The Last Secret of the Ark

by James Becker

  It wasn’t much of a village, just a collection of houses beside a bend in the river Aude, and they drove around it a couple of times trying to spot anything of significance. Most of the buildings seemed to be old but not medieval. The only one with any real appearance of age was the church, and when Gellerman and Dayan went inside to check it out, they discovered that even that was a combination of old and new. What they didn’t find was anything that looked as if it might have been a Templar fortress, or any indication to show that the relic they sought had ever been there.

  In the absence of any better ideas, Gellerman decided that they should park the car somewhere unobtrusive but with a decent view of the obvious approach road, which crossed the river on a narrow but picturesque bridge. If Rossi and the Inquisition were following the same clues as Zeru, sooner or later the Italian and his men would appear.

  Then they opened the windows of the Renault hire car, chose sandwiches, snacks and drinks from a selection they’d bought at a garage en route, checked that their pistols were loaded, ready for use and immediately accessible, and settled down to wait.

  Chapter 38

  Rennes-le-Château, Aude, France

  They found a cafe-cum-restaurant only a short walk away from the church and sat outside in a kind of sprawling garden dotted with tables and chairs. They ordered drinks and food, and while they were waiting sat in companionable silence enjoying the warmth of the sunlight filtering through the trees.

  ‘This has been interesting,’ Bronson said after the waiter had brought their drinks, ‘and perhaps even instructive, but I don’t think coming here has been particularly helpful to what we’re doing right now. According to that document, we know the Ark was taken from Montségur to Campagne-sur-Aude via the “place of the castle of the Voisins”, which we’re assuming was Rennes-le-Château because this is the only place that seems to tick all the boxes. We also know that about the only building here where Raymond d’Aniort wouldn’t have left the Ark was the castle itself, because the Voisins were opposed to the Cathars and by extension to the Templars as well.’

  ‘Which is just as well,’ Angela pointed out, ‘because it’s private property, so even if we had wanted to get inside to take a look around, we probably wouldn’t have been able to.’

  ‘Exactly. So the relic could have been stored in the church or almost any other building here, presumably under armed guard. We’ve no way of knowing where, and even if we could somehow deduce that it had been stored in that building over there, for example’ – Bronson pointed at random across the garden at one of the adjoining properties – ‘that still wouldn’t help us. Let’s hope we find something at Campagne-sur-Aude.’

  Their food arrived shortly afterwards, a steak and salad for Angela and another cassoulet for Bronson – he’d definitely got a taste for that particular local dish.

  ‘Going back to Bérenger Saunière,’ he said between mouthfuls, ‘there have been dozens of theories about where his money actually came from, most of them based on misinformation or by cherry-picking certain facts, something I’ve noticed both conspiracy theorists and conspiracy debunkers tend to do quite a lot.

  ‘There was a story about him finding old manuscripts inside a hollow Visigothic pillar, manuscripts containing a secret that threatened the Catholic Church and allowed him to blackmail the Vatican. Bearing in mind the record of the Church when it comes to dealing with heretics or awkward criticism, I think if Saunière had found something like that he would have met with an unfortunate fatal accident quite soon afterwards rather than be given enough money by the Vatican to turn him into a multimillionaire. Anyway, that story seems to have been a complete invention.

  ‘Then there was another tale about him finding half the money raised by Blanche of Castile to pay the ransom demanded by the Egyptians for the release of her son, Louis IX. There’s some basis of truth in that, because Louis was captured and she did pay the ransom, but that’s as far as it goes. Quite why Blanche would have raised a sum twice as large as the payment demanded, or why she would then have hidden the second half of it at Rennes-le-Château but didn’t bother to recover it has never been explained.’

  ‘So where do you think the money came from?’ Angela asked, spearing another piece of steak.

  ‘Good question. I think there are a few bits of information that would allow us to make an educated guess. Nothing definitive, but certainly suggestive. This settlement started life as a Visigoth fortress and the Visigoths were accomplished workers in gold. They sacked Rome and removed most of the wealth and treasure the city possessed, and that was almost certainly taken either to Carcassonne or to their fortress here, or perhaps split between the two. We know from history that Alaric II later had to abandon this fortress in a hurry and flee south when the Visigoths were threatened by the Frankish leader Clovis. It’s at least possible that the Visigoths would have buried most of the treasure they’d amassed because they would have needed to move quickly. So finding buried Visigoth treasure in the vicinity of Rennes-le-Château is a definite possibility, and its probable existence is supported by the historical record.

  ‘You talked about Bézu and the German casters who were imported to work in the area, and the fact that this region once had gold and silver mines. There’s historical evidence that in the middle of the seventeenth century a cache of gold coins was discovered near here, and two large gold bars were found in the nineteenth century, one outside this village and the other near Bézu. Then there were the two instances of counterfeiting gold coins you told me about at the castle of Bézu. What I’m getting at is that historically, gold has figured quite a lot in this area.

  ‘Then there’s Saunière’s often peculiar conduct, in which he was usually assisted by Marie Dénarnaud, his housekeeper. She was sixteen years his junior and most likely rather more than just his housekeeper. Witnesses stated that during the renovations to the church, Saunière lifted stone slabs from the floor to expose underground chambers, and there are references in wills and other documents to crypts and family burial vaults under the church. There’s no doubt that a crypt and tombs exist beneath the building, and it seems likely that the entrance had been sealed up for over a century before Saunière took over.

  ‘But it wasn’t only the crypt that he explored. He and Marie Dénarnaud were seen at night digging up graves in the cemetery – so often that a complaint was lodged against him by the local council to make him stop. All this suggests to me that he quite literally dug up a treasure. Whether it was something hidden in a family vault under the church or a forgotten Visigoth grave lying deep down in the cemetery or a hidden cache of Visigoth gold is another matter. Don’t forget that the church here probably dates from about the eighth century and it was the norm for Christian churches to be deliberately built on pagan places of worship to help stamp out the older religions. There could well have been much older tombs in the cemetery, and we know the Visigoths often included valuable grave goods with their burials.

  ‘And then there was what happened after Saunière died in 1917. Marie Dénarnaud survived him by thirty-six years, and in July 1946 she sold her estate to a man named Noël Corbu because several of the properties needed repairing and she’d run out of money, despite the fortune Saunière had got through. He had deliberately placed everything in her name so that when he died he was quite literally penniless. The sale was an en viager transaction.’

  ‘I’ve heard of that, but remind me.’

  ‘It’s a bit like equity release but without the massive fees and extortionate interest. Older people, usually widows or widowers and without dependents, sell their property to a third party in return for a lump sum that’s usually about half what it’s actually worth – that’s called the occupied value, or valeur occupée – and a lifetime monthly payment from the buyer. They can stay in the house and the buyer only takes possession when they die. In Noël Corbu’s case, it wasn’t a bad deal for him, because Marie Dénarnaud died in 1953, only seven years after the sale. And th
ere had been a sweetener. Dénarnaud had promised him that when she was on her deathbed she would reveal a secret that would provide him with untold riches, the clear implication being that this was whatever Saunière had exploited during his life. She allegedly said, “You shall have more money than you will be able to spend”, which seems quite definitive, if it’s true.

  ‘Unfortunately for Corbu, Marie Dénarnaud suffered a fit or stroke a few weeks before she died, meaning she could no longer speak or write, so he was never given the information he had expected to receive and the secret died with her. But there are a couple of things she’s reported to have said that I think are significant. Some of the villagers remember her saying that “the people of Rennes-le-Château walk on gold without knowing it”, which certainly suggests Saunière’s fortune had been based on something buried in the ground. She also said that “what was left was enough to feed the whole village for a hundred years and there’d still be some left”, which implies that Saunière certainly hadn’t spent it all. And that of course raises one very obvious question.’

  ‘Yes. If there was still plenty of money or treasure left, why did Marie Dénarnaud have to sell her estate?’

  ‘Noël Corbu asked her exactly that question, and her answer is interesting. She told him she “would never touch it”, and I think we can read something into that. She was the housekeeper for a priest, which at least implies that she was a religious woman at a time when religion was a very important part of the lives of most people. If what Saunière had found was, for example, part of a hoard of relics that the Visigoths had looted from Rome, or perhaps a Visigothic tomb filled with gold jewellery and ornaments, she might well have regarded that as non-Christian and pagan, although the Visigoths were Christians. Or perhaps she simply saw it as stolen property or grave-robbing.

  ‘That might have been why she refused to have any part of it. It might also have been the reason why she refused to tell Corbu the secret until she was near death. If she was ashamed of the source of Saunière’s wealth, she wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to know what it was until she had died.’

  Angela nodded. ‘There are lots of ifs and buts and maybes in all that, but it sounds more likely to me than some of the other crackpot theories that have been suggested. You know, sacred geometry, missing tombs, “Et in Arcadia ego” and cryptic clues hidden in old paintings, all that kind of stuff.

  ‘Anyway, if you’ve finally finished stuffing your face with that cassoulet, why don’t we have a coffee and then get back on the road?’

  Chapter 39

  ‘Now what are they doing?’ Ferrara’s question to Luca Rossi, fed through the tiny speaker in the earpiece of his mobile phone, still managed to convey his irritation. Rossi suppressed a smile as he answered.

  ‘They’re still sitting at the same table in the same restaurant as they were the last time you called. And they’re still eating lunch and they’re still talking. They’re not looking for clues or digging holes in the ground or anything like that. They just look like a couple of tourists enjoying a day out.’

  Rossi had finished the ham sandwich he’d ordered for his own lunch some minutes earlier and was now making his second cup of coffee last. He’d already paid so that he would be able to move as soon as the two targets left.

  ‘And you still can’t hear what they’re saying?’

  ‘No. As I told you before, they’re sitting in the garden and the tables here are kind of scattered about. I’m about thirty feet away because when I got here that was the only table that was still vacant. If I wanted to hear what they were saying, I’d have to go and stand right beside their table, and unless I disguised myself as a waiter or possibly as a tree, that wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Okay. I was only asking.’

  Rossi saw a waiter approaching Bronson’s table.

  ‘Some activity,’ he reported. ‘The waiter’s just taken away their plates, but they’re still sitting there. It’s quite a hot day, so maybe they’ll treat themselves to an ice cream before they order coffee.’

  ‘Keep the line open,’ Ferrara instructed. ‘Let me know what happens. You’re sure they haven’t made you?’

  ‘If they have,’ Rossi replied, ‘they’re being really cool about it. I’m just a guy sitting by himself reading a book and occasionally talking on my mobile. I don’t think either of them has given me a single glance since I sat down.’

  A couple of minutes later, the waiter walked out of the restaurant carrying two coffees and a slip of paper that he placed on the table in front of the targets. Bronson handed him a couple of notes from his wallet.

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ Rossi said quietly. ‘They’ve skipped the ice cream and the waiter’s brought them coffee. Bronson’s just paid the bill, so I reckon they’ll be on the move in five or ten minutes.’

  ‘Good,’ Ferrara replied. ‘Follow them and call me when they get to their car, or if they do anything else I need to know about, like going into another building.’

  ‘Understood,’ Rossi replied, and ended the call.

  Chapter 40

  Campagne-sur-Aude, Aude, France

  It was only a short distance from Rennes-le-Château to Campagne-sur-Aude. Bronson drove back down the narrow twisting road to Couiza, then turned west to skirt the village of Espéraza before heading south towards Quillan.

  Campagne-sur-Aude was on the west side of the river, the approach to it being over a narrow bridge, the central part wide enough for only a single vehicle and with semicircular refuges for pedestrians and cyclists built into its sides. The stone walls were decorated with planters filled with flowers and the tall trees on either side made it look as if they were driving into somebody’s garden.

  ‘This is really pretty,’ Angela said as Bronson pulled to one side to let a car pass before he continued.

  ‘I can’t argue with that,’ he replied, glancing both ways as they drove over the river.

  Ahead of them, beyond a white-painted house, they could see red tiles on what looked like the spire of a small church.

  ‘It’s obviously a small place,’ Angela said, ‘so just park anywhere once we’re over the bridge. I think what we’re looking for is near that spire.’

  The road led them to an unusual sight. What had looked like a large roundabout on the map displayed by the Peugeot’s satnav was actually nothing of the sort. A wide two-way road encircled a group of houses and the church, all built on a kind of circular development in the middle of the village.

  Bronson parked to one side, backing the car into a space.

  Angela opened her laptop, found a plan of the layout of the old Templar fortress, and then pointed through the windscreen.

  ‘That’s the fort, believe it or not,’ she said. ‘According to this, the original Templar fortification was surrounded by a more or less circular boundary wall with twelve faces, so it was a dodecahedron. In the middle of it was the chapel, aligned east–west. At the western end of that was the bell tower, and underneath it the dungeon. After 1307, the village became the property of the Hospitallers, and they changed almost everything, including removing most of the fortifications and defences that the Templars had created, keeping only a couple of the accommodation spaces and the chapel. In the next century they even changed that; what we’re looking at right now is the new nave they built, which is almost the size of the original chapel and includes the door in front of us.’

  Bronson nodded. ‘So now it’s a collection of village houses, built around the chapel presumably after the Hospitallers had left. I had hoped there’d be more of the original structure left than this.’

  ‘Again according to this website, most of the houses were built after the French Revolution and the house of the commander of the fortress was turned into the town hall. But we can go and look inside the chapel. Some of that might be original.’

  Bronson locked the car and they walked across the road to the chapel entrance and up the steps. The door was unlocked and they went inside.
/>   * * *

  ‘Who are those two?’ Aaron Chason asked as the three men watched Bronson and Angela walk across to the church door.

  ‘No idea,’ Gellerman replied. ‘They’re probably just a couple of tourists.’

  ‘They look English to me,’ Dayan said.

  ‘How can you tell?’ Gellerman asked. ‘I mean, you two look Jewish, but what about me? I look as if I was born in Oslo or Stockholm or somewhere, and I’m just as much a product of Israel as you.’

  ‘True enough,’ Dayan said, ‘but I’ll bet there are some interesting byways in your genetic make-up.’

  They watched the two figures disappear from view and then resumed their scrutiny of the road across the bridge.

  * * *

  Marco Ferrara had been less than two hundred yards behind the Peugeot when Bronson turned off the main road to drive into the village over the narrow bridge. When he saw the other car manoeuvring into a parking space, he drove past it and slotted his Alfa Romeo into a vacant space a few yards further on. He doubted if the targets would even have noticed his car except as just another vehicle on the road.

  He waited, watching the Peugeot in his rear-view mirror. When he saw the two targets emerge from it, he turned off his engine, got out of the car and started walking in the same direction they were taking. What he couldn’t afford to do was to let them find some clue or piece of information that he wouldn’t have. So although he wasn’t comfortable with the idea, he knew he would have to get close enough to watch them carefully.

  When they entered the church, he was only a few feet behind them, sunglasses obscuring much of his face and a guidebook in his hand. Just another tourist, or that was the impression he was doing his best to convey.