Free Bright Angel by Isabelle Merlin Page A

and began to clear away the plates. ‘Now, look, I’m going down to the Roman ruins this afternoon – take some video, photos, make notes – you’re welcome to come with me or stay, just as you like.’
    â€˜I’ll stay if you don’t mind. I’m a bit tired from that walk. Could I maybe go on the internet? I’d just like to send a few emails.’
    â€˜And look up GEIPAN, yeah?’ said Freddy, her eyes twinkling. ‘Sure, no problem. I’m not going to need the computer for a few hours. It’s all yours.’
    I went into my Hotmail account first. There was that email from Mum and Dad that Freddy had told us about this morning, plus one from Jess, plus one from Kate, another friend, plus some general You Tube messages and other boring bits and pieces. Mum and Dad’s email, which was cc’ed to Claire, was pretty much of the hope-you’re-all-right-we’re-missing-you-write-soon type, but there was also a bit that made me sit up:

    We saw Helen’s mother in town this morning, they’ve been back a day or two. Not Helen – Irina said her daughter was feeling better but not well enough to go back home yet. Poor things, as if they didn’t have enough to cope with, they’d received a nasty anonymous letter. Apparently it’s not from Radic’s family or associates, according to the police. They think it’s most likely a hoax, because at times like this all kinds of nutcases crawl out of the woodwork, but they’re keeping an eye on the Makarios family anyway.
    Poor Helen, I thought, my heart clenching. It was far worse for her than for us. Thomas Radic had once been her boyfriend. And he’d cast a terrible shadow over her wedding-to-be. It had already been postponed. Who knew if it would even take place at all? And now this – some idiot nutcase stranger – some ghastly moron sticking his oar in, for his own twisted fun. It made me feel sick. How could people be like that?
    On an impulse, I shot off an email to Helen:

    Hello Helen,

    Just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you and hoping you feel better very soon. We wish you were here with us, maybe you could fly over and stay, I’m sure Aunt Freddy wouldn’t mind, she’s really cool.

    With lots of love from Sylvie

    P.S. Claire says she’ll write soon.
    Well she hadn’t said that, but I knew she would, as soon as I told her. I pressed Send, then looked at my other emails. Jess had sent me a really cute and funny e-card of an animated frog, wearing a beret, leaping over a mini Eiffel Tower, with ‘Have fun in froggy-land, miss ya, luv Jess,’ written on it in red, blue and white flashing lights. Kate had sent me a Forward thing, a joke about French people and croissants that made sense only if you really, really thought about it. Kate’s often sending on those sorts of things. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re not. But the effect of both of those messages anyway was to make me feel quite cheerful, so that I answered Mum and Dad’s email with a long newsy thing, not really mentioning Helen’s anonymous letter except to say it was terrible. Instead I wrote about how much we were liking it in St-Bertrand and getting on so well with Freddy and having fun. I even told them about Mick and GEIPAN and then of course that reminded me of looking up their website. So I went to Google and put it in. Sure enough, there were heaps of references to it.
    The first thing I clicked onto was their main site: www.cnes-geipan.fr/geipan, which is all in French. There were lots of interesting things there, including real case studies and a bit too about IPNs, which Mick had told me was what he worked as – but my French wasn’t good enough to make out more than a few sentences here and there. Still, I printed out a few of the case studies anyway. I would have to ask Freddy to translate, I thought. And then I found a