The Marks of Cain Page 18

‘Yes, David. When Fischer had the results of my tests, they moved me from the Basque barracks to the Cagot division. The Nazis were obsessed with getting these…categories right. This race over here, this race in there. The Jews over there. They were like fussy old women. The racial hierarchy. Vile! But I was so ashamed of what they did to me, so ashamed.’ José wiped another tear with the back of his liver-spotted hand, and stared at David. ‘I was raised to…to despise, no, to abjure the Cagots. We Basques knew what it was like to be pariahs, to be a minority. We sympathized with the Cagots, yes. But still in our hearts, like the French and the Spanish, we thought the Cagots were lower, like the rats and the snakes. The shit people! Something wrong with them!’

  ‘So Fischer told you that your blood was Cagot, not Basque. Then the Nazis put you in the Cagot section at the camp. But what happened then, José, how –’

  ‘In the barracks I spoke with many Cagots. They told me of this house. They told me of many things about their people. My people. I tried to make them my people, I tried to believe they were my brothers, but –’

  ‘You were too ashamed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  David felt the logic of the terrible story unfolding.

  ‘So what did you do, José? Did you deny them?’

  ‘That is the good word. Deny. Yes I denied my blood. Because I wanted to live. In the camp the priests and the Nazis were especially cruel to the Cagots; the priests called them the sons of Cain and they tortured and killed them more than anyone else, so yes I wanted to be Basque again, just to save my life. And I was raised as a Basque, I still felt I was a Basque in my soul.’

  ‘So you went to Eugen Fischer?’

  ‘I went to Fischer and the other doctors. I told them that if they pretended – forgot – pretended I was not Cagot, if they gave me back my Basque identity, I would help them.’

  ‘How?’

  The old man looked at the pitiful fire.

  ‘I was a very young man, in my mid-teens, but I was a well known Basque radical. I had influence with the other young Basques in the camp. The real Basques.’ He lifted his bitter gaze to David’s. ‘The Basques are a very brave nation, rebellious, indomitable. They were always brawling in the camp, fighting the Nazis, making things difficult for Fischer, trying to escape.’ José shook his head. ‘So I became a traitor to them. Yes a traitor. I told Fischer I would use my influence, make his work easier. I would persuade the Basques to cooperate. But only if he took me out of the Cagot division and gave me back my blood.’

  ‘And that’s what he did?’

  José’s voice dwindled to a whisper, once more.

  ‘That is what happened. They pretended they had put me in the Cagot barracks by mistake. So I was restored, I was made a Basque once more! And then I used my influence. To…help Eugen Fischer do his terrible experiments…I persuaded other people to let Fischer test them. And so Fischer became a kind of friend to me. He told me too much. He told me of the Jews…’

  ‘What? What of the Jews?’

  José regarded David.

  ‘The Holocaust. Eugen Fischer told me – why the Germans did what they did. The truth of the Holocaust. That is all I can say.’

  ‘What?’

  José’s eyes were fluttering. Almost as if he was falling asleep. David reckoned the old man must be exhausted: confessing these murderous and long-buried secrets. He let go of José’s arm. But continued the questioning:

  ‘José, I need to know about Miguel. All this is the reason Miguel killed my parents. Right? He is ashamed of his Cagot blood. Yes?’

  ‘Yes. This is the worst mistake I ever made. I told my son the truth, when he was maybe nineteen. He never forgave me. He was so proud to be Basque up to then. The great ETA activist…’

  ‘So he was angry. And he thought my mother and father…were about to uncover his shame.’

  ‘Sı.’

  ‘And then he finds out I am on the same chase. And he needs to kill me, too.’

  The wind rattled the dusty glass in the windows.

  ‘Sı sı. It is so.’ José grimaced. ‘But there is still more…Davido.’

  ‘My grandfather, you mean?’ David felt the question hanging in the air, like the dampness of the house. A revenant of the past. A ghost he had to exorcise. ‘Tell me, José. Was my grandfather…was he also a collaborator?’

  ‘No!’ The reply was fierce. ‘Do not think that! Your grandfather was a good man. No…I mean Miguel.’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘There is something strange and terrible about my son. You must be very careful. Sometimes I have thought about killing him myself. Before he kills me. Before he kills everyone. He will kill me one day.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It is the way he is made. By God. My son is…bad to the bone. Is that the phrase? And yet I love him. He is my son. Remember I am so old, I thought I would never have a child, but then young Fermina…we had a baby. A son. We were so happy. Ena semea…’

  The old man’s eyes were bright, for the first time in days; then they dimmed over again, dimmed unto darkness.

  ‘But as he grew up…we realized he has the true shame of the Cagots. The true shame. But he is big and strong and clever. And he has friends, helpers. Powerful people you do not understand. The Society.’

  ‘What is the Society?’

  ‘No. I cannot say. Enough. Please.’ The tears were rolling now. ‘Leave me this last shame to conceal.’ José wiped the smears of the elver grease from his mouth. ‘I have told you far far too much. Too much, too late. If I tell you more no one will let you live. Because the secret Miguel is protecting is not just about me, about me and him and the Cagots. It is far far deeper than that, Davido, it is so terrible and dangerous, for us all, for all la humanidad. The secret will get you killed, if not by Miguel then by someone else. His friends. The Society. Anyone.’ The old man looked, hard, at David. ‘You understand? I am saving your life by not telling you any more!’

  This was more than perplexing. It was bizarre. David sat in the half-lit dampness, trying to work it out. The rain was still nailing slates on the roof. Through the window he could see the fog, the votive mist summoned from the forests by the downpour; the streams were brawling down the slopes, to join the torrential Adour.

  David tried again, one more question. But José was resolutely unforthcoming. The old man, it seemed, had had enough.

  Silence.

  It was all an intense frustration, he had so many more questions. The death of his parents. Where the money came from. What was this about the Holocaust? What secret was so terrible it meant inevitable death?

  Yet he wasn’t going to get more answers, at least not now.

  The door was thrown open: it was Fermina. The anger in her was blazing, she was shrieking at José, her bangles jangling, she was almost beating him with her words.

  Her ferocious monologue was in Basque and Spanish, and yet the meaning was clear, she was asking José: what have you told him? You fool. What secrets have you revealed?

  And then, in front of David, the younger wife came over – and she slapped the old husband – contemptuously.

  José cowered under the blow, unresisting.

  David was paralyzed by this ghastly scene. He watched, mute and inert, as Fermina slapped José twice, then grabbed her husband’s frail hand, and hauled him to his feet – and dragged him from the room like a naughty infant. The door slammed. The stairs creaked.

  Alone by the hearth of the old Cagot house, David heard another door slam, upstairs. The whole building shuddered in response; the dew-heavy cobwebs trembled along the cornices, dust motes flittered, unhappily, from room to room.

  23

  The light was sickly. Simon got up and walked to the window, pulled the curtains. He was greeted by the relatively quiet traffic of mid-morning. Twisting the watch on his wrist, he checked the time. It was nearly 11 a.m.; after a night of fraught insomnia, he had finally and evidently slept.

  The silence from do
wnstairs told him that he had missed Suzie and his son. He must have slept through it all – as she made breakfast, got Conor dressed, then took him to nursery school, before heading off for her own shift at the hospital.

  He felt the acid reflux of fear and guilt. Again. The same feelings he had all night, the same feelings he’d had all week. Maybe he would never sleep well again? Not without a drink. Not without many drinks. He was scared, and guilty. And very very bored. He no longer had a role. Following Fazackerly’s murder the Telegraph editor had taken Simon off the story, because it was all getting too hairy. What if they come for you next, Simon? What if your articles are tipping off the killers?

  Lonely at the window, the journalist stared as the vehicles blurred past. One car raced to the lights then halted with a squeal. Simon got the usual surge of parental anger: slow down, you bastard, I have a little son. And then again he felt the pang of guilt: who was really threatening his son? Really? Who was endangering his young life? Who had brought death and mayhem so close to the family home?

  Him. The father. The ambitious careerist. Him.

  Simon knew he was in peril. Right now he wanted a drink more than he had in years. He was risking his hard-won sobriety. But what was he meant to do? He didn’t have the motivation to get to a NA meeting. Yet he was bored and guilty, and scared.

  Stepping into the bathroom, he showered in very hot water, brushed his teeth, chucked on some clothes and returned to the bedroom, feeling very slightly better.

  Maybe it wasn’t his fault.

  Of course it was his fault.

  Maybe it wasn’t all his fault.

  Opening his laptop, going online, he looked yet again at the emails from Tomasky and Sanderson, discussing Fazackerly’s death, the strange parade of events and aftermath.

  A few moments after he had found the professor, parboiled in his own laboratory oven, the police had rushed in, alerted by Simon’s own call. They had swiftly escorted the stammering journalist away, then they had debriefed him, calmed him, interviewed him, they had even donated him a session or two with trauma specialists in the following days.

  But Simon was still troubled by the appalling scene in the GenoMap lab, and he had sought succour and solace by emailing and telephoning questions to the detectives. He found Tomasky the best sounding board: the cheerful Pole had a sincere Catholic faith which helped; he had a dark Slavic yet Londony humour which also assisted: salty asides about death, which ‘was about as bad as a weekend in Katowice’.

  Tomasky and Sanderson had tried to explain the ‘logic’ of Fazackerly’s death to Simon, that killing him in the microwave was clever, and brutally efficient: silent and swift, leaving no gunshot wounds, no DNA evidence. The killers’ only bad luck was that Fazackerly’s powerful cellphone could get a signal inside a metal box.

  And yet. It still seemed like a grotesque medieval torture to Simon – being boiled alive in a microwave. Your blood plasma literally boiling in your veins.

  He shut down the emails with a heartfelt sigh. The thought of blood reminded him of his brother; the memory of his brother was perturbing and yet energizing. Right this minute, his brother was locked away. Simon was therefore the only Quinn with offspring and a future. He had a responsibility. To earn and work and pass on his name.

  And now Simon felt a surge of returning pride, self-esteem – even anger.

  To hell with this. He needed to shape up: Fazackerly’s death wasn’t his fault. So his articles may have pointed the killers in the direction of the professor; equally, they may not. Whatever the case: he, the journalist, was just doing his job, being a hack. Following the lead. His soul agonized for the danger to his family – but how else was he meant to feed them?

  There was no other means: this was his career. But that still left the practical problem. How was he going to feed his family now? He was a freelancer, who lived off stories – but he’d been kicked off his best ever story. And now he had nothing else to do, nothing to write. No other commissions. What was he supposed to do today, tomorrow, next week? Go back to writing accounts of petty crime?

  Idly, he Googled ‘witch murders’, just to see if there were any developments. Just in case.

  The news this morning was subdued, compared to the furore that had greeted Fazackerly’s murder last week: just one or two follow-up pieces. An American website was rehashing the entire chain of bizarre events for the delectation of its more prurient readers. Simon noted this American journalist had actually stolen some of Simon’s lines, and shamelessly used Simon’s quotes from Fazackerly.

  Bastards.

  He sipped water. And then he had an idea. Quite a fetching idea. There was nothing to stop him following the clues, chasing up leads, even if he actually wrote zero. He could still write, and research – if only for his own satisfaction. And even if he was barred from daily journalism on the story, at the end he could…do a book? Yes! If he had all the notes he could still write a book. And then he could make some real money, when it was all over. He could do a job and feed his wife and son and pay his debt to his conscience, and the bank, without annoying his editor, or the cops.

  Simon flexed his fingers. Then he attacked the search engines.

  The trick he deployed was one of his favourites when he was on a complex investigative story and he needed new leads: he would throw randomly associated phrases into the internet and online newsfeeds, juggling quote marks, seeing what came out.

  For two hours he toyed with words. He tried various combinations of Scottish and Killing and Nairn, GenoMap and Fazackerly and Basque.

  Nothing.

  He tried some more.

  Syndactyly, Witch, Cagot, Inheritance, Murder, Canaan…

  Nothing.

  He tried one more time, a whole host of words: Scoring, French, Nazi, Burning, Deformity, Torture, Genetic, Homicide, Gascony, Bequest…

  And…There! Yes. He’d lucked out: two possibly related news items. Two.

  The first was a murder in Quebec. A Canadian news website gave a brief resume. A very old woman had been killed three weeks ago in her house just outside Montreal. The woman had been shot, for no apparent reason. It was the very last line of the report that really made him pay attention: the woman was apparently Basque, and as a young girl she had been interned in a Nazi concentration camp. In Gurs. The French Basque Country. The murder was a total mystery, as nothing had been stolen, despite the victim’s wealth.

  This had to be linked. Had to. Even if it wasn’t, it needed more investigating. He wrote down the details on his pad, then turned to the next news item. The article had been carried by a couple of newsfeeds a few weeks ago.

  The headline was: ‘Bizarre Bequest Leads to Million Dollar Basque Mystery’

  A thirty-something man called David Martinez was staring out of a photo: he was holding a map. Martinez had an awkward grin in the photo, as he brandished the map, a kind of uncomfortable smile. The article said the map showed places in the Basque Country. Moreover it said the young man’s grandfather had died and left him two million dollars – and according to the newspaper this had come as a complete surprise.

  Simon scanned the article, feeling quite alive with excitement. He didn’t want a drink any more. He wanted to know what this was about: a link to the Basques, a mysterious amount of money, a very old man – thousands of miles away – now dead.

  The article gave him almost everything: it even explained that David Martinez had been a lawyer in London prior to his inheriting this mysterious sum.

  It took two minutes on the net to find out the ‘well known law company’ where David Martinez had worked: there were lists of lawyers of every company.

  Walking to the window, Simon called Martinez’s firm on his mobile. A clipped voice requested his name and credentials, he handed them over: Simon Quinn from the Daily Telegraph.

  He was batted around the system for a few moments, put on hold, put through to HR, put back on hold…but then he reached a superlatively snooty man, apparentl
y David Martinez’s boss, Roland De Villiers, who was more than keen to hand out Martinez’s mobile number. The boss actually added, for good measure, ‘I do hope he’s in trouble.’

  The call clicked off, abruptly.

  Simon looked at his notepad, resting on the windowsill. It was a British number that the lawyer had airily handed over. He keyed the numbers, but the ensuing ringtone was long bleeps – indicating that this guy Martinez was abroad – in Spain maybe?

  Then a hesitant voice came down the satellite.

  ‘Yes…Who is this?’

  24

  The smell of congealed eels hung in the air. Mist was sidling into the room stealthy and needy. David sat in the silence and the chill, wondering at José’s words. Then he welcomed the return of his wits. He needed to speak to Amy. To tell her all of this.

  ‘Amy!’

  His voice echoed. He tried again.

  ‘Amy?’

  Where was she? He hadn’t seen her for an hour. It was hard to believe she was outside in the rain.

  He called again. His voice bounced off the mouldering woodwork, and down the empty corridor. Nothing.

  A swift search told him there was no one on the ground floor: all he could hear was the incessant skitter of rat tails, as the vermin fled his approach through each unsavoury chamber.

  How about the room they shared? He and Amy? Where they had talked through the night?

  He had to take the stairs; he had to go up the stairs. The pounding of his feet matched the pounding of his pulse as he called Amy’s name again – nothing, the hallway was empty.

  He pushed the door and as he did his mind filled: the imagined scene of his parents, dying in their car, came suddenly and vividly into mental view. His mother’s head crushed, blood drooling politely from her slackened mouth…

  Maybe the same had happened to Amy. Everyone close to him was taken away: everyone.

  David scanned the room he and Amy had shared. Empty. It was bereft even of rats, or ravens cackling at the window. The bunks were still shifted together; the old picture of a Jesuit saint was still askew on the peeling wall. Slumlike dampness seeped from the ceiling.