Sepulchre

  She edged forward again. Leading up from the lobby was a narrow flight of stairs, the treads painted alternately red and green. At the top she could see a second door just visible through a covering of yellow wooden beads. Sky blue.

  So much colour.

  She’d read somewhere that certain people saw music in their heads in colour. Symesthesia? Synesthesia? Was that it?

  It was cool inside. Air trickled from a rattling old fan above the door. Particles of dust were dancing in the sluggish October air. If she really wanted some fin de siècle atmosphere, then what better than to have the same kind of experience that might have been on offer, right here, a hundred years ago?

  It’s research really.

  For a moment, everything hung in the balance. It seemed as if the building itself was holding its breath. Waiting, watching. Holding the flyer in her hand, like some kind of talisman, Meredith stepped inside. Then she put her foot on the bottom step and went up.

  Many hundreds of miles to the south, in the beech woods above Rennes-les-Bains, a sudden breath of wind lifted the copper leaves on the branches of the ancient trees. The sound of a long-dead sigh, like fingers moving lightly over a keyboard.

  Enfin.

  The shifting of light upon the turn of a different stair.

  CHAPTER 13

  DOMAINE DE LA CADE

  ‘Oui, Abbé, et merci à vous pour votre gentillesse. A tout à l’heure.’

  Julian Lawrence held the phone in his hand a moment, and then replaced the receiver. Tanned and in good shape, he looked younger than his fifty years. He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, flipped open his Zippo, and lit a Gauloise. The vanilla smoke wreathed up into the still air.

  The arrangements for this evening’s service were in place. Now, provided his nephew Hal behaved appropriately, everything should go off satisfactorily. He sympathised with the boy, but it was awkward that Hal had been asking questions around the town about his father’s accident. Stirring things up. He had even approached the coroner’s office to query the cause of death on the certificate. Since the officer in charge of the case in the police commissariat in Couiza was a friend of Julian’s - and the only witness to the incident itself was the local drunk - the matter had been gently dealt with. Hal’s questions had been seen as the understandable reaction of a grieving son rather than comments of substance.

  All the same, Julian would be glad when the boy had gone. There was nothing to unearth, but Hal was digging and, sooner or later, in a small town like Rennes-les-Bains, the gossip would start. No smoke without fire. Julian was banking on the fact that, once the funeral was over, Hal would leave the Domaine de la Cade and head back to England.

  Julian and his brother Seymour, Hal’s father, had jointly acquired the place four years before. Seymour, the elder by ten years and bored after retirement from the City, was obsessed with profit forecasts and spreadsheets and how to grow the business. Julian’s preoccupation was different.

  From the first time he’d travelled through the region in 1997, he had been intrigued by rumours attaching to Rennes-les-Bains in general, the Domaine de la Cade in particular. The whole area was riddled with mystery and legends: allegations of buried treasure, conspiracies, cock-and-bull stories of secret societies, anything and everything, from the Templars and the Cathars back to the Visigoths, the Romans and the Celts. The one story that had caught Julian’s imagination, though, was more contemporary. Written accounts, dating back to the end of the last century, of a deconsecrated sepulchre set within the grounds, a deck of Tarot cards believed to have been painted as some kind of treasure map, and the fire that had destroyed part of the original house.

  The region around Couiza and Rennes-le-Château in the fifth century AD had been at the heart of the Visigoth empire. This was common knowledge. Historians and archeologists had long speculated that the legendary treasure plundered by the Visigoths in the sack of Rome, had been brought to the south-west of France. There, the evidence ran out. But the more Julian discovered, the more convinced he’d become that the greatest part of the Visigoth treasure was still there for the finding. And that the cards - the originals, not printed copies - were the key.

  Julian became obsessed. He applied for licences to excavate, sinking all his money and resources into the search. His success was limited, turning up little more than a few Visigoth grave goods - swords, buckles, drinking cups, nothing special. When his permit to dig expired, he continued illegally. Like a gambler, he was hooked, convinced that it was only a matter of time.

  When the hotel had come up for sale four years ago, Julian persuaded Seymour to make an offer. Ironically, despite the huge differences between them, it had turned out to be a good move. The partnership had worked well until the final few months, when Seymour had become more involved in the day-to-day running of the business. And he asked to see the books.

  The sun on the lawn was strong, flooding the room through the high windows of the old study in the Domaine de la Cade. Julian glanced up at the painting on the wall above his desk. It was an old Tarot symbol, similar to a figure of eight lying on its side. The infinity symbol.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  Julian turned to see his nephew, in a black suit and tie, standing in the doorway, his mop of black hair pushed back from his forehead. In his late twenties, with his broad shoulders and clear skin, Hal looked like the sportsman he had been in his university days. A rugby and tennis blue.

  Julian leaned forward and ground the stub of his cigarette into the glass ashtray on the window ledge, then drained his whisky. He was impatient for the funeral to be over and for things to get back to normal. He’d had more than enough of Hal drifting around the place.

  ‘I’ll be right with you,’ he said. ‘Two minutes.’

  CHAPTER 14

  PARIS

  Meredith reached the top of the stairs, drew back the beaded curtain and opened the bright blue door straight ahead.

  The lobby inside was tiny, so confined that she could touch the walls without even stretching out. To her left was a bright chart of the signs of the zodiac, a swirl of colour and pattern and symbols, most of which Meredith didn’t recognise. On the wall to her right hung an old-fashioned mirror with an ornate gilt frame. She checked out her reflection, then turned away and tapped on the second door straight ahead.

  ‘Hello? Anybody here?’

  There was no answer.

  Meredith waited a moment, then knocked again, a little louder this time.

  Still nothing. She tried the handle. The door opened.

  ‘Hi?’ she said, stepping inside. ‘Anyone home? Hello?’

  The room was small, but full of life. The walls were painted in more bright colours, like a day-care centre - yellow, red, green, with patterns of lines, stripes, triangles and zigzags in purple, blue, silver. A single window, right opposite the door, was covered by a curtain of transparent lilac gauze. Through it, Meredith could see the pale stone walls of the nineteenth-century building behind, with its black wrought-iron balustrade and long shuttered doors, cheered up by boxes of geraniums and tumbling purple and orange pansies.

  The only pieces of furniture in the room were a small square wooden table right in the centre, the legs visible beneath a black and white linen cloth covered with circles and more astrological symbols, and two straight-backed wooden chairs either side. They had woven seats, like in the painting by Van Gogh, she thought.

  Meredith heard a door slam someplace else in the building, then footsteps. She could feel herself colouring up. She felt embarrassed to be standing there, uninvited, and was about to go when a woman appeared from behind a bamboo screen on the far side of the room.

  In her mid-forties, attractive, she was dressed in a fitted shirt and khaki pants, with expensively cut shoulder-length brown hair flecked with grey and an easy smile, not at all how Meredith imagined a Tarot reader to look. No hoop earrings, no headscarf.

  ‘I did knock,’ Meredith said awkwardly. ‘No one an
swered, so I came right on in. I hope that was OK.’

  The woman smiled. ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘You’re English?’

  She smiled. ‘Guilty as charged. I hope you haven’t been waiting long?’

  Meredith shook her head. ‘A couple of minutes.’

  The woman held out her hand. ‘I’m Laura.’

  They shook. ‘Meredith.’

  Laura pulled out a chair and gestured. ‘Take a seat.’

  Meredith hesitated.

  ‘It’s natural to feel nervous,’ said Laura. ‘Most people do their first time.’

  Meredith pulled the brochure from her pocket and put it down on the table.

  ‘It’s not that, it’s just - a girl gave me a flyer in the street a couple of days back. Since I was passing . . .’ She tailed off again. ‘It’s kind of for research. I don’t want to waste your time.’

  Laura took the flyer, then recognition passed across her face. ‘My daughter mentioned you.’

  Meredith’s eyes sharpened. ‘She did?’

  ‘The resemblance,’ Laura said, looking down at the figure of La Justice. ‘She said you were the spitting image.’

  She paused, as if expecting Meredith to say something. When she didn’t, Laura sat down at the table. ‘Do you live in Paris?’ she asked, gesturing to the chair opposite her.

  ‘Just visiting.’

  Without quite intending to, Meredith found herself sitting down.

  Laura smiled. ‘Was I right in thinking this is the first time you’ve had a reading?’

  ‘Yes,’ Meredith replied, still perching on the edge of the seat.

  Clear message - I’m not intending to stick around.

  ‘Right,’ said Laura. ‘Assuming you’ve read the flyer, you know that a half-hour session is thirty euros; fifty for a full hour?’

  ‘A half-hour will do fine,’ said Meredith.

  Her mouth was suddenly dry. Laura was looking at her, really looking at her, like she was trying to read every line, every nuance, every shadow of her face.

  ‘Right you are, although I have no one after you, so if you change your mind we can always carry on. Is there some particular issue you’d like to explore, or is it just a general interest?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s research. I’m working on a biography. In this street, actually right here, there was a famous bookstore that comes up a lot. The coincidence, I suppose you could say, rather appealed to me.’ She smiled, trying to relax herself. ‘Although your - your daughter, was it?’ - Laura nodded - ‘said there was no such thing as coincidence.’

  Laura smiled. ‘I understand. You’re hoping to find some sort of echo of the past.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Meredith said, with a sigh of relief.

  Laura nodded. ‘OK. Some clients have a preference for a certain type of reading. They have a particular issue they want to explore - could be work, a relationship, a major decision to make, anything really. Others are after something more general.’

  ‘General is good.’

  Laura smiled. ‘Right. The next decision is the deck you would like to use.’

  Meredith pulled an apologetic face. ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t know anything about it. I’m happy for you to choose for me.’

  Laura gestured to a row of different decks of cards, all face down, set along the side of the table. ‘I appreciate it’s confusing to start with, but it’s better if you choose. Just see if you like the feel of any of them in particular, OK?’

  Meredith shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  Laura picked up the deck closest to her and fanned the cards across the table. They had royal blue backs with long-tailed golden stars on them.

  ‘They’re beautiful,’ Meredith said.

  ‘That’s the Universal Waite Tarot, a very popular deck.’

  The next pack had a simple white and red repeat pattern on the back. ‘This one is, in many ways, the classic deck,’ Laura said. ‘It’s called the Marseille Tarot. It dates from the sixteenth century. It’s a deck I occasionally use, although truthfully it’s a little plain for contemporary tastes. Most querents prefer modern packs.’

  Meredith raised her eyebrows. ‘Excuse me, querent?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Laura grinned. ‘The querent is the person having the reading, the person asking the questions.’

  ‘Right.’

  Meredith looked along the line and then pointed to a deck that was a little smaller than the rest. The cards had beautiful deep green backs with filigree lines of gold and silver.

  ‘What’s this one?’

  Laura smiled. ‘That’s the Bousquet Tarot.’

  ‘Bousquet?’ Meredith repeated. A memory snaked across her mind. She was sure she’d run up against that name someplace. ‘Is that the name of the artist?’

  Laura shook her head. ‘No, the name of the original publisher of the deck. No one knows the artist or who commissioned the cards in the first place. Pretty much all we know is that it originates from south-west France towards the very end of the 1890s.’

  Meredith felt a prickling on the back of her neck.

  ‘Where, precisely, in the south-west?’

  ‘I can’t recall exactly. Somewhere in the Carcassonne area, I think.’

  ‘I know of it,’ Meredith replied, picturing the map of the region in her mind. Rennes-les-Bains was right in the middle.

  She suddenly became aware that Laura was looking at her with sharpened interest.

  ‘Is there something . . . ?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ Meredith said quickly. ‘I thought the name was familiar, that’s all.’ She smiled. ‘Sorry, I interrupted. ’

  ‘I was just going to say that the original deck of cards - or at least some of it - is much older. We can’t be sure how authentic all the images actually are, since the major arcana have characteristics that suggest they were added - or at least modified - later. The designs, and the clothes of the characters on certain of the cards are contemporaneous with fin de siècle styles, whereas the minor arcana are more classical.’

  Meredith raised her eyebrows. ‘Major arcana, minor arcana?’ She smiled. ‘I’m sorry, but I really know nothing about this. Can I ask a couple of questions before we go any further?’

  Laura laughed. ‘Of course.’

  ‘OK, very basic to start. How many cards are there?’

  ‘With a couple of minor contemporary exceptions, there are seventy-eight cards in a standard Tarot pack, divided into the major and the minor arcana - arcana is the Latin word for “secrets”. The major arcana, twenty-two cards in all, are numbered one to twenty-one - the Fool being unnumbered - and are unique to the Tarot deck. Each has an allegorical picture and a set of clear narrative meanings.’

  Meredith glanced at the picture of La Justice on the brochure.

  ‘Like this, for example.’

  ‘Absolutely. The remaining fifty-six cards, the minor arcana - pip cards as they’re sometimes known - are divided into four suits and resemble ordinary playing cards, except that they have an extra court card. So in a standard Tarot deck we have King, Queen, Knight, then the additional card - the Page - before ten. Different decks give the suits different names - pentacles or coins, cups, wands or batons, and swords. Broadly speaking, they correspond to the suits of standard playing cards of diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Most experts agree that the earliest Tarot cards, those that resemble the decks we have today, date from northern Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. The modern Tarot revival, however, began in the early years of the last century, when an English occultist, Arthur Edward Waite, produced a new deck. His key innovation was to give, for the first time, an individual and symbolic scene to each of the seventy-eight cards. Before that, the pip cards had only numbers.’

  ‘What about the Bousquet deck?’

  ‘The court cards in each of the four suits are illustrated. The style of painting suggests they date from the late sixteenth century. Certainly pre-W
aite. But the major arcana are different. As I said, the clothing of the characters is definitely 1890s European.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘The general consensus is that the publisher - Bousquet - didn’t have a full set of cards to work from, so either had the major arcana painted or else copied them in the style and character of the extant cards.’

  ‘Copied them from what?’

  Laura shrugged. ‘From fragments of surviving cards, or possibly from illustrations of the original deck in a book. Like I said, I’m not an expert.’