Nico shrugged. ‘He stayed on at thefest nozlast night with friends after we came back. You left really early. Were you OK?’
‘Yes,’ she lied as firmly as she could and helped herself to a crêpe. What could she say?I saw Simon’s ghost and I think something has transformed him into an ancient Breton death spirit. He found the mask and then hid it again. Oh, and he dumped me but wouldn’t tell me why.They’d lock her up. ‘Surely Thierry wouldn’t be diving today anyway?’
‘No, but Jason wanted him on board for support. Alix was taking his place. He’s off trying to get hold of one of the others who doesn’t have a hangover. It’s not looking good.’
‘Well, if he will schedule a dive after a party…’ Normally he’d never do such a thing. He had more sense than that.
‘He has all that cash to spend,’ Nico told her with a knowing smile. ‘I think he’s afraid it’s fairy money and will vanish before he gets a chance.’
She thought of last night and shuddered. What had she seen? What had she spoken to?
‘Or du Lac might change his mind,’ Jason added as he came in and flopped down in the chair beside her. ‘No luck. They’re all out for the count. The tides are perfect, damn it.’
‘You need to give people more notice,’ she told him as Nico handed him a commiserative coffee.
‘We’re meant to be working here. We’re meant to be professionals.’
In case Rafael du Lac saw them, she supposed. And given the interaction with the archaeological unit in Brest, he was trying hard today to make up for his unprofessional behaviour, no doubt.
She cast him a sidelong look. ‘Jason, you have been running this whole thing like it’s some kind of college spring break. If you want it to be professional, you’ve got to lead by example. You’ve got to step up. Rather than…’
‘Rather than what?’
He sat there, legs splayed wide, in long swimming shorts decorated with Hawaiian flowers and a T-shirt which read No. 1 Sexpot. He was a living, breathing point waiting to be made. She looked him up and down.
‘Rather than be you.’
He narrowed his eyes to a glare. ‘Thank you very much.’ But he didn’t actually sound as outraged as she thought he would be. ‘Yeah well, starting tomorrow, I suppose. Hardly going to wear a suit out on Yana’s boat, am I? Have you found anything in your trawl of the charts and the sonar readings?’
She shrugged. ‘Some interesting features to look at, mainly around the cliffs. And then there are some of the place names. Castelmeur, Îlot d’Or, Kermeur… It’s like drawing a line with the place names in the area. What great city or castle do you see around here? What island of gold or gates?’
He gazed at her for a long moment, then drank his coffee without saying a word. He avoided eye contact for a moment.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. You just…you sound like him. Like Simon. That’s all.’
Her voice shook. She couldn’t help it. She’d seen him last night, spoken to him, heard him, touched him…things she had dreamed about. Now they had become a nightmare. She tried to push those thoughts aside. She had to, if she was to keep going. ‘I thought that was what you wanted?’
Jason gave her a funny look, like he sensed something was wrong. ‘It’s OK. Go on.’
She opened her laptop and brought up the map of the seabed around the cliffs and the sonar readings, pointing out the area where they had found the mask. ‘I think this is where we need to keep looking. The mask and the coin would indicate it anyway, but there’s something else.’ She pulled up another document, a map. She’d found it on the online archives. It wasn’t to scale by modern terms. Even printed out, it looked more like a sketch. ‘This is a sixteenth-century copy. I found it looking for information about Guy Éder de la Fontenelle and Île Tristan.’
‘The Wolf? The pirate from Douarnenez? What were you looking for info on him for?’
Of course, he knew who la Fontenelle was. Jason had endless details filed away in that labyrinthine brain of his.
‘Oh just…I was there yesterday. With Rafael. Well, not on the island, but we looked at it and…’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘It doesn’t matter. Look at the map: that’s not Île Tristan, no matter what it says in the description. The notes say it was his plan for the island, his stronghold. But I don’t think it is. Look at the shape, it’s all wrong. I mean, I know that’s always a problem with early maps, but really, look at it. It’s walled, with streets and sea gates. Look at the sea gates, they’re on the wrong side. See this causeway? And below it there’s a path, like at Tristan, sure, but permanently under the water…’
It was markedchemin de l’eau. The water path.
He frowned. Zoomed in on the modern map on the screen. Frowned even more intently at the printout. ‘You think it’s Ys?’
‘The stories said he used the coves up and down the coast to hide his treasure. He may have stumbled on to something else, don’t you think? Made this map and said it was a plan, but it can’t be. I need to check with Rafael. See if he has anything similar.’
‘Why would he have—?’
‘Because the du Lacs have all sorts of stuff. They have their own archive, Jason. A vault full of records, books, maps. He showed me this book, a manuscript…’ Maybe she shouldn’t be telling Jason that. But Rafael had not implied it was a secret.
