‘And Miguel probably has his own strange urges, anyway. One or more of the nasty syndromes of the Cagots. The violent urges. Poor Cagot bastard. No doubt the church told its agents to despatch with swift efficiency. Yet when Miguel had a chance he snuck in a bit of medieval mutilation, couldn’t help himself…’

A large moth flickered in the lamplight: lanterns had been strung from trees around the camp. David gawped: ‘You knew it was…the church?’

‘Well, I presumed. Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I? Uh-huh?’

‘Actually,’ Any interjected, ‘it was the Society of Pius X.’

‘Aha. The Lovely Zealots.’ He slapped a hand down on the table, gleefully. ‘Chalk one up! I should have guessed. Bigtime zealots. With lots of money and powerful sympathizers. If not them then another church sect. Yep, the Catholic church was, as you know, one of the prime movers in the closing of Stanford; they hated us, too. Totally hated GenoMap. And of course, thinking about it, the Society would be the obvious people to do the dirty work for Il Papa. And I mean dirty work. Left footers versus web footers. Hah.’ He gulped beer, and continued. ‘Always fascinated me, the infinite human capacity for violence. Where does it come from? Frankly I blame the girls. The chicks. If it wasn’t for them men would just sit around having a nice pint and a chat about the fitba.’

‘Sorry? Girls?’ said Amy, a defensive tinge in her voice.

David stared at the Scotsman, who was chewing almost as fast as he was talking. Nairn was consuming an enormous meal; yet he was so skinny. Angular cheekbones, wild red hair, green eyes a-glitter in the gloaming of the semi desert.

‘Yep,’ he said, tearing off another fistful of flatbread. ‘Women. The female of the species. They’re the ones who guide human evolution. Via sexual selection, no? And how do they steer our evolution? Towards nastiness – by choosing nasty guys. True or not? OK, yes, they all pretend they like metrosexual chardonnay sippers but they really go for the ruffians, don’t they? The bastards, the bad boys, the Miguel Garovillos – and so these bastards reproduce and so the evolution of man tends towards ever greater cruelty, perhaps explaining the pageant of blood that is twentieth-century history.’ He burped. ‘Thank God I take the Tube not the bus.’

An animal barked in the gloomy depths beyond the camp. A jackal or a hyena. Angus was momentarily quiet, eating, drinking, smiling broadly and knowingly at Alphonse, his gracefully handsome helpmate. The rest of the camp dwellers seemed to have fled with the dying of the day. Disappeared unto their villages.

Amy was asking questions: ‘So Eloise is safe but you’re still camped out here. Why?’

‘Coz I’m testing the last racial variants.’ Angus shrugged, contented. ‘Dotting some genetic i’s and crossing some chromosomal t’s. And we’re nearly done. The Spanish fucking Inquisition are too late. I’ve got the Namibian blood tests in the car, ready to go.’ He slugged some Tafel and burped robustly. ‘We just have to pack up tomorrow, head down to the Sperrgebiet. Get to safety.’ A pause. ‘We’ve got all we need down there. Kellerman Namcorp have been preparing for this, for years, just in case they closed down GenoMap. We’ve been setting up parallel facilities, in the Sperrgebiet, so we could finish off, if it came to it.’ He chortled. ‘And so it goes. We need a few more days, do the last tests on Eloise, and…Canasta! The Fischer experiments are reiterated.’

He turned and looked solicitously at Alphonse. ‘Alphonse, have a bloody beer. You work too hard.’

‘Sure, Angus.’

‘Alfie, I mean it. C’m’ere.’ The Scotsman pulled the young ochre-skinned man towards him; Alphonse had glittering feline eyes, slender limbs. Angus kissed him on the lips.

Alphonse laughed, and pushed him away – ‘Mad Scotsman!’ he said, and gestured at the diminishing food. ‘Did you eat all the kudu…Again? You’ll get fat!’

‘Me? Get fat? As if.’ The Scotsman lifted his T-shirt and slapped his white stomach. ‘The six-pack of Apollo!’ Then he glared at Alphonse as he sat down again. ‘Don’t make fun, my little bambusen, or I shall be forced to wield the sjambok.’

‘No. No, sir. White massa he very kind. He give me de good job picken de cotton.’

The two men guffawed, then kissed again. Angus turned and offered Amy some of the kudu steak from the big steel bowl. David stared at Alphonse.

Angus was turning:

‘Jesus, jesusfuck. What’s that?’

The Scotsman stared down the valley. Now the noise was discernible. David realized he’d been hearing it for a while – but in the back of his mind he’d thought it a distant growling animal, or some effect of the wind in the thorn trees.

There were cars. Big dark cars were sweeping suddenly, up the dry river bed: heading for them. A roar of engines and lights. David stared. The fear was like a physical pain.

‘The tents – the guns are in the tents -’

Angus was up and moving – but then a rifle shot split the still and sultry air. It whipped the sand between the tables and the tents. A warning shot.

Angus sat down, very slowly.

David looked the opposite way. More dust clouds. More. Two more. Coming at them. From every direction, looming out of the murky shadows. The largest car, a black car with black windows, swept up to the camp and parked in a savage curve. Spraying sand over the food with a kind of bullying contempt.

A tall lean figure climbed out, his gait and his twitch and his pale scarred face quite distinctive, even in the darkness.

Miguel stared at them.

‘Found you.’

35

The last Vespers had been sung in the chapel. The last pilgrims had retreated to their cells.

Simon crossed the refectory, and climbed the sloping corridors. He shut the narrow door of his cell; and waited. Mind racing, mind racing. The pyramid. He’d got lucky. He’d got very lucky. He had maybe found in a day what Eduardo Martinez had failed to find in a week. The pyramid. The archives. Concealed in the prim and creepy pyramid, peeping from the centre of the building. Obvious yet discreet.

For a moment he admired the dark artistry of the design. It had a sinister genius.

Then he lay back on the bed.

The first snores and echoes of the nightwatch rattled through the priory. Simon sighed, and fretted about Tim, as he stared at the absurdly low ceiling. It felt like the ceiling was actually descending upon him – if he looked away, then looked back, he got the distinct impression the concrete ceiling was edging down, millimetre by millimetre.

Eventually it would crush him. Like a witch killed by the laying of stones. Squassation. He could feel the pressure of the stones on his chest. More and heavier stones. Till the ribcage collapsed. Like Tomasky lying on top of him, pressing down the knifepoint.

Enough!

He had to do his task. Just do it. Have one attempt. Then go home and protect his son and wife and save his brother.

He rose and stepped outside. The corridor was midnight dark. The monastery was creaking and whispering, like an Elizabethan galleon riding the oceans. Creaks and groans and weird distant noises. From this vantage, he could hear a hundred people breathing in their sleep. Like the entire building was respirating. Like it was a huge concrete lung. With a malignancy at its heart. A black mass on the scan.

The walk to the reception room took him two minutes. And yes, the key was hanging there, from its hook, it was actually marked Pyramide.

But the glass keycase was locked. Of course.

Simon looked left and right and, absurdly, up and down, and he unclasped a Swiss Army knife. He prised at the latch of the door. He heard a noise. He turned. Sweating. The rooms and corridors were empty. Clammy with tension, he returned to his task: he jemmied the knife-blade viciously.