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270 pages

English

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Was Princess Diana's death accidental? The Vale of Tears seeks to answer that question. Set in England, America and France, the story is a clever and credible blend of fact and fiction, and is both a historical conspiracy and a modern-day chase thriller, so compelling and plausible that the reader will be left wondering if in fact it is the truth.

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Thriller

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Publié par	James Murphy
Date de parution	31 juillet 2012
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781620507780
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE VALE OF TEARS
by
JAMES MURPHY
* * *
Also by James Murphy
Fiction: Cedar Juniper Ash
Non-fiction: The Murder of Julia Wallace Liverpool VCs
Published by James Murphy 2012
Copyright © James Murphy 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright so reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in or introduced into any kind of retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the specific written permission of the copyright holder and publisher.
Cover design: Laura Jane Flynn and Will Taylor
Lines from My Last Will by Joe Hill, Public Domain
website: thevaleoftears.jimdo.com email: jamesmurphythevaleoftears@hotmail.com
ISBN: 978-1-620-50778-0
In memory of
Michael Edward Francis Murphy
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am greatly indebted to John Dominic for the original idea for the story; and also for a wonderful few days spent at Aiguebelle. And I must also thank my family and friends, near and far, for their patience and encouragement; in particular Chris, Lizzie, Sophie, Mary, Scott, Molly, Harry, Jane, Mary F, LJ, Cormac, Michael, Rosie, Eamon and Penny.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PROLOGUE
MONDAY: 23 AUGUST 2010
TUESDAY: 24 AUGUST 2010
WEDNESDAY: 25 AUGUST 2010
THURSDAY: 26 AUGUST 2010
FRIDAY: 27 AUGUST 2010
SATURDAY: 28 AUGUST 2010
SUNDAY: 29 AUGUST 2010
MONDAY: 30 AUGUST 2010
TUESDAY: 31 AUGUST 2010
WEDNESDAY: 1 SEPTEMBER 2010
THURSDAY: 2 SEPTEMBER 2010
FRIDAY: 3 SEPTEMBER 2010
SATURDAY: 4 SEPTEMBER 2010
SATURDAY: 11 SEPTEMBER 2010
APPENDIX
PROLOGUE
We knew not at first why Francois de Beaumont, the Baron des Adrets, came to the monastery of Aiguebelle, why he had risen from his sick bed and marched with his horde so many leagues from his estate, which, through his infamy, is named the Hunting Ground, for he has hounded the Faithful to death there: he is the Devil incarnate.
In the vale of Aiguebelle, he unleashed his deviltry against my flock, defiling hallowed ground and slaughtering the labourers in the lavender fields and all who pleaded sanctuary, piling their corpses at our door, monks, lay brethren and villeins alike, and whose innocent blood flowed as a torrent through our holy vale. And then his sacrilege became manifest, for he brought forth the scourge of the English Catholics, a flayer of men, by name of Richard Topcliffe, a ravenous wolf whose ill-fame is known by all on the Continent, the creature of Walsingham and the English Crown. Only then did we understand.
Roaring out for Brother Alberic to attend, they rampaged through the abbey, putting to the sword the sick and the lame in the infirmary and any unfortunates who crossed their murderous paths, and ransacking the library and scriptorium.
Blessed Alberic could not be discovered, for the ague had taken him to his Maker weeks before. But one poor soul, on a broken pledge of mercy, betrayed his final resting place in the garden of roses. And those fiends fashioned a cross, and dragged forth from the earth his holy corpse, fastening it inverted thereon, making of it the sign of the Anti-Christ. Then they fired it with a torch.
When the lust for sacrilege and rapine was sated, these devils commanded their minions to destroy the Abbey stone by stone. But, Our Mother’s shrine remained inviolate, standing resolute before their wicked assaults. And so these demons caused the embankments to collapse, and the hill tumbled down, thus sealing off the door and entrance to the church, and made of it a tomb in a veritable vale of tears. They then fled, like evil spirits cast out by the Lord, when the King’s army advanced to avenge the bloody desecration.
Letter sent in 1587 by Dom Adrien de Bazemont, Abbot of Our Lady of Aiguebelle, to Pope Sixtus V. Discovered in the crypt of the Basilica of Saints John and Paul, Rome, by Father Ignatius, May1832.
MONDAY: 23 AUGUST 2010
WILLIAMSBURG
Laura Ross was sweating heavily. Her mouth was parched, her lips dry and long strands of brown hair were plastered to her temples. Cursing, she was beginning to regret hiding out in the cramped, stuffy attic.
The digital alarm clock, her only source of light, showed eleven o’clock. Another hour to wait. She waved her hands back and forth vigorously in a futile attempt to create some movement in the stagnant air.
At ten o’clock, and minutes after Sophie had driven off, one of the two men had checked out the house: the whining creak of the rear door had announced his entrance; and she’d listened, rigid with fear, to the heavy tread of footsteps on the wooden floors below. But he hadn’t ventured upstairs, and stayed only a few minutes to search the study. Complacent, that was what Sophie had said.
Now, hot and sticky with perspiration, she decided she could have risked her bedroom: open, airy, bathed in moonlight; and with several places in which to conceal herself. Much better, much more comfortable than the damned attic.
But what if?
What if he’d climbed the stairs? What if he’d poked around in her bedroom, looked under the bed, opened the closet, walked into the en suite? What if he’d found her in her hidey-hole? What if he’d reached in, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out screaming and squirming in terror, grabbed her by the throat to stifle her protests, and squeezed until her heart fluttered and gave out like that of a stricken bird?
Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat, her breath caught at the back of her throat and a jolt of panic hit her stomach: the dread of discovery, the cloying heat, the oppressive darkness, combined rapidly to threaten claustrophobia in the smothering confines of the wedge-shaped room. It was a coffin, she was constricted, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. She gasped loudly for air.
Gulping, she scrambled desperately from the sitting position and knelt before the clock, the top of her head only inches from the roof beam. Arms akimbo, her eyes fixed on the display, she inhaled deeply, slowly, keeping her shoulders still.
The horror rose in waves and swept through her body, driven by her pounding heart. ‘Stop it, stop it, deep breathing, come on, control, take it easy,’ she coaxed, and her whole body trembled. ‘Control. In out, in out.’ She used the words like a mantra, over and over again, and matched the rhythm to the rise and fall of her heaving chest. Her knees ached, but she maintained her stance, staring into the dim light, concentrating on her breathing, hoping to block out the pulsating fear. ‘In out. In out.’
Gradually, the attack subsided, but she felt weak, drained. She was stifling, her skin was clammy, and now she felt dizzy, disorientated. Sitting down again, with her back to her father’s old trunk, she found the water bottle and took a long drink before trickling some of the warm liquid across her forehead.
She patted her brow with the hem of her T-shirt, calming herself as she breathed evenly in through her nose and out through her mouth, her lips pursed into an O-shape as if she were attempting to whistle. Relax. Take it easy. Too much at stake. Of course she’d made the right choice. Relax. He could have searched the bedroom, but never the attic: too awkward to reach, for one thing.
Which one of her two regulars had it been? One was lean, and wore jeans and cowboy boots, the other thick-set, and favoured a suit and tie. The heavy tread suggested suit-and-tie-man had checked out the study.
There was a second pair of watchers, the twins, as she called them, seldom seen, of average height, stocky build, hard men with even harder faces. Scary men. The scary twins. She glanced at the clock. They would be in the Chevy Silverado, north of Richmond about now, turning off I-95 for the drive into the Blue Ridge Mountains, following Sophie to the cabin at Jewell Hollow.
‘God, I hope Sophie’s okay,’ she prayed into the darkness. She barely felt the trickle of warm tears on her flushed cheeks. ‘No, stop it, stop it. Don’t start again.’
Goddamnit, she still couldn’t believe what was happening. She was a teacher, an academic, an assistant professor at one of the most prestigious universities in America. How had she become involved with surveillance and spies and subterfuge?
‘Stop it, stop it,’ she urged herself, making fists of her hands and gritting her teeth. The clock told her she had only half an hour to go. It was the waiting, she realized, the seemingly interminable wait in dark isolation that was causing the second thoughts, creating the misgivings and inventing the uncertainties.
Twenty minutes to go. Stick to the plan. She saw it unfold step by step in her mind: suit-and-tie-man and cowboys-boots were gone, the scary twins would be watching Sophie at the cabin. No one would be watching the house: she was safe. Safe. Midnight, escape from the sweltering attic, down the stairs and out through the rear door. Across the yard, through the gap in the fence and into the alleyway. Walk through to Richmond Road and up to the car park at McDonald’s where Sophie had left her Honda Pilot. Then, drive through the night to New Jersey.
Everyone knew that as usual she was spending her annual vacation at the cabin in Jewell Hollow; and that was where she was expected to be. However, Thursday, if everything went to plan, she would be in England, with no one the wiser. ‘Simple,’ she tried to convince herself.
Tickets? Money? Another surge of panic gripped her. Where had she put them? She reached out through the blackness towards the clock, her clawed hands groping wildly on the boarded floor until she located the small bag. Sighing heavily, she clasped it to her bosom.
That morning, she’d driven to campus, her two watchers in tow. She’d spent all day in her office, nerves on edge, but disguising the panic by trying to finalize another paper for publication, an ongoing requirement if she was e