Absolute Proof

by Peter James

  But last night one visitor who had requested to speak to him had caused him consternation, and left him deeply troubled, praying all night for forgiveness. It was an aggressive and sceptical American journalist who had been granted a five-day entry permit to the peninsula. Calculating that Brother Pete spent sixteen hours a day in prayer, he asked him if he ever got bored with praying.

  ‘Sure,’ he had replied. ‘But, you know, all jobs have boring bits.’

  ‘Praying is a job?’ the journalist asked, his condescending voice laden with scepticism that bordered on pity.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘So what do you pray for?’

  ‘I pray to God to intervene in the world’s problems. To bring peace to Syria, Iran, to help stop the persecution of kids in Nigeria by Boko Haram, to help the earthquake victims in Japan or Italy or wherever these disasters happen, and for all those persecuted for their faith around the globe.’

  ‘But you have no radio, no television and no newspapers. How can you know what’s going on in the outside world?’ the journalist had queried.

  ‘God tells us,’ Brother Pete replied, simply.

  ‘That’s what you believe?’

  ‘Absolutely. To be a monk, you have to believe.’

  ‘And you never have doubts?’

  ‘Why would I? When you give yourself to serving God, He takes care of your doubts.’

  ‘OK. And if it turns out there is no God, you’ve wasted your life, right?’

  Pete looked at his watch. The Abbot had granted fifteen minutes for this interview. To his relief the time was almost up. ‘I’m going to have to wrap up now,’ he said.

  ‘One last question. What do you miss most about your life before here?’

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘Yes, you know – movies, freedom, burgers, the internet – anything that you had to leave behind?’

  ‘Nothing. God provides everything I need.’

  ‘And you plan to stay here for the rest of your life?’

  Brother Pete opened his arms and walked across to the window, which had no glass. Way below lay the deep blue of the ocean. ‘You have a view like this from your office window?’

  ‘This is your office?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘And where do you go next, up the monk corporate ladder? To the penthouse suite?’

  Ignoring the jibe, he replied, simply, ‘Why would I want to be any place else? I’ll be here until God calls me.’ He shrugged. ‘Then I’ll go on to wherever He needs me.’

  ‘One question again, Brother Pete, do you really never have any doubts at all? Don’t you ever feel sometimes that maybe you are in the attic apartment of a house, where there’s a great party going on downstairs that you haven’t been invited to?’

  The monk gave him a look of pity. ‘Never had a moment’s doubt since I set foot here. No, sir. In God I trust. And I’ll tell you something. I’m sensing that feeling’s mutual – but you just don’t want to admit it.’

  ‘You’re wrong. I respect your views, but I’m not some kind of a closet Christian. I have an open mind and that’s why I’m here.’

  ‘You’re planning to go home to America and write a piece for the New Yorker about the loony monks of Mount Athos?’

  ‘I’ll write that I pity you, and all of your fellow deluded assholes.’

  Pete stepped forward and punched the journalist as hard as he could in the face, busting his nose.

  33

  Tuesday, 28 February

  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 where he had been previously, 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 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 the heavy bags 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 it.

  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 phone torch casting a red glow along the circular stone wall beyond the wellhead.

  Then he thought he heard a footstep.

  He stopped. Turned the 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 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 joints, 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 heaviest 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.

  He stripped off his clothing and, shivering from the cold, wormed into the wetsuit. He tugged on rubber shoes and gloves, secured the air tank to his buoyancy jacket and then fixed the regulator in place. He turned on his air and checked the tank capacity. He only had half a tank left. He cursed himself for not having checked it, but was sure it would be more than enough for the depth he was likely to be descending to, especially as he would not be contending with any current – unlike his last and rather hairy dive last summer, with Imogen, on the Elphinstone reef in the Red Sea. He fastened his weight belt, strapped his diving knife holster and powerful underwater torch to his legs, donned his jacket, head torch and dive computer, grabbed his mask and then scooped up the first bag. He climbed over the rim of the wellhead and, gripping the sides of the ladder, handles of the smallest holdall over his arm, began to descend.

  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.

  34

  Tuesday, 28 February

  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.

  It seemed he was going down for an eternity.

  And he felt very scared.

  He stopped, wondering whether to abort. The cold was getting worse and he wasn’t even halfway to the bottom.

  Probably just a damned bit of rubbish down there.

  The sound of his breathing was getting louder, echoing. More weed gr
owing off the wall brushed his face like a cobweb. His feet found the next rung. And the next. That was the final rung. Twenty feet down from the top now. He released his grip and sank, steadily and rapidly.

  It felt like he was gaining speed.

  Thirty feet. Forty. Fifty.

  He’d dived inside sunken wrecks off Barbados, in caves in the Red Sea, down deep shelves off the Maldives, and he’d never been scared before. But now he was terrified. Sinking deeper and deeper down this narrow, inky shaft.

  Sixty feet.

  He thought about their unborn baby. Then Imogen. Diving solo, anywhere, was a no-no. Diving solo into a confined space – an unknown one at that – was insane. If he got into trouble of any kind, no one was going to be coming to rescue him. He’d never see his child born.

  Seventy feet.

  In his nervous and fearful state, he made the cardinal mistake of not checking his buoyancy and, like a rank novice, squelched down heavily on the soft, muddy floor at the bottom of the well shaft.

  Furious at his own incompetence, there was nothing he could do as the mud rose like fog around him, and he could only wait for it to settle. Checking the pressure gauge on his regulator, he saw that his air supply would only allow him another fifteen minutes or so. His panic had caused him to use far more air than he would do normally.

  Stupid to panic, he knew. That was what killed divers. He had to calm down. Somehow. But his thoughts were ragged with anxiety.

  It had taken him seven minutes to descend and he needed to allow all of that and more to ascend. But the water was still too cloudy to see anything.

  Slowly it began to clear.

  Eleven minutes left.