Labyrinth

CHAPTER 23

Carcassonne

Just after ten o’clock, the man known as Audric Baillard walked out of the SNCF station in Carcassonne and headed toward the town. He was slight and cut a distinguished, if old-fashioned, figure in his pale suit. He walked fast, holding a tall wooden walking stick like a staff between his thin fingers. His Panama hat shielded his eyes from the glare.

Baillard crossed the Canal du Midi and passed the magnificent Hotel du Terminus, with its ostentatious art deco mirrors and swirling decorative iron doors. Carcassonne had changed a great deal. There was evidence of it all around him as he made his way down the pedestrian street that cut through the heart of the Basse Ville. New clothing shops, patisseries, bookshops and jewelers. There was an air of prosperity. Once more, it was a destination. A city at the center of things.

The white paved tiles of Place Carnot shone in the sun. That was new. The magnificent nineteenth-century fountain had been restored, its water sparklingly clean. The square was dotted with brightly colored cafe chairs and tables. Baillard glanced toward Bar Felix and smiled at its familiar, shabby awnings under the lime trees. Some things, at least, remained unchanged.

He walked up a narrow, bustling side street that led to the Pont Vieux. The brown heritage signs for the fortified medieval Cite were another indication of how the place had transformed itself from Michelin guide “vaut le detour” to international tourist destination and UNESCO world heritage site.

Then he was out into the open and there it was. Baillard felt, as he always did, the sharp pang of homecoming, even though it was no longer the place he had known.

A decorative railing had been set across the entrance to the Pont Vieux to keep out the traffic. Time was that a man had to squash himself against the wall to avoid the stream of camper vans, caravans, trucks and motorbikes that had chugged their way across the narrow bridge. Then, the stonework had borne the scars of decades of pollution. Now, the parapet was clean. Perhaps a little too clean. But the battered stone Jesus was still hanging on his cross like a rag doll, halfway across the bridge, marking the boundary between the Bastide Sant-Louis and the fortified old town.

He pulled a yellow handkerchief from his top pocket and carefully wiped his face and forehead beneath the rim of his hat. The edges of the river far below him were lush and tended, with sand-colored paths winding through the trees and bushes. On the north bank, set among sweeping lawns, there were well-tended flower beds, filled with huge, exotic flowers. Well-dressed ladies sat on the metal benches in the shade of the trees, looking down over the water and talking, while their small dogs panted patiently beside them, or snapped at the heels of the occasional jogger.

The Pont Vieux led straight into the Quartier de la Trivalle, which had been transformed from a drab suburb into the gateway to the medieval Cite. Black wrought-iron railings had been set at intervals along the pavements to stop cars from parking. Fiery orange, purple and crimson pansies trailed out of their containers like hair tumbling down a young girl’s back. Chrome tables and chairs glittered outside the cafes and twisted copper-topped lamps had elbowed aside the old, workaday streetlights. Even the old iron and plastic guttering, which leaked and cracked in the heavy rain and heat, had been replaced by sleek, brushed-metal drainpipes with ends shaped like the mouths of angry fish.

The boulangerie and alimentation generate had survived, as had the Hotel du Pont Vieux, but the boucherie now sold antiques and the haberdashers was a new age emporium, dispensing crystals, tarot cards and books on spiritual enlightenment.

How many years had it been since last he was here? He’d lost count.

Baillard turned right into rue de la Gaffe and saw the signs of creeping gentrification here too. The street was only just wide enough for a single car, more an alleyway than a road. There was an art gallery on the corner- La Maison du Chevalier-with two large arched windows protected by metal bars, like a Hollywood portcullis. There were six painted wooden shields on the wall and a metal ring by the door for people to tie their dogs where once they tethered horses.

Several of the doors were newly painted. He saw white ceramic house numbers with blue and yellow borders and twists of tiny flowers. The occasional backpacker, clutching maps and water bottles, stopped to ask in halting French for directions to the Cite, but there was little other movement.

Jeanne Giraud lived in a small house backing onto the grassy slopes that led steeply up to the medieval ramparts. At her end of the street, fewer of the dwellings had been refurbished. Some were derelict or boarded up. An old woman and a man sat outside on chairs brought out from their kitchen. Baillard raised his hat and wished them good day as he passed. He knew some of Jeanne’s neighbors by sight, having built up a nodding acquaintance over the years.

Jeanne was sitting outside her front door in the shade, anticipating his arrival. She looked neat and efficient as always, in a plain long-sleeved shirt and a straight dark skirt. Her hair was drawn back into a bun at the nape of her neck. She looked like the schoolteacher she had been, until her retirement twenty years ago. In the years they’d known each other, he’d never seen her anything less than perfectly and formally turned out.

Audric smiled, remembering how curious she had been in the early days, always asking questions. Where did he live? What did he do in the long months they did not see each other? Where did he go?

Traveling, he’d told her. Researching and gathering material for his books, visiting friends.

Who, she had asked?

Companions, those with whom he’d studied and shared experiences. He had told her of his friendship with Grace.

A while later, he admitted his home was in a village in the Pyrenees, not far from Montsegur. But he shared very little else about himself and, as the decades slipped by, she had given up asking.

Jeanne was an intuitive and methodical researcher, diligent, conscientious and unsentimental, all invaluable qualities. For the past thirty years or so, she had worked with him on every one of his books, most particularly his last, unfinished work, a biography of a Cathar family in thirteenth-century Carcassonne.

For Jeanne, it had been a piece of detective work. For Audric, it was a labor of love.

Jeanne raised her hand when she saw him coming. “Audric,” she smiled. “It’s been a long time.”

Her took her hands between his. “Bonjorn.”

She stood back to look him up and down. “You look well.”

“Te tanben,” he answered. You too.

“You’ve made good time.”

He nodded. “The train was punctual.”

Jeanne looked scandalized. “You didn’t walk from the station?”

“It’s not so far,” he smiled. “I admit, I wanted to see how Carcassona had changed since last I was here.”

Baillard followed her into the cool little house. The brown and beige tiles on the floor and walls gave everything a somber, old-fashioned look. A small oval table stood in the center of the room, its battered legs sticking out from underneath a yellow and blue oilskin cloth. There was a bureau in the corner with an old-fashioned typewriter sitting on it, next to French windows that gave on to a small terrace.

Jeanne came out of the pantry with a tray with a jug of water, a bowl of ice, a plate of crisp, peppered biscuits, a bowl of sour green olives and a saucer for the pits. She put the tray carefully down on the table and then reached up to the narrow wooden ledge that ran, at shoulder height, the length of the room. Her hand found a bottle of Guignolet, a bitter cherry liqueur he knew she kept only for his rare visits.

The ice cracked and chinked against the sides as the bright red alcohol trickled over the cubes. For a while they sat in companionable silence, as they had done many times before. An occasional fragment of guide book commentary, belched out in several languages, filtered down from the Cite as the tourist train completed one of its regular circuits of the walls.

Audric carefully put his glass on the table. “So,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

Jeanne pulled her chair closer to the table. “My grandson Yves, as you know, is with the Police Judiciaire, departement de I’Ariege, stationed in Foix itself. Yesterday, he was called to an archeological dig in the Sabarthes Mountains, close to the Pic de Soularac, where two skeletons had been found. Yves was surprised his superiors seemed to be treating it as a potential murder scene, even though he said it was clear the skeletons had been there for some considerable time.” She paused. “Of course, Yves did not interview the woman who found the bodies himself, but he was present. Yves knows a little of the work I’ve been doing for you, enough certainly to know the discovery of this cave would be of interest.”

Audric drew in his breath. For so many years he had tried to imagine how he would feel at this moment. He had never lost faith that, at last, the time would come when he would learn the truth of those final hours.

The decades rolled one into the other. He watched the seasons follow their endless cycle; the green of spring slipping into the gold of summer; the burnished palette of autumn vanishing beneath the austere whiteness of the winter; the first thaw of the mountain streams in spring.

Still, no word had come. E ara? And now?

“Yves went inside the cave himself?” he asked.

Jeanne nodded.

“What did he see?”

“There was an altar. Behind it, carved into the rock itself, was the symbol of the labyrinth.”

“And the bodies? Where were they?”

“In a grave, no more than a dip in the ground in truth, in front of the altar. There were objects lying between the bodies, although there were too many people for him to get close enough to see properly.”

“How many were there?”

“Two. Two skeletons.”

“But that-” He stopped. “No matter, Jeanne. Please, go on.”

“Underneath the… them, he picked up this.”

Jeanne pushed a small object across the table.

Audric did not move. After so long, he feared to touch it.

“Yves telephoned from the post office in Foix late yesterday afternoon. The line was bad and it was hard to hear, but he said he took the ring because he didn’t trust the people looking for it. He sounded worried.” Jeanne paused. “No, he sounded frightened, Audric. Things weren’t being done right. Usual procedures were not being followed, there were all sorts of people on site who should not have been there. He was whispering, as if he was frightened of being overheard.”

“Who knows he went into the cave?”

“I don’t know. The officers on duty? His commanding officer? Probably others.”

Baillard looked at the ring on the table, then stretched out and picked it up. Holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he tilted it toward the light. The delicate pattern of the labyrinth carved on the underside was clearly visible.

“Is it his ring?” Jeanne asked.

Audric couldn’t trust himself to answer. He was wondering at the chance that had delivered the ring into his hands. Wondering if it was chance.

“Did Yves say where the bodies had been taken?”

She shook her head.

“Could you ask him? And, if he could, a list of all those who were at the site yesterday when the cave was opened.”

“I’ll ask. I’m sure he’ll help if he can.”

Baillard slipped the ring on to his thumb. “Please convey my gratitude to Yves. It must have cost him dear to take this. He has no idea how important his quick thinking may turn out to be.” He smiled. “Did he say what else was discovered with the bodies?”

“A dagger, a small leather bag with nothing inside, a lamp on-”

“Vueg?” he said in disbelief. “Empty? But that cannot be.”

“Inspector Noubel, the senior officer, apparently pressed the woman on this point. Yves said she was adamant. She claimed shed touched nothing but the ring.”

“And did your grandson think her truthful?”

“He didn’t say.”

“If… someone else must have taken it,” he muttered to himself, his brow furrowed in thought. “What did Yves tell you about this woman?”

“Very little. She is English, in her twenties, a volunteer, not an archeologist. She was staying in Foix at the invitation of a friend, who is the second in charge at the excavation.”

“Did he tell you her name?”

“Taylor, I think he said.” She frowned. “No, not Taylor. Perhaps it was Tanner. Yes, that’s it. Alice Tanner.”

Time stood still. “Es vertat?” Can it be true? The name echoed inside his head. “Es vertat?” he repeated in a whisper.

Had she taken the book? Recognized it? No, no. He stopped himself. That made no sense. If the book, then why not the ring also?

Baillard placed his hands flat on the table to stop them trembling, then met Jeanne’s gaze.

“Do you think you could ask Yves if he has an address? If he knows where, Madomaisela-?” He broke off, unable to continue.

“I can ask,” she replied, then added: “Are you all right, Audric?”

“Tired.” He tried to smile. “Nothing more.”

“I had expected you to be more… pleased. It is-at least, could be- the culmination of your years of work.”

“It is so much to take in.”

“You seem to be shocked by the news rather than excited.”

Baillard imagined how he must look: eyes too bright, face too pale, hands shaking.

T am excited,“ he said. ”And most grateful to Yves and, of course, to you too, but…“ He took a deep breath. ”If perhaps you could telephone Yves now? If I could speak with him in person? Perhaps even meet?“

Jeanne got up from the table and walked into the hall, where the telephone stood on a small table at the foot of the stairs.

Baillard looked out of the window to the slopes that led up to the walls of the Cite. An image of her singing while she worked came into his mind, a vision of the light falling in bright slats between the branches of the trees, casting a dappled light on the water. All around her were the sounds and smells of spring; pinpricks of color in the undergrowth, blues, pinks and yellows, the rich deep earth and the heady scent of the box trees either side of the rocky path. The promise of warmth and summer days to come.

He jumped as Jeanne’s voice called him back from the gentle colors of the past.

“There’s no answer,” she said.