The Chaplin Conspiracy Read online

  ‘That’s possible, of course,’ said Ruby, ‘but he’s got enough sense to get professional help if he needs to. The town will be full of firemen and police and doctors today. It won’t be hard to get help to dig us out of here. I just wish we’d had time for breakfast before we climbed into this stupid tunnel. I’m starving.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ruby,’ said Scabies. ‘Me too. I just can’t resist the chance to explore everything in this area. The crypt was cool, and it’s weird that someone connected it to a tomb out in the graveyard. Were they trying to get in or out?’

  ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We’ve been reckless climbing into something like this right after that flood. The water has made everything round here unstable. It’s just as well there isn’t a huge pile of treasure in here, because if we get dug out by the local police then we won’t be able to take it away with us. So in a way I’m glad there’s nothing of value in there.’

  ‘Ruby is correct,’ said the Patient, pausing to grit his teeth against a wave of pain that surged up through his spine. ‘We will get out of here and we will learn the lessons. We will be more cautious and controlled in our future explorations. I may not be fit enough to accompany you, but I can advise on safety procedures, protective equipment and soil surveys. I feel ashamed that I did not take the time to do these things, but such was the disruption we experienced last night that my logical faculties were compromised. It should have been obvious that the presence of Charlie’s van above this tunnel represented an abnormal pressure on the structure. All night the vehicle has been compressing the soil above us, stressing the roof of the tunnel. Eventually it could take no more.’

  ‘I know how it feels,’ said Scabies. ‘So I guess we just wait. Catch up on a bit of sleep, maybe?’

  ‘It would be wise for me to declare my state of consciousness every five minutes or so, regardless of whether you are awake,’ said the Patient.

  ‘Oh, good,’ lied Scabies, suppressing a yawn.

  ***

  It had taken more than ten minutes for Charlie to accept Rocco’s announcement of an emergency. The German had cried wolf many times before, and Charlie’s automatic response had been one of jaded and forced amusement. But something in Rocco’s tone finally convinced him that this was the real thing and with Ratty overseeing the works in a mainly managerial capacity the rescue attempt had begun.

  Three exhausting hours later they still had no idea whether any of their friends were alive. Their efforts at digging down through the cemetery soil to the tunnel using the tools from the camper van had so far failed. Charlie had suggested a trench running across the likely route of the passage, but either it was deeper than they thought or it veered away from where they expected it to run.

  ‘We can’t do this shit without getting the big boys on board!’ shouted Charlie. He was drenched in sweat. His shovel was dented and his hands were blistered. Out of breath and out of ideas, he was at breaking point.

  ‘It is entirely possible that in your own incoherent and dialectically primitive manner you have impacted the pointy metal fastening on the cranium,’ said Ratty.

  ‘Rocco, you have any idea what this Victorian dude is saying?’

  ‘I think he is trying to tell you that you have hit the nail on the head.’

  ‘And if we are all of the same accord then I propose an approach to the sapeurs-pompiers chaps with immediate effect,’ Ratty continued.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Rocco. ‘Charlie doesn’t speak French and Ratty doesn’t speak any language known to this planet.’ He ran through the graveyard to the nearest street and headed into town towards the flashing lights of the emergency services.

  Ratty grabbed the shovel from Charlie and jumped into the trench, determined not to give up on his friends. Before anyone else arrived on the scene he had widened and deepened the trench by several inches, using muscles that he was unaware he possessed, and finally punched a hole through the roof of the tunnel into which he fell with a surprised whimper.

  ***

  ‘You’re France’s most wanted criminal and you want to walk right into a town that’s full of police?’

  Winnifred looked at her partner in the adjacent car seat. ‘We could drive in if you prefer? I just figured parking would be an issue today.’

  ‘Yes … and the hundreds of cops! We should wait,’ said Justina.

  ‘No, it’s the perfect chance. They’re distracted by the flood clean-up. They’re not looking for me today. We only have to worry about the Templars. Come on. Now we know where the Templars hang out, we can start there.’

  ‘I guess. So we need to get across the river somewhere.’

  They marched past the hotel at the northern end of the town and discovered the adjacent bridge was sealed off by police. They could see men in high visibility jackets climbing all over it, measuring cracks in the side walls and examining holes in the arch supports. They continued south to the next crossing point, a stone footbridge. Its central span was missing entirely. From there they could see the true extent of the damage to the riverside properties. Entire sides of buildings had been washed away; living rooms and bedrooms and kitchens were exposed with horrifying indignity.

  ‘Where’s the Templar house?’ asked Justina.

  ‘It should be right there.’

  ‘Next to that heap of rubble stretching half way across the river?’

  ‘No,’ said Winnifred. ‘I think it is that heap of rubble.’

  ‘Shit. If they kept my inheritance there then it’s gone for good, washed downstream and spread along miles of rocky river. And if all they had was information in there about where they kept everything, I’m still screwed. This just gets worse by the day!’

  ‘Hey, Winnifred! That you?’

  Both women turned round to find Rocco running up to them, looking like he had caught up with some old friends. He was so blatantly pleased to see Winnifred, grabbing her hand and kissing her cheek, that Justina wondered if he had a deficiently short memory.

  ‘What the fuck, Rocco?’ asked Winnifred, so shocked by his happiness that it didn’t even occur to her to threaten him with her knife.

  ‘So glad I found you!’ he said, exploding with emotion. ‘You must come with me to the churchyard. We found something, but we hit a snag. Hurry!’

  Such was the passion in his voice that Winnifred followed him without hesitation.

  ‘What’s got into you?’ whispered Justina, struggling to match their brisk pace. ‘One moment you want to kill this guy, now you’re his friend. I don’t get it.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do at that Templar house now that it’s a pile of rubble,’ Winnifred replied. ‘We got no more leads. If Rocco’s found something we should be the first on the scene.’

  ‘But why would he want to share it with you? Think about that. He must have another motive.’

  ‘I can hear you,’ shouted Rocco, who was several paces ahead. ‘Please don’t worry. Yes, I have a motive, but it is a good one. We found a tunnel leading to a crypt beneath the church, but it has collapsed and my friends are trapped. The firemen have refused to help me because we were breaking the law and they have many innocent people they need to save first. If you can save my friends, you can keep anything from that crypt that you find. Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ said Winnifred, without hesitation.

  ‘Deal,’ sighed Justina, already convinced they were on a trail to yet another empty subterranean chamber.

  ‘Charlie has all the tools. The tunnel is small. We didn’t think we could dig them out from inside, so we’ve tried to get in from above, so far without success.’

  They arrived at the churchyard. The centre of operations was easy to spot, marked by the incongruous camper van perched among the graves at an even more extreme angle than before.

  ‘The tunnel is right under the van, and we think the weight of it, combined with the waterlogged ground, caused the collapse.’ Rocco continued. ‘Charlie and Ratty are working on a trench right now, but t
hey haven’t located the tunnel yet.’

  ‘Au contraire,’ called a voice.

  Rocco approached the trench and saw the upper half of Ratty inside it. ‘Forgive my foul language, but I seem to have somewhat painfully mislaid my legs in the tunnel thingy beneath me. Charles has attempted to release me without success and something monstrous is tickling my legs from beneath. I fear my extraction may require a stronger hand.’

  Winnifred jumped into the trench beside him and pulled him free without apparent effort. Moments later Ruby’s face emerged. She climbed out, followed instantly by Scabies.

  ‘Right, which way is the collapsed section?’ shouted Winnifred.

  Ruby pointed to where the Patient lay trapped, back towards the camper van.

  ‘Mr Victim’s got his legs caught,’ said Scabies. ‘At least now he won’t run out of air. It was starting to smell like a roadie’s backside in there.’

  ‘We should measure the distance and dig up the soil right above his legs,’ suggested Ruby. ‘We need to make sure we don’t cause another collapse onto his head.’

  ‘Isn’t it right under the van?’ asked Winnifred.

  ‘Yes, but we can’t dig right under it because it will just fall further down on top of him,’ explained Ruby.

  ‘So here’s what you do,’ ordered Winnifred. ‘The lightest person goes in the van and throws out everything that’s not welded down. We reduce the weight of that thing as much as possible, and we put doors or wood or any other big shit under the wheels to spread the load. Got that?’

  ‘Right, I’ll get on to it,’ said Ruby.

  ‘No offence, honey,’ said Justina, eyeing Ruby’s healthy curves, ‘but I reckon I’m the one who should do this.’

  ‘So just do it,’ grumbled Ruby, subconsciously squeezing her thigh.

  Charlie looked the other way as his remaining muddied possessions were rudely thrown across the graveyard. He witnessed this from a considerable distance, since no one would let him near the van while the Patient was still at risk. He felt guilty. Winnifred had been so right about his weight. He couldn’t go on like this. Obesity had previously affected no one but him. Now it had contributed to crushing someone. He knew it wasn’t rocket science: burn more calories than those eaten. Nothing more to it. And today he hadn’t eaten a thing. He jogged on the spot to accelerate his progress. Ten seconds later he had to sit down. This was going to be tough.

  ‘Patient chappy,’ called Ratty into the hole he had earlier created, ‘are you still with us.’

  ‘I hear the sound of digging above me,’ he replied. ‘It is very rapid and I can feel the soil vibrating.’

  ‘That’s Winnifred. She’s going to dig you out.’

  ‘It would be wise if she would slow a little before her shovel hits me—’ He stopped abruptly and his breathing became laboured.

  ‘Patient chappy? What happened? Stay with us, old fossil!’

  ‘I think I got him,’ said Winnifred, wiping the blood from her spade before anyone noticed. ‘I think we need trowels now.’

  The Patient was lying on the surface minutes later, attempting to examine his crushed legs and to formulate an appropriate course of treatment. But he was finding self-diagnosis impossible. He couldn’t bend far enough to see the damage, he was barely conscious, and he possessed no drugs or surgical equipment. He needed to find a real doctor. And he was too weak to relay his instructions to anyone.

  Shouts bounced off the walls of the church as firemen and police officers appeared, running towards the group of foreigners gathered close to the wreckage of their Volkswagen van.

  ‘I gotta go!’ announced Winnifred. ‘You guys owe me. Don’t forget!’

  Ruby was almost tempted to thank her, but such was the conflict in her attitude towards the murderess that she said nothing as Winnifred sprinted to the river bank with Justina in tow, and disappeared around a corner, heading away from the town. Ratty remained close to his injured friend while everyone else backed steadily away from the approaching officials.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ Ratty began. ‘This is the Patient chappy and he needs to see a doctor. His legs are in a frightful state, and I suspect that his medical requirements are of such urgency that even a French medic would be acceptable, given the circumstances and wotnot and what have you.’

  The firemen shrugged their shoulders at Ratty and started attending to the Patient’s injuries. One of them called for medical assistance on his radio. The gendarmes snooped around the graveyard looking at the damage while a pair of medics arrived carrying a stretcher.

  ‘Don’t worry, Patient chappy. These people may lack the level of sophistication to create a satisfactory cup of tea, but they probably have at least a modest spread of primitive medical skills. Once you’re a tad less under the weather we’ll get you back to Blighty and in the hands of a doctor with a real medical degree, I promise.’

  The Patient showed no response. The medics checked for a pulse and inserted a drip.

  ‘What is the patient’s name?’ asked one of them as they slid him onto the stretcher and picked him up.

  Ratty had hoped this question would never arise. It could lead to an infinite loop and it wasn’t the way he wished to spend the remainder of his days. ‘It doesn’t matter. Can I accompany the unfortunate fellow on his medicinal journey?’

  ‘We have too many casualties. There’s no room in the ambulances. He will be taken to the hospital at Quillan and you can look for him there.’

  ‘Please take care of him,’ said Ratty, watching them go. ‘He’s a thoroughly decent egg.’

  He looked around for the others, but they had vanished rather than hang around in the presence of curious police officers. Ratty was suddenly and unexpectedly alone. A wave of guilt washed over him. It was his fault that the Patient had suffered those injuries. If he hadn’t come on this treasure hunt the Patient would be in perfect health. He cursed his poverty and his greed and his inability to think of any means of earning money other than by digging it out of the ground.

  ***

  Scabies carried a plastic tray laden with croissants down to a jumble of boulders beside the river to the south of the town. He held the tray out for hungry hands to snatch at. Rocco and Ruby grabbed two each. Charlie closed his eyes and put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Not hungry, Charlie?’ asked Scabies, starting to munch.

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Charlie replied. ‘If I wasn’t such a fat piece of shit that tunnel wouldn’t have collapsed.’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself, Charlie,’ said Ruby, once again almost tempted to offer a comforting arm but remembering to resist her instincts.

  ‘I’m not going to eat anything ever again.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a very sensible dietary plan,’ said Ruby. ‘You should cut your calories and replace some carbs with proteins, but you can’t eat nothing. That’s not realistic or healthy or sensible.’

  ‘When have I ever been any of those things?’

  ‘You got me there,’ she conceded.

  ‘Does anyone think it’s weird that the Templars were so crazy at us last night, and today there’s been no sign of them?’ asked Rocco.

  ‘Did anyone see what happened to them after we drove into the river?’ asked Scabies. Everyone shook their heads. ‘Right Charlie, you want to get thin, right? Walk up the road to where that tree fell, right where we drove into the water, and tell us what you find.’

  Charlie sprang to his feet with unaccustomed vigour. ‘I’m on it!’ he shouted, marching away.

  ‘I’m trying not to think about those thighs chafing,’ said Scabies. ‘He’s probably run out of talcum powder.’

  ‘Should we save him a croissant?’ asked Ruby. ‘He’ll have earned it.’

  ‘No,’ said Rocco, helping himself to the last one. ‘His reserves will last a bit longer.’

  Minutes later Charlie returned. His skin glowed with apparent delight at the unfamiliar burst of exercise. ‘They hit the tree,’ he sa
id. ‘If that’s their car, they hit the fallen tree hard. The car is smashed completely. No one inside, but part of the roof has been cut off and there’s blood everywhere. It’s pretty cool, actually.’

  ‘So those Templars are either dead or in hospital,’ said Rocco. ‘And that is very helpful for us.’

  ‘We should search the car,’ announced Scabies. ‘Let’s check it over before they tow it away and clear the road.’

  ‘You won’t find anything,’ said Charlie.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Ruby. ‘Honestly, I sometimes find your defeatism so depressing, Charlie. You’ll never get anywhere in life unless you change your attitude. Be positive, Charlie. Don’t assume you know something without doing the work.’

  Charlie reached inside his pocket. ‘I know because I already did the work,’ he told them, beaming with pride at his ingenuity. ‘I searched the car while I was there, and this was in the trunk.’

  He produced a set of keys. Scabies snatched them from his hand and looked at them closely. ‘Could be for anything,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing written on them. Probably just the keys to their gaff.’

  ‘Just what I thought,’ said Charlie. ‘But then I carried on searching the car. Glove compartment, door pockets, under the seats, behind the sun visors. And I found this.’ He reached into a pocket and pulled out a bundle of papers.

  ‘Pass them round,’ said Ruby. ‘Let’s all look at that stuff.’

  Charlie gave her a folded document. An insurance certificate for the car, made out to an organisation, not an individual. ‘ATDF’ was the name of the insured party and the address was a property in Rennes-les-Bains.

  ‘Means nothing to me,’ said Ruby.

  Rocco leaned across and examined it. ‘That address could be the house that was washed away by the flood,’ he said. ‘I heard the American women talking about it. Just a pile of rubble now.’

  More documents were circulated. Scabies looked at a small piece of paper: a pay and display parking receipt from Limoux, dated two months ago. ‘So we know the Templars buy their bog rolls in Limoux,’ he said. ‘What have you got, Rocco?’