The Devils of D-Day Read online

  I reached the Passerelle’s farm just after seven, in a chill, thick fog. I parked the Citroen in the muddy yard, walked across to the stable door, and knocked. A black-and-white dog with matted fur came and snifled at my knees, and then loped off round the side of the farm buildings.

  Jacques Passerelle appeared at the door, wiping his hands on a towel. His braces were hanging from his belt, and he still had a blob of white shaving cream clinging to his left ear. He was smoking one of his Gauloises and coughing.

  ‘Mr McCook, qu’est-ce que c’est qui se passe?’

  ‘Is Madeleine here? It’s rather urgent.’

  ‘She’s milking. Round the side there, third door. You look bad. A night on the tiles?’

  I grimaced. ‘Would you believe I spent a night with Father Anton?’

  Jacques laughed. ‘These priests! They’re worse than the rest of us!’

  I stepped around the thickest ruts of mud until I reached the cowshed door. It was warm and musky in there, scented with the breath of cows. Madeleine was perched on a stool, wearing a blue scarf around her head, jeans, and muddy rubber boots.

  Her hands worked expertly at the cow’s teats, and the thin jets of milk rang against the sides of the zinc pail. I leaned against the door for a while, and then I said:

  ‘Madeleine.’

  She looked up, surprised. In her work clothes, she had a casual, gamine attractiveness that, in normal circumstances, I couldn’t have resisted. She said: ‘Dan!

  Quelle heure est-il?’

  ‘Ten past seven.’

  ‘Why have you come so early? Is anything wrong?’

  I nodded, trying to keep my shock and nausea under control. I said: ‘I don’t know how to tell you.’

  She let go of the cow’s udder, and set the pail down on the cobbled floor. Her face was pale and strained, and it looked as if she hadn’t slept a lot more than I had.

  She said: ‘Is it Father Anton? Is he all right?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘He’s not-?’

  I was so exhausted that I leaned my head against the frame of the cowshed door, and when I spoke I could only manage a dull, tired monotone. I felt as if I’d been gutted, like a herring, and left to drain on somebody’s sink.

  ‘The devil broke out somehow. I heard it in the night. I went downstairs and it had killed Father Anton. Then it killed Antoinette in front of my eyes, to prove its power.’

  Madeleine came across the shed and touched my shoulder. ‘Dan—you’re not serious. Please.’

  I lifted my head and looked at her. ‘How serious do I have to be? I was there. I saw the devil cut Father Anton open, and I saw him kill Antoinette. It says its name is Elmck, the devil of sharp knives. It said that if we didn’t help it find its brethren, it would cut us to pieces as well.’

  ‘I can’t believe what you’re saying.’

  ‘Well, you’d better damn well believe it, because it’s true! If you don’t want to wind up like Antoinette, you’d better find some way of making your excuses to your father and getting yourself an indefinite vacation.’

  She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that all the time we have is the time that devil decides to grant us. It insists we help it find its brethren, and we’re only going to stay alive as long as we appear to be co-operating. It wants to leave for England this afternoon. If we leave at eight, we can just catch the ferry at Dieppe.’

  Madeleine looked completely confused. ‘Dan, I can’t just walk out of here! What can I say to papa? I’m supposed to be here to help!’

  I was so tired and upset that I was near to tears. ‘Madeleine,’ I insisted, ‘I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t deadly serious. If you won’t make your excuses to your father, then I’ll have to go and tell him the truth.’

  ‘But Dan, it seems so unreal.”

  ‘Don’t you think I feel the same way?’ I asked her ‘Don’t you think I’d rather get on with my damned work and forget this thing ever happened? But I’ve seen it for myself, Madeleine. It’s real, and we’re both in danger of death.’

  Those pale Norman eyes regarded me seriously. Then Madeleine slowly pulled the scarf from her hair, and said: ‘You mean it.’

  ‘Yes, I damned well mean it.’

  She looked out of the cowshed across the foggy yard. Over the hills, behind the dim tracery of leafless elms, the sun glowered through the grey haze of another winter day in the Suisse Normande.

  ‘Very well,’ she said ‘I’ll go and tell my father. I can pack in half an hour.’

  I followed her through a flock of grubby geese and into the farmhouse. Jacques Passerelle was in the red-tiled hallway, combing his short hair into a neat parting.

  Madeleine came up behind him and held him round the waist. He glanced up at her face in the mirror and smiled. ‘You’ve finished the milking already?’ he asked her.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid that Dan came with an urgent message. I have to spend a little time in England.’ He frowned. ‘Angleterre? Pour quoi?’ Madeleine lowered her eyes. ‘I can’t lie. It’s something to do with the tank. We have to go and find some information for Father Anton.’

  Jacques turned around and held his daughter’s arms. ‘The tank? Why do you have to go to England because of the tank?’

  ‘Because of the English priest, father. The Reverend Taylor, who was here in the war. He is the only man who really knows about the tank, and what was inside it.’

  I put in: ‘We won’t be away long, Monsieur Passerelle. Maybe a week at the outside.

  Then I promise I’ll bring her straight back.’

  Jacques rubbed his shiny shaven chin. ‘I don’t know what to say. All this tank seems to bring is trouble and more trouble.’

  I said, ‘Believe me, monsieur, this is going to be the last of it. Once we’re back from England, you won’t ever hear about that tank again. Not ever.’

  Jacques Passerelle sniffed. He didn’t seem to be particularly impressed by that. He turned to Madeleine and asked: ‘Why does it have to be you? Can’t Mr McCook go by himself. It always seems that you have to do the work that others should do. And what about Father Anton?’

  Madeleine looked across at me appealingly. I knew she didn’t want to leave her father to cope by himself in the middle of winter. But I shook my head. The last thing I was going to do was cross that devil again. My ring of hair was going to protect me only until the sun set, and then I would be as vulnerable as Madeleine.

  ‘Monsieur,’ I told him, ‘we really have to go, both of us. I’m sorry.’

  The farmer sighed. ‘Very well, if that’s what you have to do. I will call Gaston Jumet and ask him if Henriette can come up and help me. You said a week, no more?’

  ‘About a week,’ I told him, although I had no idea how long it was going to take us to dig up Elmek’s twelve infamous brethren.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, and kissed his daughter, and shook my hand. ‘If this is something really important. Now, would you like some calvados and coffee?’

  While Madeleine packed, I sat at the kitchen table with Jacques and Eloise. Outside, it began to snow again—thin, wet snow that dribbled slowly down the window panes.

  We talked about farming and cows and what to do when turnips started to mildew in the ground.

  After a while, Jacques Passerelle knocked back his calvados, wiped his mouth with his spotted handkerchief, and said: ‘I must get to work. We have two fields to plough by the end of the week. I wish you ban voyage.’

  We shook hands and then he went off into the hallway to pull on his Wellingtons and his thick jacket. I stirred my coffee carefully, waiting until he was out of earshot, and then I said, ‘Eloise?’

  The old woman nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘You know? How do you know?’

  She said nothing, but reached in the pocket of her apron, and produced a worn sepia photograph of a young cleric. He was holding a boater in his hands, and squinting into the sun.

  I
looked at the picture for a long while, and then I said: ‘This is Father Anton.’

  ‘Yes, monsieur. I have known him for many years. When we were young, we were close friends. We were so close, in fact, that we hardly had to speak to know what each other was thinking. Well, Father Anton reached me last night, after a fashion. I woke in the night and felt that I had lost him; and when I saw you this morning, I knew that he was dead.’

  ‘You didn’t tell Jacques?’

  ‘I told nobody. I wasn’t really sure it was true. I hoped that it wasn’t. But then I saw you, and I knew.’

  I took out the ring of hair which she had given me. ‘Listen, Eloise,’ I asked her, ‘is this all the hair you have?’

  She lifted her grey head and looked at me closely through her flour-dusted spectacles. ‘You want more?’ Why?’

  The devil is loose, Eloise. It was the devil who killed Father Anton. That’s why we’re going to England. The devil insists.”

  ‘Insists?’

  ‘If we don’t do what it says, it’s going to stab us to death. Madeleine and me. Its name is Elmek, the devil of knives.’

  Eloise took the photograph of Father Anton from me with shaking hands. She was so agitated that she couldn’t speak at first, and I poured her a small glass of calvados.

  She drank half of it, and coughed, and then looked back at me with a face so ghastly with strain that I felt frightened myself.

  ‘Did he suffer?’ she whispered. ‘Did poor Father Anton suffer?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I saw Antoinette die too, his housekeeper, and she was in terrible pain.’

  ‘What’s going to happen? What are we going to do?’

  ‘There’s not much we can do except what we’re told. The devil is going to burn the bodies so that nobody knows what happened—and Eloise, it’s desperately important that you don’t tell them.’

  Eloise was weeping. ‘What about Madeleine?’ she said, wiping her eyes with her apron. ‘It won’t hurt Madeleine, will it?’

  I took her hand. ‘It won’t if we do what it tells us to do. I have to find out how to destroy it first, how to exorcise it. Meanwhile, we’re going to have to go along with it, and help it find its twelve brethren.’

  Eloise said: ‘There is only one thing I can do to help you. Wait for one moment.’

  She rose stiffly from her chair and walked across the tiled floor to the kitchen dresser. She opened a drawer, fumbled around for a while with tins and jars and boxes, and eventually took out a small tin with the name of a popular brand of French throat pastilles printed on it. She brought it over to the table and carefully lifted the lid.

  I peered inside. There was nothing there but a small heap of what looked like grey powder.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked her.

  She closed the lid again, and handed the tin to me. ‘It is said to be the ashes of the seamless cloak which Christ wore when he was crucified. It is the most powerful relic I have.’

  ‘What will it do? Will it protect us?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some relics have real magical properties and some are simply frauds.

  It is all I can do. It is all I can give you.’

  She turned away then, her eyes filled with tears. I didn’t know what to do to comfort her. I slipped the tin of ashes in my pocket and finished my coffee. The clock on the kitchen wall struck eight; I knew that if we were going to make the lunchtime ferry to Newhaven, we were going to have to hurry.

  Madeleine came downstairs with her suitcase. I got up from the table and took it from her, and gave Eloise a last affectionate pat on the shoulder.

  Madeleine said: ‘What’s the matter? Why is Eloise crying?’

  ‘She knows about Father Anton. And she’s worried that the same thing’s going to happen to you.’

  Madeleine leaned over the old woman and kissed her. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘We won’t be gone long. Mi McCook will look after me.’

  Eloise nodded miserably.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘we’re going to be late ‘

  We went out into the yard, and I stowed Madeleine’s suitcase in the back of the 2CV.

  The thin snow fell on us like a wet veil. We only had one more piece of luggage to collect—the medieval trunk from the cellar of Father Anton’s house. We climbed into the car and I started the engine. Then we bounced off along the narrow, icy roads, the car’s heater blaring, and the windshield wipers squeaking backwards and forwards.

  Although the French rise early, the village was still deserted by the time we reached Father Anton’s house and pulled up in the front yard. I got out of the car, walked round, and opened Madeleine’s door for her.

  ‘What do we need here?’ she asked me, stepping out.

  ‘The devil,’ I said gravely. ‘We’re taking it with us.’

  Taking it with us? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Just come and help me. I’ll tell you what it’s all about later.’

  Madeleine looked up at the house. She could see the broken window of Father Anton’s bedroom, with the curtains flapping and twisting in the cold wind. She said:

  ‘Is Father Anton up there? And Antoinette?’

  I nodded. ‘We have to be quick. As soon as we leave, the devil’s going to set the house alight.’

  Madeleine crossed herself. ‘We should call the police, Dan. We can’t just let this happen.’

  I took her wrist, and pulled her towards the house.

  ‘Dan, we ought to! I can’t bear to leave Father Anton this way!’

  ‘Listen,’ I told her bluntly, ‘we don’t have any choice. If we don’t do what Elmek tells us, we’re going to die like them. Can you understand that? And besides, it’s Father Anton’s only chance of survival, too.’

  I unlocked the heavy front door and pushed it open.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘He’s dead. How can he have a chance of survival?’

  I looked at her straight. ‘Because I made a bargain. If we help Elmek to find his twelve brethren, and the thirteen brethren between them raise the demon Adramelech, then it will ask Adramelech to bring Father Anton and Antoinette back to life.’

  Madeleine stared at me. ‘You don’t believe that—surely?’

  ‘What else can I believe? I saw the devil, Madeleine. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw Antoinette covered in knives. I saw Father Anton cut open like a beef carcass.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ she said, in a low, haunted voice. ‘I can’t go through with it.’

  ‘You have to. Now, come on.’

  Together, we walked down the echoing length of the polished hallway. I took the cellar key down from its hook, unlocked the cellar door, and led Madeleine down into the musty darkness. At the foot of the stairs I found a lightswitch, and turned it on.

  The copper-and-lead trunk was waiting for us. It was an ancient, dull-coloured rectangular chest, locked with three copper hasps. It must have been six or seven hundred years old, and it was decorated with copper inlays of horses and helmeted riders, and fleurs-de-lys. Madeleine whispered: ‘Is that it? Is the devil in there?’ I nodded. ‘You’re going to have to help me lift it. Do you think you can manage?’

  ‘I’ve been milking cows and mucking-out stables for weeks. I think I’m strong enough.’

  Full of foreboding, we approached the trunk and stood beside it. Then we took its curved handles in both hands, and slowly lifted it off the cellar floor. It was staggeringly heavy. It must have weighed all of two hundred and twenty pounds, dead weight, and we had to drag it and slide it across to the stairs. Then we hefted it up, step by step, until we reached the hallway.

  It was a matter of three or four minutes to get the trunk out of the house and into the yard. I opened up the Citroen’s rear door, ready to receive it but I was just rearranging my own cases, when Madeleine said: ‘Look! Just look at that!’

  Where the trunk rested, the snow was melting. No snow settled on top of it, either. It was almost as if the snow was shrinking away f
rom our evil and malevolent burden in fear.

  ‘One last heave,’ I said dryly, and we lifted the trunk into the back of the Citroen.

  Then I checked my watch. If we took the Route Nationale from Caen, we could be in Dieppe in about three hours. I shut and locked the back of the car, and we climbed in and settled ourselves down.

  I said to Madeleine, softly: ‘You don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to.

  I mean, if you don’t really believe this devil’s going to hurt you, you could take a risk and stay at home.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. But I’ve always felt that any kind of devil only has as much power as you’re prepared to concede it. If we weren’t afraid of Elmek, then maybe it couldn’t hurt us.’

  Madeleine shook her head. ‘I believe in this devil, Dan. I’ve believed in it longer than you have. And I started all this terrible killing, too, so I think I have a duty to see it through.’

  ‘It’s your choice,’ I told her, and switched on the engine. Then I pulled out of the snowbound yard, and drove through the cold, empty streets of Pont D’Ouilly. I kept glancing in my mirror at the dull shape of the medieval trunk—and also to see if any smoke was rising yet out of Father Anton’s house. But the trunk remained silent and closed, and it only took a few minutes of driving down those winding roads before the village disappeared behind the trees and the hills, and I never saw Elmek’s strange powers at work.

  Madeleine said: ‘I’m sorry, Dan. If I’d only known.’

  ‘We’ll beat them yet,’ I told her. ‘Elmek and Adramelech and the whole damned team.’

  But when I looked again at the sinister bulk of that ancient trunk, I felt far from confident; and I couldn’t even guess at what hideous atrocities its nightmarish inhabitant was already scheming.

  A French onion-seller wavered across the road in front of me on his bicycle, and I blew my horn at him angrily.

  ‘Cochon!’ he shouted, and shook his fist as he dwindled out of sight in the snow.