The Sixth Key(58)

Who goes about with nothing in their pockets?

He inspected the hands looking for an SS ring, or any evidence that he belonged to the Gestapo, but all he found was a small tattoo on the right wrist – an upside down anchor with a snake coiling around it in the shape of an S. He stood up straight, looking about. He didn’t know what any of it meant. The whole place smelt of congealed blood combined with urine and gasoline, and the smell caused a sudden rush and he barely made it outside before emptying the contents of his stomach onto the grass. He sat in the garden then, feeling dismal and confused, trying to get his bearings. He realised he was shaking from head to toe and got up to steady himself. He remembered now lying on the bed upstairs. He and Deodat had resolved to do something.

What was it?

Deodat! Where was Deodat?

He made his way back to the house, treading carefully, fearful that the murderer might be lurking somewhere inside. He took a furtive peek through the front door and saw that the place was a shambles: books, papers and cushions had been strewn over the Persian rugs; furniture lay overturned; and every drawer had been emptied of its contents by the look of it. Nothing was untouched. Rahn’s heart pounded, his head pounded, his ears pounded and his mouth was as dry as kindling and the bee was back, trying to find a way out of his head. A strange urge came over him then – he wanted to lie down. So what if there was a dead man in the barn, a murderer lying in wait in a ransacked house and he didn’t know where Deodat was? This was a dream and nothing more! Surely to sleep in a dream was to wake up in real life! He almost had himself believing it when he heard a noise.

At this point he remembered the scream – how could he have forgotten it? It sobered him, lifting the fog long enough for him to realise that someone was in the house. Perhaps Madame Sabine had come home? He edged his way to the kitchen. It was topsy-turvy but there seemed to be no one in it. He entered cautiously, looking this way and that. Something caught his leg then and tripped him, causing him to fall flat on his face.

He heard something drop and a gasp.

‘Monsieur Rahn!’

The world spun around itself, making the bee in his head angry. He felt someone turning him onto his back. ‘What are you . . . ?’ he began but forgot what he was going to say. ‘I’m so relieved to see you, I thought you were—’ It was Eva and she was helping him to sit up.

‘You thought I was . . . ?’ He looked at her, trying to focus. Her eyes expressed their concern in browns and golds.

‘Dead,’ she said, ‘or gone.’

‘Gone where?’

She helped him to a chair then found a glass that wasn’t broken and brought him water. He sipped at it but it made him nauseous. He paused a moment; that bee was in his ear now and the Eiffel Tower was still snowed under. He looked at the girl; she was in the same clothes from the night before. Her face was pale. She was obviously in shock for the second time in as many days and he knew he had to come to grips with himself – no good both of them being hors de combat. This thought seemed suddenly ludicrous and he nearly let go a nervous laugh – something completely inappropriate, he realised, given that there was a man in the barn wearing his tongue for a necktie.

‘My uncle’s house is like this too,’ she said, looking around.

‘When I got there this morning the whole thing had been turned inside out. I’m glad that I sent Giselle to stay with her family yesterday. I didn’t know what to do, so—’ she looked at him with those rounded eyes, ‘—I just drove around. At first I thought I might go to the gendarmerie at Carcassonne but last night the magistrate said to keep this between us for the time being. I remembered I had the magistrate’s phone number and address in my handbag so I tried to call but there was no answer. I resolved to come here. When I arrived I thought you were taken too.’

‘Taken where?’

‘I don’t know. I looked through the house before I looked in the barn. He’s not here. I found this – a note – in the kitchen.’

Rahn tried to read it but couldn’t bring his eyes together. Eva read it for him: ‘They are coming. Find it – don’t trust anyone.’

‘They’re coming!’ he said to Eva. ‘Who are they? Where have they taken him?’

‘I have no idea.’

Rahn paused to let this sink in. ‘I was passed out.’ He probed his head appreciatively. ‘I must have slept through the whole thing!’

‘You were concussed.’

‘You don’t say?’

‘No need to be sarcastic,’ she said.

He sensed an inappropriate hint of humour in her tone. He looked at the double image of her face and choosing one, he said to it, ‘I’ve been hit on the head with a candlestick and locked in the trunk of a car in which I was very nearly cremated. Then, having escaped what was to be my funeral pyre, I happen upon the body of a man whose head is hanging by a thread, and now I find out that my good friend is missing, that his house is ransacked and that his life may be in peril . . . I beg your pardon if I sound a little indisposé.’