Kate Mosse - Labyrinth

Whilst it is believed the fabled Cathar treasure was smuggled away from the besieged citadel in January 1244, shortly before the final defeat, that treasure has never been found. Rumurs that this most precious of objects was lost are inaccurate. *

Alice followed the note to the asterisk to the bottom of the page. Rather than a footnote there was a quotation from the Gospel of St John, chapter eight, verse thirty-two: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.“

She raised her eyebrows. It didn’t seem to have much relevance to the text at all.

Alice put Baillard’s book with the others ready to take with her, then crossed to the back bedroom.

There was an old-fashioned Singer sewing machine, incongruously English in the thick-walled French house. Her mother had had one exactly like it and sat sewing for hours on end, filling the house with the comforting thud and rat-a-tat of the treadle.

Alice smoothed her hand over the dust-covered surface. It looked to be in good working order. She opened each of the compartments in turn, finding cotton reels, needles, pins, fragments of lace and ribbon, a card of old-fashioned silver poppers and a box of assorted buttons.

She turned to the oak desk by the window which overlooked a small, enclosed courtyard at the back of the house. The first two drawers were lined with wallpaper but completely empty. The third, surprisingly, was locked, although the key had been left in the keyhole.

With a combination of force and jiggling of the tiny silver key, Alice managed to pull it open. Sitting at the bottom of the drawer was a shoebox. She lifted it out and placed it on top of the desk.

Everything was very neat inside. There was a bundle of photographs tied up with string. A single letter lay loose on the top. It was addressed to Mme Tanner in black, spidery script. Postmarked Carcassonne, 16 Mars 2005 , the word PRIORITAIRE was stamped across it in red. There was no return address on the back, simply a name printed in the same italic script: Expediteur Audric S Baillard .

Alice slid her fingers inside and pulled out a single sheet of thick, cream paper. There was no date or address or explanation, just a poem written in the same hand.

Bona nueit, bona nueit…

Braves amücs, pica mieja-nueit

Cal finir velhada

Ejos la flassada

A faint memory rippled across the surface of her mind like a song long forgotten. The words scratched at the top of the steps in the cave. It was the same language, she’d swear, her unconscious mind making the connection her conscious mind could not.

Alice leaned back against the bed. March the sixteenth, a couple of days before her great-aunt’s death. Had she put it in the box herself or had that been left to someone else? Baillard himself?

Putting the poem to one side, Alice undid the string.

There were ten photographs in all, all black and white and arranged in chronological order. The month, place and date were printed on the back in capital letters in pencil. The first photograph was a studio portrait of a serious little boy in school uniform, his hair combed flat with a sharp parting. Alice turned it over. FREDERICK WILLIAM TANNER, SEPTEMBER 1937 was written on the back in blue ink. Different handwriting.

Her heart did a somersault. The same photo of her dad had stood on the mantelpiece at home, next to her parents’ wedding photograph and a portrait of Alice herself at the age of six in a smocked party dress with puffed sleeves. She traced the lines of his face with her fingers. It proved, if nothing else, that Grace was aware of her little brother’s existence, even if they’d never met.

Alice put it to one side and moved to the next, working her way methodically through the pile. The earliest photograph she found of her aunt herself was surprisingly recent, taken at a summer fete in July 1958.

There was a distinct family resemblance. Like Alice, Grace was petite with delicate, almost elfin, features, although her hair was straight and grey and cut uncompromisingly short. Grace was looking straight at the camera, her handbag held firmly in front of her like a barrier.

The final photograph was another shot of Grace, a few years older, standing with an elderly man. Alice creased her brow. He reminded her of someone. She turned the photo slightly, to change the way the light fell on the image.

They were standing in front of an old stone wall. There was something about the pose, as if they didn’t know each other well. From their clothes, it was late spring or summer. Grace was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress, gathered at the waist. Her companion was tall and very in a pale summer suit. His face was obscured by the shadow of his panama hat but his speckled, creased hands gave his age away.

On the wall behind them a French street sign was partially visible. Alice peered at the tiny sign and managed to make out the words Rue des Trois Degres. The caption on the back was in Baillard’s spidery handwriting:

AB e GT.junh 1993, Chartres

Chartres again. Grace and Audric Baillard, it had to be. And 1982, the year her parents had died.

Putting that to one side too, Alice took out the only item left in the box, a small, old-fashioned book. The black leather was cracked and held together with a corroded brass zip and the words holy bible were embossed in gold on the front.

After several attempts, Alice managed to get it open. At first glance, it seemed like any other standard King James edition. It was only when she got three-quarters of the way through that she discovered a hole had been cut through the tissue-thin pages to create a shallow, rectangular hiding place, about four inches by three.

Inside, folded tight, were several sheets of paper, which Alice carefully opened out. A pale stone disc, the size of a one euro piece, fell out and landed in her lap. It was flat and very thin, made of stone, not metal. Surprised, she balanced it between her fingers. There were two letters engraved on it. NS . Compass points? Somebody’s initials? Some kind of currency?

Alice turned the disc over. Engraved on the other side was the labyrinth, identical in every respect to the markings on the underside of the ring and on the wall of the cave.

Common sense told her there would be a perfectly acceptable explanation for the coincidence, although nothing came immediately to mind. She looked with apprehension at the papers that had contained the disc. She was nervous of what she might discover, but she was too curious to leave them unopened.

You can’t stop now.

Alice began to unfold the pages. She had to stop herself sighing with relief. It was only a family tree. The first sheet was headed ARBRE GENEALOGIQUE . The ink was faded and hard to read in places, but certain words stood out. Most names were in black, but on the second line one name, ALAIS PELLETIER-DU MAS ( 1193 -), was written in red ink. Alice couldn’t decipher the name next to it but, on the line below and set slightly to the right, was another name, SAJHE DE SERVIAN, written in green.

Beside both names was a small, delicate motif picked out in gold. Alice reached for the stone disc and laid it next to the symbol on the page, pattern side up. They were identical.

One by one, she turned the sheets over until she got to the last page. There she found an entry for Grace, her date of death added in a different colour ink. Below that and to the side were Alice’s parents.

The final entry was hers, ALICE GRACE (1976 -) picked out in red ink. Next to it, the labyrinth symbol.

With her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms hooped around her legs, Alice lost track of how long she sat in the still, abandoned room. Finally, she understood. The past was reaching out to claim her. Whether she wished it or not.