Absolute Proof

by Peter James

  ‘Well, quite a bit, actually – my uncle’s a trustee.’

  He looked at her, astonished. ‘Your uncle? A trustee of Chalice Well?’

  ‘Yes, Julius Helmsley – he’s married to my mother’s sister. Why?’

  ‘This is such a coincidence!’

  ‘Coincidence?’

  He looked at his watch, then at the clock on the studio wall. ‘Do you have time for a quick bite? You’re back on at 2 p.m.?’

  ‘There’s a cafe two minutes down the road. I need a sandwich or something.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Ten minutes later they sat at a table, Sally Hughes with a green tea and a tuna sandwich, Ross with a double espresso, a Diet Coke and a microwaved ham and cheese panini. In her thirties, with a mass of dark curls framing her face, she had a warmth about her that had instantly put him at ease in the radio station, and she had a gravelly voice he liked a lot. She wasn’t beautiful in any conventional sense but she had an air of intelligence and a vibrancy that made her attractive.

  She looked very much at ease now, in a roll-neck black pullover with a loose, gold-link chain, jeans and black boots, and wore several rings, but none on her wedding finger, he observed.

  ‘So, what’s this coincidence?’

  He told her the entire story of his encounter with Harry Cook. When he had finished she sat in silence.

  ‘What do you think?’ he prompted, after some moments.

  ‘What do you think?’ she came right back at him.

  ‘I think he’s probably a nutter. At least I did until you mentioned Chalice Well!’

  ‘Are you religious?’ she asked.

  ‘I guess I’m kind of an agnostic. I was veering towards atheism in my late teens, then, in my early twenties, something happened.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘It’s a bit – well, embarrassing really – too personal to talk about.’

  ‘A blinding light on the road to Damascus?’

  ‘Along those lines. What about you? Are you religious?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t believe in the God of the Bible – but I think there’s something. Some kind of higher intelligence. I guess my view is that it would be a pretty bleak day for mankind if it was ever conclusively proved God does not exist and there is no afterlife – and no reward or retribution. We’d be left with the sheer despair and pointlessness of existence, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was OK as a non-believer until –’

  ‘Until the thing that happened in your life?’

  ‘Yes. And your uncle – what’s his name again?’

  ‘Julius Helmsley.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s a director of a pharmaceutical company – he doesn’t have any religious beliefs.’

  ‘But he’s a trustee of Chalice Well, a holy site?’

  ‘That’s because he has a weekend home in the area and his company provide funding to help maintain Chalice Well – out of a kind of civic duty. They have an R&D plant in Somerset.’

  ‘Do you think your uncle would talk to me?’

  ‘About Dr Cook?’

  ‘Yes, and Chalice Well in general.’

  ‘I’ll ask him what he knows about the guy and get back to you.’ She gave him an enigmatic smile.

  There was something very appealing about her. But he didn’t want to give out any signals. With fatherhood approaching, whatever his feelings towards Imogen these days, he felt a sense of duty to her. He looked at his watch. ‘What time do you need to be back in the studio?’

  ‘Twenty minutes, before my producer starts fretting. What you haven’t told me is your view on this manuscript Cook gave you.’

  ‘So far, I’m struggling. I’m finding it complete tosh.’

  ‘Except for the compass coordinates for Chalice Well?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And the other two sets of coordinates you don’t yet have? Are you interested to get those?’

  ‘I guess with my investigative journalist hat on, yes, I am.’

  She smiled again. ‘It’s been good talking to you.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘Let me know if you’re coming down this way again.’

  ‘For sure.’

  ‘Do you have a card? I’ll see if I can get my uncle to call or email you.’

  Ross handed one to her. Then, after they’d finished their lunch, he gave her a clumsy cheek-to-cheek kiss. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘I’d like that. Maybe you can come and talk about Harry Cook on my show sometime?’

  ‘The man who saved the world?’

  ‘And the hot-shot reporter who helped him!’

  Ross tapped his heavy rucksack on the floor beside him. ‘Maybe it’s all in here.’

  ‘You look like you’re wearing the responsibility well. No pun intended.’

  As the presenter dashed off back to the studio, Ross walked up to the counter to pay, deep in thought. The coincidence was strange. Weird. Very weird. Chalice Well coming up twice in two days. A sign? Could it be? Or just coincidence?

  16

  Tuesday, 21 February

  From his forty-fourth floor, glass-walled office at the top of the KK building – nicknamed the ‘pill box’ by its employees – Ainsley Bloor presided over the ever-expanding Kerr Kluge empire with a cold eye and even colder heart. Situated on the South Bank, it gave him a magnificent view across the Thames to the Gherkin, amongst the City’s other monoliths.

  KK’s Research and Development plant, in rural Somerset, was located in a much less high-profile building. The secretive plant, spread across a vast campus, showed only three storeys above ground. It had a further seven storeys beneath, deep underground. Part of the work carried out there was research using animals, kept well away from prying eyes and animal rights activists. But the even larger part of their secretive work was gene sequencing, and from this bunker construction they operated the largest genetics facility in the United Kingdom.

  Bloor and his board of directors believed the long-term strategy for their company should be patenting gene sequences for controlling chronic ailments like diabetes, psoriasis, arthritis and depression, and maintenance treatment for those with life-threatening conditions such as Parkinson’s, dementia and cancer.

  Until a few moments ago Bloor had been in a very good mood. He’d just signed a deal with the largest supplier of pharmaceuticals into central Africa. The company would take off their hands all out-of-date drugs on their shelves, and in addition, had agreed to distribute in that continent one of their largest-selling and most lucrative products of recent years, an antihistamine which the FDA had recently banned after it was found to be linked to fatal effects on heart rhythms. A week ago it had looked as if this FDA ruling could seriously harm their bottom line. Now it was quite the reverse.

  He had been looking forward to a good lunch with his close colleagues today, to celebrate the deal.

  And on top of that he had his progress with Boris to celebrate, privately, too.

  A young, recently graduated doctor who had just joined the firm would dine out for years on his interview with the CEO. ‘Steven, you need to know one thing about Kerr Kluge and one thing only,’ Bloor had told him, here in this office. ‘We’re in the business of making a profit and that’s all that matters to us. If we happen, through our pharmaceuticals, to make life better for a few people, that’s not my problem. Understand where I’m coming from?’

  But at this moment the CEO had an altogether different problem.

  He sat at his desk, phone to his ear, watching a tug towing a barge along the river below him. It was a fine day outside, the kind of sunny, winter morning when London looked its very best, when it was truly, in his opinion, the most beautiful city in the world.

  A world that was filled with opportunities for his firm. As yet unconquered markets. New patents applied for. New patents that had been granted, with the drugs in final – years long – stages of testing.

  Sometimes when he met people for the fi
rst time at drinks parties who asked him what he did, he took perverse pleasure in telling them he was a drug dealer.

  But he wasn’t getting any pleasure from this phone call.

  At its heart, the whole foundation of his company – and all of the other pharmaceutical companies, both giants and minnows – depended on one thing: that no one, ever, found an instant magic bullet cure for any of these conditions. Their profit centres lay in products that prolonged the lives of sufferers for as long as possible – managing their conditions. Not freeing them.

  He barked an instruction into the phone.

  17

  Tuesday, 21 February

  Navigating via the Google Maps app on his iPhone, Ross drove the small rental Toyota through the outskirts of Bristol. He negotiated a roundabout with signs to Bath, Shepton Mallet and Wells, and took the Wells exit, then followed the A37 as directed. The device showed he would arrive in fifty-four minutes.

  The earlier heavy rain had cleared and patches of blue sky showed through the cloud; he was relieved that he wasn’t going to have to traipse around getting soaked. But at the same time he had a strange feeling that he was missing something.

  He leaned forward and fiddled with the radio until he found Heart, and heard a new Passenger song playing. It was a band he liked.

  As he listened to the music, reflecting on his chat just now with the broadcaster Sally Hughes, the feeling he was missing something persisted. Like a shadow in the car with him.

  Then he realized.

  ‘Shit!’ he said aloud. ‘Oh shit, shit, shit!’

  He’d left the rucksack, containing the pages of Harry Cook’s manuscript, on the floor of the cafe.

  How? How could he have done this? Because he was overtired, probably.

  Frantically, he looked for somewhere to turn round. The road was busy, with cars behind him and a stream of oncoming vehicles. Coming up to his right he saw the entrance to a farm shop. His heart pounding, perspiring heavily, he indicated, waited for a gap in the traffic and turned into it, bringing the car to a sharp halt. Then, looking behind him, he waited for another gap, reversed out into the road, then accelerated across the path of a lorry, which blasted its horn at him, and drove as fast as he dared back towards Bristol.

  Jesus. The only copy in existence. What if someone stole the rucksack, thinking it probably contained a laptop? How could he explain that to Cook?

  Entrusted with saving mankind, he had fallen at the first hurdle.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  There was a tractor in front of him, driving at 15 mph. ‘Come on, come on!’ He pulled out to see past it, but there was a solid line of traffic then the brow of a hill.

  His insides felt twisted up. How could he have been so dumb?

  What if it had gone?

  He had managed to skim-read the first thousand pages. Wherever he had stopped for a more in-depth read, he had found it consistently impenetrable. He could have happily mailed it back to Harry F. Cook at this moment, but he felt he owed it to the old man to read it all the way through. He owed it to the human race, didn’t he? Maybe?

  Although he wasn’t convinced. Not remotely.

  And yet the coincidence of Sally’s uncle was not something he could dismiss.

  Be there, please still be there. Please!

  Twenty minutes later he pulled up on a double yellow line outside the cafe and raced inside. It was almost empty. He ran past the counter to the rear where they had sat, and looked on the floor, under the table.

  It was gone.

  He felt hollowed out inside.

  Then a voice called out to him and he turned. There was a young woman behind the counter, with bright red hair, the woman who had served them, he recognized.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Yes – I – I was here about forty minutes ago. I left a rucksack on the floor.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You’re lucky there are some honest people in the world. It was handed in by a gentleman.’

  She ducked down and reappeared holding up a black nylon rucksack. ‘This it?’

  Relief flooded through him. ‘You’re a bloody angel!’ he said.

  He nearly kissed her.

  He unzipped it to check everything was there, then he hurried back out to his car.

  The traffic was heavy all the way, and Ross reached Glastonbury just before 4 p.m., with thirty minutes to spare before closing time at Chalice Well. The road into the town was narrow, with a row of grimy houses on his left butting right up to it, and a hedge to his right which barely allowed room for two lorries to pass. The hedge ended at a lane going uphill. On the far side of the lane was a high grey wall with a green and white sign, and an arrow.

  CHALICE WELL TRUST

  Fifty yards further on was a much larger sign by an opening in the wall. He turned into it and found himself in a parking area, with two cars and a dozen or so empty spaces in front of a row of attractive cottages. In a different location, he thought, they could be village tearooms.

  There were several signs.

  WELCOME TO CHALICE WELL AND GARDENS

  CHALICE WELL IS A SANCTUARY AND WORLD PEACE GARDEN

  DISABLED PARKING ONLY

  A smaller sign below that said there was a car park two hundred yards along the road.

  He turned the car round, drove back onto the main road and almost immediately saw a sign for Chalice Well parking and for a factory shop. He drove down a recently resurfaced road and saw a modern, two-storey factory building with the name R. J. DRAPER & CO high up in large white letters. In front was a large, empty car park. A board indicated the parking was £2 and to pay inside the factory shop.

  He removed his rucksack and pulled it on, not wanting to risk leaving it in the car. He paid, then hurried back along to Chalice Well on foot, entered the car park and looked around, getting his bearings. Then he followed a cobbled pathway up an incline, past the tearoom-like cottages and along a trellised walkway. There was an illustrated sign of a phone with a red cross over it and the wording MOBILE FREE ZONE.

  Dutifully he turned his to silent as he walked on, past a small building, then reached a wooden ticket hut, with a sales window manned by a solitary woman. He paid the £4.20 admission fee, and the helpful woman handed him a leaflet containing a map and explained the layout.

  ‘Does this path take me up to the Tor?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ She pointed across to her left. ‘That’s the other side of the lane – if you walk up it you’ll see the signs.’

  He thanked her and studied the map. It was all much more ordered and neatly laid out than he had imagined, with the feel of a well-kept city park. He headed on up the path; it was bounded by a low hedge to his right and flower beds to his left. Beyond that was a steep grass slope rising up the side of the hill, dotted irregularly with large bushes and trees. Down to his right, set in a beautiful part of the grounds, he saw a circular pool, with rusty-looking water flowing through a fountain and out into a narrow stream cut through the paving slabs, passing beneath a stone bridge. The Vesica Pool, the map said.

  Ahead were two magnificent yew trees. Then a short distance further uphill was an ornate gateway topped by a small shield bearing the embossed words CHALICE WELL.

  He took a photograph on his phone.

  An elderly man in gardening clothes came down towards him, pushing a wheelbarrow, wished him a peaceful afternoon and carried on. After a few more paces, Ross saw another sign to the well. He looked, but at first all he could see were the low branches of huge trees, and a mass of surprisingly unkempt bushes and shrubbery, all badly in need of cutting back.

  But then as he walked closer, towards a fence that he presumed marked the boundary, and where the lane ran up the far side, with the Tor beyond, he saw a sunken, circular wall, and two sets of steps built into it.

  At the bottom of the steps lay the well itself.

  As he looked down he felt a slight sense of anticlimax. It was smaller than he had imagined, no more than three and a half
feet across. He had not known quite what to expect, but he thought it might be more dramatic-looking, in some way.

  He descended the three large steps and stopped at the bottom, studying the well head. Uneven flat stones lay around the area and the well itself was gridded, to prevent anyone falling in. There was a raised cover, with ornate symbols on it, that rested against a stone support and was chained in place.

  According to the guidebook, the reddish colour of the water which had never dried out, represented the blood of Christ.

  He took a series of photographs, then looked at the compass coordinates Cook had given him, which he had programmed into his phone. They showed he had some distance to go. He left the well area and followed the coordinates, which took him through the ornate gardens and out, to the left, onto the steep grass slope. About two hundred metres above the well, the coordinates showed he had reached the exact spot.

  51°08'40"N 2°41'55"W

  The place where Cook had told him he had been metal detecting, and had picked up something beneath him.

  Someone had been digging here.

  He stared down, feeling the hairs on his skin rising. They’d been digging very recently. It looked like they had dug a trench about four-foot long and two-foot wide, then filled it in again. They had replaced the soil and planted fresh grass seed, with just the faintest signs of shoots starting to appear.

  Who?

  Harry Cook. Had to be.

  It was an eerie feeling. The low sun was in his face, and he could hear sheep bleating somewhere in the distance.

  Eerie and yet . . .

  There was a gift shop, the map showed. You could buy souvenirs. Had those medieval monks really created the myth that Joseph of Arimathea was buried here to increase tourism? A cynical theory?

  The Holy Grail was supposedly, according to legends, either the cup – the chalice – that Jesus had drunk from at the Last Supper or the vessel that some of his blood was poured into whilst on the cross. Or both.

  From what Ross had googled during the past few days, Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man, a bit keen on entering the Kingdom of Heaven. He had been a closet disciple of Jesus – as it wasn’t too smart to be one openly – but later got Pilate’s permission to take away Christ’s body and put it in the grand tomb he’d originally planned for himself.