Lucy met Pascal on a wet pavement outside Sibyl’s Cave on a Friday night. She said, ‘It’s seething.’
‘We’ll be all right: He rubbed his hands confidently, as if about to spin a couple of dice down the felt. He winked and Lucy bridled. She couldn’t split the gesture from scaffolds and whistling beery cheek. He said, ‘I have a good feeling about this.’
Pascal had obtained Max Nightingale’s phone number from Father Anselm. The meeting was set up. Apparently he’d been keen. When Pascal had told Lucy she’d felt a sharp, churning disgust. ‘Good,’ she’d said.
Lucy yanked at the pub door, releasing from the bright hallway a gasp of heat and noise. The lounge was packed with competition, professionals loudly shedding the pressures of work. They glanced into a small smoking room. Thick blue swirls hung above the tables like belchings from so many garden fires. Empty glasses stood in tight crowds. A young girl in a short black skirt pushed past gripping a damp cloth. They forced their way towards the veranda entrance. Pinned to a jamb was a forbidding notice: Private Party. Through the window panel Lucy saw suits, legs crossed while standing, wine glasses pressed to the chest: the boss was leaving. Pascal pulled her by the arm towards the debating room.
The appetite for argument was on the wane – young bloods were heading for the bar or home, leaving disparate clusters of older men. Where were the women? thought Lucy Her gaze shifted and she saw Max Nightingale sitting in a corner. On the table was a black motorcycle helmet. It stared at Lucy and she thought of an empty, severed head. They joined him, pulling up chairs.
‘Who’s Sibyl?’ asked Max Nightingale. Lucy noticed dark grime beneath his nails: a trace of his grandfather’s dirt. Catching her glance he said, ‘Paint. I’ve been painting.’
‘Papered cracks?’
‘No, pictures.’
‘Oh.’
‘Sibyl?’ he repeated.
Pascal said, ‘She’s the maim player in a tragic myth, a mystic who pushed off death and spent centuries in a cave. She wrote out riddles on leaves but left them to the mercy of the wind.’
Max Nightingale stared back blankly ‘I thought she was the landlord.’
Lucy laughed, against the will to scoff… she who hadn’t known either.
Pascal said, ‘You asked a question at the Priory – about Agnes and a child. Where did you get the name from?’
‘My grandfather.’ He spoke frankly quickly
‘Do you know who she is?’
‘No.’
Pascal seemed to see suspicion and caution peeling away ‘I’d like to ask you a question, but first I just want to say something.’
Max Nightingale removed the helmet from the table. A space opened up, flat, ready to be crossed. Lucy regarded it with horror.
Pascal said, ‘We’ve been born on different sides of a nightmare, but it’s worth saying… I’ve got nothing against you.
Max Nightingale flinched. Then, recovered, he said, ‘Ask me your question. ‘
Lucy heard a shuffle: standing almost over them was the man she called The Don.