Alice pulled a face. We’re not still together.“

That’s too bad,“ he said. There was a slight pause, then added: Who’s in the photo?”

Alice looked down. She’d forgotten she was still holding it.

“My aunt. I came across this in some of her things and, since I was here, I thought I’d see if I could track down where it was taken.” She grinned. “It’s been harder than you’d imagine.”

Will looked over her shoulder. “And the guy?”

“Just a friend. A writer.”

Another a pause, as if both wanted to keep the conversation going, but didn’t quite know what to say. Will looked back to the picture.

“She looks nice.”

“Nice?” She looks rather determined to me, although I don’t know that for a fact. I never met her.“

“Really? So how come you’re carrying her photo around?”

Alice put the photograph back in her bag. “It’s complicated.”

“I can do complicated,” he grinned. “Look…” he hesitated. “Do you want to get coffee or something? If you’ve not got someplace else you’ve got to be.”

Alice was surprised but, actually, she’d been thinking the same thing.

“Do you usually go picking up random women like this?”

“Not usually,” he said. “The question is do you usually accept?”

Alice felt as if she was looking down on the scene from above. Watching a man and a woman, who looked like her, walk into the old-fashioned patisserie with the cakes and pastries laid out in long glass cabinets.

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Sights, smells, sounds. The waiters dipping in and out of the tables, the burned, bitter aroma of the coffee, the hiss of milk in the machine, the dink of forks on the plate, everything was especially vivid. Most of all Will himself, the way he smiled, the turn of his head, the way his fingers went to the silver chain at his neck when he was talking.

They sat at a table outside. The spire of the cathedral was just visible over the tops of the houses. A slight constraint descended on them when they sat down. They both started talking at once. Alice laughed, Will apologised.

Cautiously, tentatively, they started to fill in the stories of their lives since they’d last met six years ago.

“You looked really engrossed,” she said, turning his newspaper around so she could read the headline. You know, when you came hurtling round that corner and we collided.“

Will grinned. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he apologised. “The local paper’s not usually so exciting. A man’s been found dead in the river, right in the centre of the city. He’d been stabbed in the back, his hands and feet were tied, the local radio station’s going crazy. They seem to think it’s some kind of ritual killing. Now they’re linking it to the disappearance last week of a local journalist, who was writing an expose of secret religious societies.”

The smile fell from Alice’s face. “Can I see that?” she said, reaching for the paper.

“Sure. Help yourself.”

Her sense of uneasiness grew as she read the list of names. The Noublesso Veritable. There was something familiar about the name.

“Are you okay?” Alice looked up to see Will gazing at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was miles away. It’s just I’ve come across something similar recently. The coincidence gave me a shock.”

“Coincidence? Sounds intriguing.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m in no hurry,” said Will, propping his elbows on the table and smiling encouragingly at her.

After being trapped inside her own thoughts for so long, Alice was tempted by the chance of finally talking to someone. And she sort of knew him. Only tell him what you want.

“Well, I’m not sure this is going to make much sense,” she began. “A couple of months ago I discovered, totally out of the blue, that an aunt I’d never heard of had died and left everything to me, including a house in France.”

“The lady in the photo.”

She nodded. “She’s called Grace Tanner. I was due to come to France anyway, to visit a friend who was working at an archaeological dig in the Pyrenees, so I decided to run the two trips together.” She hesitated. “Some things happened at the dig – I won’t bore you by going into detail except to say there seemed to be… Well, never mind.” She took a breath. “Yesterday, after a meeting with the solicitor, I went to my aunt’s house and I found some things… something, a pattern, which I’d seen at the dig.” She stumbled, inarticulate. “There was also a book by an author called Audric Baillard who, I’m almost a hundred per cent certain, is the man in the photo.”

“He’s still alive?”

“So far as I know. I haven’t been able to track him down.”

“What’s his relationship with your aunt?”

I’m not sure. I’m hoping he’ll be able to tell me. He’s my only link to her. And other things.“

To the labyrinth, the family tree, to my dream.

When she looked up, she saw Will was looking confused, but engaged.

“I can’t say I’m much the wiser yet,” he said with a grin.

I’m not explaining it very well,“ she admitted. ”Let’s talk about some less complicated. You never did tell me what you were doing in Chartres.“

“Like every other American in France, trying to write.”

Alice smiled. “Isn’t Paris more traditional?”

“I started off there, but I guess I found it too, well, impersonal, if you know what I mean. My parents knew folks here. I liked it. Ended up staying a while.”

Alice nodded, expecting him to carry on. Instead, he returned to something she’d said earlier. “This pattern you mentioned,” he said casually. “That you found at the dig and then at Grace’s house, what was special about it?”

She hesitated. “It’s a labyrinth.”

“Is that why you’re here in Chartres then? To go to the cathedral?”

“It’s not quite the same…” She stopped as caution returned. “Partly, although it’s more because I’m hoping to catch up with a friend. Shelagh. There’s a… a possibility she might be in Chartres.” Alice reached in her bag and passed the scrap of paper with the address scribbled on it across the table to Will. “I went there earlier, but there was no one there. So I decided to do my sightseeing, then go back in about an hour or so.”

Alice was shocked to see Will had turned white. He looked dumbstruck.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Why do you think your friend might be there?” he said in a tight voice.

“I don’t, for sure,” she said, still puzzled by the change that had come over him.

“This is the friend you went to visit at the dig?”

She nodded.

“And she saw this labyrinth pattern also? Like you?”

“I suppose so, although she didn’t mention it. She was more obsessed with something I’d found, which…” Alice broke off as Will abruptly stood up.

“What are you doing?” she said, unnerved by the expression on his face as he took her hand.

“Come with me. There’s something you ought to see.”

“Where are we going?” she asked again, hurrying to keep up with him.

Then they rounded the corner and Alice realised they were at the other end of rue du Cheval Blanc. Will strode towards the house, then ran up the steps to the front door.

“Are you out of your mind? What if someone’s come home?”

“There won’t be.”

“But how do you know?”

Alice watched with astonishment as Will produced a key from his pocket and opened the front door. “Hurry. Before someone sees us.”

“You have a key,” she said in disbelief. “Suppose you start telling me what the hell’s going on.”

Will ran back down the steps and grabbed her hand.

“There’s a version of your labyrinth here,” he hissed. “Okay? Now, will you come?”

2›What if it’s another trap? 2›

After everything that had happened, she’d be crazy to follow him. It was too much of a risk. Nobody even knew she was here. Curiosity won out over common sense. Alice looked up at Will’s face, eager and anxious at one and the same time.