The Tenth Chamber

Table of Contents

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Epub ISBN: 9781407071015

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Published by Arrow Books 2010

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Copyright © Glenn Cooper 2010

Glenn Cooper has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The red tea in this book is fictional and there should be no attempt to brew and ingest it.

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First published in Great Britain in 2010 by

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Glenn Cooper graduated with a degree in archaeology from Harvard and got his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine. He has been the Chairman and CEO of a biotechnology company in Massachusetts and is a screenwriter and producer. He is also the bestselling author of
Library of the Dead
and its sequel
Book of Souls
.

Library of the Dead

Book of Souls

First and foremost, thanks to Simon Lipskar who I consider more than an agent, but a partner in the craft and enterprise of writing. This book is better, no much better, for his participation. And thanks too, to Angharad Kowal, for her fine representation in the UK. As usual, my first reader, Gunilla Lacoche, kept me going with her encouragement. The fascinating and multitalented Polly North gave me my very first book on the star-crossed medieval lovers, Abélard and Héloïse and inspired me to include them in my story. Miranda Denenberg was kind enough to let me read her excellent dissertation on the interpretation of prehistoric cave art which was a wonderful jumping off point to the vast literature on the subject. Laura Vogel, amazing psychiatrist and lover of literature, helped me put more character into my characters, and for that I am extremely grateful. My fantastic editors at Random House, Kate Elton and Georgina Hawtrey-Woore are doing more than publishing my books, they are helping build my career, and that has not gone unnoticed. A toast to my pantheon of archaeology mentors, some gone, all remembered, particularly the incomparable John Wymer, my late father-in-law. And finally, for Tessa, who continues to be my bedrock.

The two men were breathing hard, scrambling over slippery terrain, struggling to make sense of what they had just seen.

A sudden late-summer rain burst had caught them by surprise. The fast-moving squall moved in while they were exploring the cave, drenching the limestone cliffs, darkening the vertical rock faces and shrouding the Vézère River valley in a veil of low clouds.

Only an hour earlier, from their high perch on the cliffs, the schoolmaster, Édouard Lefevre, had been pointing out landmarks to his younger cousin, Pascal. Church spires far in the distance stood out crisply against a regal sky. Sunbeams glanced the surface of the river. Wholesome barley fields stretched across the flat plain.

But when they emerged blinking from the cave, their last wooden match spent, it was almost as if a painter had decided to start again and had brushed over his bright landscape with a grey wash.

The outbound hike had been casual and leisurely but their return journey took on an element of drama as torrents of water cascaded onto the undercliffs, turning their trail muddy and treacherous. Both men were adequate hikers and both had decent shoes but neither was so experienced they would have chosen to be high on a slick ledge in pelting rain. Still, they never considered returning to the cave for shelter.

‘We’ve got to tell the authorities!’ Édouard insisted, wiping his forehead and holding back a branch so Pascal could safely pass. ‘If we hurry we can be at the hotel before nightfall.’

Time and again, they had to grab on to tree limbs to steady themselves and in one heart-stopping instance Édouard seized Pascal’s collar when he thought his cousin had lost footing and was about to plunge.

When they arrived at their car they were soaked through. It was Pascal’s vehicle, actually his father’s, since only someone like a wealthy banker could afford an automobile as novel and sumptuous as a Type 16 Peugeot. Although the car had a roof, the rain had thoroughly drenched the open cabin. There was a blanket under the seat that was relatively dry but at the cruising speed of twelve miles per hour, both men were soon shivering and the decision to stop at the first café they came to for a warming drink was easily taken.

The tiny village of Ruac had a single café which at this time of day was hosting a dozen drinkers at small wooden tables. They were rough stock, coarse-looking peasants, and all of them, to a man, stopped talking when the strangers entered. Some had been hunting birds, their rifles propped up against the back wall. One old fellow pointed through the window at the motor car, whispered something to the bartender and startled cackling.

Édouard and Pascal sat at an empty table, looking like drowned rats. ‘Two large brandies!’ Édouard ordered the bartender. ‘The quicker the better, monsieur, or we’ll be dead of pneumonia!’

The bartender reached for a bottle and twisted out the cork. He was a middle-aged man with jet-black hair, long sideburns and calloused hands. ‘Is that yours?’ he asked Édouard, gesturing out the window.

‘Mine,’ Pascal answered. ‘Ever seen one before?’

The bartender shook his head and looked like he was inclined to spit on the floor. Instead he asked another question. ‘Where’ve you come from?’

The patrons in the café hung on the conversation. It was their evening’s entertainment.

‘We’re on holiday,’ Édouard answered. ‘We’re staying in Sarlat.’

‘Who comes to Ruac on holiday?’ the bartender smirked, laying down the brandies.

‘A lot of people will come soon enough,’ Pascal said, offended by the man’s tone.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘When word spreads of our discovery, people will come from as far as Paris,’ Pascal boasted. ‘Even London.’

‘Discovery? What discovery?’

Édouard sought to quiet his cousin, but the strong-willed young man was not going to be hushed. ‘We were on a naturalist walk along the cliffs. We were looking for birds. We found a cave.’

‘Where?’

As he described their route, Édouard downed his drink and gestured for another.

The bartender scrunched his forehead. ‘There’s lots of caves around here. What’s so special about this one?’

When Pascal started talking, Édouard sensed that every man was staring at his cousin’s lips, watching each word fall off his tongue. As a teacher, Édouard had always admired Pascal’s powers of description, and now, listening to him waxing away, he marvelled again at the miracle they had stumbled on.

He closed his eyes for a moment to recall the images illuminated by their flickering match lights and missed the bartender’s quick nod to the men seated behind them.

A metallic clunk made him look up. The bartender’s lip was curled.

When Pascal’s blond head started spraying blood, Édouard only had time to say, ‘Oh!’ before a bullet ripped through his brain too.

The café smelled of gunpowder.

There was a long silence until the man with the hunting rifle finally said, ‘What shall we do with them?’

The bartender started issuing orders. ‘Take them to Duval’s farm. Chop them up and feed them to the pigs. When it gets dark, take a horse and drag that machine of theirs far away.’

‘So there
is
a cave,’ one old man said quietly.

‘Did you ever doubt it?’ the bartender hissed. ‘I always knew it would be found one day.’

He could spit now without soiling his own floor. Édouard was lying at his feet.

A gob of phlegm landed on the man’s bloody cheek.

It began with a spark from a mouse-chewed electrical wire deep within a thick plaster wall.

The spark caught a chestnut beam and set it smouldering. When the old dry wood broke out in full combustion the north wall of the church kitchen started spewing smoke.

If this had happened during the day, the cook or one of the nuns, or even Abbot Menaud himself, stopping for a glass of hot lemon water, would have sounded the alarm or at least grabbed the fire extinguisher under the sink, but it happened at night.