Then the screaming stopped, and resolved into a low, sussurating moan. The flames were big and monstrous but Alphonse was hymning his own death, almost singing. The hair was a mass of burned and charring black dreadlocks, the smell of roasting flesh was evil and sweet: a crematorium smell, a barbecue smell.

Bats winged about the smoke. David saw the eyes of desert animals attracted by the smell and the glow – jackals skulking in the gloom. Hoping for food. The smell of burning meat was attracting the shiny-eyed jackals.

Standing hard by the fire, Miguel gluttonously inhaled the smoke. The terrorist leaned to the roaring flames, and poked at the blackened body with a stick. Alphonse twitched. Still alive. Still alive. The fire roared.

‘Puerca? Urdaiazpiko?’

Amy was puking. She was leaning to her side and vomiting. David felt the same gag reflex. On his left, Angus had his eyes shut. The Scotsman’s face was blank and impassive. And yet it somehow expressed the deepest emotion. Utter desolation.

And then, at last, Alphonse died. The dark head lolled. The fire had wholly engulfed him. The deed was done. The fire began to subside. The body was a mass of red embers, glowing bones and meat. A black and scarlet effigy of a man, in the black desert night. The ribcage had collapsed and the heart was exposed: a vermilion knot of muscle.

Miguel was still greedily inhaling the smell of burning flesh. And Angus was watching him. Eyes narrowed. There was a cold yet incandescent fury in the Scotsman’s gaze, a shrewd and calculating anger. Ferocious anger.

David noted that even Miguel’s accomplices seemed repelled by the immolation.

They were looking away, glancing surreptitiously at each other, and shaking their heads. But they were obedient. There was no sense of disloyalty. More like fear. They were scared of the Wolf.

Garovillo gazed at David, assessingly.

‘That was impressive, Martinez.’ He ran fingers through his long black hair. ‘You are a man of some…courage. Or uncaring cruelty. Only you watched the whole show. Only you. And you did not vomit like Amy. You have a strong stomach. Strong constitution. You are stocky, like a bull. A wild boar.’

Then Miguel glanced at the sky. The woodsmoke was drifting across the heavens, turning the moon into the pale face of a young widow – veiled with funeral grey. The smoke was dwindling, the fire was nearly done.

‘We need to build another fire. Yes we are all warm and tostada now. But the flames are nearly gone. So we need a big new fire. To barbecue our next course. The big man…the American Basque-burger.’

Alan shook his head. ‘Ain’t got no wood, Mig.’

‘But we need to burn him. Burn him next!’ Miguel’s voice was stilted: with a hint of frustration. ‘If we kill and burn the Amerikako then Eloise will be offered up to us.’

David felt the rough hands of Miguel’s accomplices drag him to his feet. His knees were weak, he was sagging with the horror.

He was going to be burned alive. Like Alphonse.

37

The journalist stood there, utterly stunned. And trapped. ‘You know my name?’

‘Heck.’ The monk laughed. ‘You think we don’t read the newspapers? You wrote about those murders in England, didn’t you? Seen the photo.’

He sagged: ‘But…’

‘I’ve been watching you since you got here. We’ve been warned that someone might come…Name’s McMahon. Patrick. Paddy Thomas McMahon.’

Simon leaned against a stack of books. Now he stared around: he saw that many shelves were bare: it was like the library had been ransacked.

The bald monk nodded.

‘And…hey…as you can see, you’re too late anyway.’

‘What?’

‘The papal authorities came two months ago. Took nearly everything.’ He lifted a bottle of wine from the side of his chair and poured into a steel cup. ‘Want some?’

Simon shook his head, and gazed across. Right now Brother McMahon looked less like a monk than anyone he had ever seen: with his old brown corduroys and a scruffy jumper, dirty sneakers. And quite obviously drunk.

‘They took all the documents?’

‘All the important files, yep.’ McMahon laughed, unhappily. ‘All the stuff that would make you go hmmm. They said they were a security risk. They had permission from the Vatican. So important, the Pope agreed! And when they were here they said that some people might come looking for the documents, and if they did I was to tell the authorities. And here you are. Welcome to my pleasuredome. Not much left to see.’ The monk took a confirming gulp of wine. His gaze narrowed, as he surveyed the high wall of empty shelves. ‘You wanted to know what was in the documents. Right?’

‘That’s why I came. And I’m too late.’

‘Sure…’

McMahon’s expression was drunkenly sardonic.

Simon felt a twinge of hope, returning.

‘You can tell me, can’t you?’

Silence.

The journalist repeated. ‘You can tell me? Can’t you? You know what was in the documents, correct?’

‘Well…’ He sighed. ‘I can tell you some. What does it matter now…’

‘Tell me about the Basques? The Cagots? The Inquisition stuff?’

The monk nodded. And tilted his head. For a second he seemed to think, to consider his options. Then he said:

‘Don’t recall the whole lot, but I can tell you the reason they stopped the Basque witch burnings. That was one document they were very keen to take away.’

‘And?’

A mournful, tannin-stained smile.

‘They did it…Because the church was worried that the Basques might become the second Jews. More sons of Ham.’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s church speak.’

‘Explain.’

‘The Inquisition and the cardinals were worried by…“Divisions in the indivisible choir of man.” That was one phrase I read in the archives. Striking right? Of course the fear’s based on those…hidden ideas in the Bible, and the Talmud. Patristic texts.’

‘Curse of Cain? Serpent Seed?’

‘Yup.’ McMahon smiled, drunken giddiness mingled with melancholy. ‘You got it in one, good man. For two thousand years scholars and priests and cardinals have wrestled with the terrible and…’ He burped, politely. ‘Terrible and confounding implications of Serpent Seed, of non-Adamite humans. A different line of man. But they have never resolved it. Indeed their explorations made things worse.’

‘The physical tests, on the Cagots?’

‘Yes of course.’

‘What did they discover?’

‘Again, challenging stuff.’ The librarian gargled some wine, and went on. ‘The king’s physicians even tried to test the Cagots’ blood. But that proved zilch. Didn’t have the science – this was the seventeenth century. But the physical examination of the Cagots caused consternation with the clerics and bishops. The precise line I remember was: “It is feared the class known as Cagots may not be of the children of God.” That was the Bishop of Bordeaux, to the King of Navarre. After he’d seen the results from the doctors.’

The phrase resonated in Simon’s mind, he could sense it echoing along the bleak concrete cloisters. Doors opening one by one.

He had a final question – then he had to leave. He really had to leave. He couldn’t help remembering Tomasky. The tooth embedded in his cheek. If he was found here by someone less affably drunk than Brother McMahon, then anything was possible; the very worst was very possible. He needed to get out fast – after he’d asked one more question.

‘So. What is it that made you lose faith? You encountered something, in here, that made you lose faith.’

‘Did I…?’

‘What was it?’

The strange concrete pyramidal space seemed to shrink around them. The mad angles, the intensely leaning walls, seemed to narrow and darken. And at the centre of it: this burbling, drunken monk, who no longer believed in God.

McMahon rubbed a sad hand across his eyes.