'Please,' said M. Musette, and indicated with a smart click of his heels that Charlie should follow his wife.

Mme Musette led Charlie across the echoing marble-clad hallway. A thin youth with close-cropped hair and a suit that looked as if it had once belonged to Buddy Holly stood at the foot of the stairs. Mme Musette handed him Charlie's car keys. The youth gave Charlie a quick, insolent smile that Mme Musette either failed to notice or ignored.

She mounted the stairs and Charlie followed close behind her, smelling her perfume. He couldn't identify it. It wasn't anything as modern as Obsession. It could have been Chanel No. 5, but on Mme Musette's skin it seemed to have acquired a flowery aura all her own. Halfway up the stairs, Charlie said, 'Are you a Devotee, too?'

'I was; but Edouard decided that I could better serve the order if I were to a.s.sist him.'

'So you stopped at a few fingers, is that it?'

Mme Musette turned her head and glanced at him. 'That's it. You have it exactly.'

'Are you all headcases or what?' Charlie asked her.

'I don't know what you mean, headcases.'

'I mean are you mad? In my book, self-mutilation is the act of a lunatic. As for eating yourself, that's so far out I don't even know where it is.'

137.

'Didn't Edouard explain our beliefs to you?'

'Oh, yes, sure he did. But I notice that Edouard hasn't started making himself into Edouardburger yet, whatever he says about his beliefs. And he stopped you before you got to the best bits.'

'You cannot make sport of us, Mr McLean," she replied. 'Edouard is our Supreme Guide, and like all of the Guides in the Celestine order it is his duty to remain whole until the end of his natural life. It is a duty - not a privilege. The truly privileged members of the Celestines are those who manage to devour so much of themselves that there is scarcely anything remaining to make a meal for their mentors.'

They had reached the landing. Charlie said, 'You know something? If any of this is true, it's criminal and it's maniacal and it's totally disgusting. I thought James Jones was nuts, but you people are unreal.'

'Come see your son,' said Mme Musette gently. 'But may I warn you not to upset him? He is in the early stages of self-preparation, and if you try to bully him into leaving Le Re-posoir you may cause him lasting psychological damage. You will certainly lose his affection for ever.'

'Don't let's make any mistakes here,' said Charlie. 'That boy is coming away with me right now.' He was angry; but he still wished that he didn't sound so much like Archie Bunker. The Musettes were bringing out his blue-collar Indiana background and there was nothing that he could do to stop it.

They walked down the same corridor to which Velma had taken him, all the way down to a door at the end. Mme Musette raised her deformed hand and knocked. There was a short delay, and then the door opened and a girl's face appeared. Dark, Latin-looking, with unplucked eyebrows.

'This is Martin's father,' said Mme Musette. 'He wishes to speak to Martin before he leaves.'

The Latin-looking girl glanced quickly at Charlie and then shook her head. 'It is not possible, madame. He is already preparing himself.'

138.

Charlie stepped forward and pushed the door. 'Come on, honey, just get out of the way will you? I want to talk to my son.'

The girl tried to resist him, but Charlie gave her a sharp dig in the breast with his elbow, and she released her hold on the door. Mme Musette cried, 'No, Mr McLean!' but Charlie ignored her and barged into the room.

A white cotton blind had been drawn across the window, so the room was dim. There was a plain bed, covered by a white cotton sheet, a tubular steel chair, a white-painted bedside cupboard with a Bible on it, and that was all. Martin lay on the bed staring at the ceiling. He was naked.

'Martin! For Christ's sake!' said Charlie, and his eyes filled with tears. 'Martin, it's Dad here!'

He went up to the bed and took hold of Martin's hand. Martin's eyes slowly turned to look at him as if he had all the time in the world. 'You came,' he whispered. His voice sounded as if he were drugged.

'Of course I came. What did you expect? Why didn't you talk to me before you left? You didn't have to come to a place like this.'

Martin smiled. 'This is the only place, Dad. This is really and truly the only place.'

'Martin?' Charlie asked. 'Did they give you any kind of injection? Any pills, or dope, or anything like that?' Before Martin could reply, he turned around to Mme Musette, who was standing in the open doorway and he waved his finger at her threateningly. 'Believe me, lady, you're in deep trouble. Where are his clothes?'

'He has renounced his clothes,' said the Latin-looking girl.

Til renounce you in a minute!' Charlie roared at her. 'Just bring me his f.u.c.king clothes!'

'Mr McLean,' put in Mme Musette, 'I did warn you that it would do you no good to lose your temper.'

Charlie ignored her. 'Martin,' he said, 'you're coming with 139.

me, and you're coming now. The car's outside. You can put on something of mine.'

'I'm not coming with you, Dad,' said Martin. He seemed to be completely unperturbed.

'Am I hearing you straight? Do you know what these people expect you to do?'

'I know all about the Celestines, David told me. That day in the parking lot; and that night at Mrs Kemp's. We talked about it for hours. I know what they do and I know why they do it and I want to do it, too.'

'You want to eat yourself? Are you bananas?'

The absurdity of what his father had said made Martin chuckle. It was that chuckle that unsettled Charlie more than anything else. His own son could lie here and laugh because he had said something stupid; when all the time he was volunteering to commit suicide, slowly and ritualistically and obscenely.

Charlie grabbed hold of Martin's wrists and tried to wrench him off the bed. But Martin twisted away from him, and kicked him in the ribs with his bare foot, and then seized the rails at the head of the bed and glared at Charlie defiantly.

'Dad, this is my life and this is my decision.'

Charlie turned on Mme Musette again. 'You've hypnotized him, right? Is that it? Am I right? You've hypnotized him!'

Mme Musette was holding the hand of the Latin-looking girl in order to restrain her. The girl was obviously distressed, and kept tugging at her hair and mewling. 'There is no question of drugs or hypnosis or any artificial stimulant,' Mme Musette said. 'We believe in the sanct.i.ty of the body, we believe in its purity. We would never allow anything to taint the flesh which we ourselves must eat.'

'Martin, come with me!' Charlie ordered him, but Martin's hands remained clenched on the rails at the head of the bed, and he shook his head in adamant refusal.

Charlie took a deep breath. He looked at his son and could 140.

see by the expression on his face that, for now, the Musettes had won. He couldn't pick Martin up bodily and carry him out of Le Reposoir, he simply wasn't strong enough. And that was supposing M. Musette and his staff would allow him to carry Martin out of the house without any opposition at all.

'All right,' he conceded. Tm going to leave you for now. But let me tell you right here and now that the first stop I'm going to be making is the county sheriffs office, and if necessary I'm going to inform the FBI, too. Then we'll see who makes a meal out of whom.'

Charlie contemptuously brushed Mme Musette aside and began stalking back down the corridor. 'Mr McLean!' she called after him. 'It won't do you any good!'

Til let the sheriff be the judge of that,' Charlie retorted. 'And one more thing - if Martin is missing even one fingernail by the time I get back here, I'm personally going to take the law into my own hands and I'm going to kill you. You and your husband both - slowly!'

He ran down the stairs, across the hallway, and out of the huge front doors. As promised, his car was waiting for him, with its hood dented and clumps of gra.s.s still clinging to its wheel-arches. He cantered down the stone steps and across the gravel, and as he did so a flock of ravens rose cawing from the spires of Le Reposoir, the first birds that he had heard since he trespa.s.sed here. They sounded harsh and triumphant, and they circled around and around above his head as if they were gloating over his defeat.

He got into the car, slammed the door, and switched on the engine. As he did so, Mme Musette came down the front steps of the house after him. She stopped only a few feet away, and Charlie let down his window.

'I'm going straight to the police,' he warned her.

'I know that,' she replied. 'It will do you no good.'

'Maybe it will and maybe it won't.'

'Don't you think every parent who finds out that their son 141.

or daughter has come to join the Celestines feels the same way?'

'Every parent?' For some reason the thought that he might just be one worried father out of a thousand hadn't occurred to him.

'Of course. Parents always have their own ideas about how they wish their children to be brought up, both morally and spiritually. But they must understand that their children are not their property; that their children are ent.i.tled to pursue happiness in any way they wish. The Rev Moon and his followers were regarded with the same suspicion as the Celestines. Many parents tried desperate measures to rescue their children from Moonie settlements, and to persuade them never to return. But most did; and those who didn't were unhappy for the rest of their lives. Remember, Mr McLean, your son came to the Celestines of his own free will. You will never get him back now. Physically, perhaps - although that is unlikely. But never, never, spiritually. You have lost him now, for ever.'

Charlie stared at Mme Musette with a ferocity that he had never experienced in his whole life. Then he said, vehemently, 'f.u.c.k you,' and drove off up the gravelled driveway with his tyres spinning and the rear end of his Oldsmobile snaking from side to side.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

He found the Sheriff much more quickly than he had expected. There had been a traffic accident on the steeply sloping road to Alien's Corners. An elderly farmer in a station wagon had tried to overtake a slow-moving delivery truck on a blind bend, and collided head-on with another car coming the opposite way. The road surface was mushy with blood and broken gla.s.s, and the damaged cars were being towed away like injured dinosaurs.

The sheriff was standing by the side of the road with his hands on his hips as if he found the stupidity of his fellow men impossible to believe. He was short and sandy-haired, with a big curving belly in front and a big curving bottom behind. He wore designer sungla.s.ses that didn't suit him at all. Not far away, the deputy who Charlie had first met when he drove into Alien's Corners was taking down an eye-witness statement from a highway worker who had been clearing out ditches only fifty yards away from the smash.

Charlie parked his car on the gra.s.sy verge and climbed out. The sheriff turned to him as he approached, then leaned sideways a little so that he could see past him to his car.

'This is an accident here, fellow,' he told Charlie, in a voice made harsh by smoking and Connecticut winters. 'You're going to have to move that vehicle out of here.'

'I was coming to your office,' Charile told him. 'I have a serious crime to report.'

Somehow, out here by the roadside, Charlie thought that his words sounded weak and unreal. The sheriff gave a short, hammering cough, and eyed Charlie through his green-tinted lenses as if he wasn't sure whether to shout at him or hit him.

'What nature of serious crime?' he inquired.

'Kidnap, maybe worse,' said Charlie.

The sheriff asked, 'Where? And when? And who got kidnapped?'

'It happened last night. My fifteen-year-old son Martin was abducted from the Windsor Hotel at West Hartford.'

'Outside of my jurisdiction,' said the sheriff. 'You should of reported it in West Hartford.'

'But they brought him here.1 'Who brought him here? You mean you know who did it?'

'M. and Mme Musette, at Le Reposoir, back on the Quas-sapaug Road. I saw him there not more than ten minutes ago.'

The sheriff said, 'Hold on, now. You've seen him since this alleged kidnap took place?'

'That's correct. I tried to get him away, but I couldn't.'

The Sheriff looked thoughtful. Then he called to his deputy, 'Clive! You want to wrap this up? I have to talk to this gentleman here for a while.'

Clive came over with his thumbs in his belt. 'How do you do,' he greeted Charlie. Then he said to the sheriff, 'This is the gentleman who parked in Mr Haxalt's s.p.a.ce the other day.'

The sheriff said, 'Sounds like you're the kind of man who likes to live dangerously.'

'Where can we talk?' asked Charlie.

'You'd better follow me back to my office. You and I have got some discussing to do.'

The sheriff eased his bulky bottom into his car, and drove off, with Charlie following close behind. His office was eater-corner from the church, overlooking the sloping green at Alien's Corners. He parked in a s.p.a.ce marked 'Sheriff and Charlie parked beside him in a s.p.a.ce marked 'Coroner'.

'You sure do like to live dangerously,' the sheriff remarked, indicating the slot in which Charlie had parked. 'Our county coroner has a rare temper.'

144.

'I'm not in the mood for worrying about people's private parking s.p.a.ces,' said Charlie.

The sheriff grasped his shoulder. 'I know you're not. Just trying to lighten the atmosphere a little. Come on in. Maybe you'd care for some coffee.'

Charlie sat in the sheriffs office under a tired-looking flag and a crest with the Connecticut state motto, Qui Transtulit Sustinet. There was also a comprehensive selection of colour photographs of the current sheriff shaking hands with almost everybody from Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Breslin. The sheriff sent his work-worn, bespectacled secretary to bring them two Styrofoam cups of what turned out to be remarkably good coffee. Then he kicked the door closed, and settled himself down behind his desk.

'You'd better give me some of the salient facts,' he said. 'Your boy's age, description, what he was wearing, all that kind of thing. You'd better tell me how it happened, too.'

'But I know where he is,' Charlie insisted.

The sheriff pulled a tight face. 'Sure you know where he is. The difficulty is, if he's staying with those people voluntarily, we're not in any kind of a position to go crashing in there with all guns blazing to rescue him.'

'He's a minor. Don't tell me that you can't get a warrant to go in and get him. Listen - I can prove that his life is in danger. Do you know anything about those people at all? Do you know what they're doing in that place?'

'Well, sir, as a matter of fact I do.'

'You know about the rituals?'

The sheriff nodded, squashing his double chins like an accordion bellows.

'And you've been content to sit here and let them get on with it? For Christ's sake, sheriff, they're cannibals! They're worse than cannibals! They're actually persuading young people to hack themselves to pieces and eat their own bodies!'

'Yes,' said the sheriff.

H5.

' y?' Charlie exploded. 'Is that all you can say? V? I'm talking about my only son, sheriff. My boy is lying on a bed in that place stark naked and preparing himself to do G.o.d alone knows what. He's probably going to cut off his own fingers and eat them. Or worse.'

The sheriff sipped his coffee and then set it back on his desk. 'Whatever I'm going to say to you now, Mr McLean, you're going to feel that it falls far short of the kind of response you've been expecting from the law on this matter. But there are what you might call ramifications.'