Ritual (17 page)

‘I left,’ said
Velma, with complete simplicity.

‘Well, sure you
did. In fact, the hotel porter said you’d never even been there. So did Bits,
or whatever his name is. So what was I supposed to think?’

Velma teased up
her hair with her fingers. ‘This is private property, you know. You shouldn’t be
here.’ ‘I want to know if my son’s here, that’s all.’

Velma suddenly
stopped preening herself and stared at Charlie in amusement. ‘How old did you
say your son was?
Fifteen?’

Charlie took
three or four more steps up the staircase, until he was almost at the top. He
was trying to be threatening but Velma didn’t seem to be intimidated in the
least. She cupped one hand over her left breast through the gauzy fabric of her
gown, and lifted it slightly as if she was weighing it. Charlie had felt it for
himself. He knew how soft and heavy it was.

‘You said
something about the Celestines this morning, didn’t you?’

‘Did I?’ Velma
asked him.

‘You thought
that I wanted to join them, didn’t you? I mean – that’s what goes on here,
doesn’t it?
Meetings of the Celestines?
You thought
that I wanted to join, and that’s why you kidnapped Martin.’

Velma stretched
and yawned. ‘You’re going to get into serious trouble, you know
,
if M. Musette finds you here. M. Musette is very
particular about trespassers. If it was legal, he’d shoot them dead. But of
course he’s too law-abiding to do that.’ Charlie reached the top step. He was
only three feet away from Velma now. He could smell her favourite perfume,
Obsession, and he could see the crow’s-feet around her eyes that last night had
looked like experience and excitement, and which this morning looked like the
first sign of advancing age. He could see her stiffened nipples through the
linen of her gown. He didn’t even know whether he liked her or despised her. He
didn’t even know what he thought about the Musettes. All he cared about was
finding Martin, and if that meant being friendly to people he despised, then
that is what he would do. He couldn’t help thinking of Mrs Foss, and the
serious way in which she had looked at him through her upswept eyeglasses and
said: ‘The story most people used to tell was that they were taking stray
children off the streets and fattening them up, so that they could eat them.’

And he couldn’t
help thinking about his own response.
‘/ haven’t heard anything
like that since Hansel and Gretel.’

Charlie stood
close beside Velma and touched her hair. ‘Is Martin here?’ he asked her gently.
‘I’m his father, Velma. I’m responsible for what happens to him.’

‘And do you
love him?’ she challenged.

‘What do you
think? He’s my only child, my only son.’

‘That doesn’t
mean anything at all. I was my father’s only
daughter,
and he used to beat me up every day. Well, it felt like every day. He used to
burn the soles of my feet with cigarettes.’

Charlie said,
‘What are you trying to do? Are you trying to make me feel guilty, or what?
Your childhood is nothing to do with me. I just want to know if Martin is here,
that’s all. I just want to know what the hell is happening.’

Velma’s eyes
brightened. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘You want to know what the hell is
happening?
Well, let me show you.’

Charlie
hesitated for a moment, but then he allowed Velma to take hold of his arm and
lead him away from the landing and down a long, narrow corridor that was the
twin of the corridor downstairs.
Oak-panelled, dark, with
only occasional windows to light up the framed engravings of abattoirs and
butchery.
One engraving showed a selection of butcher’s knives, skinning
knives, sticking knives, boning knives,
cleavers
and
splitting saws. Another showed offal being sliced, liver, kidneys, hearts, and
sweetbreads. Each engraving carried a caption in French.

‘Are the
Musettes at home?’ Charlie asked, as they made their way along the corridor.

‘What makes you
ask that?’

‘I saw some
people in the garden.
Somebody in a hood, like a dwarf; and a
woman in a black cloak.
The first time I came here, I got the impression
that the woman in the black cloak was Mme Musette.’

Velma glanced
at him over her shoulder. ‘Come and see this before you ask me any more
questions.’

‘They were
wheeling a woman in an invalid carriage,’ Charlie persisted. He reached out and
took hold of Velma’s arm and stopped her. ‘Listen to me, will you? I knew the
woman from before.

At least, I
thought I did. She used to work as a waitress at the Iron Kettle.’

Velma
unexpectedly bent forward and kissed Charlie on the mouth. ‘You really don’t
know what’s going on, do you?’

Charlie said,
‘Maybe you ought to tell me. I mean, you’re obviously in it with them. You’re
obviously a part of it.’

‘A part of
what?’ asked Velma, with an innocence that was plainly feigned, and intended to
taunt him even more.

‘This,’ said
Charlie.
‘The Musettes.
The Windsor
Hotel.
All of this.
Martin
disappearing.
That Goddamned dwarf.
The way that every single person I’ve met in the past two days has
jumped like a jackrabbit whenever anybody mentions
Le Reposoir
.
It’s all tied together, and don’t you try to
kid me otherwise.’

Velma looked at
Charlie for a very long time, and then turned her head away. He was conscious that
her profile was very handsome, and that her breasts swelled up inside the thin
linen of her gown in a way that provoked him, even now.

‘I guess you
could say they misjudged you,’ she said.

‘Who misjudged
me?’

She gave him a smile
as faint as a distant echo. ‘They thought that you knew a whole lot more about
the Celestines than you obviously did. M. Musette found out you were a
restaurant inspector. I guess he must have thought that a restaurant inspector
knew about the Celestines.’

‘Well, as a
matter of fact, I don’t. Maybe I’m unusually ignorant or something. Mrs Foss
back at the Iron Kettle gave me some kind of weird story about them; and that’s
why I came up here. I was worried about Martin.’

Somewhere deep
in the building a heavy door slammed, and echoed. Velma said, ‘We’d better
hurry. Mme Musette will be looking for me in a minute.’

Charlie kept
hold of her arm. ‘First you have to tell me the truth about these Celestines.’

‘Don’t you
understand? – I’m going to show you.’

Reluctantly,
Charlie followed her further along the corridor. She pushed her way ahead of
him through a swing fire door and crossed a wide hallway with a yellow-tinted
skylight and a highly polished linoleum floor. On the other side of the
hallway, there was a solid oak door with a varnished wooden shield on it,
emblazoned with a painting of a Papal crown, encircled by a halo.

Another door
slammed, closer this time, and Charlie thought he could hear footsteps. ‘They
won’t go totally ape, will they, if they find me here?’ he asked Velma. He was
beginning to feel seriously worried now. Velma didn’t answer him, but pressed
her finger against her lips and opened the door decorated with the Papal crown.

Beyond, there
was another corridor, at least sixty feet long, dimly lit by small windows set
into the doors which ran along either side. Velma beckoned Charlie to follow
her, and she went from window to window, peering inside. The first three
windows were covered by white cotton blinds. The fourth was uncovered, but the
room inside was empty, except for a plain metal-framed bed and a white screen
of the type used in hospitals.

‘What the hell
is this?’ Charlie demanded, but Velma suddenly touched his arm and indicated
with a nod of her head that he should look into the fifth window.

At first,
Charlie couldn’t quite understand what he was supposed to see. The room was
almost bare, and lit only by the pale uncompromising daylight. A young girl was
sitting cross-legged on the floor at a three-quarter angle to the door, so that
Charlie could just see her profile. He guessed that she was about fourteen or
fifteen years old. Her dark hair was bobbed, and she was dressed in the same
kind of linen gown that Velma was wearing.

‘I see a girl,
that’s all,’ whispered Charlie.

‘She’s one of
the new ones,’ said Velma.

‘One of the new what?’

‘Devotees,
that’s what the Celestines call them.’

‘Velma, I don’t
understand. I simply don’t understand. You’re going to have a spell it out for
me.’

Velma smiled
broadly and there was something about her smile which made Charlie
feel
uncomfortably cold. It was a lewd, coarse smile; the
smile of someone who has indulged every lust that you can think of, and many
more that you could never think of.

‘Look at her
feet,’ she urged Charlie.

‘Her feet?
Charlie turned back to the window and peered at
the girl more closely.

It was then he
realized that the girl’s feet were both mutilated. There was a heel, an arch,
and that was all. The girl had no toes.

Charlie turned
back to Velma and hissed, ‘What? What is this all about?’

‘It’s exactly
what it looks like,’ she said. ‘She hasn’t any toes.’

‘But why?
Is this some kind of a nursing home or something?’

‘Nursing home?’
Velma laughed.
‘Of course
not.”

‘Then what
happened to her feet?’

‘She cut off
her toes, of course.’

‘What do you
mean, “of course”? What kind of a state of mind do you have to be in to cut
your own toes off?’

‘Devotional,’
said Velma, as if that explained everything.

‘Devotional?’
Charlie echoed. ‘That doesn’t look like
devotion to me. That looks like a straightforward case of insanity.’

‘Believe me,
she’s not insane,’ said Velma.

‘Then why did
she cut off her toes?’ Charlie demanded. His voice was quivering now.

Velma looked at
him with an expression that
was almost pitying
. ‘Why do
you think she cut them off?
To eat them, of course.’

As she said
that, the door opened behind them. Charlie, already shocked at what Velma had
told him, turned around in alarm.

Standing in the
doorway, silhouetted against the yellow radiance from the skylight in the hall,
was M. Musette. He paused; and then he came forward so that Charlie could see
his face. ‘Well, Mr McLean,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether I ought to be happy
to see you or not.’

Charlie cleared
his throat. ‘I don’t care whether you’re happy or not, pal. You and I have some
talking to do.’

‘Perhaps you’re
right,’ said M. Musette. ‘Velma, will you go to your room? I want to talk to
you later.’

Velma passed
them by. As she did so, she glanced at Charlie quickly, and Charlie saw such an
extraordinary mixture of fear and desire on her face that he couldn’t help
looking at M. Musette in complete consternation.

D
ownstairs, in a drawing room with high leaded windows which
overlooked the gardens, M. Musette sat back in a deeply cushioned armchair and
crossed his immaculately pressed trouser legs and lit a cigarette. Charlie,
sitting on the far side of the room, could hardly see him behind a circular
antique table on which stood a huge pink and white ceramic planter crowded with
hothouse camellias.

‘I have to
confess that what has happened has largely been my responsibility,’ said M.
Musette affably. ‘I must ask your forgiveness, although I am sure you will find
it easy to understand how the error was made.’

‘Before you
start giving me any explanations, I want to ask you one question,’ Charlie
interrupted. M. Musette, with a wave of his cigarette, indicated that Charlie
could do whatever he wanted.

‘Is my son
here?’ Charlie asked him. ‘I want a straight answer, yes or no.’

‘My dear sir,
let me put it this way: nobody ever comes here except of their own free will.

Therefore you
must search in your heart and ask yourself whether it is likely that your son
is here.’

‘I said a
straight answer, not a
Goddamned
riddle.’

M. Musette blew
smoke, and smiled. ‘Then I promise that I will answer you before you leave. But
first, I want you to understand what is happening here, and why you should not
be so fearful.’

‘I’m not sure
that I want to understand. Was it right what Velma was telling me – that girl
actually ate her own toes?’

‘You’re running
ahead of me,’ said M. Musette. ‘You came here to find out more about the
Celestines. Let me tell you about them.’

‘Okay,’ Charlie
agreed. ‘But don’t take all day about it.’

M. Musette
said, ‘Do I have to remind you that you are trespassing on my property and on
my time and that I am not obliged to say anything to you at all? It would be
far easier for me to call for the sheriff and have you thrown out of here.’

Charlie didn’t
answer, but clasped his hands together and sat with his head bowed waiting for
M. Musette to speak. M. Musette stood up, and walked across to the windows in a
wafting cloud of Turkish cigarette smoke. He gazed out over the garden for a
while, obviously calming himself, and then he said, ‘The Celestines were
orginally members of a religious order created in the year 1260 by Saint
Celestine V, Pietro di Murrone. Celestine was elected Pope in 1294, after the
two-year interregnum that followed the death of Nicholas V. He was a saintly
man, but too politically weak for the duties demanded by the Papacy, and later
the same year, he abdicated in the face of opposition from Cardinal Gaetano,
who was to succeed him as Pope Boniface VIII.’