Absolute Proof

by Peter James

  Ten.

  He could see a few coins, what looked like a KitKat wrapper, a partially disintegrated takeaway carton, then a large, old-fashioned Nokia mobile phone. Can’t have been the object that the camera saw? It was bigger. Much bigger.

  He turned, and more mud rose, obscuring everything. He knelt and groped around in the deep mud and slime with his gloved hands, stirring it up even more, and feeling repulsed. What was down here? What disgusting things? What dead animals – or live bottom feeders? He touched something that felt like a dead frog and shuddered. Then a solid object. Covered in slime.

  The shape he had viewed on his GoPro?

  He lifted it up, bringing it close to his face, and could just see, in the faint glow of his head torch, strands of slime and weed hanging from it.

  He wiped them away, and finally saw, to his disappointment, that it was a child’s red wellington boot, filled with silt.

  After making sure there was nothing else he was missing down here, he at last began his ascent.

  Eight minutes left.

  He rose as fast as his bleeper would allow, pausing briefly at the rung, some way below the surface, where he had attached the holdall on his way down. He unzipped the bag a little, to let water in, and zipped it again. He carried on up and broke the surface, pulled out his mouthpiece and with relief gulped down the fresh night air. He slung the bag over the top of the wellhead onto the ground.

  And froze.

  A shadowy figure was standing in front of him.

  Something hard slammed into his face, knocking him off the ladder. He began plunging feet-first back down the well, dazed, scrabbling feebly with his hands for the ladder and swallowing water.

  Finally getting a purchase on the ladder, and holding his breath, he scrambled as fast as he could back up. As his head broke the surface he coughed, spitting out water and looking up, and pulled his diving knife out of its sheath, gripping it tightly with his right hand. He continued climbing. In the darkness, it was hard to see how far he was from the top, so he slowed now, ascending one rung at a time, stopping after each and waiting.

  Suddenly, he heard the roar of an engine firing up, the squeal of tyres, then the sound of a car heading away, fast.

  Bastard.

  He scrambled up the remaining rungs to the top, then stopped, in shock.

  The metal grid had been put back into place above him.

  His nose hurt, but he barely noticed as he peered, tentatively, through the grille. His plan had worked.

  The two large holdalls were still visible, but whoever his assailant was had taken with him the smaller bag and its contents that he had put up there moments earlier. The contents which he had bought yesterday in the flea market. A rusty 1930s biscuit tin and a silver-plated christening mug which he had wrapped in cloth and placed inside it.

  He waited, listening carefully for any sound of movement, but could hear nothing.

  Finally, he pushed hard against the grille, but it would not budge.

  He was entombed.

  35

  Tuesday, 28 February

  Ross pushed the metal grid as hard as he could, again. Then he removed a glove and ran his fingers to one side. And felt the nut and bolt. The nut was tight, impossible to budge with his cold fingers. Working his way round, he found three more of the original six, bolted tight. Far too tight.

  Bastards!

  For some moments, he was gripped with blind panic. Would he have to stay here all night, gripping the ladder? Would someone hear him shout in the morning?

  Could he hold on that long?

  Removing his weighted belt, he secured it to the ladder, followed by his jacket and air tank, feeling freer without the encumbrances and able to think more clearly. He focused, determined to keep calm. There was nothing at the bottom of the well. But if, as he had surmised, Joseph of Arimathea had wanted a hiding place for the Holy Grail, and had chosen Chalice Well, what would he have done with it? And who named the well?

  Joseph wouldn’t have had diving equipment, so short of dropping the chalice down the well, he’d have to have put it above the surface of the water, surely?

  He looked at his watch. 9.07 p.m. Around twelve hours, probably, before workers would be arriving here. He’d worry about his story then. But in the meantime, he had almost twelve hours to explore the surface area of the well. He’d think about something to say to Imogen later.

  He decided on a methodical approach. He pushed up his mask and, starting at the top, right below the metal grid, pushed every stone lining the round wall, prodding at the edges with his knife, then steadily working his way downwards.

  As he was on the verge of giving up, a large piece of stone, just above the surface of the water, felt loose.

  He worked his knife into the gap between it and the next stone for several minutes, feeling it getting steadily looser and looser, pushing at it constantly. It was coming away. Finally, to his surprise, it tumbled inwards, exposing a hole.

  Heart thudding, he peered into the darkness, unsheathed his waterproof torch and shone the beam in. It lit up a sizeable cavity that appeared to stretch away some distance. There was a blast of cold air on his face.

  He began to work on another slab of stone until that came loose too, and he was able to push it through. Then another, until that fell through into the cavity as well. Now there was enough room to get his head and shoulders inside. He could feel the blast of cold air much more strongly.

  What was at the far end of this opening? Some way out?

  Worming his way in, he felt a cobweb against his face and brushed it away, squirming with revulsion, then saw two tiny red dots in the distance. An instant later they vanished. A rat. He’d hated them since his time in Afghanistan.

  There was a dank smell, but the walls looked dry. Rough stone. Was it a natural cave or something man-made, he wondered as he hauled himself in. Even with his head torch and the one in his hand, it was hard to see more than a few yards ahead.

  There was barely enough height, inside, to kneel, and the curved ceiling was uneven and covered in small stalactites. Holding his torch in one hand, he crawled along for several yards, then, ahead of him, it narrowed and the roof lowered. There was just a tiny opening.

  Shit!

  He was never comfortable in confined spaces. He didn’t even like sitting in the rear of a two-door car. To get through he would have to flatten himself on his stomach and crawl.

  He pushed the torch through in front of him. Another pair of tiny red eyes gleamed in the darkness. Sod off. He heard a squeak. A scratching, echoing sound of scampering feet. Silence.

  He took a deep breath, flattened himself on the ground and worked his way forward, feeling his head brush against the roof of the cave. The cold air blowing on his face increasingly strongly. Giving him hope that there might be an opening at the end.

  In the beam of the torch he could see the tunnel narrowing further. A few yards on, his head was rubbing against the roof and his chin against the ground.

  He was breathing harder and harder.

  Was he going to be able to go any further? He was starting to panic, to hyperventilate.

  Calm down. Deep breath. Steady. Deep breath.

  The roof and sides of the cave were pressing in on him.

  Like being in a coffin.

  I’ve come this far. Keep going. Keep going.

  He could hear his breaths echoing around him. And the scraping sounds his body made with every push forward.

  What if I get stuck?

  He put the thought out of his mind.

  Squirmed on forward.

  Then, twenty yards or so along, it all appeared to open up. It gave him a spurt of energy and he wriggled onwards. A minute later he was in a cavern, with a ceiling high enough to enable him to stand up, then narrowing into another tunnel at the far end.

  He clambered to his feet, unsteadily, with a surge of relief. Picking the torch up off the floor, he shone it around the bare walls, the bare floo
r, and saw a tiny recess over to his right.

  Dust-covered stone chippings on the floor beneath it indicated that this was not a natural hole in the wall. Someone had chipped it out. Curious, he stumbled over to it and shone the torch in.

  And saw an object inside, right at the back.

  He reached in and lifted it out.

  It was wooden, unevenly shaped, the size of a rugby ball, coated in dust, and appeared to be made of two halves which were fused together by a bonding as hard as rock.

  The hairs on the back of his neck rose.

  This was man-made.

  36

  Tuesday, 28 February

  Ross stood there, mesmerized by the object. He could think of nothing else. All his fear was, for the moment, gone.

  Was this what Harry Cook had been looking for?

  Had died for?

  What was inside it?

  He was tempted to try to prise it open right here, with his knife. But his priority was to protect it and to get out of here without running into his assailant again. At some point, whoever it was who had kicked him in the face and run off with his bag would discover its real contents, and might return.

  Maybe the tunnel that continued on from the cave would take him somewhere he could escape from.

  He had no choice but to try it.

  He carried his find over to the far side of the cave, crouched, knelt, then had to flatten himself once more, pushing the torch and the wooden object in front of him.

  He crawled on through another long tunnel, barely wide or high enough to fit through. But all the time the air blowing on his face was getting stronger, colder and fresher. After twenty minutes he saw the end. A wall of stone ahead of him with crude steps carved in it and another cavity high enough to stand up in.

  Holding the torch in one hand and the object in the other, he climbed up about twenty feet, to his relief the cold air getting fresher with every step. Above him he saw another circular, rusted metal grid. With darkness beyond.

  He reached it, having no idea where he was, and gave it a push.

  It did not budge.

  Fighting panic, he jabbed his knife hard, upwards, around the edge. And felt it cut through something soft. Earth fell onto his face and into his eyes, momentarily blinding him.

  He blinked hard, wiping his eyes, then pulled his goggles on. He continued working his knife round the circumference for some minutes.

  Then he pushed again.

  And felt the grid move, a fraction.

  Using all his strength, he pushed again. The grid moved further, several inches.

  He pushed once more. And on his next attempt, with a sucking sound, as if the earth gave it up reluctantly, the grid rose upwards and fell away.

  He scrambled up the final two steps, clambered through the opening he had made and shone his torch beam around.

  He was inside dense undergrowth. He worked his way through it until finally emerging onto a grassy hillside. And then he realized exactly where he was.

  A hundred yards or so above him stood the ruins of Glastonbury Tor. Where he had been last week. To his left, from where he had just emerged, was a huge, impenetrable-looking hawthorn thicket, with a number of trees rising from it.

  He stood in the rain, staring into the night, back towards Chalice Well.

  37

  Tuesday, 28 February

  Ross made his way back to the well where he had started, checking carefully that his attacker was no longer around. His remaining two bags were still there. He carefully wrapped his find inside a towel and placed it in a holdall on its own. When he had finished, he set about concealing his tracks.

  He unbolted the grid that had imprisoned him, hauled up the ladder with his weights and air tank, and repacked everything. Then he closed and re-bolted the grille, not worrying about replacing the stones concealing the opening he had made below. Finally, he tugged off his wetsuit and put his clothes back on. When he was ready he lowered the holdalls over the fence and clambered over himself, listening hard for the sound of any approaching footsteps or a vehicle.

  He left Glastonbury and drove several miles towards Brighton before spotting a secluded lay-by. He pulled off into it and stopped the car out of sight of the road, behind a closed catering trailer. Locking the doors, he switched on the interior light, unzipped the sodden bag on the passenger seat beside him with shaking hands and peered at the strange, dusty, oval-shaped object inside the towel.

  He lifted and jiggled it and felt something move, very slightly, inside. Glancing around again, checking no one was approaching, and breathing fast, he carefully scraped away, with his fingers, the heavy coat of dust from a tiny section, exposing the wood beneath. Then he held it to his ear and tapped it. It sounded hollow.

  Trembling with anticipation, he tried to pull the two halves apart but could not do it. He’d have to leave it until he got home.

  He wondered just what might be inside. Was this what Cook had predicted – could it possibly be?

  Or could it be nothing, a massive anticlimax?

  He hardly dared to hope it might be real. The chalice. Someone, whether it was Joseph of Arimathea or not, had sure gone to a lot of trouble to hide it for it not to be discovered all of these years.

  Glancing in the mirror, he saw a trail of dried blood from his nostrils and down the front of his mouth, as well as scratches on his forehead and cheek. He wet his handkerchief and cleaned up his face as best he could, his nose painful to touch. It might have been the shadows in the poor light, but it looked like he had dark rings round his eyes. A sign his nose was busted.

  He arrived home shortly after 2 a.m., adrenalin pumping, and pulled up in front of the garage, alongside Imogen’s Prius. They only used the garage for storage and as a workshop, and never bothered putting either car in there.

  He looked all around him in the darkness, checking as best he could before getting out of the car and stepping up to the garage. He unlocked and opened the up-and-over door as quietly as he could, switched on the interior light, unloaded the bags, pulled the door shut behind him and checked it was locked.

  Hurriedly hanging up his scuba gear above his road bike and his folded Brompton, he unlocked the integral door and carried the damp bag containing the curio into the house, past Monty who was asleep in his basket, and laid it on the draining board. The dog opened one eye and closed it again as Ross tiptoed out and up to the bedroom.

  His press release to Imogen on his busted nose and scratches would be that he got punched by an angry City hedge-fund manager whom he door-stepped, following up his story on film tax evaders.

  She was sound asleep, and had left his bedside lamp on for him.

  Good.

  He was about to tiptoe out again when she murmured, ‘How was your evening?’

  ‘Pretty uneventful.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Not everyone liked the book. Some thought it was too long, but I disagreed.’

  He walked over and kissed her. ‘Sleep tight.’

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  He tried to make it sound like he meant it, but he found it hard to say those words.

  Closing the bedroom door as quietly as he could, he went back downstairs and into the kitchen, pulled a bottle of Craigellachie whisky out of the cupboard and necked some down straight from the bottle to try to calm himself. Then he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, carefully lifted the object from the bag, laid it in the sink, on a dry tea towel, and took a photograph with his phone.

  Next, he steadily and delicately wiped the dust away with a cloth, not wanting to risk using a brush in case there was any wording or anything painted or written on the surface that he might damage. The object was definitely wooden and he guessed it was oak. It seemed it might be a container of some kind, fashioned from two halves of a narrow tree trunk which had been cut open and then stuck back together.

  The object felt very old and the wood was d
ark. Like something he might see in a display case in a museum. He kept staring at it and wondering.

  Wondering.

  Dr Cook, is this what you were looking for? Is this what God had wanted you to find? The first of three items he’d given you compass coordinates for?

  The light dimmed just a fraction. It flickered. Then it brightened again. He shivered. Looked up at the downlighters. Heard his heart thudding. He listened carefully for any sounds of Imogen getting out of bed. But apart from Monty lapping away at his water bowl, all was quiet.

  Should he not touch this at all, not attempt to open it and damage it, but take it to an expert – perhaps the British Museum?

  But then he would have to explain how it came into his possession. And be obligated to share the knowledge of whatever it might contain. At this point he wanted to keep the information to himself.

  He took more photographs of it. Then he selected a large, heavy knife from the wooden block by the sink and set to work on the seal. But it was more than rock hard, it was diamond hard. Try as he might, careful not to let the blade slip, he could not penetrate between the two halves. Tired and frustrated, he carried the object through into the garage, placed it in the jaws of his vice on his workbench – which he had bought in the as yet unfulfilled hope of improving his DIY skills – and wound the handle, clamping it as hard as he dared without risking cracking it. Then he picked up a hammer and chisel.

  Placing the blade of the chisel against the seal, he tapped it with the hammer. Nothing happened. He tapped again harder, then harder still. Finally, it broke through.

  Fifteen minutes later he had chipped away enough of the seal. He unwound the vice, pushed the chisel in again and twisted the handle.

  The top half opened up like a clamshell, with a loud, cracking sound. Cradled inside the bottom section was a bundle of dark-brown cloth of some kind, wrapped around an object and bound with coarse strands of what looked to him like raffia.

  He laid both sections carefully down on a cloth he had placed on the workbench, then lifted the object out. It was light and felt hard. He began to unwind the cloth wrapped around it. The material was old and some of it crumbled into dust in his hands. Then finally, after unwinding several layers, he saw what the object inside was.