The Chaplin Conspiracy Read online

  Justina was sickened. Claiming her birth right had been an obsession for many years, but being party to mass murder was so far out of her comfort zone it seemed momentarily ethereal. Her feet no longer felt in contact with the cold flagstones beneath her. Reality had taken a wrong turn.

  The ten-year-old birthday boy retched as he witnessed his relatives stop breathing one after the other. By the time his eyes closed for the last time, his entire family had been wiped out and their secret had died with them.

  ***

  ‘You should have called us earlier, sir,’ explained Denzil, removing his yellow helmet and unzipping the front of his protective coat. ‘We might have been able to save more of your home. All we can do now is send a forensic team tomorrow to evaluate the cause and provide recommendations. Not squirting water on nitrate film will be top of their list, I’m sure.’

  Ratty bowed his head like a scolded schoolboy. His mother stepped across a deflated hosepipe on the lawn and came to her son’s defence.

  ‘Now look here, young man,’ she bellowed, dislodging soot from her shoulders with the power of her voice, ‘I won’t have some oik with five O Levels telling my son what to do. Justin did his best. At least he tried to put the frightful thing out. What did you expect him to do – phone you before the fire had even started? Give you enough time to finish playing rummy or darts or whatever ghastly pastimes you occupy yourselves with in the fire station? Perhaps if you’d driven a little quicker and got those hoses set up without so much faffing, we might not be in such a pickle!’

  Denzil had already begun walking away before she reached the end of her speech. When he sensed the rant was over he turned back towards her.

  ‘Considering they’re knocking this place down next week,’ he shouted to her, ‘you should count yourself lucky that we even bothered to show up.’

  ‘What rot,’ she retaliated, flailing her arms theatrically. ‘How can you spout such nonsense? Stiperstones Manor has been in the Ballashiels family longer than hereditary colour-blindness and Hapsburg chins. It will stand until the end of civilisation.’

  Denzil ignored her and returned to his engine. Ratty walked backwards and managed to move several paces from his mother before the inevitable question erupted from her tongue.

  ‘Boy, what’s all this about knocking the manor down?’

  ‘Nothing, Mater.’

  ‘It’s clearly not nothing if the local fire brigade knows about it.’

  ‘I had a sort of letter,’ he told her.

  ‘A letter?’

  ‘From the planning department chaps. Something about a new motorway bypass. They’ll be here to flatten the place on Thursday.’

  ‘What have you done about it?’

  ‘Well, nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘You may recall, Mater, that I was recently busy in Spain trying to rescue you, prior to which I was somewhat occupied in South America trying to save the world. Administrative dealings with the planning department of Shropshire Council have not been my top priority.’

  ‘Always an excuse, boy,’ she said. ‘It hardly matters now. The fire appears to have gutted almost an entire wing.’

  ‘To be fair, Mater, it wasn’t a wing that I was in the habit of frequenting. When I lived here on my tod I rattled around in the kitchen most of the time. The only damage in there is a trail of muddy bootprints from firemen chaps looking for a cup of tea. The library has survived, the turret is still hanging in there, and we should be grateful no one was hurt. I wouldn’t be surprised if the smoke has killed much of the dry rot and choked the throats of the little woodworm fellows. So in a way, it’s done us a favour. Well, for the next six days.’

  Lady Ballashiels gave a vague acknowledgement to her son’s logical thought processes before marching off towards a random fireman in order to give him a hard time about a subject she had yet to pick.

  Ruby emerged from an unscathed side of the manor and collected mucky tea cups from the firemen as they packed up. She deposited the cups on a stone step and walked towards Ratty. ‘Would you like me to contact the insurers for you?’ she offered, licking her finger so she could wipe the soot stains from Ratty’s forehead.

  ‘Good idea,’ replied Ratty, trying not to display his utter enjoyment of the simplest physical contact with Ruby. ‘Been thinking about getting this place insured for some time.’

  ‘I meant to arrange a claim.’

  ‘A claim? Don’t you need to take out a policy first?’

  ‘You mean you don’t have any insurance already?’

  ‘This isn’t one of those little semis you see littering the suburbs around the town, Ruby. Insuring a place like this costs an arm and a leg and if I paid those kinds of premiums every year I’d rapidly run out of limbs.’

  ‘But you can’t leave it like this, Ratty. That wonderful drawing room and the bedrooms above it are practically derelict. Plus there’s the water damage in the cellars and the smoke damage in the hallway. Just restoring the blackened family portraits will cost thousands.’

  ‘Remaining perched upon the family seat is ruining me,’ sighed Ratty. ‘Do you have any idea what those little men in overalls charge me just to repair a single Georgian window?’ She shook her head. ‘Nor do I, but I have more than a hundred of the rotten, draughty things. Windows, I mean, not men in overalls. Now, with the fire damage, I don’t see how I can possibly carry on. I should just sell what’s left of the manor and live in a yurt on a hill.’

  ‘A yurt?’ echoed Ruby.

  ‘A tent thingy. That’s how my noble family line will end up. Penniless yurt-dwellers.’

  ‘It can’t be that serious!’

  ‘Ruby, you’ve known me since university. That’s more years than I’m comfortable with. I’ve been broke the whole time, but I’ve scraped by. This crumbling manor is not exactly in showroom condition, but I’ve kept it standing. Well, most of it. You probably remember that time when the other turret collapsed. And parts of the gamekeeper’s cottage haven’t fared well. With a perennial famine in the tummy of the old piggy bank I could only patch up the holes and carry on. But this fire is too much. I’m beaten, old pumpkin. I can’t believe it’s come to this, but the family glory ends with me. The ancestor chaps would loathe and detest me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Ratty,’ she muttered, throwing her arms around him in a sympathetic embrace, fearing he might be about to break into a session of socially awkward tears. ‘There’s always a room for you in my flat,’ she told him. ‘But you’ll have to leave the suits of armour behind. It’s only got space for a single bed and a wardrobe.’

  Ratty wiped some undignified moisture from his eyes and smiled at her. The scorched wing of his house was steaming like an overheated engine in the background, darkening the late afternoon sky.

  ‘Infinitely appreciated, old moonbeam. You’ve always been there for me when it counted. You truly are the embodiment of something wonderful and in need of a body.’

  ‘You’d do the same for me. It’s what friends do. I’m just sorry I don’t have more space to offer you than that little room.’

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way,’ said Ratty.

  ‘It kind of does,’ she replied. ‘A bed and a wardrobe is the limit, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I mean my role as custodian of the Ballashiels estate. It doesn’t have to end with me. There is one possible solution.’

  ‘No, Ratty, I’m not giving you a baby.’

  ‘What? Hah! No. Goodness.’ He blushed and adjusted his sleeves. ‘I was referring to matters fiscal, not physical.’

  ‘Again, no,’ she replied. ‘A treasure hunt is not a viable financial solution for you.’

  ‘It would be if you helped me. And don’t call it a treasure hunt. It’s more than that. This is an archaeological and historical puzzle, and we can crack it. Together we would be unbeatable. We can do this. We can solve the Saunière mystery and bring home a mound of gold that would destabilise world markets.’


  ‘I told you, it’s a waste of time. There is no treasure. And even if that French priest did find some gold or any other source of money he would have spent it all in his lifetime. He was broke when he died.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s assuming that he really shuffled off his mortal wotsit when everyone thinks he did. We all saw his face. A tad more wrinkled than we’ve seen in the usual photos of him and the hair wasn’t so dark, but we all agreed it was Saunière, right?’

  ‘How can you be sure this film isn’t already on YouTube for everyone to see?’

  ‘Already checked on the Interweb. No one else knows. There were no other copies of Chaplin’s home movie from France. And now it’s been destroyed, no one else will ever have the advantage that we have.’

  ‘Are you really still concerned about the contents of the Chaplin film reel when your house has just had a major fire? What difference does it make if Saunière was still alive in 1932?’

  ‘Because,’ Ratty began, his eyes suddenly alight, ‘it meant he was up to something. And people only get up to something if there’s money involved. In his case, I think there was more money down the back of his sofa than he knew what to do with. If he was alive in 1932 then he must have faked his death in 1917, and if he went to such extreme measures he must have needed to lie low with his loot. And if he returned to Rennes-le-Château in his old age, it must be because that’s where he kept it. Do you see? It means he stashed his gold somewhere in that village. He kept it right there, underground, beneath everyone’s feet. It’s the rural mindset, you see. You’re a big town girl, Ruby; coming from Guildford, you wouldn’t understand the small village mentality that Saunière possessed.’

  ‘What if I told you I wasn’t from Guildford after all, Ratty?’

  ‘Why? Is that the kind of revelation you’re likely to utter?’

  ‘I’m actually from a remote village called Bittenhurst. I know how country people think. Though, to be fair, most of my neighbours were stockbrokers who only came out to the country at weekends. Anyway, I’ve made my position clear that the Saunière treasure hunt is a waste of time, but if you really insist on pursuing this line of idiocy I can put you in touch with the greatest Saunière expert in the country. He lives in Brentford. I don’t know if you’ll approve of his taste in music, though.’

  Lady Ballashiels returned to her son and his friend. ‘Children,’ she barked to the almost greying adults in her presence, ‘why have you not asked me about the presence of the Chaplin reel in Stiperstones?’

  ‘Good point, Mater. Why was that film in our possession?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied.

  ‘Right,’ said Ratty. ‘Glad that’s cleared up, then.’

  ‘But did you know about your great-great- grandfather’s liaisons in Paris with Emma Calvé?’

  ‘Wasn’t she the opera star with whom Saunière had an alleged predisposition for intimate anointments?’

  ‘If that gibberish means what I think it means, boy, then yes,’ said Lady Ballashiels. ‘Your great-great-grandfather was involved with the same woman as Saunière.’

  ‘Was there anyone in history that your family was not connected to, Ratty?’ sighed Ruby. ‘First Mengele, then Dalí, now Saunière. You lot certainly used to get about. One of the perks of having a house like this, I suppose.’

  ‘I fear that period of influence will shortly expire,’ Ratty told her. ‘The council is about to demolish this place and build a motorway.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ laughed Ruby. ‘This manor is listed. You can’t knock down a listed property.’

  ‘According to the council planning department’s letter they can. All they have to do is compulsory doodah and grant themselves listed building thingummy,’ he explained.

  ‘But you can start a protest group. Organise a petition. Take the council to court!’

  ‘Planners don’t listen to protesters and petitions. Only the High Court can halt them now. And who will pay to take this case straight to the highest court in the land?’ asked Ratty. ‘As if the cost of maintaining the building wasn’t sufficiently strenuous, I now have to hire a whole cricket team of lawyers to fight for my right to pay to maintain it. Now do you see why I need to find Saunière’s treasure before the bulldozers arrive?’

  ‘Sorry, Ratty, I don’t want any involvement in this. It won’t help you. It’s a pointless distraction from what needs to be done. It would have been fun to hang around at Stiperstones with you for a while, and I don’t mind helping with the clean-up here, but if you’re heading to France to waste what little money you have left, I’ll get back to doing some real archaeology.’

  ‘I’m sorry you don’t want to help me with my quest, Ruby. Your brains and my ground-penetrating radar would have made an unbeatable team.’

  ‘Before you disappear off chasing wild geese, at least go and see my friend in Brentford to get up to speed on the latest theories and discoveries about Saunière. I know you don’t have much time, but an hour with him could save you days of wasted effort.’

  ‘What’s the name of this giant of academia?’

  ‘Scabies,’ she replied. ‘Rat Scabies.’

  SATURDAY 11TH MAY 2013

  ‘Chisel?’

  ‘Chisel.’

  ‘Hammer?’

  ‘I know. For fuck’s sake.’

  ‘So give me the shitting hammer, asshole.’

  ‘Hammer.’

  ‘Cover your ears, princess.’

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ Justina replied, but her words were bludgeoned from existence by the clatter of hammer upon chisel. The sounds bounced in infinitely-decreasing echoes around the abrasive stone sides of the tunnel. Winnifred stopped.

  ‘Drill,’ she said, holding out her hand and displaying a bulbous and dusty bicep in the process.

  ‘Drill,’ sighed Justina, struggling with the weight of the tool as she passed it across. She paused for breath before adding, ‘You were supposed to be a reformed character, Winnifred.’

  ‘Bullshit. No such thing. Anyway, the locals bought your cover story, didn’t they?’

  ‘That we bought the chateau? I guess. But you can never really tell if they believed me or not. I couldn’t sleep for worrying about it. So after we break through and split whatever’s there, this is it. It’s over. I’m leaving and I never want to see you again.’

  ‘Suits me. Cover your mouth.’

  The drilling was worse than the chiselling: unbearable noise mixed with suffocating dust. Again, Winnifred stopped. ‘You think anyone can hear this?’ she asked, pointing upwards, again revealing dirt encrusted muscles that threw imposing shadows in the torchlight.

  ‘In Rennes? You’re making enough noise for them to hear you in Wyoming.’

  ‘I’m not stopping.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Justina shone the beam of her Maglite through the debris in the air, picking out the texture of the wall that blocked their path. The sides of the tunnel were natural rock. The wall was brick. If men had built it, women could take it down. The gaps between the limestone blocks were thin and the mortar was strong, but the blocks themselves offered little resistance to modern tools of destruction.

  ‘I think we’re level with the wall of the churchyard,’ declared Winnifred, ‘and, if that’s the case, there could be a crypt right on the other side.’

  ‘Like I’d be putting up with all this shit if I didn’t already know that?’ came Justina’s reply, followed by a bout of coughing to clear her dusty lungs. ‘Just make a hole and find me some beautiful gold.’

  ‘Crowbar?’

  ‘What crowbar?’

  ‘Give me the fucking crowbar!’ shouted Winnifred.

  ‘I thought you brought it.’

  ‘Fuck. I left it in the castle.’

  The women turned around. Winnifred pointed her torch to lead the way back along the tunnel to the dungeon beneath the castle where their journey had begun. The light picked out the shape of a stranger standing before them, blocking the
passage. He wore a cream suit, and his shirt was unbuttoned to the waist as if to provide adequate light and air to the jungle of hair growing across his torso. In his hands he cradled a crowbar.

  ‘Looking for this?’ he asked, wearing a grin that appeared at once both charming and threatening.

  ***

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Ratty,’ said Ratty.

  ‘That’s a fuckin’ shit name. How’d you get that?’

  ‘On account of the conk,’ said Ratty. ‘How about yours Mr Scabies?’

  ‘Call me Rat. Same thing. And I had scabies.’

  Ratty stared at the man seated beside him at the bar of The Griffin. Rat Scabies was dressed in black trousers and an even blacker shirt, and wore the kind of boots that could enable the wearer to kick harder than a donkey. In fact, the former punk rock star wore an outfit that was almost identical to Ratty’s, only somehow it seemed to suit him like a second skin whereas the aristocrat always looked as awkward as he felt. And right now he felt like he had wasted a day travelling to Brentford for this encounter. Could someone called Rat Scabies really be one of the foremost authorities on Saunière?

  ‘So, mon vieux batteur, how did you become acquainted with my chumlet, Ruby Towers?’

  ‘Guess she was keen on The Damned,’ replied the drummer.

  ‘I must profess ignorance regarding her Satanistic proclivities.’

  ‘We met at a history conference,’ said Scabies. ‘I gave a talk about my hunt for the Holy Grail in France and afterwards she told me I was an idiot who should stick to drumming.’

  ‘Sounds like Ruby.’

  ‘I told her to fuck off,’ Scabies added. ‘We’ve been friends ever since.’

  Ratty sipped his gin and tonic self-consciously. The lunchtime drinkers around him each had a pint glass in their hand and he sensed he was being judged rather harshly for his less than manly mannerisms.

  ‘Charming hostelry,’ said Ratty, instantly regretting his choice of words.

  ‘Fuck that,’ replied Scabies. ‘I’ve met all the players in this game. The Saunière treasure’s like a magnet, pulling in suckers from around the world. It’s an interesting bunch of people, and some of them are really smart and they know their shit. But the only person who ever made a fortune out of Saunière’s story was Dan Brown. No one ever dug up any gold or the body of Mary Magdalene or the Holy Grail. So tell me why you think you can crack this mystery when everyone else has fucked it up?’