‘Nothing important.’ He lifted his cigarette. ‘Like I said, it’s just a hunch. Simon’s paranoia rubbing off again, most likely. Gypsies, Nazis, treasures in the tunnels …’ He smiled. ‘This really is a case for Sherlock Holmes.’
‘Well, don’t get too carried away with your investigations,’ I implored him. ‘I’d hate for you to spoil your whole holiday on my account.’
‘Don’t worry so much,’ was his advice. ‘I’m hardly spoiling my holiday. Here.’ He handed me a hunk of bread. ‘Feed the ducks.’
When all the bread was gone, he stretched and checked his watch. ‘I’d better go find my brother. He said something about having lunch with Christian – I don’t know. Simon thinks that every German is an expert on the Nazi empire.’ Paul smiled. ‘He never gives up, my brother. He’s bound and determined to find one of those treasures, before we leave.’
‘You might never leave, then.’
‘Suits me. Hey, are you going back to the hotel? Could you take this with you?’ He shrugged his jacket off and held it up to me. ‘It’s getting kind of warm, with all this sun.’
‘Sure. Paul …’ I frowned. ‘I know you like playing detective and all that, but you will be careful, won’t you?’
‘What could happen?’ Paul stood up, pitching his spent cigarette away. The breeze caught it and sent it tumbling down the steps into the brackish water, where it landed with a soft and final hiss. For a brief instant, with the sun at his back, he looked like some young hero from the Old Testament, a David yearning for the battlefield. But then I blinked and there was only Paul, with his black hair flopped untidily across his forehead and his dark eyes deep and quiet as the river at our feet. ‘I’ll be careful,’ he promised. ‘Want to meet for drinks in the hotel bar? Say, three o’clock?’
‘OK.’ I climbed with him to the top of the sloping steps and leaned, half sitting, on the low stone wall, watching him walk back towards the market place. At the other side of the zebra crossing he turned back, grinning, and called out something that I didn’t catch. He seemed to be pointing at the Rabelais statue beside me, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I nodded anyway, and waved. Satisfied, he turned away again and vanished in the crowd.
My cigarette had burned down nearly to the filter. It left an acrid bitter taste upon my tongue, and I bent to crush it out against the wall, holding the torn stub lightly in my fingers while I looked round for a litter bin. There was one not far from me, at the edge of the busy road. Gathering Paul’s jacket in my free hand, I pulled myself away from the river wall with a small sigh, and wandered the few steps forward.
The jacket felt a good deal heavier than it ought to have been. It hung awkwardly to one side, and for a moment I thought he’d left his wallet in it, until one pocket gaped to reveal the dog-eared pages of a thickish paperback, with a cracked disfigured cover. I was smiling as I tossed my dead bit of cigarette into the bin.
The prickling at the back of my neck was my only warning. I barely turned in time to see the gypsy step from the shadow of the brooding statue and cross the boulevard, walking back towards the market square. He didn’t look at me. I might have been a ghost, invisible. Paranoia, I thought, was a sign of creeping age; and yet I did feel more at ease when man and dog had disappeared, and the shifting sea of faces swirled and flowed to fill the wake behind them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
… the heralds to and fro,
With message and defiance, went and came;
Thierry set my second kir on the low table at my knees, propped one foot against the carpeted step up to my section, and picked up his story where he’d left off. ‘… and they cannot eat or bathe, or do anything for pleasure – not until the sun has set, tomorrow night. It is a most important holiday. Paul calls it Yom … Yom …’
‘Yom Kippur?’
‘Yes, that is it.’ Thierry nodded. ‘The Day of Atonement. Paul says it is a day for remembering the dead, and for confessing sins.’
‘I see.’ I took a sip of my drink. ‘And this begins tonight, then, does it?’
‘When the sun goes down, yes. Paul and Simon, they will have to eat like giants before then, if they are to fast all day tomorrow.’ Thierry placed a sympathetic hand on his own flat stomach. ‘I would not like to be a Jew, I think.’
‘Didn’t you ever fast for Lent?’
His dark eyes danced with mischief. ‘My sins, they are so many, Mademoiselle – the fasting, it would do no good. Besides,’ he added, ‘the Jewish holiday is more than just not eating. Paul says it is forbidden to be angry, or to hold an argument, or to think bad thoughts about someone. It is not possible.’ He dismissed the notion with a ‘pouf’. ‘Not if I must serve Madame Whitaker.’
One level up, the violin ran through a series of scales and then began its mournful song. Thierry frowned. ‘He has not listened to me, what I said. He plays today the love song.’
Sure enough, the strains of the Salut d’Amour came drifting down the empty stairwell and into the bar. I tried to shut it out, leaning back in my chair. ‘Where is Madame Whitaker today, anyway?’ I asked Thierry. ‘I haven’t seen her at all. Does she have another headache?’
He shook his head. ‘She has gone with my aunt and uncle, to see the church at Candes-St-Martin. It is a nice church, very old.’