43

Abi sat at a corner table of the Crusader Coffee Bar. The bar was situated in the central square of the town that, in effect, constituted Mihael Catalin’s personal fiefdom. Around Abi, people were conducting their day-to-day affairs in what passed for normality. But there was something distinctly un-normal about the way they were going about their business. It was as if the people walking, shopping, and passing the time of day imagined that they were onstage somehow, and that everything they touched, or that surrounded them, doubled as part of a theatre set.

Abi was aware that people were watching him and his siblings with unconstrained stares. But that was hardly new. Travel anywhere with two women who looked like Nawal and Dakini, and you soon got used to stares. The fact that everyone who passed them had patriarchal crosses tattooed in the centre of their foreheads simply made the attention the Corpus was receiving a little more intrusive – sinister, even – than it might otherwise have been. Were these people really as stupid as they looked? It never ceased to amaze Abi how willing human beings were to behave like ruminants when faced with a so-called ‘strong’ leader.

Anyway, he couldn’t talk. He was, to all intents and purposes, a strong leader himself. The only thing he lacked was a congregation. In recent months, his erstwhile followers appeared to be dying around him with painful regularity. Maybe he was doing something wrong? Or maybe – and here Abi allowed himself a secret smile – he really ought to branch out on his own? His idea of sneaking back to France to assassinate Madame, his mother, had been a truly excellent one. If it hadn’t been for that bastard Milouins he would have succeeded. Anyway, there was always time. He was still technically in the United States – at least as far as the authorities were concerned. That bit of foresight would definitely stand him in good stead somewhere down the line. And as things were, he was rather enjoying himself. He liked suborning unsuspecting people. And he relished the power he was now exercising over Rudra and the girls. There was something invigorating in being able to order people around who would secretly like to kill you. It gave a little extra edge to an existence that would otherwise be deadening in its mundanity.

‘That’s her. That’s the sister all right.’ Abi jerked his chin towards a woman, dressed entirely in white, who was negotiating the heavy traffic fifty yards or so to his left.

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because I have an up-to-date photograph of her here on my cell phone, and I’m looking at it as we speak. And because everyone who sees her crosses themselves as if they’ve just seen the Virgin Mary gliding by. She’s the sister of the Second Coming, for pity’s sake. These people have been trained to view her as some sort of guardian angel. Look at that man. He’s just got down onto his knees. Have you ever seen anything like it?’

‘How do you know all this, Abi?’

‘Because Madame, our mother, has had a dozen investigators on her and her brother’s back-trail, day in, day out, for the past fortnight. I give our mother that – when she decides to do something, she does it right. And her investment has paid off. I’ve just downloaded the latest report, thanks to the excellent free Wi-Fi offered by this place. At least Catalin is good for something.’ Abi’s eyes flicked over to Antanasia – she was talking intently to two women at the corner of the market square. His eyes drifted back to his cell phone. ‘It seems that we’ve finally got what we were looking for. Milouins is even now in Odessa concluding certain financial and locational arrangements with an interested party. What he’s just sent me should give us all the edge we need to persuade Catalin to work in our interests, as well as his own.’

‘But Catalin hardly ever ventures out. How can anyone investigate him?’

‘Catalin is a celebrity. A public figure. People who don’t belong to his Church are only too happy to talk about him.’

‘So why the interest in his sister all of a sudden?’

‘Because she’s the only way to get through to Catalin. The man is surrounded by a bodyguard of young men he calls his “Crusaders”. They form an unbreachable wall around him. Catalin’s no fool. He knows there’s mystery in being elusive. This way, people fantasize about him. Because, of course, they are never given the time to sum him up for what he really is.’

‘And the sister is his weak point?’

‘Exactly. She’s not called Antanasia Catalin, by the way – she’s called Antanasia Lupei. And he’s Dracul Lupei. The Mihael Catalin bit is made up, as is so much else in this confidence trickster’s story. He comes from a village called Cenucenca, in the east of the country. Antanasia was the local good-time girl, according to the reports we have. But she’s mended her ways, thanks to her brother, and now she lives like a nun. Well, she doesn’t walk like a nun, I’ll say that much for her.’

‘But if people know he’s not who he says he is, why don’t they vote with their feet?’

‘Because they believe in him, Rudi, and true belief turns people blind. Plus, he’s expedient. He’s transformed himself, and them, into something other – something they’re proud of. And no one wants to hark back to a past they find uncongenial. Plus, our friend has taken great pains to scrub away all lingering traces of his old self. But you can’t scrub away people’s memories. They stick to the wall like dried shit.’ Abi stood up. He threw some money down on the table. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

‘What are we going to do with the sister? Kidnap her?’

‘I hardly think so, Rudi. Not after the last fiasco. No. We need to talk to her. Nawal and Dakini, go and do your stuff. Rudi and I will manage the rest.’