Nervous, awkward, Alice ducked under the lintel and stepped through the door into the room, still feeling the intensity of his gaze. It was as if he was trying to commit every feature to memory.
“Monsieur Baillard,” she said, then stopped.
She was unable to think of anything to say. His delight, his wonder that she had come – mixed with his faith that she would – made ordinary conversation impossible.
“You resemble her,” he said slowly. “There is much of her in your face.”
“I’ve only seen photos, but I thought so too.”
He smiled. “I did not mean Grace,” he said softly, then turned away, as if he had said too much. “Please, sit down.”
Alice glanced surreptiously around the room, noticing the lack of modern equipment. No lights, no heating, nothing electronic. She wondered if there was a kitchen.
“Monsieur Baillard,” she started again. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I was wondering… how did you know where to find me?”
Again, he smiled. “Does it matter?”
Alice thought about it and realised it did not.
“Madomaisela Tanner, I know about the Pic de Soularac. I have one question I must ask you before we go any further. Did you find a book?”
More than anything, Alice wanted to say she had. “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “He asked me about it too, but I didn’t see it.”
“He?”
She frowned. “A man called Paul Authie.”
Baillard nodded his head up and down. “Ah, yes,” he said, in such a way that Alice felt she didn’t need to explain.
“You found this, though, I believe?”
He lifted his left hand and placed it on the table, like a young girl showing off an engagement ring, and she saw to her astonishment he was wearing the stone ring. She smiled. It was so familiar, even though she’d seen it for a few seconds at most.
She swallowed hard. “May I?”
Baillard removed it from his thumb. Alice took it and turned it over’t her fingers, again discomforted by the intensity of his gaze.
“Does it belong to you?” she heard herself asking, although she feared, say yes and all that that might mean.
He paused. “No,” he said in the end, “although I had one like it once.”
“Then who did this belong to?”
“You do not know?” he said.
For a split second, Alice thought she did. Then the spark of understanding disappeared and her mind was clouded once more.
“I’m not sure,” she said uncertainly, shaking her head, “but it lacks this, I think.” She pulled the labyrinth disc from her pocket. “It was with the family tree at my aunt’s house.” She handed it to him. “Did you send it to her?”
Baillard did not answer. “Grace was a charming woman, well educated and intelligent. During the course of our first conversation we discovered we had several interests in common, several experiences in common.”
“What is it for?” she asked, refusing to be deflected.
“It’s called a merel. Once there were many. Now, only this one remains.”
She watched in amazement as Baillard inserted the disc into the gap in the body of the ring. “Aqui. There.” He smiled and put the ring back on his thumb.
“Is that decorative only or does it serve some purpose?”
He smiled, as if she had passed some sort of test. “It is the key that is needed,” he said softly.
“Needed for what?”
Again, Baillard did not answer. “Alais comes to you sometimes when you are sleeping, does she not?”
She was taken aback by the sudden shift in conversation. She didn’t know how to react.
We carry the past within us, in our bones, in our blood,“ he said. ”Alais has been with you all of your life, watching over you. You share many qualities with her. She had great courage, a quiet determination, as do you. Alais was loyal and steadfast as, I suspect, are you.“ He stopped and smiled at her again. ”She, too, had dreams. Of the old days, of the beginning. Those dreams revealed her destiny to her, although she was reluctant to accept it, as yours now light your way.“
Alice felt as if the words were coming at her from a long distance, as if they were nothing to do with her or Baillard or anybody, but had always existed in time and space.
“My dreams have always been about her,” she said, not knowing where her words were taking her. “About the fire, the mountain, the book. This mountain?” He nodded. “I feel she’s trying to tell me something. Her face has grown clearer these past few days, but I still can’t hear her speak.” She hesitated. “I don’t understand what she wants of me.”
“Or you of her, perhaps,” he said lightly. Baillard poured the wine and handed a glass to Alice.
Despite the earliness of the hour, she took several mouthfuls, feeling the liquid warming her as it slid down her throat.
“Monsieur Baillard, I need to know what happened to Alais. Until I do, nothing will make sense. You know, don’t you?”
A look of infinite sadness came over him.
“She did survive,” she said slowly, fearing to hear the answer. “After Carcassonne… they didn’t… she wasn’t captured?”
He placed his hands flat on the table. Thin and speckled brown with age, Alice thought they resembled the claws of a bird.
“Alais did not die before her time,” he said carefully.
That doesn’t tell me…“ she started to say.
Baillard held up his hand. “At the Pic de Soularac events were set in motion that will give you – give us – the answers we seek. Only through understanding the present, the truth of the past will be known. You seek your friend, oc?
Again, Alice was caught out by the way Baillard jumped from one subject to another.
“How do you know about Shelagh?” she said.
“I know about the excavation and what happened there. Now your friend has disappeared. You are trying to find her.”
Deciding there was no point trying to work out how or what he knew, Alice replied.
“She left the site house a couple of days ago. No one’s seen her since. I know her disappearance is connected with the discovery of the labyrinth.” She hesitated. “In fact, I think I know who might be behind it all. At first, I thought Shelagh might have stolen the ring.”
Baillard shook his head. Yves Biau took it and sent it to his grandmother, Jeanne Giraud.“
Alice’s eyes widened as another part of the jigsaw slotted into place. “Yves and your friend work for a woman called Madame de l’Oradore.” He paused. “Fortunately, Yves had second thoughts. Your friend too, perhaps.”
Alice nodded. “Biau passed me a telephone number. Then I discovered Shelagh had called the same number. I found out the address and when I didn’t get any answer, I thought I should go and see if she was there. It led out to be the house of Madame de l’Oradore. In Chartres.”
“You went to Chartres?” Baillard said, his eyes bright. “Tell me. Tell me. at did you see?”
He listened in silence until Alice had finished telling him about everything she’d seen and overheard.
“But this young man, Will, he did not show you the chamber?”
Alice shook her head. “After a while, I started to think that maybe it didn’t really exist.”
“It exists,” he said.
“I left my rucksack behind. It had all my notes about the labyrinth in it, the photograph of you with my aunt. It will lead her straight to me.” She paused. “That’s why Will went back to get it for me.”
“And now you fear something has happened to him also?”
“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. Half the time, I’m frightened for him. The rest of the time, I think he’s probably all tied up in it as well.”
“Why did you feel you could trust him in the first instance?”
Alice looked up, alerted by the change in his tone. His usually benign gentle expression had vanished.
“Do you feel you owe him something?”
“Owe him something?” Alice repeated, surprised by his choice of words. “No, not that. I barely know him. But, I liked him, I suppose. I felt comfortable in his company. I felt…”