Wrapped in the hotel’s tiny, threadbare towel, Alice checked her phone for messages. Still nothing. Last night, she’d felt depressed about it, now she was pissed off. More than once during their ten-year friendship, Shelagh had withdrawn into resentful silences that had lasted weeks. Each time, it had been down to Alice to sort things out and she realized she resented it.

Let her make the running this time.

Alice riffled through her makeup bag until she found an old tube of concealer, rarely used, with which she covered up the worst of the bruising. Then she added eyeliner and a touch of lipstick. She finger dried her hair. Finally, she chose her most comfortable skirt and new blue halter top, packed everything else, then went down to check out before she headed off to explore Toulouse.

She still felt bad, but it was nothing that fresh air and a serious shot of caffeine wouldn’t fix.

Having put her bags in the car, Alice decided she would simply walk and see where she ended up. The air conditioning in her hire car wasn’t great, so her plan was to wait until the temperature dropped before setting off for Carcassonne.

As she passed beneath the dappled shade of the plane trees and looked at the clothes and perfumes displayed in the shop windows, she started to feel more herself. She was embarrassed by the way she’d behaved last night. Totally paranoid, total overreaction. This morning, the idea that someone was after her seemed absurd. Her fingers went to the telephone number in her pocket. You didn’t imagine him though.

Alice pushed the thought away. She was going to be positive, look forward. Make the most of being in Toulouse.

She meandered through the alleys and passages of the old town, letting her feet guide her. The ornate pink stone and brick facades of the buildings were elegant and discreet. The names on the street signs and fountains and monuments proclaimed Toulouse’s long and glorious history. Military leaders, medieval saints, eighteenth-century poets, twentieth-century freedom fighters, the city’s noble past from Roman times to the present.

Alice went into the cathedral of Saint-Etienne, partly to get out of the sun. She enjoyed the tranquility and peace of cathedrals and churches, a legacy of sightseeing with her parents when she was a child, and she spent a pleasant half-hour wandering around, half reading the signs on the walls and looking at the stained glass.

Realizing she was starting to feel hungry, Alice decided to finish with the cloisters, then go and find somewhere to have lunch. She hadn’t taken more than a few steps when she heard a child crying. She turned to look, but there was no one there. Feeling vaguely uneasy, she carried on walking.

The sobbing seemed to be growing louder. Now she could hear someone whispering. A man’s voice, close by, hissing in her ears.

“Heretique, heretique…”

Alice spun round. “Hello? Allo? II y a quelqu’un?”

There was nobody there. Like a malicious whisper, the word repeated itself over and over inside her head. Heretique, heretique.

She clasped her hands over her ears. On the pillars and gray stone walls, faces seemed to be appearing. Tortured mouths, twisted hands reaching out for help, oozing from every hidden corner.

Then Alice caught a glimpse of someone ahead, nearly out of sight. A woman in a long green dress and a red cloak, moving in and out of the shadows. In her hand, she carried a wicker basket. Alice called out to attract her attention just as three men, monks, stepped out from behind the pillar. The woman shouted as they grabbed hold of her. The woman was struggling as the monks started to drag her away.

Alice tried to attract their attention, but no sound came from her mouth. Only the woman herself seemed to hear, for she turned round and looked straight into Alice’s eyes. Now the monks had encircled the woman. They stretched their voluminous arms out wide above her like black wings.

“Leave her alone,” Alice cried, starting to run toward them. But the farther she went, the more distant the figures became, until finally they disappeared altogether. It was as if they had melted into the walls of the cloister itself.

Bewildered, Alice ran her hands over the stone. She turned to the left and right, seeking an explanation, but the space was completely empty. At last, panic took over. She ran toward the exit to the street, expecting to see the black robed men behind her, chasing her, swooping down on her.

Outside, everything was as it had been before.

It’s okay. You’re okay. Breathing heavily, Alice slumped back against the wall. As she got herself under control, she realized the emotion she was feeling was not terror any more, but grief. She had no need of a history book to tell her something terrible had happened in this place. There was an atmosphere of suffering, scars that could not be hidden by concrete or stone. The ghosts told their own story. When she put a hand up to her face, she found she was crying.

As soon as her legs were strong enough to carry her, she headed back toward the center of town. She was determined to put as much space between herself and Saint-Etienne as she could. She couldn’t account for what was happening to her, but she wasn’t going to give in.

Reassured by the normal, everyday life going on all around her, Alice found herself in a small, pedestrian square. In the top right-hand corner there was a brasserie with a cyclamen-pink awning and rows of gleaming silver chairs and round tables laid out on the pavement.

Alice got the only remaining table and ordered straight away, making a concerted effort to relax. She knocked back a couple of glasses of water, then leaned back in her chair and tried to enjoy the touch of the sun on her face. She poured herself a glass of rose, added a few ice cubes, and took a mouthful. It wasn’t like her to be so easily freaked out.

But then you’re not in such great emotional shape.

All year she’d been living fiat out. She’d split up with her long-term boyfriend. The relationship had been dying on its feet for years and it was a relief to be on her own, but it was no less painful for that. Her pride was battered and her heart was bruised. To forget about him, she’d worked too hard and played too hard, anything to not brood about where things had gone wrong. Two weeks in the south of France was supposed to recharge her batteries. Get her back on an even keel.

Alice pulled a face. Some holiday.

The arrival of the waiter put paid to any further self-analysis. The omelet was perfect, yellow and runny on the inside, with generous chunks of mushroom and plenty of parsley. Alice ate with a fierce concentration. Only when she was mopping up the last threads of olive oil with her bread, did she start to turn her mind to how she was going to spend the rest of the afternoon.

By the time the coffee came, Alice knew.

The Bibliotheque de Toulouse was a large, square stone building. Alice flashed her British Library Readers’ Room pass at a bored and inattentive assistant at the desk, which got her in. After getting lost on the stairs a few times, she found herself in the extensive general history section. On either side of the central aisle were long, polished wooden desks with a spine of reading lamps running along the center of the tables. Few of the seats were occupied at this time on a hot, July afternoon.

At the far end, spanning the width of the room, was what Alice was looking for: a row of computer terminals. Alice registered at the reception desk, was given a password and allocated a workstation.

As soon as she was connected, Alice typed the word “labyrinth” in the box on the search engine. The green loading bar at the bottom of the screen filled up quickly. Rather than relying on her own memory, she was confident she’d find a match for her labyrinth somewhere among all the hundreds of sites. It was so obvious she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it earlier.