“You are telling me, on top of everything else, that you actually found something? You fucking found something and didn’t bother to share this information with anyone else?”

“I-”

Shelagh held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

Alice held her gaze for a moment, then fished in the pocket of her denim cut-offs, pulled out the handkerchief and handed it over. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

She watched as Shelagh folded back the white folds of cotton to reveal the brooch inside. Alice couldn’t help herself reaching out.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it? The way the copper round the edges, here and here, catches the light.” She hesitated. “I think it might belong to one of the people inside the cave.”

Shelagh looked up. Her mood had undergone another transformation. The anger had gone out of her.

“You have no idea what you have done, Alice. No idea at all.” She folded the handkerchief. “I’ll take this down.”

“I’ll-”

“Leave it, Alice. I don’t want to talk to you right now. Everything you say just makes it worse.”

What the hell was that all about?

Alice stood bewildered as Shelagh walked away. The row had come out of nowhere, extreme even for Shelagh, who was capable of blowing up over the smallest things, then had blown out just as quickly.

Alice lowered herself down on to the nearest rock and rested her throbbing wrist on her knee. Everything ached and she felt utterly drained, but also sick at heart. She knew the excavation was funded privately-rather than attached to a university or institution-so was not subject to the restrictive regulations that hampered many expeditions. As a result, competition to get on the team had been fierce. Shelagh had been working at Mas d’Azil, a few kilometers northwest of Foix when she’d first heard about the excavation in the Sabarthes Mountains. The way she told it, she’d bombarded the director, Dr. Brayling, with letters, e-mails and testimonials until finally, eighteen months ago, she’d worn him down. Even then, Alice had wondered why Shelagh was so obsessed.

Alice looked down the mountain. Shelagh was so far ahead now that she was almost out of sight, her long, lean figure shielded by the scrub and broom on the lower slopes. There was no hope of catching her up even if she wanted to.

Alice sighed. She was running on empty. Like always. Doing it alone. It’s better that way. She was fiercely self-sufficient, preferring not to rely on anybody else. But right now, she wasn’t sure she had enough energy left to make it back to camp. The sun was too fierce and her legs too weak. She looked down at the cut on her arm. It had started to bleed again, worse than ever.

Alice looked out over the scorched summer landscape of the Sabarthes Mountains, still in their timeless peace. For a moment, she felt fine. Then all at once she was aware of another sensation, a pricking at the base of her spine. Anticipation, a sense of expectation. Recognition.

It all ends here.

Alice caught her breath. Her heart started to beat faster.

It ends here where it started.

Her head was suddenly filled with whispering, disjointed sounds, like echoes in time. Now the words carved in the stone at the top of the steps came back to her. Pas a pas. They went round and round in her head, like a half-remembered nursery rhyme.

That’s impossible. You’re being stupid.

Shaken, Alice put her hands on her knees and forced herself to stand up. She had to get back to the camp. Heatstroke, dehydration, she had to get out of the sun, get some water inside her.

Taking it slowly, she started to descend, feeling every bump and jolt of the mountain in her legs. She had to get away from the echoing stone, from the spirits that lived there. She didn’t know what was happening to her, only that she had to escape.

She walked faster, faster, until she was almost running, stumbling on the stones and jagged flints that stuck up out of the dry earth. But the words were rooted in her mind, repeating loud and clear, like a mantra.

Step by step we make our way. Step by step.

The thermometer was nudging thirty-three degrees Celsius in the shade. It was nearly three o’clock. Alice was sitting under the canvas awning obediently sipping an Orangina that had been pushed into her hands. The warm bubbles fizzed in her throat as the sugar rushed into her bloodstream. There was a strong smell of gabardine, tents and disinfectant.

The cut on the inside of her elbow had been sterilized and the dressing reapplied. A clean white bandage had been wrapped around her wrist, which had swollen to the size of a tennis ball. Her knees and shins were covered in tiny grazes and cuts, dabbed clean with disinfectant.

You brought this on yourself.

She peered at herself in the small mirror that hung from the tent post. A small, heart-shaped face with intelligent brown eyes stared back at her. Beneath the freckles and tanned skin, she was pale. She looked a mess. Her hair was full of dust and there were smears of dried blood down the front of her top.

All she wanted was to go back to her hotel in Foix, toss her filthy clothes in the wash and take a long, cool shower. Then, she’d go down to the square, order a bottle of wine and not move for the rest of the day.

And not think about what happened.

There didn’t seem much chance of that.

The police had arrived half an hour ago. In the car park below a line of white and blue official vehicles was lined up next to the more battered Citroens and Renaults of the archeologists. It was like an invasion.

Alice had assumed they would deal with her first, but apart from confirming that it was she who’d found the skeletons and saying they’d need to interview her in due course, the police had left her alone. No one else had come near. Alice sympathized. All this noise and mess and disruption was down to her. There wasn’t much anyone could say. Of Shelagh there’d been no sign.

The presence of the police had changed the character of the camp. There seemed to be dozens of them, all in pale blue shirts and knee-length black boots, with guns at their hips, swarming all over the mountainside like wasps, kicking up the dust and shouting instructions to one another in heavily accented French, too quick for her to follow.

They cordoned off the cave immediately, stretching a strip of plastic tape across the entrance. The noise of their activity carried in the still mountain air. Alice could hear the whir of the autowinding cameras competing with the cicadas.

Voices, carried on the breeze, floated up to her from the car park. Alice turned to see Dr. Brayling walking up the steps, accompanied by Shelagh and the heavily built police officer who appeared to be in charge.

“It’s obvious these skeletons cannot possibly be the two people you are looking for,” Dr. Brayling was insisting. “These bones are clearly hundreds of years old. When I notified the authorities, I never for a moment entertained the notion this would be the result.” He waved his hands around. “Have you any idea of the damage your people are doing? I can assure you, I am far from happy.”

Alice scrutinized the inspector, a short, dark, overweight middle-aged man, with more stomach than hair. He was breathless and clearly suffering in the heat. He was clutching a limp handkerchief, with which he wiped his face and neck with little effect. Even from this distance, Alice could see the circles of sweat under his armpits and on the cuffs of his shirt.

T apologize for the inconvenience, Monsieur le Directeur,“ he said in slow, courteous English. ”But since this is a private excavation, I’m sure you can explain the situation to your sponsors.“