Slowly, like everyone else, Alice began to walk the labyrinth, round and round in ever decreasing circles, like a halting game of follow-my-leader, until she arrived at the centre.
She felt nothing. No shiver up her spine, no moment of enlightenment or transformation. Nothing. She crouched down and touched the ground. The stone was smooth and cool, but it did not speak to her.
Alice gave a wry smile. What were you expecting?
She didn’t even need to get her drawing of the cave labyrinth from her bag to know that there was nothing for her here. Without a fuss, Alice excused herself from the group, and slipped away.
After the fierce heat of the Midi, the gentle northern sun was a relief and Alice spent the next hour exploring the picturesque historic town centre.
She was half looking for the corner where Grace and Audric Baillard had posed for the camera.
It didn’t seem to exist or else was outside the area covered by the map. Most of the streets had taken their names from the trades practised there in previous times: clockmakers, tanners, equerries and stationers, testament to Chartres’ importance as the great centre of paper making and book binding in France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But no rue des Trois Degres.
Finally, Alice arrived back where she had started, in front of the West Door of the cathedral. She sat down on the wall leaning against the railings. Immediately, her gaze honed in on the corner of the street directly opposite. She jumped up and ran over to read the sign on the walclass="underline" RUE DE L’ETROIT DEGRE, DITE AUSSI RUE DES TROIS DEGRES (DES TROIS MARCHES).
The road had been renamed. Smiling to herself, Alice stepped back to get a better view and banged into a man buried in a newspaper.
“Pardon,‘ she said, moving sideways.
“No, excuse me,” he said, in a pleasant American accent. “It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
To her surprise, he was staring intently at her.
“Is there…”
“It’s Alice, right?”
Yes?“ she said cautiously.
“Alice, of course. Hi,” he said, pushing his fingers through his mop of shaggy brown hair. “How amazing!”
“I’m sorry, but I-”
William Franklin,“ he said, holding out his hand. Will. We met in London, nineteen-ninety four or five. Big group of us. You were dating a guy… what was he called… Oliver. Is that right? I’d gone over to visit with my cousin.”
Alice had a vague memory of an afternoon in an over-crowded flat filled with Oliver’s university friends. She thought she could just about remember an American boy, engaging, good looking, although she’d been head over heels in love at that stage, noticing no one else.
2›This boy? 2›
You have a good memory,“ she said, shaking his hand. ”It was a long time ago.“
You haven’t changed so much.“ he said, smiling. ”So, how is Oliver anyhow?“
Alice pulled a face. We’re not still together.“
That’s too bad,“ he said. There was a slight pause, then added: Who’s in the photo?”
Alice looked down. She’d forgotten she was still holding it.
“My aunt. I came across this in some of her things and, since I was here, I thought I’d see if I could track down where it was taken.” She grinned. “It’s been harder than you’d imagine.”
Will looked over her shoulder. “And the guy?”
“Just a friend. A writer.”
Another a pause, as if both wanted to keep the conversation going, but didn’t quite know what to say. Will looked back to the picture.
“She looks nice.”
“Nice?” She looks rather determined to me, although I don’t know that for a fact. I never met her.“
“Really? So how come you’re carrying her photo around?”
Alice put the photograph back in her bag. “It’s complicated.”
“I can do complicated,” he grinned. “Look…” he hesitated. “Do you want to get coffee or something? If you’ve not got someplace else you’ve got to be.”
Alice was surprised but, actually, she’d been thinking the same thing.
“Do you usually go picking up random women like this?”
“Not usually,” he said. “The question is do you usually accept?”
Alice felt as if she was looking down on the scene from above. Watching a man and a woman, who looked like her, walk into the old-fashioned patisserie with the cakes and pastries laid out in long glass cabinets.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Sights, smells, sounds. The waiters dipping in and out of the tables, the burned, bitter aroma of the coffee, the hiss of milk in the machine, the dink of forks on the plate, everything was especially vivid. Most of all Will himself, the way he smiled, the turn of his head, the way his fingers went to the silver chain at his neck when he was talking.
They sat at a table outside. The spire of the cathedral was just visible over the tops of the houses. A slight constraint descended on them when they sat down. They both started talking at once. Alice laughed, Will apologised.
Cautiously, tentatively, they started to fill in the stories of their lives since they’d last met six years ago.
“You looked really engrossed,” she said, turning his newspaper around so she could read the headline. You know, when you came hurtling round that corner and we collided.“
Will grinned. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he apologised. “The local paper’s not usually so exciting. A man’s been found dead in the river, right in the centre of the city. He’d been stabbed in the back, his hands and feet were tied, the local radio station’s going crazy. They seem to think it’s some kind of ritual killing. Now they’re linking it to the disappearance last week of a local journalist, who was writing an expose of secret religious societies.”
The smile fell from Alice’s face. “Can I see that?” she said, reaching for the paper.
“Sure. Help yourself.”
Her sense of uneasiness grew as she read the list of names. The Noublesso Veritable. There was something familiar about the name.
“Are you okay?” Alice looked up to see Will gazing at her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was miles away. It’s just I’ve come across something similar recently. The coincidence gave me a shock.”
“Coincidence? Sounds intriguing.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m in no hurry,” said Will, propping his elbows on the table and smiling encouragingly at her.
After being trapped inside her own thoughts for so long, Alice was tempted by the chance of finally talking to someone. And she sort of knew him. Only tell him what you want.
“Well, I’m not sure this is going to make much sense,” she began. “A couple of months ago I discovered, totally out of the blue, that an aunt I’d never heard of had died and left everything to me, including a house in France.”
“The lady in the photo.”
She nodded. “She’s called Grace Tanner. I was due to come to France anyway, to visit a friend who was working at an archaeological dig in the Pyrenees, so I decided to run the two trips together.” She hesitated. “Some things happened at the dig – I won’t bore you by going into detail except to say there seemed to be… Well, never mind.” She took a breath. “Yesterday, after a meeting with the solicitor, I went to my aunt’s house and I found some things… something, a pattern, which I’d seen at the dig.” She stumbled, inarticulate. “There was also a book by an author called Audric Baillard who, I’m almost a hundred per cent certain, is the man in the photo.”
“He’s still alive?”
“So far as I know. I haven’t been able to track him down.”
“What’s his relationship with your aunt?”
I’m not sure. I’m hoping he’ll be able to tell me. He’s my only link to her. And other things.“