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‘The Fathomless Deep?’ Ronan asked, offering a hand.
‘Damn.’
‘We can get you another one.’
‘I want that one.’
He put his arm around her then and lifted her up. ‘Come on, Jim Morrison is lying between me and a good lunch. Let’s find him.’
Fifteen minutes later, having followed a narrow, twisting path, they arrived back at the broken tombstone.
‘We’re lost,’ Claire said. ‘We areliterallylost in a forest with three million dead people.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
He took her hand and led her back to the last junction. Ronan took out his phone, tapped the compass app.
‘Is that going to help?’
‘Not in the slightest. I’m playing for time.’
‘Do you even know which direction we need to go?’
With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the left turn they’d previously ignored. He took a step back, gesturing that she should lead the way.
‘We must be close.’
Rounding a fat holly bush, Claire finally got a view to the end of the path. About ten metres away, a tall man of middling age was standing at the centre of the next junction.
He saw Claire and shouted to her. ‘You looking for Jim Morrison?’ His voice was deep and seemed to bounce off the tombstones. He sounded all-American, strong and sure. He was dressed American, too, in light blue jeans, white runners and a once-black T-shirt so faded now it might have been an original bought at a concert headlined by The Doors in 1967.
‘Yes.’
The man waved a beckoning arm. ‘He’s over here,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you.’ He turned and strode away.
Claire jogged to catch up. Just as she reached the junction where the man had been standing, two men appeared from her right.
‘Did he say Jim Morrison?’
And behind them, appearing from behind a tall crypt, another couple. ‘Does that guy know where Jim Morrison is?’ It seemed the man’s voice had carried wide.
They were all tidy, middle-class, middle-aged Americans.
Ronan, having given up on his compass app, arrived at Claire’s side. ‘Did I hear someone say lunch?’
‘That man,’ she said. ‘He knows where to go.’
She pointed, but already the man was turning the next corner. Half-jogging, none of them wanting to appear over-eager, they followed him. It wasn’t far, but it was twisty, and they just managed to catch glimpses of his disappearing T-shirt at every turn of the maze.
‘He could be a serial killer, you know,’ said Claire, ‘enticing us to a chic but early grave.’
Ronan tilted his head towards the motley gathering of ageing rockers at their heels. ‘He’d be targeting an unusual demographic.’
Turning the corner of a tall yew hedge, they walked headlong into a metal barrier, the kind – appropriately enough – that you might find holding back the crowd at a gig. It was spangled with locks and tied-on messages. Next to the barrier, a tree was almost completely plastered with chewed gum, an odd tribute that released a pervasive scent of spearmint. Lying low behind the barrier was the most visited grave in Paris. It was smaller than Claire expected and would have been unobtrusive were it not for the big barriers surrounding it.
Claire spun around, searching, but their pied piper had melted away.
‘He looked familiar.’ She was agitated that she couldn’t thank him.
