To the labyrinth, the family tree, to my dream.
When she looked up, she saw Will was looking confused, but engaged.
“I can’t say I’m much the wiser yet,” he said with a grin.
I’m not explaining it very well,“ she admitted. ”Let’s talk about some less complicated. You never did tell me what you were doing in Chartres.“
“Like every other American in France, trying to write.”
Alice smiled. “Isn’t Paris more traditional?”
“I started off there, but I guess I found it too, well, impersonal, if you know what I mean. My parents knew folks here. I liked it. Ended up staying a while.”
Alice nodded, expecting him to carry on. Instead, he returned to something she’d said earlier. “This pattern you mentioned,” he said casually. “That you found at the dig and then at Grace’s house, what was special about it?”
She hesitated. “It’s a labyrinth.”
“Is that why you’re here in Chartres then? To go to the cathedral?”
“It’s not quite the same…” She stopped as caution returned. “Partly, although it’s more because I’m hoping to catch up with a friend. Shelagh. There’s a… a possibility she might be in Chartres.” Alice reached in her bag and passed the scrap of paper with the address scribbled on it across the table to Will. “I went there earlier, but there was no one there. So I decided to do my sightseeing, then go back in about an hour or so.”
Alice was shocked to see Will had turned white. He looked dumbstruck.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Why do you think your friend might be there?” he said in a tight voice.
“I don’t, for sure,” she said, still puzzled by the change that had come over him.
“This is the friend you went to visit at the dig?”
She nodded.
“And she saw this labyrinth pattern also? Like you?”
“I suppose so, although she didn’t mention it. She was more obsessed with something I’d found, which…” Alice broke off as Will abruptly stood up.
“What are you doing?” she said, unnerved by the expression on his face as he took her hand.
“Come with me. There’s something you ought to see.”
“Where are we going?” she asked again, hurrying to keep up with him.
Then they rounded the corner and Alice realised they were at the other end of rue du Cheval Blanc. Will strode towards the house, then ran up the steps to the front door.
“Are you out of your mind? What if someone’s come home?”
“There won’t be.”
“But how do you know?”
Alice watched with astonishment as Will produced a key from his pocket and opened the front door. “Hurry. Before someone sees us.”
“You have a key,” she said in disbelief. “Suppose you start telling me what the hell’s going on.”
Will ran back down the steps and grabbed her hand.
“There’s a version of your labyrinth here,” he hissed. “Okay? Now, will you come?”
2›What if it’s another trap? 2›
After everything that had happened, she’d be crazy to follow him. It was too much of a risk. Nobody even knew she was here. Curiosity won out over common sense. Alice looked up at Will’s face, eager and anxious at one and the same time.
She decided to give him another chance and trust him.
CHAPTER 55
Alice found herself standing in a grand entrance hall, more like a museum than a private house. Will went straight to a tapestry opposite the front door and pulled it away from the wall.
“What are you doing?”
She ran after him and saw a tiny brass handle set into the panelling.
Will rattled and pushed at it, then turned round with frustration.
“Dammit. It’s been locked from the other side.”
“It’s a door?”
“Right.”
“And the labyrinth you saw, it’s down there?”
Will nodded. “You go down a flight of stairs and along a corridor, which leads into a weird sort of chamber. Egyptian symbols on the wall, a tomb with the symbol of the labyrinth, just like you described, carved on top. Now-” he broke off. The stuff in the newspaper. The fact your friend had this address…‘
You’re making a lot of assumptions based on not much,“ she said.
Will dropped the corner of the tapestry and was striding to a room on the opposite side of the hall. After a moment’s hesitation, Alice followed.
“What are you doing?” she hissed as Will opened the door.
Walking into the library was like stepping back in time. It was a formal room with the atmosphere of a men’s club. The shutters were partially closed and batons of yellow light lay stretched on the carpet like strips of golden cloth. There was an air of permanence, a smell of antiquity and polish.
Bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling along three sides of the room with sliding book ladders giving access to the highest shelves. Will knew exactly where he was going. There was a section dedicated to books on Chartres, photographic volumes set alongside the more serious examinations of architecture and social history.
Turning anxiously towards the door, her heart racing, Alice watched as Will pulled out a book with a family crest embossed on the front and carried it to the table. Alice looked over his shoulder as he flicked through the pages. Glossy colour photographs, old maps of Chartres, line and ink drawings flashed by until Will reached the section he wanted.
“What is it?”
“A book about the de l’Oradore house. This house,” he said. “The family has lived here for hundreds of years, since it was built. There are architectural floor plans and elevations of each floor of the house.”
Will flicked through until he’d found the page he wanted. “There,” he said, turning the book round so she could see properly. “Is that it?”
Alice caught her breath. “Oh God,” she whispered.
It was a perfect drawing of her labyrinth.
The sound of the front door being slammed shut made them both jump.
“Will, the door! We left it open!”
She could make out muffled voices in the hall, a man and a woman.
“They’re coming in here,” she hissed.
Will thrust the book into her hands. “Quick,” he hissed, pointing at a large three-seater sofa standing beneath the window. “Let me handle this.”
Alice scooped up her bag, ran to the sofa and crawled into the gap between it and the wall. There was a pungent smell of cracked leather and cigar smoke and the dust tickled her nose. She heard Will shut the case with a rattle, then take up position in the middle of the room just as the library door creaked open.
2›“Qu’est-ce que vous foutez la?” 2›
By tilting her head a little, Alice could just about the two of them reflected in the glass doors of the cabinets. He was; and tall, about the same size as Will, although more angular. Black curly hair, a high forehead and patrician nose. She frowned. He reminded her of someone.
“Francois-Baptiste. Hi,” said Will. Even to Alice’s ears he sounded falselybright.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” he repeated in English.
Will flashed the magazine he’d picked up from the table. “Just dropped by to get something to read.”
Francois -Baptiste cast his eye over the title and gave a short laugh.
“Doesn’t seem your thing.”
“You’d be surprised.”
The boy took a step towards Will. “You won’t last much longer,” he said in a low, bitter voice. “She’ll get bored of you and kick you out like all the rest. You didn’t even know she was going out of town, did you?”
“What goes on between her and me is none of your business, so if you don’t mind-”
Francois-Baptiste stepped in front of him. “Why the hurry?”
“Don’t push me, Francois-Baptiste, I’m warning you.”
Francois-Baptiste put his hand on Will’s chest to stop him passing.