Caravan to Vaccares Read Online Free PDF Page B

Czerda said. ‘We stopped for our evening meal not far from the caves.’
    The policeman asked Ferenc: ‘You searched in there?’
    Ferenc crossed himself and remained silent. Czerda said: ‘That’s no question to ask and you know it. No gypsy would ever enter those caves. They have an evil reputation. Alexandre – that’s the name of the missing boy – would never have gone there.’
    The policeman put his book away. ‘I wouldn’t go in there myself. Not at this time of night. The local people believe it’s cursed and haunted and – well – I was born here. Tomorrow, when it’s daylight – ’
    â€˜He’ll have turned up long before them,’ Czerda said confidently. ‘Just a lot of fuss about nothing.’
    â€˜Then that woman who just left – she is his mother – ’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Then why is she so upset?’
    â€˜He’s only a boy and you know what mothers are.’ Czerda half-shrugged in resignation. ‘I suppose I’d better go and tell her.’
    He left. So did the policeman. so did Ferenc. Bowman didn’t hesitate. He could see where Czerda was going, he could guess where the policeman was heading for – the nearest estaminet – so was momentarily interested in the movements of neither. But in Ferenc he was interested, for there was something in the alacrity and purposeful-ness with which he walked quickly through the archway into the parking lot that bespoke some fixed intent. Bowman followed more leisurely and stopped in the archway.
    On the right-hand side of the lot was a row of four fortune-tellers’ booths, got up in the usual garishly-coloured canvas. The first in the row was occupied, a notice said, by a certain Madame Marie-Antoinette who offered a money back if not satisfied guarantee. Bowman went inside immediately, not because of any particular predilection for royalty or parsimony or both, but because just as Ferenc was entering the most distant booth he paused and looked round directly at Bowman and Ferenc’s face was stamped with the unmistakably unpleasant characteristics of one whose suspicions could be instantly aroused. Bowman passed inside.
    Marie-Antoinette was a white-haired old crone with eyes of polished mahogany and a gin-trap for a mouth. She gazed into a cloudy crystal ball that was cloudy principally because it hadn’t been cleaned for months, spoke to Bowman encouragingly about the longevity, health, fame and happiness that could not fail to be his, took four francs from him and appeared to go into a coma, a sign Bowman took to indicate that the interview was over. He left. Cecile was standing just outside, swinging her handbag in what could have been regarded as an unnecessarily provocative fashion and looking at him with a degree of speculative amusement perhaps uncalled for in the circumstances.
    â€˜Still studying human nature?’ she asked sweetly.
    â€˜I should never have gone in there.’ Bowman took off his glasses and peered myopically around. The character running the shooting gallery across the parking lot, a short thick-set lad with the face of a boxer who had had a highly unspectacular career brought to an abrupt end, was regarding him with a degree of interest that verged on the impolite. Bowman put his spectacles back on and looked at Cecile.
    â€˜Your fortune?’ she enquired solicitously. ‘Bad news?’
    â€˜The worst. Marie-Antoinette says I will be married in two months. She must be wrong.’
    â€˜And you not the marrying kind,’ she said sympathetically. She nodded at the next booth, which bore a legend above the entrance. ‘I think you should ask Madame What’s-her-name for a second opinion.’
    Bowman studied Madame Zetterling’s comeon, then looked again across the car-park. The gallery attendant appeared to be finding him as fascinating as ever. Bowman followed Cecile’s