Absolute Proof

by Peter James

  She turned to Ross. ‘Have you ever looked at DNA before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, this is from the cup you gave us – we got a result from the coagulated blood inside it.’

  ‘Blood?’

  ‘Yes, definitely, it was confirmed by presumptive testing.’

  ‘Blood?’ he said again. Was it Christ’s blood? From when he was on the cross?

  ‘I’m afraid the DNA in that is pretty degraded. What we have from the tooth is better. Each pair of spikes you can see represents the male and the female pairing. We’ve done, as you requested, the standard, mitochondrial and Y-STR DNA on both the cup and the tooth. I’ll show you the mitochondria and Y-STR in a minute.’

  ‘Are you able to at all date this DNA from the cup?’

  ‘No, you’d have to go to carbon dating for that. But I can tell you, in my opinion I believe this is very old.’

  ‘Any sense how old?’

  She shook her head. ‘It would depend on how and where it has been stored. I’m guessing a few hundred years, minimum, and possibly much older than that. But I stress this is only a guess, based on what you’ve told me.’

  She tapped the keyboard again.

  A new image appeared. On this one, there were far more spikes, some so close together they resembled park railings, and too close to tell which were the pairs. Then a second image replaced it, this filled with rows of columns containing blocks of the letters ACGT, in countless permutations.

  ‘This is the mitochondrial from the contents of the cup,’ she said. ‘Now this is where it gets very interesting.’

  She tapped the keyboard again and more distinct pairs of spikes appeared, again with the numbered discs above them. There were many more than on the first image.

  ‘This is what we obtained from crushing the tooth. You see?’

  He peered closely, unsure exactly what he was looking at. ‘I think so.’

  Again, she tapped the keyboard and several columns of figures appeared, as completely meaningless to him as the previous ones. He stared hard at them.

  ‘What am I meant to be looking at here, Jolene?’

  She pointed to various pairings of figures on the columns. ‘These are the points of match of standard DNA between the tooth and the cup. We have the same with the mitochondrial DNA – in fact, better. And we have, to my surprise, because it is the least stable of all, a very clear Y-STR match between the two items, also.’

  ‘How much of a match is it?’

  She looked pleased with herself. ‘Well, if I was presenting this for submission in a court of law by prosecuting counsel, I would say there is a match between the two that is beyond any reasonable doubt, in terms of mathematical probability. Billions to one. There are seven specific mutations in the mitochondrial DNA – very rare mutations when compared to our database, and seven different ones in the Y chromosome, again very rare. Exactly the same mutations are present in the DNA from both the tooth and the cup.’

  Ross felt a strange ripple, like an electrical current, running deep inside him. ‘It’s the same with both the standard and the mitochondrial – and the Y-STR?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If I understand correctly from what you told me last time about mitochondrial DNA – that means it passes down through the female line, unaltered?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  ‘And the Y-STR passes down through the male line, unaltered as well?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘How many generations could either go through, Jolene?’

  ‘So long as the reproductive process continues, in which there is a female born, for the mitochondrial, and a male for the Y-STR, who each then in turn give birth, indefinitely.’

  ‘Unchanged?’ he asked, to verify.

  ‘Unchanged.’

  He was wary of saying too much, yet he felt he could trust this woman. ‘OK, so let’s say this DNA is two thousand years old. Am I right in understanding what you are saying, that you could identify someone alive today as being a direct descendant – from their mitochondrial DNA containing a unique genetic profile?’

  ‘You could, Mr Hunter, a female. Yes.’

  ‘And from the Y-STR?’

  ‘A male, yes.’

  He felt on fire. ‘Do you have anything left from the tooth that you had to crush? Anything at all?’

  ‘We do,’ she said. ‘It’s in a glass vial, in liquid solution.’

  He felt a massive sense of relief. ‘That’s great, fantastic!’

  ‘I’d need you to sign release forms and I’ll give you your receipt. Would you want the cup back, too?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  64

  Monday, 13 March

  Forty minutes later Ross turned off the M25 onto the M23, southbound towards Brighton. He was driving slower than normal on the quiet motorway, because he was wrapped up in his thoughts, keeping to a steady 70 mph in the inside lane. The traffic was light and the sun was out, still fairly low in the sky above the distant hills of the South Downs and beaming straight into his eyes, dazzling him. He tugged down the sun visor and an old parking permit fluttered from it. Momentarily distracted, he grabbed it and put it on the passenger seat.

  Then he noticed the articulated lorry thundering along on his offside, in the middle lane. It had drawn alongside him but was not making any effort to pass. It seemed to be pacing him. Why, when the road ahead was clear, did it not just go on past?

  Then his rear-view mirror filled with the radiator grille of an SUV. The vehicle was inches behind him, tailgating him dangerously.

  His second sense told him something was wrong. He floored the accelerator, felt the kick-down of the gear change, and the car surged forward – almost straight into the rear of a white van which had cut across the front of the truck and was now right in front of him.

  He hooted angrily.

  The van’s brake lights came on. It began to slow down and the truck was slowing, too, holding its position beside him.

  It took him a moment to realize what was happening. There was a classic manoeuvre the police used for stopping vehicles in pursuits, TPAC. Tactical Pursuit and Containment. Three or sometimes four vehicles would box in the target vehicle and steadily reduce their speed, forcing it to a halt.

  An exit was coming up. Just as he decided to take it, the SUV behind him suddenly switched lanes, coming up on his inside, blocking his ability to turn off. Ross braked and the SUV braked.

  Then he was past the exit ramp and the SUV switched to the inside lane again, right behind him.

  He glanced at the hard shoulder. Could he swing left on to that and accelerate past the van in front of him, on the inside?

  As though anticipating his thoughts, the van moved left a little, and an instant later the lorry edged closer towards him, and kept on edging. He was either going to collide with it or have to move over to the left, partly onto the hard shoulder.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He moved over, and the lorry moved closer again, forcing him further over onto the wide hard shoulder.

  The van’s brake lights came on brightly as it slowed, forcing him to reduce speed steadily. 60 mph . . . 55 . . . 50. He had to do something. Had to.

  Then he remembered something about brake lights. They came on with the brake pedal. But not with the parking brake.

  Glancing in his mirror, bracing himself, he yanked up the parking brake handle hard, and held it.

  Heard the scrubbing of his rear wheels locking up.

  Felt the car zigzagging, the steering wheel jerking in his hands. Heard the scream of the SUV’s tyres, then in his mirrors saw it swerving past him on the inside, missing the rear of his car by inches. A shower of sparks as the SUV struck the barrier; then an instant later it appeared to catapult off the barrier and shoot across the hard shoulder, striking the lorry almost broadside, before barrel-rolling.

  Ross slammed the Audi gear shift into R and, craning his head over his shoulder, reversed as fast as he could, the
car snaking wildly, back up the hard shoulder, his brain racing. The exit was only a couple of hundred yards or so back. What he was doing was illegal and dangerous. If the police came along, great, he would tell them what had happened. If not, he’d take the turn-off.

  Allowing himself a quick glance down the road, he saw the SUV upside down on the hard shoulder, partly embedded in the side of the truck, like an animal feasting on prey. The white van had vanished.

  He reached the turn-off, waited until there was a gap in the light traffic, which was slowing anyway, then made the dangerous manoeuvre, backing right across the slip road entrance and accelerating hard away.

  His head was pounding, his hands shaking. He knew one thing, that what had just happened made it all the more imperative he get to his destination as quickly as possible.

  Just under an hour later, still very shaken by the incident on the motorway, Ross pulled into the car park of the U-Store depot in Shoreham. He sat still, wondering if he should have called the police and reported that he’d been involved in an accident. Wasn’t it an offence to drive away from the scene? Were there CCTV cameras that would have picked it up? Seen him reversing on a motorway? It was something he would have to deal with later.

  Although had he actually been involved in an accident, technically, as his car hadn’t been touched?

  Jumping out, Ross hurried to the rear of the Audi. After looking around, warily, he grabbed the holdall out of the boot and carried it through into the security hut.

  The grossly overweight, bored-looking slob of a man, in his thirties, with greasy, unkempt hair and a single gold earring, who Ross recognized from before, sat behind the counter in front of a bank of CCTV monitors. They showed static views of the exterior of the depot and the interior of the warehouse. The slob was reading a Terry Pratchett novel and eating a submarine with sauce leaking down the sides. The place reeked of curry. A name tag pinned to the lapel of his crumpled, ill-fitting uniform identified him as Ron Spokes.

  ‘Hi, Ron!’ He said, cheerily.

  The miserable-looking guard looked up and gave no sign of recognition. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re a Pratchett fan?’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘I like him too,’ Ross said.

  His response was a blank stare.

  Ross signed in.

  Ron Spokes pointed at the rear door, pressed a button and the lock clicked open. He took another bite of his monster sub and returned to his book, ignoring the trickle of sauce running down his chin. Ross carried his bag through the door and into the courtyard. A short distance in front of him was the metal shuttered door of the warehouse.

  He punched his code into the entry panel and waited as the door clattered upwards. He was pleased that, just as on his previous visits, he was the only person in here. He waited for the door to lower again, and strode along through the vast area until he reached his own storage facility. He put the holdall down, entered the combination on the first padlock and inserted his key into the second one, then twisted it, springing it open.

  Placing his bag inside, he locked the door again, checking both padlocks several times, almost obsessively, before walking back through the security hut, out into the visitors’ car park and into his car.

  He sat in the Audi, checking his email on his phone, but there was nothing of importance. He programmed the address of his next port of call into the satnav, drove out of the depot and waited for a gap in the stream of traffic along the busy main road beside Shoreham Harbour. Some distance to his right, parked across the road in front of an office building, was a white van bearing a satellite dish emblem and the name KEITH HAWKINS AERIALS.

  As he turned left and drove off, heading home, a man in the back of the white van watched him with binoculars from behind darkened glass in the rear doors. A car, part of the current shift of surveillance vehicles that had been swapping places behind him from the moment he had left home this morning, began tailing him once more, carefully remaining several vehicles back.

  65

  Monday, 13 March

  Back at home and ravenous, Ross opened the Audi’s boot and removed three huge carrier bags bearing the store’s name SAFE HOUSE SECURITY SYSTEMS. He carried them through into the garage and laid them gently on the floor. They contained five outdoor CCTV cameras and a control unit that would enable him to see the images on his phone or laptop from wherever in the world he was. Hopefully it would make Imogen feel a little safer, in addition to the alarm system that was now up and running – and himself, too.

  He’d always been a bit rubbish at DIY, but the man in the shop assured him installation was easy; with the whole system being wireless and battery operated, all he had to do was fix each camera with a couple of screws, then follow the simple set-up instructions. Even so, he was dubious. From past experience, whenever anyone told him a job such as this was simple, it meant that it might be if you were a rocket scientist.

  Whenever Imogen saw him with a hammer, a saw or a screwdriver in his hand, she gave him a worried look. So he decided he would get straight on with it after a very quick bite of lunch and a couple of urgent phone calls, and surprise her when she arrived home this evening.

  He made himself a Cheddar and Branston pickle sandwich, much to Monty’s delight, as he gulped down several chunks of cheese which his master slipped him.

  ‘You know, Monty, you’re meant to taste food, right? You just swallow it down – it could be bloody anything.’

  The dog barked at him.

  ‘You want more?’

  He barked again.

  ‘No begging!’ Ross said, dutifully, knowing Imogen did not approve of the dog doing that.

  Monty sat and stared at him expectantly, tongue hanging out.

  ‘So now you’re playing the tugging-on-heart-strings ticket, right?’

  Monty cocked his head, looking all mournful.

  Ross cut off a large chunk of the cheese and handed it to him. It was gone in two bites.

  ‘Just don’t tell your mum, OK? Deal?’

  Monty barked again.

  ‘No! Enough, OK? That’s it! No more! I’ll take you for a walk later on – I’ve got stuff to do.’

  Ross sat at the kitchen table and picked up his sandwich. As he ate he glanced through the papers. A couple of pages into The Times, a headline caught his eye.

  PASTOR WARNS BEWARE THE GREAT IMPOSTER

  Below it, he read:

  Pastor Wesley Wenceslas, the UK’s most popular ever evangelist, claims the world political climate of fragmenting established order, anger and the rise of aggressive politicians is all predicted in the Bible – and heralds the perfect environment for the arrival of the Antichrist.

  He gave this warning to a packed congregation of his Kensington church, yesterday: ‘The Bible tells us that ancient serpent, the Devil, who deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden, will appear masquerading as God or the Son of God. The Devil will appear in all of the great cities of earth, one at a time. When he appears the world will be in a desperate position and cries of suffering will be everywhere. The father of lies and misery, the enemy of all humanity, will feign sympathy for the terrible human suffering he sees. To make his deception believable he will perform great signs, such as healing the sick and feeding the hungry. Many people will be duped into believing the Devil is Almighty God. My path is the right path, beware the Great Imposter.’

  Pastor Wesley Wenceslas has four churches in England and a further three in the USA. His YouTube channel, Wenceslas Ministries TV, has over 5m subscribers from around the globe. Last year he appeared at 830th on the Sunday Times Rich List with a personal fortune of £172m.

  During our exclusive interview, Wenceslas gave guarded answers to questions vetted in advance by his publicist, who remained present. When queried about his need for a private Boeing 737 – and his current ‘Pray For A Sky Mile’ fund-raising appeal to his worshippers, to replace it with an even larger aircraft – the publicist answered it was in the skies whe
re the pastor felt closest to God and he needed to spend more time up there, away from earthly interference.

  Ross tore the page out of the paper, and folded it. Not much had changed since his article on the pastor, a few years ago. The old fraud was still reeling in the suckers – he had some nerve talking about imposters.

  As he made himself a coffee, he wondered if Wenceslas might possibly have got wind of Harry Cook’s story. He carried the mug upstairs, along with the article, sat at his desk and checked his emails, still pondering. There was a request from his Sunday Times editor for him to fly to Strasbourg to interview a cross-section of Euro MPs on their views of the UK’s latest Brexit negotiations.

  It was a lucrative gig, but it would take him away for several days. And he could not let go of what he had. He emailed back a reply.

  Natalie, I’m on the trail of a story which, if it pans out, will blow you away. I can’t let go of it at the moment – you’ll understand when I file it. Reluctant to turn work down but can you give the Strasbourg one to someone else? Ross X

  She replied instantly.

  Need a big story for next Sunday – when can I see it? Can you get it to me by Thursday? X

  Ross stared beyond his screen, out through the window, down at his grimy Audi on the drive in front of the house, and at the street beyond. Thursday? His editor had no idea just how big this could be.

  Nor, he thought ruefully, did he.

  The DNA match, from a tooth that might have come from Jesus Christ, with a cup that might have contained Christ’s blood.

  What odds could there be on a tooth from a cave in a mountainous region of Egypt providing a DNA match with a small wooden cup he had recovered from a well in Glastonbury, England?

  He was about to reply when another email pinged in. This one from Imogen.