Medical men came and went. Doctors, psychiatrists, the ward sister and her flock of starched nurses in squeaking, rubber-soled shoes. On the surface, it seemed that history was repeating itself. A sanatorium in Sussex, a hospital in Foix, a patient unable to cope. But I was not the same man. For though they poked and prodded at me, I felt clear in my mind. I was no longer doped up, just tired.

And the knowledge that I had done what had been asked of me sustained me. I had found Fabrissa.

With each passing hour, more memories returned. Fragments of the days leading up to this point, filling in the gaps like missing pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. My room in the boarding house, the crunch of sparkling ice underfoot in the place de l’Église when I set out for the Ostal. Watching the pale sun light the valley at dawn.

Fabrissa at my side.

On 22 December, my friends came from Ax-les-Thermes. Having received my letter, they had waited for me to get in touch. When after four days there was still no word, they made enquiries with Madame Galy and found out I was laid up in hospital.

They stayed for a couple of hours. From them, I learned my discovery in the cave was something of a coup. La Dépêche, the local newspaper, had devoted a whole page to the story. Of course it was early days and on account of the season, there was difficulty getting hold of the top men from Toulouse – archaeologists, pathologists, battalions of experts – but the consensus was that the skeletons were some six hundred years old. The cache of grave goods, pots and domestic artefacts, all confirmed that.

I understood a little more. Not a tragedy in living memory, but a story far older.

According to the experts quoted in the newspaper, the bodies were most likely to be traced back to the wars of religion in the early fourteenth century. Local historians had recorded similar incidents when members of the last remaining Cathar communities in the region had been trapped inside the caves in which they had taken shelter. In Lombrives, for example. No one had known there might be another similar site so close.

‘Breillac knew,’ I murmured to myself.

The whole village knew. My pretty nurse, Madame and Monsieur Galy, all of them had grown up in the shadow of the deep sadness that enveloped the village. Not only from the last war, but all the wars going back through the centuries. The inhabitants of Nulle, present and past, knew how such profound grief erodes the spirit.

But as I listened to my friends talk, and heard the excitement in their voice at being caught up, at one remove, in such an historic mystery, relief seeped through me. For although it was not I who physically carried her body home, my exploration of the cave had set in motion the reclaiming of those lost so many years ago. Now the real work of identification and burial could begin.

My thoughts drifted back to Fabrissa. She had led me there, hadn’t she? A flash of blue against the white of the mountains? And I had, for a perfect, impossible moment, surely held her in my arms.

I had no other visitors until Christmas Eve.

As the evening shadows were falling across the neat rows of beds and the nurses were lighting the lamps in the ward, a figure appeared in the doorway. Broad shoulders, awkward in the sterile atmosphere.

‘Guillaume, come in.’

I was genuinely delighted to see him. He approached the bed cautiously, clutching his cap in his broad red hands, giving the impression he was regretting his decision to visit. He had something to say to me, he said, something that had been bothering him. It wouldn’t take long.

‘Take a seat.’

I tried to sit up, too fast it seemed, for the motion made my head spin and I slumped back on the pillows.

‘Should I fetch someone?’

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Got to take it slower, that’s all.’

He perched awkwardly on the edge of the chair.

‘You had something to tell me?’ I prompted.

He nodded, but he could not meet my eye and didn’t seem to know how to start. In the end, I decided to help him out.

‘How long were you gone?’

Having a straightforward question to answer helped Guillaume get into his stride. It had taken three hours, he said. When they returned to the car with the truck from Tarascon, they found me gone. His father and Pierre were all for thinking I’d returned to Nulle, and concentrated on the car. But he, remembering the questions I had asked, wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t dismiss from his mind how I’d kept looking across the valley and asked questions about escarpment and caves. The longer he thought about it, the more sure he became that I had gone to investigate.

Against the wishes of his father, Guillaume persuaded the mechanic to drive on to Miglos rather than return to Tarascon. He climbed down from the road to the plateau and saw footprints on the mountain path. Given the lateness of the hour and the temperature, which was now little above freezing, he was certain they were mine.

‘But once I was down there, monsieur, it wasn’t clear where you had gone after that. The ground was too hard, ice not earth, so no tracks. And there were many routes you might have taken.

‘I could hear my brother calling me from the road. They were all impatient, certain it was a wild goose chase. I admit I was starting to doubt, too. The light was fading. I knew it was unwise to carry on searching. But I also knew that, if you had not returned to Nulle, you would not survive the night out there alone. Then I saw…’

Guillaume stopped, his cheeks red.

‘What, Guillaume?’ I said urgently. ‘What did you see?’

‘I don’t rightly know, monsieur. Someone. I swear to you, on my life, I saw someone waving to attract my attention.’

My heart skipped a beat. ‘A woman?’

He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t sure. I was too far away. All I saw was a flash of blue, a long blue coat. I thought it could be you, monsieur, if you had changed your clothes at your motorcar before setting out.’

‘It wasn’t me.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

Guillaume held my gaze for a moment, his honest eyes flickering with doubt, then he looked away.

‘I climbed up to the place you… the figure… had been, but there was no one there. I didn’t know what to make of it. Then I saw, not footprints exactly, but marks on the ground, leading towards the cliff face. When I took a closer look, I saw the opening into the cave hidden beneath the escarpment. ’

‘It’s lucky for me that you did, Guillaume,’ I said quietly.

‘I called up to my father and Pierre, who-’

‘They could see you?’

‘No, they were too far away. And by now it was nearly dark. But they could hear me. It was very cold, very still. The noise carries in winter when only the evergreens are in leaf.’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘I found the rubble in the passageway where you had broken down the wall, then followed you down into the cave, then the cavern beyond.’ He stopped. ‘My father always said, but…’ He licked his dry lips. ‘I had to think about you, monsieur, how to get you out and to a doctor. You were unconscious, barely breathing. I couldn’t think of the others. Not then.’ He met my gaze. ‘And you are sure it could not have been you that I saw?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘It’s just that… you were lying there covered in a blue cloak. It was odd, the exact match to the dress of the… the body of a woman. Dressed in a long blue robe, the same colour as… You were lying beside her.’ He hesitated. ‘The same blue I… the person waving to me.’

I realised that was the crux of it. Guillaume did not want to believe his father’s superstitious tales were true and I did not blame him for that.

‘Probably just a trick of the light,’ I said.

Guillaume nodded. I had not reassured him, but he was grateful the matter was settled and would not be talked of again. He fished in his pocket.