by Peter James
Ross sipped some of his tea. ‘Yes, but during research for my article I discovered that many of the medieval monks were pretty commercial animals, and income from tourists was as important for the monasteries as it is for many seaside resorts today. Quite a number of scholars have said the discovery of these graves was made up, aimed at getting religious tourism. How much do you know about this, Dr Cook?’
‘I know all about it. As a shrine, the place would have been visited by thousands of pilgrims. There would have been all kinds of holy souvenirs, and charlatans selling supposedly magical relics. But that was the norm for many monasteries. You are quite right to question this, Mr Hunter. And with so much destroyed in the Reformation, it is impossible to establish the truth all these centuries later.’
‘Quite. So, have you checked either of the other two coordinates yet?’ Ross asked him.
‘I have. But I’m afraid that until I have your absolute commitment to helping me, I cannot reveal them.’
Whatever his scepticism at this moment, Ross could not dismiss what Cook had told him about Ricky. And there was a sincerity about Cook that he found touching. Clearly, beyond any doubt, Cook believed in what he had been given.
And yet.
‘Dr Cook, you said God felt that by having faith in Him reaffirmed, it would help steer the world back from the brink, right?’
‘Absolutely, Mr Hunter.’
‘But the world never has been on an even keel, has it? Go back over the past thousands of years, and for much of this time almost everyone in the world believed in a god – or gods – of some denomination, and worshipped them. Throughout time people have done the same horrible things they still do around the world today. Even though they believed ardently in their deity.’ He paused for a moment and looked at the old man, who was staring at him attentively.
‘Surely, Dr Cook, if he truly is God, and wants to see us all back on an even keel – whatever he means by that – why can’t he just do it?’
‘Because God gave us all free will. He sent his son to save us, and we ridiculed and murdered him. We’ve been suffering the consequences since. Now we are being given a unique second chance.’
All Ross’s instincts were telling him this was a hiding to nothing. A simple Google search would have told Cook all he needed to know about him having a twin who died in an accident.
But Bubble and Squeak?
He decided to play a bluff. He glanced at his watch. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s all I have time for – so I don’t really know where we go from here. I suggest you take your manuscript away, make a copy and send it to me, if you’d like any further input from me. Otherwise –’ he stood up – ‘it’s been very nice to meet you.’
Cook did not move. ‘All right,’ he said, pursing his lips and nodding pensively. ‘I trust you, Mr Hunter. I’ll leave the manuscript with you if you give me your reassurance you will not make a copy of it.’
Ross nodded.
‘If you could read it as quickly as you can, then we can meet again and develop our strategy for saving mankind.’
‘It’s a plan,’ Ross said. ‘On one condition.’
‘Which is?’
‘You give me all three sets of compass coordinates you have.’
Cook hesitated, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. ‘Why do you need them?’
‘You’re asking me to take on a big commitment of time. I’d like to check them out for myself.’
‘I’ll give you the precise coordinates I have for Chalice Well as a token of good faith, Mr Hunter. It’s not, of course, that I don’t trust you, but I cannot risk them falling into the wrong hands.’ He stared intently at Ross again. ‘You do understand there are a lot of people who would want them? In the wrong hands they could be extremely dangerous.’
‘What kind of danger?’
‘Need I spell it out?’
Ross could now see the teacher in the man. The impatient lecturer trying not to talk down to an imbecilic student.
‘Lucifer, Mr Hunter.’ Cook gave him a reproachful look. ‘Satan. Kicked out of Heaven, he vowed to return and is biding his time.’
‘OK,’ Ross said, trying not to look as though he was humouring the man.
‘When I feel it is safe, I will let you have the remaining coordinates. And I will also need your word that you will not attempt to excavate at Chalice Well – or at any of the other locations – without my being present.’
‘You have my word.’
With some reluctance, Cook opened his wallet, took out a tiny square of paper, no bigger than two inches by two inches, and handed it to Ross.
He could barely see the tiny handwritten numbers and letters. Squinting, he read the coordinates out aloud:
‘51°08’40”N 2°41’55”W –’
Then he read the numbers that followed:
‘14 9 14 5 13 5 20 18 5 19 19 20 12.’
He looked at Cook. ‘What are those numbers? They’re not compass coordinates.’
‘No, indeed not.’
‘Is it some code?’
‘I honestly don’t know. I had a good look around Chalice Well whilst I was there, seeing if I could spot any numbers corresponding, but no dice. But they are clearly there for a reason.’
A few minutes later they shook hands at the front door.
‘You will be careful with the manuscript, won’t you, Mr Hunter?’
‘I’ll guard it with my life.’
Ross stood there, watching Cook climb back into his car, switch on the lights and drive off. It was a few minutes to 6 p.m.
Then he closed the door, went upstairs to his den and began to read.
The man in the dark-grey Vauxhall saloon, parked a short distance along the road, lowered his night-vision binoculars, switched off the video record mode and made a few notes on his tablet, before starting the car and pulling away.
Tuesday, 28 February 2017
At 5 p.m., an hour before Imogen was due to arrive home from work, Ross loaded up the boot of his car with all the equipment he reckoned he would need, much of which had been delivered yesterday and stored in the garage. He was glad of the pelting rain and dark skies to give him extra cover – and hoped the weather would remain bad, as forecast.
He left her a note on the kitchen table.
Gone out on a work assignment, might be late.
Monty fed. Have a fun book club nite! X
Then he headed off on the long, crawling drive through the afternoon rush hour, with Glastonbury programmed into his satnav. He was so focused on his task ahead that for some while he did not notice in the fading light the dark saloon, staying a steady two or three cars behind him all the way along the A23, the M25 and then the M3 motorways passing Basingstoke, then Salisbury, then almost three hours into his journey, passing Stonehenge on the A303.
That was when he first became aware that someone might be following him. Just after the car right behind him had turned left, off the road, and the lights of the vehicle behind seemed familiar. Most lights, apart from those of recent model Audis and some other high-end cars, which had distinctive LEDs, were the same. Moments later, in a blare of blue-tinted light, something came up close in his mirrors then shot past him with a roar. The tail of a Porsche 911.
There were no longer any lights behind him.
Whoever it was must have turned off, he thought to his relief. But he remained wary and vigilant. And his nerves were jangling about the task ahead of him.
It was shortly after 8.30 p.m. when he finally arrived in Glastonbury. The weather was on his side – it was still pelting with rain.
Perfect. He could not have hoped for better cover.
Then, with a twinge of unease, he thought he saw something in his mirror. He slowed right down, repeatedly checking as he passed beneath street lights. Nothing.
Just his imagination. He was being jumpy.
Jumpy as hell.
He pulled into the deserted car park, in the forecourt of the factory outlet, turned off the
lights and sat, looking around, but there was still no sign of another vehicle. It was raining too hard for anyone, except the most diehard of dog walkers, to be out on this foul night.
Then his phone pinged, startling him.
It was a text from Imogen.
Hope you’re OK. Big argument about this book going on! X
They had been reading Shantaram. He texted back.
Tell them you think it’s the new Fifty Shades Of Grey!
He started the engine and drove back out of the car park, looking for any parked vehicle that hadn’t been there when he had driven past a few minutes earlier, but still could see nothing.
He turned left, into the lane between Chalice Well and Glastonbury Tor, which he had walked up on his visit here last week, and drove on, then swung into the lay-by where the footpath to the tor began. There was ample room for his car. It was perfect. No one around at all.
He opened the boot and lifted out the three waterproof holdalls into which he had packed all the kit he thought he would need. Then he lugged them the short distance back down the lane, ready to dive into the shadows and freeze if any car came by. He pulled on a head torch with a red filter – a low-level light, he had researched, could not be seen from any distance – and hoisted each bag over the fence, letting them drop down the other side, then clumsily scrambled over.
He stared around at the darkness, trying to accustom his eyes.
Could he really go through with this?
His phone pinged loudly again.
He tugged it out and glanced at the display. It was another text from Imogen.
Ha! XX
He smiled, uncomfortably, feeling bad that he’d had to avoid telling her the truth about what he was doing tonight. But he hadn’t wanted to scare her. He turned the phone to silent.
A tiny speck of light flared in the darkness, then died, on the far side of the fence. He switched off his head torch, his heart thudding, breaking into a cold sweat, and stood still, staring.
Nothing.
After waiting for a couple of minutes, with the rain continuing to pelt relentlessly down, he turned away, switched the torch back on, picked up the bags and trudged towards the well. Carefully descending the treacherously slippery steps, he stopped in front of the wellhead, with its raised circular lid.
This is crazy.
Go home.
He was soaking wet, cold, apprehensive and feeling increasingly scared about just what he was getting into.
You idiot, he thought to himself. Forget it. Images of Harry Cook’s horrific death flooded through his mind. Were the old man’s torturers and killers waiting out in the darkness, here for him?
He shivered.
Forget it, his brain screamed at him. Go home, find another way to save the world.
But he had come this far.
He put down the bags, walked to the edge of the narrow well and peered through the metal grid down at the inky water below. A smell of moss and weed rose from it. He was thinking about that crumpled page he had recovered from Cook’s waste bin. The compass coordinates and the email Boxx had sent him deciphering the numbers.
Nine Metres S (south?) T (turn?) L (left?) Helpful?
If you paced nine metres south and turned left, from the exact spot those coordinates indicated, you were at the wellhead.
He bent down, unzipped one bag and pulled out an adjustable spanner. For several minutes, he struggled to undo each of the nuts and bolts that held the grid secure. None of them, probably, had been moved in years – or even decades. By the time he had undone the last one, he was sweating from the exertion. Then just as he kneeled down to try to lift the grid, hoping it wasn’t going to be impossibly heavy, he heard the sound of a car.
It was driving slowly up the lane, on the other side of the fence. He held his breath. If it was local police would they wonder what his car was doing there – or just assume he was a night walker gone for a stroll around the sacred hill?
He could see the glow of the headlights on the overhanging branches. Moving past. The sound of the engine faded and he resumed his task. Gripping his hands around two of the black metal cross-bars of the cover, he pulled sharply upwards.
Nothing happened.
Shit.
He tried again. Then again.
Until he saw the problem. He’d only removed five bolts. There were six holding the grid in place, and the sixth one was by his left hand. He had missed one.
His nerves, he realized. He wasn’t thinking clearly.
He removed the final nut and bolt, bent down and gripped the bars again. The grid came away easily; it was lighter than he had expected.
Breathing deeply with relief, he laid it down carefully to the side of the well, then delved into another bag and pulled out the improvised piece of kit he had rigged earlier today. It was his GoPro camera in the waterproof casing he used on scuba diving holidays, attached to a metal wrench for weight, and with a waterproof LED torch secured to it, along with a polypropylene rope.
He switched on the torch and the camera, set it to video, then lowered the contraption into the water, paying out the cord as it went down, keeping a rough count. Ten feet. Twenty feet. Thirty. Forty. Fifty.
The guidebook said it was eighty foot deep.
Sixty. Seventy. Eighty.
The cord went slack.
He pulled it taut, then slowly twisted it round for several revolutions, before, slowly and steadily, hauling it back up. Every few moments he paused to look around him in the darkness, his torch casting a red glow along the circular stone wall beyond the wellhead.
Then he heard a footstep.
He stopped. Turned his torch off. Sat very still, listening. The rain pattered down. He hauled the camera up further, then stopped and listened again.
The only sound was the rain.
Shivering from the cold, he switched the torch back on. The camera surfaced with a tiny plop.
He lifted it up, popped open the casing and removed the camera itself, then sheltering it as best he could from the rain, inside his parka, he pressed the replay button for the video.
For a minute, maybe longer, he watched as the video played, the grainy image showing bare wall, some with moss and tendrils of weed, as the camera descended. Then the image jigged, unsteadily. The camera must have reached the bottom.
It began to rotate. He could see what looked like a number of coins. The camera completed what seemed like a full rotation, stirring up silt. Nothing.
Shit, shit, shit.
But at least now he knew. Harry Cook had been—
Then he froze as the camera rotated again, and he noticed something in the murk.
He stabbed the pause button.
There was something that was not part of the bottom of the well, nor the wall. A dark shape. It lay on the bottom. He replayed it. And he could see it slightly more clearly now as his eyes were adjusting to the gloom down there.
It felt like a bolt of electricity had shot through him.
What was it?
He replayed the image a third time. There it was, nestling in the silt. Impossible to figure exactly what it was. Maybe it was just a large stone.
Next, he pulled out the sections of flexible wire caving ladder he had bought on the internet, along with Maillon Rapide section joins, and began assembling it with shaking hands.
When he had finished creating it, he used a tow strap to anchor the rope-like ladder to a tree at the edge of the fence, then lowered it into the well, paying it out until he reached the end.
From the third, and very heavy bag, he removed his scuba equipment. Then he stood still. Staring at the darkness all around him. Shivering. This was madness. Forget it. Go home. The well was barely wide enough for him to fit into.
He asked me to tell you that Ricky said you should trust me. He said to mention Bubble and Squeak.
Harry Cook’s voice was echoing all around him.
He’d come this far. He would bloody well see it through.
The man who had followed him all the way down here from Patcham, concealed nearby, watched him through night-vision binoculars with a built-in video. A hazy green image. Shortly after Ross had disappeared from view, he zoomed in.
Tuesday, 28 February 2017
Ross climbed down the swaying, unsteady ladder, increasingly nervous with every step, until after only a short distance from the wellhead he reached the surface of the water. He hesitated. All his instincts were screaming at him to pack up, forget all about this, go home. But after some moments he finally plucked up courage, grabbed the mouthpiece of his regulator, adjusted his mask and gently let himself down.
Instantly, as his head went below the surface, he felt its icy chill.
Tendrils of weed touched his face and he shuddered. A short distance down he stopped and attached the holdall he was carrying, with its contents, to a rung.
Then he continued his descent into the eerie darkness that was only faintly illuminated by his head torch. He could hear the steady roar of his breathing, the popping of bubbles and the thud-thud-thud of his heartbeat. He was shivering with cold despite the protection of his diving kit.