There was a familiarity to the figures, even if she couldn’t see them clearly. Or to two of them anyway. Two men, grinning at the camera, side by side on the beach, standing so close they could be brothers, or lovers.
He gave a little huff. ‘That’s them – Fabien du Lac and Tristan Poullain. They were the resistance here, that group, and a few more. The others in the photo are…’ He paused as if searching for names.
Another, softer voice came from nowhere. ‘Yves Brochard and Pierre Kerdaniel are off to the left and that’s Ewen Heussaff in the background. The others aren’t in that one, although one of them must have taken it. A lovely picture, isn’t it? They look so hopeful, such brave, brave men. It was a tragedy.’ Gwen appeared out of the back room. ‘Rafael, Ari, how lovely to see you. I’m just about to close up, I’m afraid.’
Rafael reached blindly for Ari’s hand. She squeezed his fingers and felt him respond.
The smile Gwen offered Ari wasn’t unkind, but it was fascinated. She’d clearly seen the intimate contact. Suddenly, Ari was something to be studied, inspected and examined. Ari didn’t like it. She remembered the feeling of Gwen’s scrutiny in the chapel the morning of the festival. It was uncomfortable.
Instead, Ari turned her attention back to the two men in the picture. Even with the terrible resolution, she could see the resemblance to Rafael and Simon. It was a strange, unsettling feeling of a different kind. ‘What happened to them?’
Gwen shrugged. ‘Not a pretty story, I’m afraid. They were using the sea caves, smuggling in arms and spies, helping others escape to England. At the time, the Germans had cleared everything up to three miles from the coast to build their sea wall…’ She said it with disgust. ‘Well, you’ve seen the concrete monstrosities they left behind. But Fabien and these boys knew the secrets in and out of the caves, and the things hidden there. And then Hitler’s own archaeologists turned up. They were obsessed with Ys, did you know that? For their own dark purposes, to prove their twisted theories by manipulating our past. The resistance members were captured, eventually, tortured almost certainly, but they never betrayed the secrets of Sainte Sirène. They died to protect us all, to keep the secrets of Ys. They are our heroes. There’s a memorial in the cove.’
Fabien du Lac died in Pors Sirène, not because of the curse, but with a Nazi bullet in his head. He’d cheated the family fate, at least. In a way.
Ari nodded. ‘Yes, I saw it.’ This morning, she thought, while the police swarmed over the place and revulsion washed over her in a cold Atlantic wave. How many people had died there? It seemed endless.
Rafael cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘Did you hear about Thierry Jacquet?’
For a moment, Gwen looked appalled, obviously realising what she’d just been talking about and what had just happened in the same place. ‘I did, of course.’ And her features grew solemn. She didn’t move her attention from Ari. ‘I’m so sorry. He was a lovely man.’
‘I didn’t know you knew him.’
‘I know everyone in Sainte Sirène. I make sure of it. I have a lifelong interest in this little place. It is my home, after all. I study its history and gather its stories, everything about it.’ She spread her arms wide, indicating the little room, littered with artefacts and photos, and smiled that glorious smile. ‘This is my domain.’
‘I have some questions,’ Ari said. ‘Quite a lot of questions.’
Gwen smiled, a bemused smile which was quite disarming. She suddenly looked a little off step and it was a strange sense of victory to see that. If only for a moment. ‘Just like your Simon,’ she replied. The sound of his name on her lips made a chill ripple up the back of Ari’s neck, the way she said it, familiar, intimate. She remembered Gwen in the church, talking about Simon in the same soft tones, and something cold and suspicious crept up her spine. ‘I suppose that makes sense. I think you’re more than half a Poullain by association. We could sit down together tomorrow morning perhaps?’
Tomorrow? But anything could happen between now and tomorrow. Ari didn’t want to be pushy, but she really wanted to talk to Gwen and ask her questions now.
Rafael swept in to the rescue. ‘Why not now? We were about to get a bite to eat. Come and join us. I was about to introduce Ari to real Breton galettes, and perhaps abolée de cidre.’
Ari laughed at the statement. ‘I’ve had galettes before, Rafael.’ She didn’t admit that she was more than a little relieved that they weren’t rushing off to have sex somewhere anymore. And disappointed. How could she be both? And yet she was.
But rushing never ended up well, did it? If something was really going to happen, it would wait. And doubts still niggled at her. She’d trusted Simon implicitly and look where that had got her. She wanted to trust Rafael, but the very thought terrified her.
‘Oh, but you have not had galettes like these,’ Gwen told her. ‘Buckwheat flour milled just down the road, all local ingredients, the cheese, the cream, and the ham, seafood fresh from the sea, and the cider comes from the heart of the Goyen Valley. Wait until you taste it. It’s like autumn on your lips.’
They whisked her off to the tiny rustic crêperie, where they sat at the plain wooden table, on carved wooden chairs which shouldn’t have been as comfortable as they were. Pots and pans, the copper polished to a blinding shine, hung on the white painted walls, while black beams crisscrossed the space overhead.
Gwen took her place opposite the two of them, like a teacher facing her class. She and Rafael took charge, promising Ari that she would love what they selected, conspiring like the old friends they were, and Ari had no choice but to go along with it. If Gwen had answers to her questions, she would put up with anything. At least Rafael seemed more at ease now and though Ari knew she would have to address the kiss and all that it implied, this let her put that off for a while longer.
There weren’t a lot of men who would kiss a woman like that, with all the promise it entailed and then be overly pleased if she changed her mind. Not that she was changing her mind. Not exactly.
What had she been thinking? She’d been overwrought, her emotions all over the place because of Nico, and everything else that had happened. She’d made a terrible mistake and surely Rafael thought so too. But that was something for later. Right now, she could avoid facing it and get the answers she needed. Killing two birds with one stone.
But when she looked at Rafael, ordering for them in his lyrical French, she wasn’t sure if she was actually doing the right thing.
Her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that she still hadn’t eaten since the morning. And even that had been a single cold crêpe, like old brown paper in comparison to what she was promised here. The aromas had already set her stomach growling.
The cider came in a pale earthenware jug, accompanied by three bowls. Rafael poured for each of them, although she saw he gave himself substantially less. Was he trying to get her drunk now? Because that really was not necessary as her hormones had already proved once today. Then she remembered the car. Of course, he was driving. God, she was an idiot. And no one was getting drunk on the cider unless they drank a whole barrel. It was good though. Gwen hadn’t lied about that.
‘So what do you need to know about Sainte Sirène, Ariadne Walker? I thought you were here looking for Ys. I don’t think it’s on the land anymore. And if it was here, no one has seen it for more than a thousand years.’ Gwen laughed, amused at her own words.
‘No. I know that.’ A stupid thing to say. Of course she knew that. Gwen was joking. She swallowed hard and plunged onwards. ‘It’s just a legend. There’s no city of gold under the waters of the bay, however much my brother would love that. But those tales came from somewhere. So, by tracing the stories back, looking for the origins, we can get clues as to what was really there. And where to look for it.’
‘Fascinating,’ Gwen replied, sipping delicately at her cider.
