‘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 downstairs 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?