at the ground, ‘I found the tracks of a car. Also in the dirt were the footprints of several men, and some marks made by another man’s shoes as he fought them and was dragged to the car from over here.’ Rabier pointed at the barn. He stepped up to the tall wood-slat doors and pushed them open with a creak, switching on a light as he led Ben and Jude inside.
Rabier pointed at the straw-covered floor of the barn. ‘The same signs of struggle were also in here. And here,’ he said, reaching down and hauling up a trapdoor set into the floor, ‘is where I found Fabrice’s chain.’
Ben stepped to the edge of the trapdoor and looked down at the space below the floor.
‘I have lived on this farm all my life,’ Rabier said, crouching by the square hole. ‘As children, Fabrice and I used to hide down here for many hours; as young men, to smoke and fool around with girls.’ He smiled his crooked smile, which then dropped to a look of sadness. ‘Fabrice returned to the same place to hide from his enemies, but they found him and took him away. There is where I found his cross, on the floor inside the hole. It is as if he had left me a sign.’ Rabier straightened up and closed the trapdoor.
Ben started explaining to Jude. ‘He said he found—’
‘I get the gist,’ Jude said. ‘Why didn’t he call the police?’
Rabier picked up on the word ‘police’. ‘Le jeune doesn’t understand,’ he said in French. ‘If these men could murder my friend and make it appear like suicide, what could they do to me? It was not safe to speak a word to anyone. Besides, I cannot afford to have the bastard cops crawling all over my place. They discover my distilling equipment, it’s prison for old Jacques Rabier.’
‘Was Fabrice’s home broken into that night?’ Ben asked as they headed back towards the house.
‘If it was, it was done without leaving a trace,’ Rabier said. ‘You are thinking of the porno? How it found its way onto his computer?’
‘The people who murdered Fabrice are as interested in discrediting their victims as they are in killing them,’ Ben said. ‘Take away a man’s life, questions get asked. Destroy his reputation at the same time, everyone goes quiet. The bigger the scandal, the better the smokescreen.’
‘Putain de salauds,’ Rabier muttered in disgust. ‘What is going on here? What had poor Fabrice got himself mixed up with?’
‘Fabrice was a member of an international group, based in France, England and America and maybe also in Israel. They were working together on some kind of research project, for which they travelled out to the Israeli desert together.’
‘I knew that Fabrice had gone there,’ Rabier said. ‘He was gone for two weeks, but he never explained why, as though he was unwilling to discuss it. He also went to America. Again, he seemed anxious to keep the reasons for his journey there to himself.’
Ben remembered Michaela had said that Simeon had twice travelled to the States to see an ‘expert’. Ben wondered if the expert had been this man called Wes. ‘Did Fabrice say what part of America he’d gone to?’
‘No, he was evasive about it. I thought at the time that it was unusual he would not share it with me. The only secrets he kept otherwise were the ones he was told in the confessional.’
‘The project had to do with a sword,’ Ben said. ‘A sacred sword. He never mentioned that either?’
‘Une épee sacrée,’ Rabier muttered, shaking his head. ‘No, I have no idea about that.’
‘What about the names of the other members of the group?’ Ben asked. ‘Simeon Arundel in England? An American named Wes, a woman called Martha, and an Israeli who travelled with them to the desert?’
Rabier shook his head again. ‘He never spoke of them. This Simeon in England – you said he is your friend.’
‘He’s dead,’ Ben said. ‘They killed him, too, along with his wife. That’s why I’m here.’ He motioned to Jude, who was sitting staring into space, lost in his own thoughts. ‘This is their son.’
‘Merde,’ Rabier breathed. ‘I am sorry. But these people, they are after this sword? Why?’
‘I don’t know why. All I know is that they’re organised and they mean business. They knew that my friend Simeon was in possession of the bulk of the research material, which means they most likely had been tapping his phone conversations with Fabrice and his other associates. The moment Simeon was out of the way, they tried to steal the material from his home.’
Rabier thought for a moment. ‘This is why there was no robbery from Fabrice’s house.’
‘And it’s the reason why they killed him the way they did,’ Ben said. ‘If they’d needed to rob his home, a suicide at almost exactly the same time would have looked suspicious. They’d have done what they did to my friend, stage an accident instead. I’m sure that’s also what they were planning for me and Jude, if they’d managed to get us yesterday. Tonight wasn’t the first time they tried.’
Rabier raised an eyebrow. ‘You are taking risks, my friend. These men we buried, they were professional killers, no?’
Ben nodded. ‘At least one was ex-military. Possibly all of them. I’d say they were hired on a private contract.’
‘Des mercenaires? Putain de merde.’ Rabier looked at Ben and his eyes narrowed. ‘And you intend to pursue them. Which tells me something about you. You are not afraid. You are soldat?’
‘I was, once.’
‘I can see it in you,’ Rabier said. ‘But one man against so many … How do you intend to go about it?’
‘My best chance of tracking them down is through the sword,’ Ben said. ‘If I knew what it was, where it was, why it was so important, it might tell me who’s after it and is prepared to kill to get it. That would give me the advantage I need.’
‘And then it is payback time, yes?’ Rabier said.
Ben said nothing.
‘What about this boy here?’ Rabier said, pointing at Jude. ‘Can you take him with you?’
Garçon was a word Jude understood, and it snapped him out of his reverie. ‘Will you tell him I am not a boy?’ he said, flushing.
‘I don’t have a lot of choice,’ Ben said to Rabier in French, ignoring Jude. ‘He’s headstrong. Like his father was at his age,’ he added wistfully. ‘I can’t trust him to stay put.’
‘You want to leave him with me? I will make sure he comes to no harm.’
‘I appreciate the offer,’ Ben said. ‘And I’ll certainly take you up on it for tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
Ben nodded. ‘If the killers didn’t steal anything from Fabrice’s house, that means there’s a chance I might find something there, some information that could be useful. I’m going to pay the place a visit.’
‘There is the matter of Madame Lamont,’ Rabier said. ‘She is as alert as a guard dog, even at the age of seventy-two.’
‘We’ve already encountered Madame Lamont,’ Ben said, and smiled. ‘She seems quite a robust lady.’
‘Robust? She is a force of nature. For over twenty years, Fabrice lived in fear of her. The woman is evil. Worse, she has a grandson in the gendarmerie.’
‘Does she have a gun?’
‘I would not put it past her. It will have to be done very carefully.’
‘House-breaking isn’t exactly new to me,’ Ben said.
Rabier grinned. ‘Did you say you were a soldier or a thief? In any case, there is no need to break in. The time Fabrice went to Israel, Madame Lamont had to visit her sick sister in Perpignan.