Cupid's Arrow

by Isabelle Merlin

And so it was that we drove into Quarré to the haunting tune of a Senegalese love song called Ndeleng Ndeleng, which, for me, will always be associated with that day, and that town.

  Our new friend dropped us off in front of the shop where he said we might consult the internet. We went in, leaving Patou to wait for us outside, and sure enough the shopkeeper said he did have a terminal, that we could just go on and he'd charge us later for the time we'd used.

  The computer was in a kind of little cubicle in a storeroom at the back. The rest of the room was filled with boxes and stuff; there was only one hard plastic chair to sit on, and it wasn't exactly the most comfy place I'd ever been in, but the connection was broadband, and fast. Remy perched on a box next to me – he said I'd be quicker, as he wasn't much used to looking up the internet as of course they didn't have it at home, though he had tried it out a few times in Avallon. As I typed in the search words, I was strongly aware of his presence, the feel of being with him, of being in this together, and nobody else knowing where we were. It was exciting, that feeling, and I'm ashamed to say I didn't once think of Mum and how she might be feeling when she'd discovered I'd gone.

  The first words I put into Google – Terrebonne France – just to be sure we weren't on the wrong track – brought up heaps of things not about a Terrebonne in France but about various buildings and businesses in Terrebonne Quebec that had 'France' in their name, like a church called St-Louis de France, stuff like that. There was not a single reference to a French settlement called Terrebonne. I put in 'Terrebonne Riothamus,' to double-check, because you never know. Nothing. But when I put in Terrebonne Quebec, up popped heaps of things. History, streets, schools, businesses, photos, hotels. But no Hotel du Lys. So I tried entering Hotel du Lys Terrebonne. At first I thought we'd hit the jackpot because heaps of stuff came up, but we soon saw it had nothing to do with Terrebonne, just other Hotel du Lys' in random places – the internet can be annoying like that. I scrolled through the next page. No result, or at least none that was any use to us. At last I had to admit it. The Hotel du Lys Terrebonne was not online at all. According to the internet, there was no such place in Terrebonne, Quebec, which was the only Terrebonne in the world; at least the virtual world as mapped on the web.

  'Damn,' I said. 'It's not going to be as easy as I thought.'

  'Try my name,' said Remy quietly. 'Or at least, Maman's. Put it in. That – and Quebec – and – and policemen – fire.'

  I looked at him quickly, but said nothing. I typed in the words swiftly. There was no result for Gomert, or Valerie Gomert and the other words together. For Quebec and police and fire there was. Mostly nothing to do with us. But on the third page of references, there it was: Quebec policemen die in house fire, it read. It was an article from a newspaper. But when I tried to click onto it, I just got one of those annoying messages saying we couldn't access the website, that Google had encountered problems opening it.

  'Damn, damn, damn,' I hissed. 'You stupid thing.' I hate computers when they don't do what you want. I went back to check on the URL and typed it in again. Again the same. I tried all sorts of combinations but no go. I tried another lot of search words but still a dead end. I couldn't believe it. Our quest was going nowhere. There was only that elusive and annoying reference which we hadn't been able to access. And nothing under Valerie Gomert's name. And yet that case must have been famous. It must have hit several headlines. You'd think. But there was nothing else. It was strange. Almost as if some care had been taken to wipe the traces of what had happened, so that there should be no trail to follow.

  'I'm sorry, Remy,' I said, at last. 'I don't know what to do now.'

  'We need to get in touch with someone,' he said. He was pale, his eyes too bright. 'Someone in the Quebec police. Someone who might know. Who might tell us?'

  'They won't tell you,' I said. 'There's some reason why there's nothing about it. I wonder –' and then it struck me what the reason might be, why there was no reference to them, or the case, or anything that might identify them. I'd seen enough films with that kind of a twist. 'You were probably protected witnesses,' I blurted out. 'Or your mother was, anyway. She must have changed her name. Gomert wasn't even probably her real surname.'

  He stared at me. I went on, 'And they do that when there's still a risk to the witness – I mean, that the person who might harm them is still around. So it probably means that whoever set that fire, whoever killed your father and your uncle and injured your mother – it must mean they were never caught. They're still around, somewhere.'

  'Not somewhere,' said Remy, in a strange, hollow voice. 'They're here. I mean, in France. And somehow, they tracked down my mother.'

  I shivered. 'Maybe they weren't actually looking for her. If they thought they'd got away with it, maybe they wouldn't have gone looking. Maybe it just happened. Or maybe – maybe she found them, not the other way around.'

  We looked at each other. Remy said faintly, 'The hotel – I'm sure that hotel is connected. We've got to find out. We've got to speak to someone.'

  'I told you, the Quebec police won't say anything.' I looked at him. 'We could go to the police here though. The police in Quebec will tell them. They've got more ways of – Oh!'

  'What's up?'

  'I just thought of something. Wait a second. It might not work, but it's worth trying.' And rapidly, feverishly, I clicked onto a website.

  'The Casebook of Dreaming Holmes?' said Remy, reading over my shoulder. 'What on earth are you –'

  I hit the Contact button. 'It says on the site that this Dreaming Holmes person used to be a police officer. In Quebec. Maybe they were there at the time it happened. And they're not in the police anymore. So they might talk to us.' I looked at my watch. 'I wonder what time it is over there? Maybe they might reply straightaway. You never know.' I opened up the email form and typed in rapidly, Dear DH, I really, really need your help. Not with a dream but with a case that maybe you remember from your police days in Quebec. There were two policemen killed in a fire, which was purposely lit by someone, and a lady was also burnt. I think it had something to do with the Hotel du Lys in Quebec. I need information about it for a school assignment on unsolved crimes. This is really, really urgent and really genuine. Please, please answer as soon as you can. I am waiting anxiously.' I hit send before I could think twice about it.

  'Do you really think they'll answer you?'

  I shrugged. 'I don't know.' I signed into my Gmail account. 'We'll see.'

  'But you don't know who they are, really. They could have made everything up. They don't even use their real name.'

  'People do that all the time, especially on the internet. Anyway, do you have any better ideas?' I said, impatiently.

  'No,' he said, very low.

  I could have kicked myself. Shock was piling on shock for him, his whole world collapsing, maybe even the name he'd grown up with was fake, and here I was burbling like an idiot, as if I knew everything. Or anything at all. He was right. What did I really know about that Dreaming Holmes person? Only what they chose to reveal. They might never really have been a police officer. They could be anyone. Anyone at all. 'I'm so sorry, Remy.'

  'Don't be,' he said, and took my hand. 'Wherever would I be without you?' He drew me in towards him. 'Meeting you was the best thing that has ever happened to me. So don't ever, ever be sorry.' He tipped my face up, gently, and we kissed, softly at first, then more urgently. But just then the shopkeeper came into the back room, calling out, 'Have you finished in there? I have another customer waiting.'

  We sprang apart. Breathless, my heart pounding, I took a hurried look at my inbox. Nothing from Dreaming Holmes. Nothing from anybody, in fact. We could be waiting for ages. I said to Remy, 'Let's come back later and check if there's an answer.' He nodded. I wondered if he felt as shaky as I did. I signed out of my account, we paid, and we went out.

  Now we noticed what we hadn't really taken in before. The shop was on the main square – not really a square but an incomplete
sort of triangle, with roads leading out from the central point, dominated by the church in the centre, set on a kind of little island with steps leading up to it. And all around the base of the church was a strange sight – rows and rows of ancient grey stone coffins, the sarcophagi that gave the little town its name and that had once been such an industry here, as Christine Foy had explained the day before yesterday. There must be hundreds of the stone coffins here. And they really did look strange – not exactly macabre, but kind of ominous, like a spooky setting in a vampire film. All in rows up there, waiting, unused, their tops slowly weathering so the worked grey stone was reverting to a kind of pitted look, like boulders in a rainy forest. Waiting for what? For Riothamus and all of his men – for King Arthur and all of his knights? Why would anyone make so many? They must have had a reason. They must have expected death to come marching in big time.

  I shivered again. I said, 'Let's go somewhere more cheerful, Remy.' He nodded, and we headed to a little café just across the road. We told poor old Patou to wait for us again – she looked reproachful but resigned – and went in. We ordered hot chocolate and brioche, which we were just about to start eating when the door opened and Christine Foy came in.

  It shouldn't have been a surprise. I knew she lived here. But somehow, though I'd remembered the things she'd said, about the coffin-making industry here, back in Roman days, I hadn't taken in the rest. Besides, she'd been at Bellerive when I'd left. Anyway, as soon as I saw her, I thought, damn, that's it, we've been sprung, she'll see me, she'll see Remy and guess who he is, and bang! There would go our opportunity to find anything out on our own. There would go the opportunity to prove things to the police, to show them that Remy was innocent. There would be hassles for Remy, painful interrogations, horrible stuff. He might even be arrested.

  All these things flashed through my mind as I saw her come in. I hoped desperately that she wouldn't see us. But, of course, she did. Her eyes widened. 'Fleur! What on earth ...?' She was over at our table quicker than it takes me to say it, and before either of us could react, had pulled up a chair and joined us. She said, brightly, 'Everyone's looking for you.'

  I saw Remy go white. I said, quickly, 'Please, Christine, we –'

  'Your mother is sure you've been kidnapped,' she said, very matter-of-fact, with her Irish lilt very much in evidence. 'She's frantic. Thinks you're in great danger. She's gone to Avallon with Wayne and Oscar, to speak to the police and get them to start a search for you. I didn't join them because I was sure you were okay. I told them so. Said you'd seemed a very capable and sensible sort of girl. Oscar was cross with me, and very boring with it. So I took his car and off I went. Can't stand being lectured, even by my pompous fiancé. Correction, especially by my pompous fiancé.'

  I swallowed. I said, 'It's not, it's not what they think. Remy, it's not his fault. He's innocent. We, we just want to prove it. You've got to understand – please.'

  'You don't have to convince me,' she said. She caught the eye of a waiter and ordered a black coffee. 'I know that things aren't always what they seem. And that's the truth.' She looked at Remy, and her eyes sparkled mischievously. 'Besides, he doesn't look dangerous. Except to your heart.'

  We both blushed. Christine laughed. 'Young love! How I remember it! The world well lost for it, yes? Oh well. You live and learn. But not yet.'

  I stared at her. 'Aren't you going to phone –'

  'Your mother? The police?' Her coffee arrived, and she sipped at it. 'Never been one for telling tales. Besides, that's your responsibility, not mine.'

  'You mean – you won't tell them?'

  'Exactly.' She grinned. 'Believe you me, I've got other concerns than bustling off importantly to the authorities.'

  'Thank you,' I faltered.

  Remy murmured, 'Yes, thank you.'

  She looked us up and down. 'You look pretty dreadful,' she observed. 'Both of you, but especially you,' she added, jerking her head at Remy. 'You look just like someone on the run from the police.'

  'Please, Christine!' Why didn't she lower her voice?

  She grinned, again. 'Sorry.' She didn't look sorry. She was an extraordinary person. Not like any other adult I'd ever met. You never knew what she might do or say next.

  She finished her coffee. 'Look, it's none of my business, I know, but do you two have a plan?'

  'Yes,' I began, but Remy shook his head, numbly. 'No,' I admitted. 'Not really.'

  'Thought not. Why did you come here?'

  'We got a lift,' I said. 'It was just where the man went who picked us up. We've just been looking up stuff on the internet. Things – things that we think might give us clues to what really happened.'

  'What, and you've been doing that on old Henriot's machine? My God, now everyone in town will know what you've been doing, he's the biggest gossip ever and I swear he must have some spyware installed to see what people have been doing.' She laughed at the panicked expression on my face. 'Don't worry. That's just my joke.' She got up, looked at us, seemed to come to a decision. 'Hey, listen. I'm going home now. No pressure – but if you like, you're welcome to come with me, have a shower, a rest, a meal, use the computer or whatever it is you want to do at my place till you can work out what to do next. I can drop you at a station or wherever you'd like, if you decide that's what you want to do. Scout's honour, I won't interfere. And I won't tell anyone where you are unless you want me to. Mind you,' she added in a different tone, 'I really think you ought to ring your mother, Fleur. Just to tell her you're okay.'

  'Oh, I will,' I said, hurriedly. 'I will, I promise. You're so kind. Thank you.'

  'Yes, thank you so much,' echoed Remy, his voice flat. He was sounding totally exhausted by then.

  'Don't thank me,' said Christine. 'Just be sure you know what you're doing, right? Or darling Oscar will be even crosser with me than he already is. He's always telling me I'm reckless. It's not true, he just likes to think that. Then he can tell himself I need protecting, if only from myself.' She smiled. 'But all the same, I'd prefer it if you didn't say where you were, Fleur, when you ring your mother. Stops a lot of boring lectures for all of us, yeah?'

  'Sure,' I said, relieved. 'You're just great.'

  Calm before the storm

  Christine had a charming little stone house, covered in roses, a short distance from the town. It was set well back from the road, behind the high hedges of a secluded garden and, as we drove in, I'd felt as though we'd come to a haven of peace, an enchanted space in which we could rest and think and plan our next move. The calm before the storm.

  'It's not a bad place at all,' agreed Christine, when I more or less said that. 'I found it quite by chance, on the internet.' We were standing in the garden, surrounded by greenery and humming bees and the heady scent of roses, Patou nosing her delighted way around all the different new smells. Christine waved a hand around and went on. 'I thought it was like a house in a fairytale. I fell in love with it at once. I don't own it yet – I'm only renting – but I'm seriously thinking of buying it. Oscar would like me to come and live in Bellerive when we're married – but I don't like that place. Never have. It's got too much of old Monsieur Dulac.' She smiled at the expression on our faces. 'Don't look so shocked, both of you! I know the world thought of him as a lovely old guy, but I saw quite another side. He could be hard as stone. Thought Oscar was somehow not up to scratch, even though he made a fair bit of money without his uncle's help. Of course, he made it on stocks and shares, which the old man thought was not a real job, and he spent it too freely, according to the old man. He disapproved of me, you know, despite what Oscar keeps trying to persuade himself of.' I remembered that little argument they'd had at the table, the first time I'd met Oscar and Christine, back in Bellerive Manor. 'Oh, I suppose he'd have disapproved of anyone his nephew brought along,' she went on, 'but it could be difficult, at times. Not that I spent much time with him.'

  There was a little silence. 'He was very kind to my mother,' said Remy quietly.

&nbs
p; She shrugged, and bent down to stroke Patou's ears. 'I'm sure he was. He could be charming to people he wanted to charm. Just not to me. Or what was worse, poor old Oscar, who was always trying to win his approval, and always failing.' She smiled. 'But never mind all that. Water under the bridge. Anyway, it was just to explain why I preferred living here to Bellerive. I'm trying to persuade Oscar to sell the place to that Morgan guy and buy this one instead. We can start afresh here. No unpleasant memories.'

  'But he doesn't want to?' I said.

  'He's leaning towards it now. The old man's death shook him up pretty hard – much harder than I could have imagined. He's falling to pieces. It's as if old Dulac's haunting him. He thinks he's responsible, you see.'

  We stared at her. She went on, 'What I mean is, he thinks he should have been there. He usually took Raymond shopping, picked him up, brought him back home. But that day he was away. Raymond went to Avallon on the bus. He came home early by taxi and disturbed the burglar.'

  'Do you think it really was a burglar?'

  Her eyes widened. 'What do you mean?'

  'Remy and I, we think that it wasn't your usual kind of burglar.'

  She looked from one of us to the other. 'Oh. Don't tell me. You've been trying to look into this as well!'

  'We just –'

  'You'd do best to leave it well alone,' she said, very seriously, all trace of laughter gone from her eyes. 'Such things are dangerous. You don't know what you'll stir up. Leave it to the experts. No. Don't tell me any more. I don't want to hear. Or I might start thinking I have to ring the police at once and tell them you're here.'

  'No. Please. We'll keep out of that one,' I said hastily. Remy didn't say anything, just looked down at the ground. I wondered if he was angry with me, blurting out all that stuff. Or just embarrassed. And tired. I said, softly, 'We'll just think about, about what happened to Valerie. I'm sorry, Christine. I didn't mean to put you in a difficult position. You've been so kind, and we –'