The Secret Chamber Read Online Free PDF

wooden cups on the top of a low stool, and poured. She handed one to each of them before smiling at Luca, revealing a mouth containing only three blackened teeth.
    ‘
Dhanyabaad
,’ Luca said, pressing his hands together. Thank you.
    He took a few noisy slurps from the cup, enjoying the feeling of the steam rolling up his damp face, and then looked across at René. He was eyeing the viscous liquid suspiciously before his right hand went to the side pocket of his coat and fished inside. A moment later, he triumphantly pulled out a half-litre bottle of brandy and sloshed a heavy measure into both their teas.
    ‘I’ve been in the Himalayas for over twelve years now and you want to know something?’
    Luca nodded, knowing full well that conversations with René were rarely more than one-sided.
    ‘I’d prefer to drink my own piss than yak butter tea. Every time I go into the bloody mountains it shocks me how horrible it is. You know what I say? Drown out the rancid taste with brandy. The problem is … the brandy here’s not exactly much better.’
    He raised his cup to Luca then took a heavy gulp from it, pulling his lips back across his gums as the cheap spirit burned his mouth. Luca drank his without flinching, holding the wooden cup in the palm of his hands as he let the warmth of the tea spread through his fingers. René looked on curiously as they sat facing each other over the fire. He could scarcely believe how much Luca had changed.
    And it wasn’t just the weight he had lost; his whole demeanour seemed to have changed as well. He had become shrunken and withdrawn, as if crushed by some invisible weight. The villagers had already told him that Luca refused to go past the snowline and that each day he volunteered for the longest treks and the heaviest packs. It was as if he hoped each minor act of suffering could help to alleviate his guilt; the punishment spread over a thousand of paces in the Himalayas.
    Even as René stared at the reality before him, he still had a mental image of Luca visiting his restaurant all those years ago. He had been loud and outgoing then, even arrogant at times, with a mischievous grin to accompany each one of his mad-cap schemes. He had come looking for permits for a climbing expedition into one of the most remote regions of Tibet, and after only a few days together, Rene had found himself risking everything to help him. That’s the way it always was with Luca. You got swept up by his energy.
    But now, there was nothing left of the old Luca. There was only this tortured soul before him. It was like watching a cancer consume someone before his very eyes.
    After a moment’s pause, René took another cigarette from his pack and lit it with the end of one of the logs in the fire. He winced as the hairs on the back of his hand singed from the heat, sending a pungent smell into the air. Drawing on the cigarette, he looked across at Luca, his expression draining of joviality.
    ‘I know it’s been tough for you, Luca, but you could at least have responded to Jack’s letters. It’s been over three months now.’
    Luca looked up from the fire.
    ‘What are you talking about? I didn’t get any letters.’
    René raked his fingers through his beard and winced.
    ‘Shit,’ he breathed, exhaling a plume of smoke from somewhere deep within his lungs. ‘I guess that makes some sense then. Look, Luca, Jack Milton has been trying to get hold of you for the last couple of months. When he didn’t get any answer, he asked me to try and track you down. And you know how I hate leaving Lhasa and coming out to the mountains. It’s three days just to get across the border and then those endless bloody trails …’
    ‘The letter, René,’ Luca interrupted, sitting forward attentively. ‘Tell me what Jack wants?’
    ‘Yes, yes, the letter. Well, it’s not Jack that’s in trouble. It’s his nephew, Joshua. He went missing six months ago somewhere in the depths of the Congo. Nasty country, that.