Sepulchre (21 page)

Then the noise of the engine died away, and all was silent again.

 

Meredith followed the path until she could go no further. She found herself standing at the mouth of a black tunnel that led away beneath the road into the mountainside.

 

Some kind of storm drain?

Resting her hand on the cold brick wall of the surround, Meredith leaned forward and peered inside, feeling the damp air trapped beneath the stone arch whisper across her skin. The water was flowing faster here, funnelled into the narrow channel. White flecks splashed up against the brick walls as the river ran over jagged rocks.

There was a narrow ledge, just wide enough for her to stand on.

 

Not a smart idea to go in.

Yet she found herself dipping her head and, with her right hand on the dank sides of the tunnel to keep her balance, taking a step into the gloom. Straight away, the smell of wet air, spray, moss and lichen hit her. The ledge was slippery as she edged in further, a little further, further still, until the amethyst twilight was just a shimmer and she could no longer see the riverbank.

Bending her head, so as not to knock it on the curved wall of the tunnel, Meredith stopped and looked down into the water. Small black fish darting, trailing tendrils of green weed flattened by the force of the current; the lacy white crests as the ripples came into contact with the ridges of submerged stone and rock.

Lulled by the white noise and the motion of the water, Meredith crouched down. Her eyes lost focus. It was peaceful beneath the bridge, hidden, a secret place. Here, she could more easily summon the past. As she looked down into the river, she found it easy to imagine boys in knee-length britches and bare feet, girls with curled hair held back with satin ribbons, playing hide-and-seek beneath this old bridge. Could imagine the echo of the adult voices calling for their charges from the opposite bank.

What the hell?

For a fleeting second, Meredith thought she saw the outline of a face looking up at her. Her eyes narrowed. She was aware the silence seemed to have deepened. The air was empty and cold, as if all the life had been sucked out of it. She felt her heart catch and her senses sharpen. Every nerve in her body was alert. Just my own reflection.

Telling herself not to be so impressionable, she looked again into the choppy mirror of the water.

This time, no doubt. A face was staring up at her from beneath the surface of the river. It was not a reflection, although Meredith had the sense of her own features hidden behind the image, but a girl with long flowing hair swaying and shifting in the current, a modern-day Ophelia. Then the eyes beneath the water seemed, slowly, to open and hold Meredith's own in their clear and direct gaze. Eyes like green glass, containing within them all the shifting colours of the water.

Meredith cried out. In shock, she sprang back up, nearly losing her balance, flinging her hands out behind her for the reassurance of the wall at her back. She forced herself to look again.

Nothing.

There was nothing there. No reflection, no ghostly face in the water, just the distorted shapes of the rocks and driftwood stirred up by the moving current. Just the water chasing over the rocks, making the weeds in the river dance and twist and sway.

Meredith was desperate to get out of the tunnel now. Slipping, sliding, she inched along the ledge until she was in the open air. Her legs were shaking. Taking her purse off her shoulder, she thumped down on a dry patch of grass and drew her knees up to her chin. Above her on the road, two beams of light as another car drove out of the town.

Was it starting?

 

Meredith's greatest fear was that the illness that had afflicted her birth mother would one day show up in her. Ghosts, voices, haunted by stuff no one else could hear or see.

 

She took deep breaths, in and out, in and out. I'm not her.

Meredith gave herself a few minutes more, then stood up. She brushed herself down, picking off the trails of slime and weed from the soles of her sneakers, picked up her heavy bag and retraced her steps back over the low footbridge to the path.

She was still shaken, but more, she was mad at herself for getting so spooked. She used the same techniques she'd taught herself way back, calling on good memories to push out the bad. Now, rather than the painful memory of Jeanette crying, she heard instead Mary's voice in her head. Regular mom stuff. All those times she'd come back home muddy and with her pants torn through at the knees, covered in scratches and bites. If Mary was here right now, she'd be worrying at Meredith for wandering off on her own, for poking her nose into places she'd gotten no business to be, just like always.

Same old, same old.

A wave of homesickness washed over her. For the first time since she'd flown to Europe two weeks ago, Meredith genuinely wished she was curled up safe and sound with a book in her favourite armchair, wrapped in that old quilt blanket Mary had made for her when she'd been off school for a whole semester in fifth grade. Back home, rather than wandering alone, on what might turn out to be a wild goose chase, in a forgotten corner of France.

Cold and miserable, Meredith checked the time. She'd got no signal on her cell, but she could see the time. Only fifteen minutes since she'd left her car. Her shoulders sagged. The road was unlikely to be open yet.

Rather than go back up the Allée des Bains de la Reine, she stayed on the walkway that ran along the backs of the houses at river level. From here she could see the concrete underside of the swimming pool, overhanging the path propped up on stilts. The outline of the original buildings was clearer from this angle. In the shadows she saw the bright eyes of a cat as it slipped in and out of the stanchions. Trash, scraps of paper, soda bottles rolled in by the wind, clung to the bricks and wires.

The river curved round to the right. On the far side Meredith saw an archway in the wall that led down to the river valley from the street high above, right to the path at the water's edge. The streetlights had come on and she could just make out an old woman in a flowered bathing suit and swim hat lying face up in the water, within a ring of stones, her towel folded neatly on the walkway. Meredith shivered in sympathy, before noticing that steam was rising from the surface. Alongside the woman, an old man, his lean brown body wrinkled, was drying himself down.

Meredith admired their spirit, although it wasn't how she'd choose to spend a cool October evening. She tried to picture the glory days of the fin de siècle when Rennes-les-Bains was a thriving resort. The bathing huts on wheels, ladies and gentlemen in old-fashioned swimsuits stepping down into the hot therapeutic waters, their servants and nurses standing behind them on this same riverbank.

She failed. Like a theatre after the curtain has fallen and the house manager has turned off the lights, Rennes-les-Bains seemed too desolate for such flights of imagination.

A narrow staircase with no handrail led up to a pedestrian bridge of blue painted metal linking the left bank to the right. She remembered the sign from earlier: LE PONT DE FER. It was right where she'd left the rental car.

Meredith climbed up. Back to civilisation.

 

CHAPTER 29

 

As Meredith had suspected, the road was still shut. Her rental car was right where she'd left it, behind the blue Peugeot. A couple of other cars had joined them on the sidewalk.

She walked past the Jardin Paul Courrent and along the main street towards the lights, then turned right up a very steep road that seemed to run straight into the hillside itself. It led to a car park, which was surprisingly full given how empty the town seemed. She read the tourist information board, a rustic wooden sign advertising walks to local landmarks: L'Homme Mort, La Cabanasse, La Source de la Madeleine, and a crosscountry route to a neighbouring village, Rennes-le-Château.

It wasn't raining, but the air had gotten damp. Everything seemed muffled and subdued. Meredith went on, peering up alleyways that seemed to lead nowhere, glancing into the brightly lit windows of houses, then doubled back to the main street. Straight ahead was the Mairie, with the tricolore fluttering blue, white and red in the evening air. She turned left and found herself in the Place des Deux Rennes.

Meredith stood a while, taking in the atmosphere. There was a charming pizzeria on the right with wooden tables outside. Only a couple of the tables were occupied, both with groups of English people. On one, the men were talking football and Steve Reich, while the women one with stylish cropped black hair, another with blonde hair cut sharp to the shoulders, the third with auburn curls - were sharing a bottle of wine and discussing the latest Ian Rankin. On the second table was a crowd of students, eating pizza and drinking beer. One of the boys was wearing a blue studded leather jacket. Another was talking about Cuba to a darker haired friend, who had an unopened bottle of Pinot Grigio at his feet, and a slightly younger boy who was reading. The last member of the group, a pretty girl with streaks of pink in her hair, was making the shape of a square with her hands as if framing the scene for a photograph. Meredith smiled as she walked by, reminded of her own students. The girl noticed and smiled back.

In the far corner of the square, Meredith noticed a cloche-mur with a single bell above the rooftops of the buildings and realised she'd found the church.

 

She walked down a cobbled approach that led to l'église de Saint-Celse et Saint-Nazaire. A single overhead lamp was burning in the unassuming porch, open to the elements to north and south. There were two tables too, incongruous-looking and empty.

The sign on the parish noticeboard next to the door stated that the church was open from ten every morning through dusk, except for feast days and weddings and funerals. But when she tried the handle, it was locked even though lights were on inside.

She looked at her watch. Half after six. Maybe she'd just missed it. Meredith turned around. On the opposite wall was a board of names, a roll call of the men of Rennes-les-Bains who'd given their lives in World War I.

A Ses Glorieux Morts.

Was death ever glorious, Meredith wondered, thinking of her sepia soldier? Of her birth mother walking into Lake Michigan with her pockets weighted down with stones. Was the sacrifice worth it?

She stepped forward and read down the alphabetical list of names right to the end, knowing that it was pointless to expect Martin to be there. It was crazy. From what little background Mary had been able to pass on, Meredith knew that Martin was Louisa's mother's surname, not her father's. In fact, on her birth certificate it said FATHER UNKNOWN. But Meredith did know her ancestors had emigrated from France to America in the years after the First World War, and after the research she'd done, she was pretty certain the soldier in the photograph was Louisa's father. She just needed a name.

Something caught her eye. BOUSQUET was there on the memorial. Like the Tarot cards sitting in her bag in the trunk. Maybe the same family? Something else to check out. She moved on. At the bottom of the plaque, an unusual name: SAINT-LOUP.

Next to the board were a stone plaque in memory of Henri Boudet, Curé of the parish from 1872 to 1915, and a black metal cross. Meredith thought about it. If her unknown soldier had come from here, Henri Boudet might have known him. It was a small town after all and the dates were about right.

She copied it all down: first rule of research - and the second and third - write everything down. You never knew until later what might turn out to be relevant.

Beneath the cross were inscribed the Emperor Constantine's famous words: 'In hoc signo vinces'. Meredith had come across the phrase plenty of times before, although this time it set some other thought racing through her head. 'By this sign shall you shall conquer,' she murmured, trying to figure out what was bugging at her, but nothing came.

She walked through the porch, past the main door into the church, and out into the graveyard itself. Straight ahead there was another war memorial, the same names, with one or two additions and discrepancies of spelling, as if to mark their sacrifice only once would be too little. Generations of men, fathers, brothers, sons, all those lives. Meredith walked slowly in the sombre twilight down the gravelled path that ran alongside the church. Tombs, graves, stone angels and crosses loomed up at her as she passed. Every now and again she paused to read an inscription. Certain names repeated over, generation after generation of local families, remembered in granite and marble - Fromilhague and Saunière, Denarnaud and Gabignaud.

At the furthest boundary of the cemetery, overlooking the river gorge, Meredith found herself standing before an ornate mausoleum with the words FAMILLE LASCOMBE-BOUSQUET carved above the metal grille.

She crouched down and, in the last vestiges of daylight, read of the marriages and births that had united the Lascombe and Bousquet families in life and now in death. Guy Lascombe and his wife had been killed in October 1864. The last of the Lascombe line had been Jules, who died in January 1891. The final surviving member of the Bousquet branch of the family, Madeleine Bousquet, had passed on in 1955.

Meredith straightened up, aware of the familiar prickling feeling on the back of her neck. It wasn't just the Tarot deck Laura had pressed on her and the coincidence of the Bousquet name, but something else. Something about the date, something she'd seen but not paid enough attention to at the time.

Then she got it. The year 1891 kept coming up, more than its fair share. She noticed that date in particular because of its personal significance. It was the date printed on the piece of music. She could see the title and the number in her mind's eye as clearly as if she was holding it in her hand.

But there was something more. She ran back everything in her mind from the second she'd walked into the churchyard, until she figured it out. It wasn't just the year so much as the fact that the same actual date kept repeating over.

With a burst of adrenalin, Meredith hurried back through the tombs, weaving in and out, checking the inscriptions, and found she was right. Her memory wasn't playing tricks on her. She pulled out her notebook and started to scribble, recording the same date of death for different people, three, four times over.