Absolute Proof

by Peter James

  ‘But you said you were found by a police officer and someone from the trust, you thought. They knew where you were digging.’

  ‘I’ve never given the trustees the coordinates.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have needed to, if they’d found you at the spot.’

  Was it someone from the trust or was Cook lying about no one else having the coordinates, Ross wondered? Or were they not quite so secret or special as he imagined? It was open knowledge that Joseph of Arimathea supposedly visited the place, and that he might have had the chalice – the Holy Grail – with him.

  ‘It is unbearable to think it – that the Holy Grail might have fallen into the wrong hands, Mr Hunter,’ Cook said. ‘Is this why you are phoning? To tell me about the dig?’

  ‘No, I’m really calling to tell you I honestly don’t think I’m your man.’

  Cook replied instantly and assertively. ‘Mr Hunter, you are, I assure you. Look, since we spoke, I’ve found something that I think will change your mind. Please don’t dismiss me as a harmless old loony. Give me the chance to explain what I’ve found.’

  ‘OK, I’m listening.’

  ‘I don’t want to tell you over the phone, it’s too dangerous – and it’s too important. We need to meet. Please, I’m imploring you, give me the chance to do that. If you hear me out, what I’ve calculated about these coordinates and number sequences – I think you’ll understand. It does have something to do with what you found – the digging . . . just do me that favour.’

  There was something in his voice that cut through Ross’s scepticism. It didn’t convince him, but it made him hesitate. All his journalistic instincts were telling him there was a story here. Probably not the one Cook had in mind, but maybe it was worth seeing him again. The kind of story that perhaps the Mail would buy to run on a quiet news day. The man who was so convinced he could save the world he got arrested digging up Chalice Well.

  He pulled up his diary for tomorrow on his computer. Friday. A clear day. Maybe it would be interesting to meet the man in his home. Take a few pictures of him. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘How about I drive up to meet you at your house tomorrow? I could get to you late morning.’

  ‘You won’t regret it, Mr Hunter, I assure you. You’ll bring the manuscript with you?’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  23

  Friday, 24 February

  Shortly after 11 a.m., following the satnav directions for Harry Cook’s postcode, Ross drove along the high street of a small, pretty village, about ten miles to the west of Birmingham. At dinner last night, when he had told Imogen about his meeting with the Bishop of Monmouth, the subsequent phone call from Sally Hughes and then his conversation with Cook, she had bluntly told him to forget it, the man was clearly a fruit loop and he should not waste any more time on him.

  The satnav told him to turn right in one and a half miles.

  He passed a country pub, a petrol station, followed by an ugly little industrial estate. Then a couple of minutes later he saw a road sign, partly concealed by shrubbery. He turned right onto a singletrack lane, drove over a hump-backed bridge across a narrow river, past a car-repair yard, a farm shop advertising fresh eggs and homemade cheeses, then down a long, wooded gradient. A countdown to his destination began on the satnav. It was followed by a chequered flag, and the almost triumphant female voice, ‘You have arrived!’

  To his right, up a short drive, was a neat bungalow, with an integral garage and an immaculate front lawn, the grass looking as if it belonged on a bowling green. Parked in front of the garage, dead centre in the driveway, was the white Nissan Micra he recognized from when Cook had visited him earlier in the week. It looked showroom clean.

  He turned into the drive, parked his Audi behind the Micra and climbed out. He’d done a lot of driving the past few days, he thought. It was bitterly cold and there was a sweet smell of woodsmoke from nearby. A sparrow was washing itself in a birdbath. Glad of his fleece-lined parka and warm boots, he locked the car and walked up to the front door, carrying his heavy rucksack by one of the straps, and rang the bell. There was a faint two-tone chime. But no response.

  After some moments he rang again, and once more heard the chimes.

  Again, no response.

  He tried again and this time also rapped hard with his knuckles.

  A vehicle was approaching down the road. He heard a distinct diesel rattle. A muddy Land Rover Defender, towing a horsebox, passed by.

  He pushed open the letter box and peered through. He could see a narrow, empty hallway. He knocked again.

  Cook knew he was coming, and had his number. Surely he would have rung if he was going out?

  He pulled out his phone, dialled Cook’s mobile number and waited. He heard the sound of a ring tone somewhere in the house.

  It rang on. After ten rings, he heard the old man’s very precise voice.

  ‘Hello, this is Harry Cook. I’m afraid I am not able to take your call at this moment. Please leave a message and your telephone number and I will call you back as soon as possible. Thank you so much.’

  Ross ended the call without leaving a message, anxious.

  Cook’s car was here.

  He pushed open the letter box and shouted, loudly, ‘Dr Cook? Hello!’

  There was no response.

  He decided to walk round to the rear of the house. Stepping over a low lavender hedge, he passed a side window and stopped to peer in. And froze.

  It was a sitting room, with an old-fashioned television, a three-piece suite, pictures on a mantelpiece above an electric fire and a walnut cabinet filled with Capodimonte ornaments. But it looked like a bomb had hit it. All the seat cushions were strewn on the floor and ripped open, as were the sides and backs of the chairs and sofas. The cabinet doors were open and several of the ornaments lay broken on the carpeted floor. There was a small wooden bureau on the far side, all its drawers pulled out, the contents scattered.

  The old man had been burgled, and this must have happened very recently, he guessed. This morning, even. But where was Cook?

  The icy thought occurred that the burglar – or burglars – might still be here.

  Should he call the police?

  But if he did so he would have to explain why he was here. And that might compromise whatever it was the old man had wanted to tell or show him.

  Gripping the heavy rucksack more firmly, as a makeshift weapon, he hurried past a trio of wheelie bins, each with a different coloured lid, and reached the back of the house. There was a square conservatory extension to the kitchen, with patio doors, and the rear garden looked as well-tended as the front, with beds planted with shrubs running down each side of a long lawn, an ornamental pond and a wooden summer house at the far end.

  He walked up to the rear entrance and rapped loudly on the patio doors, braced again with the rucksack. After some moments, he tried the door. It was unlocked and slid open. Almost instantly there was a streak of ginger racing towards him and a cat shot past and out into the garden, as if fired from a cannon.

  He stepped into the conservatory. There were two wicker chairs and an assortment of gardening magazines fanned out perfectly on a glass-topped wicker table.

  ‘Hello, Dr Cook. Hello!’ he called.

  He heard a clock tick, loudly. Then a moment later two chimes made him jump. It was 11.30 a.m.

  He called out once more, again ready with the rucksack if anyone came at him.

  But just silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock.

  He stepped forward, walking hesitantly through into the kitchen, and there was more clear evidence of the break-in here. Every cupboard door and drawer was open. Cups, bowls, vases lay scattered around on the linoleum floor. The contents of jars of tea, coffee, sugar and flour had been tipped out.

  He hesitated.

  A partially eaten breakfast was laid out on the kitchen table. In the centre was a copy of today’s Daily Telegraph, resting against a reading rack. A packet of cornflakes, a jug of mil
k and a cereal bowl, a spoon lying in it, with remnants of milk and cornflake fragments around the side. Two boiled eggs, their tops sliced off but their contents untouched, sat in eggcups on a plate, a neat pile of salt and pepper on one side and a clean spoon on the table. There was also a teacup, filled to the brim. The wooden chair was pushed back at an angle, as though Cook had risen in a hurry from a meal he had not returned to. It looked like there should have been a second chair, opposite.

  Feeling very nervous now, he looked about for a better weapon than his rucksack, and saw a brass doorstop on the floor. He picked the heavy object up, then stood, ready to swing it, listening. He stepped through the debris and reached the table; he dipped a finger in the tea and it was stone cold. He also touched the side of one egg and that was cold, too. For the tea to be that cold, Cook must have stood up from this table well over an hour ago, he estimated. Maybe two or three hours ago, or even more.

  He walked through into the hall he had seen through the letter box, and called out again, more loudly still. ‘Hello! Dr Cook?’

  There was a grandfather clock, and its loud tick was the only sound that came back. Hanging on the wall opposite was an embroidered quote, in a frame.

  Be still, and know that I am God – Psalm 46:10

  The place had a slightly musty, old-people-and-cats smell that reminded him of his grandparents’ house.

  There were three doors leading off. The first opened on to a bedroom with a double bed. All the bedding had been pulled away and the mattress slit open in several places. Clothes had been pulled out of the fitted wardrobes and lay on the floor. The drawers in both bedside tables were open.

  The next door opened on to a small den, with a desk and chair, and a power cable for a Mac – although there was no computer – lying under the desk, along with a plugged-in Wi-Fi router and a wastepaper bin. There were three metal filing cabinets. All the drawers were open and files were scattered across the floor, their contents spilled out.

  On the desk was a mouse and an assortment of pens and pencils in a circular holder. He saw a pad of notepaper, a couple of inches square – the same pad, he presumed, that Cook had written the Chalice Well coordinates on for him. There was a faint indent on the top sheet of the notepad, a long line curved to the left at the bottom, the shape of a hockey stick, and what looked like numbers. He knelt and looked in the bin. There was just one item, a crumpled scrap of paper. Listening and glancing around again for a moment, he then unfolded the paper. It must have been the top sheet from the pad, he realized. There was a black roller-ball line, curved left at the bottom, which matched the indent. Beside it were the numbers that looked like the ones that had accompanied the compass coordinates, although he couldn’t be sure.

  14 9 14 5 13 5 20 18 5 19 19 20 12

  It seemed a strange doodle, and it made him curious. He folded it, tucked it into his wallet and took another careful look around the study. Then he went out into the hall, walked past the clock and approached the final door, on the right. It opened on to a sparsely furnished dining room, with a four-seater table and one solitary print on the wall beside an oak dresser, a picture of the Doge’s Palace in Venice. The drawer in the centre of the dresser had been pulled open as well as each of the two doors, where glasses were stacked on one side, and place mats and napkins on the other.

  Sensing a shadow move behind him, he spun round, gripping the doorstop. But there was nothing. He went out, crossed the hallway and peered into the ransacked living room. On the mantelpiece, above a fake coal electric fire, was a framed black-and-white wedding photograph of a much younger Harry Cook in a dark suit, holding hands with a sweet, rather prim-looking woman with dark wavy hair.

  He returned to the kitchen, his heart thudding, and looked around. And then he saw it. A closed door he had somehow missed earlier.

  He turned the handle and opened it towards him. Beyond was a wooden staircase descending into a basement or a cellar of some kind. He called down. ‘Dr Cook? Hello? Anyone there?’

  His voice sounded strangely high-pitched. Tight with anxiety.

  There was a switch and he pressed it. A light, from a single bulb hanging from a brown cord, threw stark shadows and another appeared to come on at the bottom of the stairs. He would take a look down here and if there was still no sign of the old man, then he would call the police, he decided.

  He began to descend the steps, one at a time, his grip on his makeshift weapon even tighter. As he approached the bare concrete floor at the bottom he saw it was some kind of a junk depository. Contents of files were scattered all around. A couple of old suitcases lay on their sides, opened.

  Then, Oh Jesus.

  Oh shit.

  No.

  No.

  He understood now why there was no second chair at the kitchen table. It was down here. Harry Cook’s bony, naked body, was secured to it with grey gaffer tape, and there was more tape across his mouth. His arms were stretched out, his hands nailed to the wall.

  Ross shot another nervous glance behind him, then walked over to the body. Cook’s eyes were open, sightless, with an expression of terror. His face and body were marked with what looked like cigarette burns. And his throat had been gashed open. A pool of congealed blood lay on his chest.

  Ross turned and fled up the stairs, through the house and out through the rear door. He vomited onto the lawn. Then, pulling out his phone and with shaking fingers, stabbed out 999, getting the numbers wrong three times before he finally, to his relief, heard the ringing tone. Followed by the voice of the emergency operator.

  24

  Saturday, 25 February

  ‘Have you all decided?’ The smiling waiter stood in front of them in the packed, buzzy Curry Leaf restaurant in Brighton’s Lanes.

  After a moment, Imogen said, ‘We can never decide here – why don’t you just bring us a selection of starters and then mains – whatever you think.’ She looked at the other three at the table. Her friends nodded but Ross appeared lost in his own world.

  ‘Ross?’ she said.

  He looked up with a start. ‘Sorry – I was – I was just thinking about yesterday – I –’

  ‘I’m ordering a selection of starters, OK with you?’

  ‘Good idea,’ he said.

  ‘Excellent!’ said the waiter. ‘Now, do any of you have any allergies, anything you do not eat?’ He looked at Ross, Imogen and their two closest friends, Hodge and Helen.

  ‘Small babies,’ said Helen, a chiropractor with a very quirky sense of humour.

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Anything healthy,’ said Hodge, who was Finance Director for an international outlet store. ‘Nothing healthy, please.’

  The waiter pressed his hands together. ‘That is good! I can promise you no small babies and nothing too healthy on the menu tonight – only just a little bit good for you.’

  As the waiter departed, Hodge raised his Cobra beer. ‘Cheers.’

  The four of them clinked glasses.

  ‘So,’ Helen said to Ross. ‘You had a pretty traumatic day yesterday?’

  ‘You could say that. Yes.’

  ‘You’re looking pale.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep too well.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, mate,’ Hodge said. ‘I’m amazed you even came out tonight.’

  ‘Yup, well, it’s nice to have some normality after what I saw and then what I had to go through with the police and all their questions.’

  ‘Was it like bodies you saw in Afghanistan?’ Helen hesitated. ‘Sorry, that was pretty insensitive.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I thought that nothing would ever shock me again after my time out there. But I was wrong. I’ve never seen a murder victim here in the UK in situ before.’

  ‘How did it make you feel?’ asked Helen, looking very interested.

  ‘Actually, a bit shit.’ He drained his beer and looked around for a waiter to order another. ‘Even more shit when I got taken to the police station and interviewed for three hours like
I was a potential suspect.’ He shrugged. ‘But all grist to the mill for my story.’

  ‘Which is?’ Hodge asked.

  ‘The quest for proof of God’s existence. Or rather a man who believed he had the proof.’

  Hodge, who had spiky hair and a trim beard, replied, ‘And you have it?’

  ‘Not yet – not that I’m convinced of.’

  Hodge gave him a sardonic smile. ‘The Bible was basically written under the supervision of God, right? It is, to many believers, the undisputed word of God?’

  ‘As I remember from RE classes – which I never paid much attention to,’ Ross replied.

  ‘I read it all the way through once, Old and New Testaments. I vaguely remember that the earth was described as flat and sitting on a pedestal – and in Revelation it has four corners. “I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the world.”’ Hodge raised his eyebrows. ‘If God created the world, didn’t he know that it was round – and not mounted on a pedestal? Seems like we have quite a lot to teach him.’

  Ross smiled. ‘I guess there’s a lot of metaphor in the Bible.’

  ‘There’s a lot of metaphor in many fairy tales,’ Hodge replied.

  ‘Did this Dr Cook have children, Ross?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Yes, a son who was killed by friendly fire in Helmand Province. I guess that was one of the things that I connected with.’

  More beers arrived.

  ‘What about a motive?’ Hodge asked. ‘Did the police say anything about that?’

  Ross shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Sounds like a burglary that went wrong,’ Helen said.

  ‘Early morning?’ Imogen queried and looked at Ross. ‘You said it looked like he was in the middle of his breakfast. Seems an odd time for a burglary.’

  ‘It’s actually quite a common time,’ Ross replied. ‘The police told me. Someone driving around in a van late at night looks suspicious. But no one pays any attention to one in the morning.’

  ‘What did they take?’ Helen asked.