had indeed just wandered