Glenn Cooper - The Tenth Chamber

Luc was staring eye-to-eye with the bird man, and wanted to speak out loud to him, but for Hugo’s sake, he played out the conversation in his head: I’m coming back soon. You and I are going to get to know each other very well.

He wasn’t sure what made him look down, but in the dimmest periphery of his torch light there was something he couldn’t ignore beside his left foot.

A small edge of black flint against the cave wall.

He knelt over it and swore. He had left his trowel in his rucksack, which was in the previous chamber.

He had a Bic pen in his breast pocket, removed its cap and started picking away at the earth and guano with the plastic prong.

‘I thought you said, touch nothing,’ Hugo complained.

‘Don’t worry. I’m an archaeologist,’ Luc replied. ‘This is important.’

In short order he had pecked away enough of the surrounding earth to expose a long slender blade of chipped flint, almost double the length of his index finger. It was leaning against the wall on its end, almost as if it had been purposefully balanced there. Luc lowered his head almost close enough to kiss it and blew the remaining dirt from its exposed surface, then excitedly he put his camera on macro mode and flashed away.

‘What’s the big deal?’ Hugo asked.

‘It’s Aurignacian!’

‘Oh yes?’ Hugo replied, unimpressed. ‘Can we please go now?’

‘No, listen. This central spine, here, this flaking pattern and this hourglass shape, this tool is definitely Aurignacian. It was made by the very first Homo sapiens in Europe. If, and I stress if, it’s contemporaneous with these paintings, this cave is about thirty thousand years old! That’s over ten thousand years older than Lascaux, and it’s more advanced than Lascaux in every artistic and technical criteria! I simply can’t understand this. I don’t know what to say.’

Hugo tugged him by the sleeve of his jacket. ‘You’ll think of something over breakfast. Now, for God’s sake, let’s go!’

The morning sun had turned the Vezere river into a sparkling ribbon. The air was fresh and birdsong rained down on them. It felt cleansing to breathe clean cool air.

Before they left the cave, Luc carefully rebuilt the dry wall, taking pains to conceal the entrance as effectively as the original wall builders, whoever they were, had done. He was bone-tired but giddy and a small voice inside his head warned him, that under these circumstances, they needed to be especially cautious along the ledge.

Nevertheless, they made steady progress retracing their route and it wasn’t too long before the old juniper tree came into view. Hugo needed to readjust his rucksack and the broad shelf under its rough, peeling trunk was a safe place to stop.

Luc dreamingly sipped what was left of his bottled water as he stared out across the river. Had the night really happened? Was he ready for the position he found himself in? Was he prepared to have his life irrevocably altered, to become a public person, the face of this mad discovery?

His reverie was interrupted by an almost trifling sound, a suggestion of rough scraping coming from the direction they had come. It was out of sight, behind bushes and jutting rock. He almost shrugged it off, but his senses were pricked enough that he couldn’t let it pass. He excused himself and backtracked several metres. As he was about to make his way around the jutting stones he thought he heard another faint scrape, but when he got a clear view of the ledge they had just traversed, there was nothing there.

He stood for a short while, trying to decide whether to backtrack further. There was something about that scraping that unsettled him; he felt a current of concern – or was it fear? – trickle through his body. But then Hugo called, loudly declaring he was ready to move, and the feeling passed. He quickly rejoined him under the juniper and said nothing of it.

It was late morning when they wearily arrived at the Land Rover, and true to his word, despite the phantasms of the night, Luc had insisted they stop and pick up the litter.

He saw the damage first and swore loudly, ‘Shit, Hugo, would you look at that!’

The driver’s side window was smashed and rounded pellets of safety glass filled the seat. And the cardboard University of Bordeaux sign was torn in half and tucked under the wiper blades as a clear taunt.

‘Friendly locals,’ Hugo sneered. ‘Shall we return the beer cans to their rightful place?’

‘I’m not going to let this spoil my mood,’ Luc insisted, through gritted teeth. He began sweeping up the glass with the torn pieces of cardboard. ‘Nothing’s going to spoil my mood.’

Before putting the car in gear, he rummaged through the glove box and started swearing.

‘I thought nothing was going to spoil your mood,’ Hugo said.

‘My registration’s gone. Why the hell would someone steal my logbook?’ He snapped the cover closed and drove off muttering.

In the centre of Ruac, they stopped at the small cafe, nameless, just a sign: C AFE, T ABAC. When Hugo attempted to lock the car, Luc pointed to the smashed window and ridiculed him, but before they went inside he cautioned, ‘Be careful what you say. We have a big secret to protect.’

The cafe was dimly lit, six tables with plastic tablecloths, only one of them occupied. The owner was behind the bar. He had leathery skin, a full head of white hair and a salt and peppar flecked moustache. His gut was round and protruding. Two diners, a young man and an older woman stopped talking and stared as if a couple of spacemen had arrived.

‘Serving?’ Hugo asked.

The owner pointed to one of the tables and gruffly laid down two paper menus before retreating towards his kitchen, shuffling his heavy legs across the floorboards.

Luc called after the fellow about the location of the nearest gendarmerie. The owner slowly turned and answered with a question: ‘Why?’

‘Someone broke my car window.’

‘While you were driving?

‘No, I was parked.’

‘Where were you parked?’

In the face of this interrogation, Luc glanced incredulously at Hugo before blowing the guy off. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Probably somewhere illegal,’ the old man mumbled under his breath loud enough for them to hear. Then, with more volume, ‘Sarlat. There’s a station in Sarlat.’

Hugo sniffed at the air. He knew that odour anywhere. His bread-and-butter aroma. ‘Was there a fire nearby?’ he asked the old man.

‘Fire? You smell something?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s probably my clothes. I’m the local SPV chief. That’s what you smell.’

Hugo shrugged and began eyeing the pretty raven-haired woman at the corner table. She was no more than forty. There was a natural curl and bounciness to her hair and she had pouty lips and nice bare olive legs showing beneath a clingy dress. Her companion was younger by at least a decade, with the thick shoulders and ruddy complexion of a farmer, and since it was unlikely this was her boyfriend or husband, Luc guessed that Hugo would therefore be unimpeded from being Hugo.

True to form, Hugo said, ‘Nice day,’ in her direction with a grin and a nod.

She replied with a small facial gesture that, if it was a smile, lasted no longer than a second. To put the period on the sentence, her scowling companion purposely tapped her forearm and reengaged her in conversation.

‘Friendly place,’ Hugo said to Luc. ‘They’re having omelettes. So will I. Let the natives lead the way, I always say.’

Luc excused himself and came back in a few minutes to find that Hugo had ordered beers. ‘Was it clean?’ Hugo asked.

‘Not really.’ He laid his mobile phone on the table. ‘Here’s to us,’ Luc toasted with the beer Hugo had ordered.