‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I understand.’
CHAPTER 47
DOMAINE DE LA CADE
Julian Lawrence waited until the chambermaids had finished the first floor before leaving his study. The trip to Rennes-le-Château and back would take two hours at least. He had plenty of time.
When Hal told him he was going out, and with a girl, Julian’s first reaction had been relief. They had even talked for a couple of minutes without Hal storming out. Maybe it meant his nephew was going to accept what had happened and get on with his life? Let his doubts go.
As things stood, there were loose ends. Julian had hinted that he’d be willing to buy his nephew out of his inherited share of the Domaine de la Cade, but had not pushed it. He had expected to have to wait until after the funeral, but he could feel himself getting impatient.
Then Hal had let drop that the girl in question was a writer and Julian had started to wonder. Given Hal’s behaviour over the past four weeks, he wouldn’t put it past the boy to try to get a journalist interested in the story of his father’s accident, just for the hell of it.
Julian had checked the register and discovered she was an American, Meredith Martin, and booked in until Friday. He’d no idea if she knew Hal or if his nephew was simply taking advantage of finding someone who might listen to his sob story. Either way, he couldn’t risk Hal using the girl to stir up more trouble. He wasn’t prepared to let his plans be damaged by rumour and innuendo.
Julian went up the back stairs and along the corridor. With the master key, he let himself into Meredith Martin’s room. He took a couple of Polaroids, to make certain he could return the room to the exact state in which he’d found it, then started to search, beginning with the bedside table. He went quickly through the drawers, but found nothing of interest other than two plane tickets, one for Toulouse to Paris Orly on Friday afternoon, the other her return flight to the States on 11th November.
He moved to the bureau. Her laptop was plugged in. He opened the lid and booted it up. It was easy. There was no password protection on her operating system and she had been using the hotel’s wireless system.
Ten minutes later, Julian had read through her emails - tedious, domestic stuff, nothing relevant - tracked her online trail through recent sites she’d visited, and looked at a few of the stored files. None of it suggested she was a journalist out for a story. Local history, mainly. There were notes about research in England, then very basic stuff - addresses, dates, times - about Paris.
Next, Julian went into her picture files, going through them in date order. The first few were taken in London. There was a folder of shots from Paris - streets scenes, landmarks, even one of a sign showing the opening hours of the Parc Monceau.
The final folder was marked Rennes-les-Bains. He opened it and began to peruse the images. These worried him more. There were several photographs of the riverbank at the entrance to the town to the north, specifically a couple of the road bridge and the tunnel at exactly the place where his brother Seymour’s car had left the road.
There were other photographs of the graveyard at the rear of the church. One, taken from the covered porch looking back to the Place des Deux Rennes, enabled him to identify exactly when they had been taken. Julian laced his fingers behind his head. He could just make out, in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture, part of the tablecloth on which the book of condolence had sat.
His brow furrowed. Meredith Martin had been in Rennes-les-Bains last night taking photographs of the funeral and the town.
Why?
As Julian copied the folder of images on to his memory stick, he tried to think of what innocent explanation there could be, but came up blank.
He exited the programme and shut the computer down, leaving everything just as he’d found it, then moved to the wardrobe. He took a couple more Polaroids, then worked methodically through every pocket, the piles of T-shirts and shoes, finding nothing of interest.
At the bottom of the wardrobe, beneath a pair of boots and a pair of LK Bennett spikes, was a soft black travel bag. Squatting down, Julian undid the zip and looked inside the main compartment. It was empty apart from a pair of socks and a bead bracelet, caught in the stiff lining. He pushed his fingers into every corner, but found nothing. Next he went through the outside pockets. Two large compartments at either end, both empty, then along either side three smaller compartments. He picked up the bag, turned it upside down and shook it. It seemed heavy. He turned the bag over again and pulled at the cardboard base. With a tearing sound of Velcro, the lining came up, to reveal another compartment. He reached in and drew out a square package of black silk. With his thumb and forefinger, he unfolded the four corners.
Julian froze. The face of Justice was staring up at him.
For a split second, he thought he was seeing things, then he realised it was just another reproduction set. He fanned them out to make sure, cutting the deck twice.
Printed, laminated, not the original Bousquet Tarot. Stupid that, even for a second, he’d thought it could possibly be.
He stood up, clutching the deck in the palm of his hand, flicking through the cards, increasingly quickly, in case there was something unique, something different about this deck.
There wasn’t. It appeared the same as the one he had downstairs in his safe. No additional words, no variation in the images.
Julian forced himself to think. This discovery turned everything on its head, especially coming on the heels of the information coming out of the Visigoth burial site at Quillan. With the grave goods, a slate had been found confirming the existence of other sites in the vicinity of the Domaine de la Cade. He hadn’t been able to get through to his contact this morning.
But the immediate question was, why did Meredith Martin have a reproduction set of the Bousquet deck with her? And hidden at the bottom of her bag. It couldn’t be coincidence. Presumably, at the very least, she knew about the original deck of cards and their association with the Domaine de la Cade?
What else? Maybe Seymour had said more to Hal than Julian had previously thought? And if Hal had brought her down here, rather than just taking advantage of meeting here, maybe it wasn’t to investigate the circumstances of the crash but to do with the cards?
He needed a drink. He was sweating, around the collar, under his arms from the shock of believing that, if only for a moment, that he was holding the original cards in his hands.
Julian wrapped the replica deck back up in the black silk, returned the package to the bag and replaced it at the bottom of the wardrobe. He glanced round the room one last time. Everything looked as it had before. If anything was misplaced, Ms Martin would put it down to the chambermaids. He let himself out into the corridor and walked briskly back towards the service stairs.
The whole operation, from start to finish, had taken less than twenty-five minutes.
CHAPTER 48
RENNES-LE-CHTEAU
Hal was the first to break away. His blue eyes were bright with anticipation, perhaps surprise too. His face was a little flushed.
Meredith also stepped back. The strength of their raw attraction to one another, now the emotion of the moment had passed, left them both a little awkward.
‘Anyway,’ he said, pushing his hands into his pockets.
Meredith grinned. ‘Anyway ...’
Hal turned to wooden gates at right angles to the path and pushed. He frowned, tried again. Meredith could hear the bolts rattling.
‘It’s closed,’ he said. ‘It’s unbelievable, but the museum’s closed. I’m sorry. I should have called ahead.’
They looked at one another. Then they both burst out laughing.
‘The spa in Rennes-les-Bains was closed too,’ she said. ‘Until April thirtieth.’
The same lock of unruly hair had fallen forward. Meredith’s fingers ached to push it back from his face, but she kept her hands at her sides.
‘At least the church is open,’ he said.
M
eredith joined him, very aware of his physical presence now. He seemed to fill the entire path.
He pointed up at the triangular porch above the door.
‘That inscription - TERRIBILIS EST LOCUS ISTE - is another reason all the conspiracy theories surrounding Rennes-le-Château took hold,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘The phrase actually translates as “this place is awe-inspiring”, terribilis in an Old Testament sense rather than “terrible” in a modern sense, but you can imagine how it’s been interpreted.’
Meredith did look, but it was the other, partially legible, inscription on the apex that she was concentrating on. IN HOC SIGNO VINCES. Constantine again, the Christian emperor of Byzantium. The same inscription as on Henri Boudet’s memorial in Rennes-les-Bains. She pictured Laura’s spread of cards on the table. The Emperor was one of the major arcana, near the Magician and La Prêtresse, at the beginning of the deck. And the password she’d typed to access the internet to pick up her mail . . .
‘Who came up with the password for the hotel network?’ she asked.
Hal looked surprised at the non sequitur, but answered all the same.
‘My uncle,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Dad wasn’t into computers.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘Shall we?’
The first thing that struck Meredith as they walked into the church was how very small it was, like it had been built on a three-quarter scale. The perspectives seemed all wrong.
On the wall to the right were handwritten notices, some French, some awkward English. Piped choral music, some kind of mediocre plainsong, filtered in over thin silver speakers suspended in the corners.
‘They’ve sanitised the place,’ Hal said in a low voice. ‘To counteract all the rumours of mysterious treasure and secret societies, they’ve tried to inject a Catholic message into everything. Like this, for example.’ He tapped one of the signs. ‘Look. “Dans cette église, le trésor c’est vous.” In this church, the treasure is you.’
But Meredith was staring at the stoup for holy water on the immediate left of the door. The bénitier was balanced on the shoulders of a three-foot-high statue of a devil. The malevolent red face, the twisted body, the unnerving, piercing blue eyes. She’d seen the demon before. At least, an image of him. Lying on the table in Paris as Laura spread out the major arcana at the beginning of the reading.
Le Diable. Card XV of the Bousquet Tarot.
‘That’s Asmodeus,’ said Hal. ‘The traditional guardian of treasure, keeper of secrets, and builder of the Temple of Solomon.’
Meredith touched the grimacing demon, which felt cold and chalky beneath her fingers. She looked at his hands, clawed and twisted, and couldn’t help glancing back through the open door to where the statue of Notre Dame of Lourdes stood immobile upon the pillar.
She gave a small shake of her head and raised her eyes to the frieze above. A tableau of four angels, each making one part of the sign of the cross, and Constantine’s words yet again, although this time in French. The colours were faded and chipped, as if the angels were fighting a losing battle.
On the base, two basilisks framed a red inset containing the letters BS.
‘The initials could stand for Bérenger Saunière,’ said Hal. ‘Or for Boudet and Saunière, or for La Blanque and Le Salz, two local rivers that meet at a pool nearby known as le bénitier.’
‘The two priests knew each other well?’ she asked.
‘By all accounts, yes. Boudet was a mentor to the younger Saunière. In the early days of Boudet’s ministry, when he spent some months in the parish of Durban nearby, he also became friendly with a third priest, Antoine Gélis, who subsequently took over the parish at Coustaussa.’
‘I drove by there yesterday,’ Meredith said. ‘It looked ruined.’
‘The castle is. The village is inhabited, though it’s tiny. No more than a handful of houses. Gélis died in somewhat strange circumstances. Murdered on Hallowe’en 1897.’
‘They never found out who was responsible?’
‘Don’t think so, no.’ Hal stopped in front of another plaster statue. ‘St Anthony, the Hermit,’ he said. ‘Famous Egyptian saint of the third, fourth century.’
This information drove any thoughts of Gélis out of Meredith’s mind.
The Hermit. Another card from the major arcana.
The evidence to prove that the Bousquet Tarot had been painted in the area was overwhelming. This tiny church dedicated to Mary Magdalene was testament to that. The only thing Meredith wasn’t clear about was how the Domaine de la Cade fitted in.
And how, if at all, this connects with my family?
Meredith forced herself to concentrate on the matter in hand. No sense muddling everything up together. What if Hal’s father was right in his suggestion that everything in Rennes-le-Château had been constructed precisely to draw attention away from its sister village down in the valley? There was a logic to it, but Meredith needed to know more before jumping to any conclusions.
‘Have you seen enough?’ Hal asked. ‘Or do you want to stick around longer?’
Still thinking, Meredith shook her head. ‘I’m done.’
They didn’t talk much as they walked back up to the car. The gravel on the path crunched loudly under their feet, like tightly packed snow. It had gotten cooler since they’d been inside and the air was heavy with the smell of bonfires.
Hal unlocked the car, then looked back over his shoulder.
‘Three corpses were found buried in the grounds of the Villa Béthania in the 1950s,’ he said. ‘All were male, aged between thirty and forty, and they had all been shot, although one of the bodies at least had been very badly mauled by wild animals. The official verdict was that they’d been killed during the war - the Nazis occupied some of this part of France, and the Resistance was pretty active down here. But local belief is that the bodies were older, end of the nineteenth century, that they were connected with the fire at the Domaine de la Cade and, possibly, also the murder of the priest in Coustaussa.’
Meredith looked at Hal over the roof of the car. ‘Was the fire started deliberately? I read it was.’
Hal shrugged. ‘Local history is sketchy on the point, but the general consensus is that it was.’
‘But if these three men were involved - in either the fire or the murder - who do people think killed them?’
At that moment Hal’s cell phone rang. He flipped the lid and glanced at the number. His eyes sharpened.
‘I need to take this,’ he said, covering the speaker. ‘Sorry.’
Inwardly Meredith groaned with frustration, but there was nothing she could do. ‘Of course, go ahead,’ she said.
She climbed into the car and watched as Hal wandered over to a fir tree near the Tour Magdala to talk.
No such thing as coincidence. Everything happens for a reason.
She leant back against the headrest and ran through everything that had happened, the sequence of events from the moment she’d stepped off the train at the Gare du Nord. No, after that. From the moment she set foot on the colourful painted steps that led up to Laura’s rooms.
Meredith pulled her notebook out of her purse and glanced over her notes, looking for answers. The real question was, which was the story she was chasing down here, which the echo? She was in Rennes-les-Bains searching for her own family history. Did the cards fit in with that in any way? Or was it a completely different, unrelated story? Of academic interest, but nothing to do with her? Did she even have a connection with the Domaine de la Cade? The Verniers?
What had Laura said? Meredith flipped back through her notes until she found it.
‘The timeline is confused. The sequence seems to be jumping backwards and forwards, as if there is some blurring of events. Things slipping between past and present.’
She glanced through the window at Hal, who was now walking back towards the car, holding his cell clenched in his hand. The other was dug deep into his pocket.
Where does he fit into all this?
> ‘Hi,’ she said, as he opened the door. ‘Is everything OK?’
He got in. ‘Sorry, Meredith. I was going to suggest we went for lunch, but something’s come up that I need to sort out first.’
‘Something good, by the look of it?’ she said.
‘The police commissariat handling the case in Couiza have finally agreed to let me have sight of the file into my father’s accident. I’ve been asking for this for weeks, so it’s a step forward.’
‘That’s great, Hal,’ hoping it would be and that he wasn’t getting his hopes up for no reason.