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into a narrow lane, beside a stone church with a big square tower. ‘St-Just de Valcabrere,’ said Freddy. ‘It’s a really ancient church. They used bits from the ruined Roman city to build it, and there are Roman inscriptions everywhere in and around it.’
    As I got out of the car, I heard a bell. Not a church bell though. Beside the church was a lovely meadow, full of flowers. And in it was a small herd of brown cows, who stared curiously at us as we got out. Around the neck of one cow was a bell, which rang softly as she moved.
    â€˜They still put bells on the lead cow in a herd here,’ said Freddy. ‘It’s like in the Alps. They take them further up the mountains in the summer, you know – the bell tells you exactly where they are. Lovely sound, isn’t it?’
    She pointed in the other direction, away from the church. ‘Look over there. See that huge church, in the distance, and those houses? That’s St-Bertrand.’
    Ringing us was a tumble of green forested hills, the beginnings of the Pyrenees, with the higher peaks in the distance. In front were the meadows, and rising against the different greens of forest and meadow, perched on a spur of rock, was the cathedral, massive as a castle, but somehow not forbidding. Around it were old houses, like chicks huddling under a mother hen’s loving wings. The sun touched everything with a soft glow, so that even the shadows between the hills looked warm. Bird calls and the gentle sound of cowbells filled the air. Not a single sound of the modern world intruded. For a moment I felt as though we had suddenly stepped into another time, even another dimension. A kinder, gentler world. What was it Freddy had said? You feel like the very air heals you.
    Beside me, Claire said, ‘Oh, it’s just so beautiful. Heavenly.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Freddy. ‘I keep expecting choirs of angels to burst into song. It’s that sort of place. You feel like nothing bad could ever happen here.’
    Something odd flashed through me then. Call it premonition. Or just a bit of post-trauma. Oh, no, I thought, you shouldn’t have said that. You shouldn’t. Someone might hear you. Someone or some thing. And suddenly, for an instant, as my skin rippled with an unexpected shiver, the shadows between the hills seemed darker, the high peaks cruel, the very air filled with a secret, watching presence.

Shadow of a ghost
    But I forgot all about my bad feeling as we drove into St-Bertrand. Just before we reached it, we passed the site of the Roman city, on the flat-land below the present township. There were only ruins left now, a few crumbling walls, part of the base of a tower, wells, just a few things to suggest what had once been the bustling town of Lugdunum Converanum. Weird, to think of it like that. It wasn’t even like a ghost town now. More like the shadow of a ghost.
    The ruins were roped off. Freddy said archaeologists worked there sometimes.
    â€˜They’ve uncovered the site for the theatre, a temple, markets, and various other things,’ she said. ‘They’ve found some good stuff – pottery, lamps, bits of statues and columns and all sorts of other bits and pieces.’
    â€˜Are you allowed to go and have a look?’ asked Claire.
    â€˜You’re not supposed to go into the ruins – but there’s a good little museum in the town that has quite a few of the finds and a lot of info – best to go there first if you’re interested. Lots of other things to see in the town too,’ Freddy went on, as she turned the car up the hill. ‘The cathedral’s amazing, for a start. Then there’s the museum, art gallery, lots of lovely old houses.’
    We turned into a little car park. ‘We have to walk from here,’ she said. ‘There’s nowhere to park the car near the house. No garage. And the streets are very narrow. The medievals didn’t live