The Lifers’ Club
Francis Pryor
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Table of Contents
A Sense of Place I
A Sense of Place II
A Sense of Place III
Epilogue
Subscribers
For Brian Fagan, the master of a good plot
A Sense of Place I
Flax Hole
One
The building shook. Windows rattled. Just outside in the quarry, five tons of stones smashed into a dumper truck. Next another, and another, then the turbo-charged diesel screamed into life, as the laden dumper pulled away, passing them close by. Mugs of tea rippled. But nobody in the stuffy Portakabin took any notice. For them, it was routine.
They were excavating in a huge gravel quarry in the Fens, about ten miles south-east of Peterborough. There was archaeology everywhere around them: Bronze Age burials, Iron Age and Roman farms, fields and houses. It had been a long project, but soon it was to end. And not before bloody time, Alan thought grimly. For weeks the rain had been pouring down. Outside, on site, the ground was wet and slimy. Lethal. Inside, water had seeped through the door and formed a little puddle, which slowly drained through a crack in the floor, where the doormat should have been. Condensation ran down the windows, two of which were boarded-up after an attack by vandals the previous week. But as site-huts went, it was pretty good.
Alan Cadbury and his twelve diggers were sipping hot drinks, their hard hats and Hi-vis waterproofs hanging, dripping on a row of pegs by the door. One or two read newspapers. No-one said much. They all just wanted to dry off for a few minutes and relax in the steamy warmth, while outside, in the gravel pit’s washing plant, more stones thundered into yet another dumper, which revved-up and roared away, to shed its load round the back, in the flooded area quarried out the previous year.
Like two of the others in his small team of contract archaeologists, Alan was rolling a cigarette, which he’d light up as soon as he went back to work. He knew it was a nasty, stupid habit, and he’d tried to kick it dozens of times, but then a few hours, sometimes even a few days later, he’d find he’d lit another. So he kept them small, and as roll-ups went, this was very slim. More paper than tobacco. He’d only have time to grab a few quick drags while they walked across the quarry to their excavation. Then he’d have to stub it out when he reached the trench. Site rules. Radiocarbon contamination.
He swore under his breath as his last fag paper slipped from his hands. Carefully he leant forward to retrieve it from the floor. Earlier that rainy week, they’d put down thick layers of newspaper to absorb the worst of the wet. Thank God, he thought, as he watched his Rizla float down towards the puddle, it’s landed on a dry patch. He reached out, leaning forward. As his fingers grasped it, his eye was caught by a story on a soggy sheet alongside it:
Honour killer at Blackfen?
Rumours are circulating that the so-called ‘honour killer’, Ali Kabul (25) is now at HMP Blackfen. The Governor’s office was unable to confirm or deny this to our reporter. The victim, Sofia Kabul (16), was the murderer’s younger sister who was killed at the family’s business premises at Flax Hole Depot, Leicester, over seven years ago. The case caused a national outcry. Kabul was convicted at Leicester Crown Court last January and was sentenced [continued p. 32]
That’s all there was. Alan glanced up to the top of the sheet: it was page 4 of the Fenland Mercury for two weeks ago. Rapidly he tore it off and read it again, frowning. Then he looked around on the floor for the rest of the paper, but it wasn’t there. Nowhere. He sat back and sighed. Flax Hole, Leicester. Must be the same place. Can’t be two Flax Holes – not possible. Memories started to flood in: another wet season, but winter and much colder. Two teenage kids, peering into the trench, eager to know what the diggers were up to.
Suddenly, another image flashed before him: the stuff of horror films. A young girl, lying in the trench, a faceless man piling soil on top of her lifeless body. He shook his head: stupid idea. Brain playing tricks on him: a waking nightmare. Stick to the facts.
Then his phone alarm went off. Back to work. He put the scrap of newspaper into his pocket.
‘OK folks,’ he said, rising stiffly to his feet, trying to inject some energy: ‘Tea-break’s over. Back to it.’
Nobody moved.
‘For Christ’s sake people, it’s time we got back…’
Slowly two figures near the back of the hut rose to their feet, yawning widely. Nobody said anything as they struggled into mud-spattered waterproofs. It was Friday afternoon. POETS day: Piss Off Early Tomorrow’s Saturday. He’d told them that when they started the site, back in June. Some of the youngest students hadn’t heard it before. One or two had even smiled. But now it was late August and the rain hadn’t let up for ten relentless weeks.
‘Fuckin’ poets day…’ someone muttered resentfully as they kicked the door shut behind them. They’d had a bellyful.
Alan led them across the stripped acres and back down to the trench. He clenched his hand round the newspaper clipping in his pocket. He knew what he should do. But did he have the balls to do it?
Two
Alan dropped a couple of diggers off in Waney, then took his Land Rover north and east across the county line into Lincolnshire. After half an hour bouncing across subsiding Fenland roads he arrived at the bungalow he currently called home, in the little village of Tubney. There were one or two picturesque houses in Tubney, but this wasn’t one of them. A couple of nights ago a friend, who’d come home with him after the pub, had described it as: ‘Pokey rooms downstairs and bugger-all upstairs.’ That about summed it up. Like most 1930s detached houses, it had once possessed a garden, but the last tenants had been scrap dealers and had used it to store old lorry engines which had leaked oil and diesel everywhere; so the garden grew nothing, and on warm days the entire place smelled like a garage. Still, it was very cheap.
Even the bloody phone smelled of oil. He hesitated before dialling. Was this such a good idea, after all? He had first met Detective Inspector Richard Lane when they were both on the Forensic Archaeology MA course at Saltaire, just over t
en years ago. Although he was twelve years older than Alan, they’d become good friends for the two years they were together on the course. By then Lane was already a successful career policeman, and it was his idea to do the MA, if only to find out what the new, and much-heralded, branch of forensic science could achieve. As he said at the time, there was little point in employing extra staff or consultants, if the police themselves had no idea what they could learn from them. But once he’d begun the course, he realised his lack of excavating experience put him at a big disadvantage. So he was delighted when he became friendly with Alan.
Alan was on the staff of the course and had been employed to oversee the fieldwork side of things. Although it was just a temporary contract it had come in the nick of time: he’d been out of work for a couple of months after failing to complete his PhD dissertation. People said he was pig-headed and should have made the changes the external examiner demanded. Instinctively Alan disliked the man: Dr Peter Flower. Posey and superior: every inch a clever academic and up with all the in-vogue trends, like post-structuralism. He wanted Alan to provide a ‘relativist epi-overview’. He said it didn’t have to be very long. He even pleaded with him. But no. Alan was damned if he would. And whose bloody thesis was it, anyhow: Alan’s or Posey Peter’s?
So he lost his grant and his postgraduate studentship. He was out of work. By then it was July and all commercial digging jobs had been filled. Frankly, the outlook was bleak and he was about to start stacking supermarket shelves when an old friend at Saltaire, hearing of his plight on the grapevine, offered him a temporary position on the Forensics MA course. To someone with Alan’s experience there was nothing to it. Just the basics: trowelling, laying out trenches, section-drawing, soil-sampling, surveying, GPS – all familiar stuff. He didn’t exactly feel stimulated by the course. Frankly he’d much rather have been out on a real site getting his hands dirty. But he had enough sense to know when to bite the bullet. Then he’d met Richard Lane and things changed.
Their lifestyles were so different: his chaotic, the policeman’s organised and efficient. But as they worked and talked they began to grasp the point of it all. It wasn’t just about clever scientific techniques. Arresting criminals. Bang to rights. That sort of stuff was fine on TV. No, it was bigger, more fundamental than that: why some things mattered and others didn’t. Good and evil: basic stuff that makes us human. Why people did what they did. Every patch of land told a different story, and they were all about people. Best of all, they enjoyed sorting out the puzzle together.
Soon they were both working on various digs during vacations and on weekends. As they trowelled together on their hands and knees, Alan was surprised at the policeman’s natural ability and he took much trouble teaching him the nuts and bolts of practical excavation. Rather to his surprise Lane too discovered that although Alan often operated by instinct – by ‘feel’ as he called it – he also had an extraordinarily tenacious analytical mind. He wouldn’t let problems die. He was like a terrier and always managed to sort them out. And he was usually proved right, much to Lane’s begrudging admiration.
After the course ended Lane tried to persuade him to train as a full-time police consultant, which he resisted out of that very same instinctive reaction. Lane tried to make him change his mind. But soon gave up. No, Alan was a hopeless case: he shied away from permanent commitment and didn’t like the idea of working with non-archaeological material. He seemed hooked on the special appeal, the magic even, of old things and long-lost times. They stirred his imagination like nothing else and he couldn’t set them aside. For Alan, past times held the key to the present, but at a more personal level than mere history; his work was a necessity, not a hobby or luxury.
Directly after Saltaire, Lane had been transferred to the Cambridgeshire force. In those days they maintained contact, although not closely – the odd drink at weekends. There’d been a series of unpleasant murders in and around Whittlesey, a small Fenland town east of Peterborough. Alan was able to advise them about Fen farms, Fen farmers and their hired help. He made several scene-of-crime visits, all of which brought in welcome consultancy fees. In the end they never caught the murderer, which didn’t surprise Alan, who was far from certain that the killings were the work of a single individual. Yes, there were consistencies, but they were too obvious. Alan had the strong sense that something else, probably rather more sinister, had been going on. The press, on the other hand, were completely convinced – as indeed were the police – at least as soon as the first stories began to hit the headlines. Then it all fizzled out, not that anyone in the area seemed to care much. Life continued as before. Alan had been pissed-off, then he came to see that human beings can only cope with so much trauma on their own doorstep. Easier to turn your back, and pretend nothing had happened.
A couple of years passed. Alan and Lane kept loosely in touch: the odd phone call or drink when either of them was nearby. Then things got worse. Like the start of their friendship it was unexpected: Alan had always suspected that the police’s approach to the Whittlesey murders was a result of political pressure from higher up. A case of political correctness, as all the talk at the time pointed to an immigrant gang. Several were known to be working in the region, but none had yet killed; their thefts were all about pink farm diesel, heating oil or scrap metal. Anyhow, one night, after a few too many beers, he told Lane as much. He knew as he said it, it hadn’t gone down well. And he was right. Lane’s eyes had said as much: OK smart-arse I bet you wouldn’t have done any better – and at least I’ve got a career. So the scene-of-crime visits and police consultancies stopped, and that was that. Just eight years ago – shortly before the Flax Hole dig.
Alan fired up his computer and googled Richard Lane. It didn’t take long to find him. An image of his old friend stared steadily out of the screen at him: Lane had been promoted to Detective Chief Inspector and was now with Leicestershire CID. Destined to be a high flyer, Alan thought as he stared back into the expressionless gaze. You’ve learned how to do a mugshot, he thought. Give nothing away, just stare down the lens. But there were a few signs: shorter sideburns, greying hair and just the hint of a double chin. Alan smiled: Lane’s wife Mary was one of the best cooks he’d come across. Lucky sod.
To the world at large Alan’s ‘career’ hadn’t been flying at all. He’d managed to screw-up or turn down several offers of long-term jobs. He didn’t want them. At least that’s how he rationalised it. In reality he couldn’t face getting on the ladder he’d seen so many of his friends start to climb. But it never went very high and they all ended up as project managers in commercial units, sitting in front of computer screens and talking to suited women in HR. They grew fat guts and endlessly droned on about how they missed ‘being in the field’. Like hell, he thought: they couldn’t have survived a month out in a gravel quarry in February. They’d lose weight fast: freeze their balls off.
So he’d drifted into being a freelance site officer, supervising one dig after another, winter, summer, autumn and spring. Not exactly high-flying, but he was proud of what he was doing, even so. He knew he was the best and enjoyed the challenge of surviving on his wits. It was like other things in life; he liked the danger, the ever-present and lurking precariousness of it. It was better than growing old.
Now he found he was standing in the bungalow’s single empty corridor, looking down at the phone. The newspaper cutting lay beside it.
He took a deep breath, and dialled a number in Leicester.
It barely rang before a brisk voice answered.
‘Hello, Richard Lane here.’
‘It’s Alan…’
No response.
‘Alan Cadbury?’
‘Oh, hello Alan, it’s been a while.’
‘Yes, it has.’
Alan realised there was nothing for it but to get straight to the point.
‘So, the reason I’m calling… Yesterday I read something in an oldish
copy of the local rag about one of those “honour” killings. It seems the man that did it, Ali Kabul, came from Leicester.’
‘That’s right. It was a big case. You must have heard about it? Every newspaper, let alone TV and radio, was full of it.’
‘No, sorry, missed it. The last few months have been a bit frantic. I’ve been digging everywhere. And you know what it’s like, you don’t see papers very often when you’re in the field.’
‘It was very high profile,’ Lane continued, ‘Not just here in Leicester, but nationally.’
Was there a patronising edge to Lane’s tone, or was Alan just being over-sensitive? He pushed on regardless.
‘The clip I saw mentioned the killing happened at Flax Hole Depot. That’s the place off the Market Harborough Road, at the city end, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And there’s a big café near it? Mehmet’s, named after the owner?’
‘Alan, something tells me you haven’t got back in touch after all this time just to discuss the local geography.’
Alan tightened his grip around the telephone, resisting the urge to slam it back into the cradle and walk away.
‘I think I must have been there when the killing happened.’
Alan thought he could hear a sharp intake of breath. But when Lane spoke his voice was calm and professional.
‘February 2002?’
‘I was running a dig there. I’d set up a small contracting partnership with a colleague. We were part of a sub-contract for a larger job run by the City Archaeological Unit. Then, at the pre-planning stage, the City Archivist found documentary evidence for a flax-processing workshop complex there in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Flax sites are rare in the east. So the project was delayed, while we did an assessment, followed by excavation. It turned out to be quite important.’
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