Free Cupid's Arrow by Isabelle Merlin

soak up the sauce. Couldn't be bothered cooking spuds, I'm afraid.'
    'I saw a boy there. A boy and his dog. Patou. I mean the dog was called Patou. The boy's called Remy.'
    'Oh, I'm glad you've met one of the locals,' she said, smiling at me. 'Did you have a good chat?'
    'No, not really,' I said. 'I only just met them.'
    'Oh, okay. I guess you might meet them again in the village,' she said vaguely, ladling out stew onto her plate.
    'I don't think they live in the village,' I began, but Mum wasn't listening. She said, 'You know, I did a quick three-card spread.'
    'What? Oh, right, about Wayne Morgan.'
    'Yes. And do you know what?'
    'Tell me,' I said, forking up some of the meat. Yum! It was delicious. Tender, with a creamy, lemony, peppery sauce, herbs and mushrooms. Most of my friends hate mushrooms but I love them. Especially tasty small ones like these.
    'I asked the cards, what needs to be fulfilled ? And I drew the Empress first,' she said, her eyes shining. 'That is wisdom. Then I drew the Ace of Cups. From that I understood I should have an open heart, a trusting heart. And then the Lady of the Lake herself – the High Priestess. You know how she represents self-trust, intuition and balance. And sometimes they say the Lady of the Lake's name is Morgana. That's close to Morgan. So ...'
    'So it means you're going to give Wayne Morgan the notebooks,' I said, glad I'd kept the news of the other notebook to myself. 'Jeez, I hope the cards are not telling you fibs, Mum, and he's really a big crook.'
    'If he was a crook of any size, he'd have asked for something valuable,' said Mum, with dignity. 'I mean, something you could actually sell. And there are lots of those kinds of books here. Besides, I've had a look at the notebooks. They're interesting to anyone who's fascinated in how writers work. But they're not valuable, as such. They wouldn't fetch money. Not much.'
    'They might one day,' I said.
    'Maybe. But a crook doesn't go for that sort of thing. They want returns now, they don't want to wait for maybes and ifs. He is genuinely interested, I'm sure of it.'
    'Hadn't you better wait till you meet him before you say for sure?' Honestly, sometimes I think it's me who's the adult and Mum who's the kid. She does live in a funny old dream world sometimes. Much more than I do, even with the dreams I have.
    'Of course. But I feel more settled about it now. And that's the main thing. Hey, how about that cake then? Ready for it?'
    'Sure thing.' I was pretty full of stew and bread and salad, but you can always fit in cake, yeah? That's what I reckon, anyway. And that cake was something else. You might not think a frozen meringue cake would be that nice but you'd be wrong. It had this gorgeous coffee ice-cream sandwiched in between hazelnut meringue and then a layer of chocolate ice-cream and roasted sugared hazelnuts on top and it was just one of the best things I'd ever tasted. We had it with more of the whipped cream. Well, why not go the whole hog, eh? And we were just so full by the end of it that we could hardly move to make coffee. But just as Mum got up to put the kettle on, there was a big thunderous knock at the door and we both jumped almost out of our skins.
    'Who on earth can that be?' said Mum, looking at her watch. 'It's nearly nine.' It didn't look that late because Mum had said that in summer in Europe it doesn't get really dark till ten o'clock or something. But she got up and went to the door and I trailed after her, remembering what had happened to Raymond and scared for no real reason. A killer would hardly knock at the door, would he?
    The next moment, I felt really silly because there on the threshold stood this thin little woman in her early thirties or so, with big specs and blondish hair scraped back with clips, dressed in jeans and a neat shirt. She said, 'Good evening. My name is Marie Clary, I would have come earlier but I have been in Vezelay all day. I clean here three days a week,' she added,