The Tenth Chamber Part 21

'I need your help,' Luc said.

'Anything I can do, I will do.'

'Give me my cave back.'

Barbier took a delicate sip of sherry and looked at an oversized Etruscan urn in the corner as if seeking strength from its spear-clad warriors. 'That, unfortunately, I cannot do.'

Then and there, Luc knew he'd lost. Though saddened, Barbier seemed resolute. But he couldn't just give up, finish his drink and walk away. He had to fight. 'Surely, Maurice, you don't buy into the nonsense that the things which have happened during the excavation represented a dereliction of duty or a failure of leaders.h.i.+p!'

'I want you to know that I don't believe that.'

'Then why?'

'Because we have here the problem of perception versus reality. The image of Ruac has been sullied before we can even define it. There won't be a magazine or newspaper article written about it which will not mention the deaths. There will be idiotic Internet postings about the Curse of Ruac. The mishaps are over-shadowing the importance of the archaeology and this is hard for me to bear. The Minister herself has ordered a health and safety a.s.sessment of the conditions of the dig and by the way, you will be questioned by more lawyers and functionaries than you can imagine. What I'm saying is that perception has become become reality. You're in an untenable position.' reality. You're in an untenable position.'

'I'm sure Abenheim shaped the discussion within these halls,' Luc said with disgust.

'Of course he did. I won't lie to you about that, and I tell you, whether or not you trust my word, that I fought for you until the pendulum of opinion had swung too far. So yes, I voted, in the end, for your removal. I'm worried about future funding. The cave is more important than one man, even its discoverer.'

'Let's not confound one tragedy with another. My heart's already been broken. Losing Ruac will tear it out.'

More sherry, then the gla.s.s came down hard on the table. 'I'm sorry.'

Luc rose and picked up his case. 'Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?'

'It would take a miracle.'

Luc was back in his hotel room with more time to kill before dinner than he would have liked. He sprawled on the bed and pulled out the notes he'd jotted down during Isaak's translation.

The mentions of the red tea.

Gooseberries, barley gra.s.s and possession weed.

Over and over.

Like an amnesic coming out of the fog, he remembered the last conversation on Monday morning before his life came completely unglued. In the corridors of Nuffield Hospital, by the Radiology Department. Fred Prentice. They'd been talking about barley gra.s.s and some kind of fungus. Then the call from Abbot Menaud. Then h.e.l.l.

What else had Prentice learned about their plants?

The general number of Nuffield Hospital was on his prescription bottles of antibiotics. He rang through and asked to be connected to Dr Prentice's room. Judging from the extent of his injuries, Luc reasoned that he had to be hospitalised still.

'Prentice, you say?' the hospital operator asked.

'Yes, Dr Fred Prentice.'

'May I ask if you're family?'

He lied. 'Yes, his brother-in-law.'

After a long wait, the phone was ringing again. A woman identified herself as the ward sister in Orthopaedics and asked if he was inquiring about Dr Prentice.

The protective tone of her voice alarmed him. She asked him again if he was a relative.

'Brother-in-law.'

'I see. It's your French accent. We can't talk to just anyone.'

'Of course. His sister married a Frenchman. It happens in the best of families.'

She didn't chuckle at that. 'I must have met you on Monday night when he was admitted.'

'No. I only saw him in Casualty.'

'It's just that there was a French gentleman who came to see him Monday night, that's all.'

'Not me. There's more than one of us. So, may I speak with him?'

'Has your wife not been in touch?'

'No. She's in Asia. She asked me to call.'

'Well, I'm very sorry to have to inform you but Dr Prentice pa.s.sed away in the early hours of Tuesday.'

His mind garbled most of the rest of what she had to say. A suspected pulmonary embolus. Not uncommon in patients with leg injuries and immobilisation. Seemed like a nice man.

He managed to ask if the nurse had seen an American woman named Sara Mallory on the ward, but no, she couldn't recall an American.

He hung up and tried all of Sara's numbers again, punching numbers by memory, he'd called so many times. He felt panic in his throat.

Prentice.

Another death.

Another unrelated, disconnected death?

Who was this 'Frenchman?'

Where the h.e.l.l was Sara?

He hadn't checked his emails since the morning. Maybe there'd be one from her, explaining everything innocently. She needed to get away. She went to visit her family in America. Anything.

His inbox was bursting with unopened messages, none of them from Sara or her friend from Ossulston Road. Then he saw one from her boss, Michael Moffitt, the Director of the Inst.i.tute of Archaeology. He opened it excitedly.

Moffitt had received Luc's message. He hadn't a clue where Sara was but had been relieved, no end, that her name hadn't surfaced on the Ruac victims' list reported in the press. He was as concerned as Luc and would make inquiries amongst the Inst.i.tute staff.

So, nothing.

Luc scanned the rest of his messages. One was from Margot. The subject read HUGO'S PHOTOS PHOTOS. He couldn't bear to click on it.

Or any of them. Except just when he was going to log off, one message line caught his attention in an irresistible way. A BIT OF GOOD NEWS TO BREAK THE GLOOM. BIT OF GOOD NEWS TO BREAK THE GLOOM. It was from Karin Weltzer. It was from Karin Weltzer.

It was about the tiny human bone they had found in the Chamber of Plants. An infant's distal phalanges. They had sent it to a palaeontologist at Ulm, one of her colleagues. She apologised for even writing when the sense of loss was so fresh and great among the surviving members of Team Ruac but she couldn't keep the news to herself, even though she admitted she'd been instructed by Marc Abenheim to communicate official matters directly to him. Professor Schneider had completed his examination and had a most unexpected finding. He was certain, as she put it, absolutely, one-hundred-and-ten-per-cent-certain, that this was not a Cro-Magnon infant.

It was Neanderthal Neanderthal.

The rest of the email was Schneider's point-by-point differential between the morphology of phalanges from h.o.m.o neanderthalensis h.o.m.o neanderthalensis and and h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens. All the check marks from their bone were in the neanderthalensis neanderthalensis column. column.

Neanderthal?

Luc was momentarily swept back to the world he loved the Paleolithic. This was an Aurignacian cave. A Cro-Magnon cave. This was the art of h.o.m.o sapiens. What was a Neanderthal infant doing in the tenth chamber?

The two species certainly co-existed in the forests and savannas of the Upper Paleolithic Perigord but there was not one single example of a mixing of their artifacts or human remains in the archaeological record. Could it have been scavenged elsewhere, carried into the cave by a predator, like a bear? All the way into the furthest chamber? Perhaps, but unlikely.

Ruac was unique in many ways. This was another example of its singularity.

A phone call interrupted his musings.

It was Colonel Toucas with his smooth, cultured voice.

'Are you in Bordeaux?' he asked, and seemed disappointed when he heard otherwise. 'I'm in Bordeaux on business and was hoping to drop by to discuss something.'

'I'll be back midday tomorrow,' Luc said. 'I have a dinner in Paris. Can't you tell me what it is?'

'Well, yes, okay, but I'm telling you this in confidence. It's not for others, definitely not for the press.'

'Of course.'

'You know that stick of material we found under Pierre Berewa's body? We had it a.n.a.lysed. It's a material called picratol. It's a military high-explosive. But no one's seen it for years. It's almost a footnote to history. Both sides used it quite a bit during the Second World War.'

Luc felt light-headed. 'An explosive?'

'There's more, I'm afraid. I followed up with the police in England, as you requested. In fact, I've been in touch with Scotland Yard. Your explosion in Cambridge? What would you say if I told you that explosive residue was also found at the bombed building?'

'My G.o.d.'

'Not picratol, mind you. Modern material, some variant of military-grade C-4. A very curious development. I think we need to have a more extensive discussion, Professor Simard, about you, about Pierre Berewa, about everyone who has had anything to do with your cave.'

'I'll cancel my dinner and come back to Bordeaux this afternoon.'

'No, no, that's not good for me. I've got to get back to Perigeux for an engagement tonight. Can you come to my office, say noon, tomorrow?'

'I'll be there. But Colonel, please, one of the professors on my team, Sara Mallory, an American who works in London, is missing. She was in Cambridge with me on Monday morning heading for the building that blew up. We were visiting a victim in the hospital. That's where I left her. No one's seen her or heard from her since. The man we were visiting was connected with Ruac. He died unexpectedly on Tuesday morning after being visited by a man with a French accent. It's all connected, I don't know how but all of this is connected! The Cambridge police know about Sara's disappearance but have done nothing. Please get Scotland Yard involved. Please!'

'I'll make a call,' he said, then added sternly, 'Noon, professor. My office.'

Luc closed the phone and stared.

Someone wanted to blow up my cave.

TWENTY-NINE.

Ruac Cave, 30,000 BP BP Tal awoke, covered from head to feet in sweat, the taste of Soaring Water still on his tongue. He tried to remember what had just happened but he was unable.

He felt between his legs and stroked his erect member. Uboas was a few feet away, lying on a beautifully lush bison skin, the last beast killed in their bi-annual hunt. She was asleep, wrapped in a reindeer skin blanket, and had not been well. He could have woken her and satisfied himself but he chose to let her sleep till the morning light entered the mouth of the cave.

He stroked himself until he was satisfied then rolled himself in skins to warm himself against the night chill. He ran his hand over his own bison skin which was starting to get thin and patchy. It was from a kill he had made as a young man. Not his first that trophy had gone to his father, but his second. That was his to keep. He remembered the spear throw that had taken the animal. He could still see the shaft flying fast and straight, the flint tip, slipping perfectly between the ribs and sinking deeply. He remembered it vividly, even though it had occurred a very long time ago.

As he felt the animal's fur bristling between his fingers, suddenly, in a flash of blinding light as if he had looked into the sun, the remembrance of the soaring came back to him. He began to s.h.i.+ver.

He was flying over a herd of bison, close enough to reach out and touch a powerful, muscular shoulder of one of the beasts. He felt, as he always did, the exultation of effortless flight, the honour of moving with the herd, of being one with them. In pleasure, he stretched his arms to their fullest and spread his fingers to the wind.

Then, he was aware of something strange, an alien presence closing in on him. He always soared alone but he sensed there was someone or something else intruding on his realm. He turned his head and saw it.

A long, sleek figure, swooping down on him, like a hawk after prey.

It had the head of a lion but the body of a man. Its arms were tucked against its body, allowing it to cut through the air like a spear. And it was aiming for him.

He flapped his arms to pick up speed but could go no faster. The herd of bison parted, half going right, half going left. He wanted to turn to follow along but he was unable to change directions. He was flying on his own, low, the tall gra.s.ses of the plain tickling his bare body. The lion man was getting closer and closer. He could see it open its mouth and snarl, and had a notion how its hot saliva would feel against his flesh the instant before its fangs clamped down on his leg.

The cliffs were approaching and beyond them, the river.

He did not know why but he believed if only he could make it across the river, he would be safe. He had to make it over the river.

The lion man was on him. Its mouth was open, its jaw ready to clamp down.

He was at the cliffs.

There was the river, silver in the sun.

He felt a drop of hot saliva on his ankle.

And he was back in the cave.

He pondered the meaning of the experience. The ancestors were giving him a warning, no doubt. He would have to be on alert, but he was always so. It was the responsibility of the head of the Bison Clan. He had to protect his people. But who would protect him?

He reached over to try to touch Uboas but his fingers could only reach her bison skin. The honour of that bison's death had been given to the son of Tal's son, Mem. This exceptional young man, who bore the name Tala, in honour of his grandfather, was more like Tal than Mem ever was.

Tala took an interest in plants and healing, was a keen flint knapper, and had the same ability as Tal to capture the power and majesty of a galloping horse in a flowing outline of charcoal and graphite. Tal had always loved the boy as if he were his second son, because alas, his real second son, Kek, had gone out hunting one day, on his own, which was the way he liked to venture out, to keep proving his courage to his father. He was perpetually angry and frustrated, given to bursts of pique against his older brother and even his father, lacking the temperament to be a second son. He had never returned. They searched for him and found nothing. Again, a long time ago.

In the quiet of the cave and the deepness of the night, Tal wanted to sleep a dead, black sleep, a sleep without dreams. A pure escape to nothingness, to give himself respite from his fears and apprehensions would have been a gift, but he could not drift off. He would have to leave soon and spare Uboas the rage.

He tried to think about happy things, the pride he had in his son, Mem, his love for his grandson, the certainty that the Bison Clan would be in good hands based on the issuance of his loins. But then, the old thoughts invaded his mind, dark thoughts that began to blacken his mind, the harbinger of Tal's Anger.