‘It’s great to be back, Alan. I’ve missed your pots of tea…’
‘What, soggy bags in cold mugs?’
‘Yes.’ Their eyes met: they’d been through some tough assignments together. ‘And it’s nice to dice with death too. Like old times.’
Steve glanced at the LPG tank and they both smiled broadly.
First days on rural sites can be chaotic. Unplanned things happen as soon as fences are shifted and rusted gates are prized open. Alan was standing rather mournfully by some old posts and stock-wire that the sheep had trodden down overnight. He could see why: the grazing on the DMV was much greener, having been fenced-off for a couple of weeks. But he knew what to do. He cut the wire to make a gap and walked round to the back of the sheep and started to drive them forward, but they stubbornly refused to see the way out. Alan cursed under his breath; they didn’t want to leave.
Then he heard the sound of voices, and turned round to see Kevin, Stu and Darren, who happened to be passing by. They were happy to help, and soon the sheep had been driven out.
‘Should we call in every morning?’ Darren said with a broad grin.
‘Probably no bad thing, but next time, bring coffee and cakes.’
‘A few beers, more like…’ added Stu.
Alan regarded him with mock solemnity.
‘Tut tut, my good man.’
Alan was feeling much more relaxed. He knew he could work with these people. By then, Steve and the student had assembled his GPS kit, which was top of the range and very sophisticated. Kevin inspected it with undisguised envy: he was trying to get his boss, Little Mehmet, to upgrade their instrument, but was having trouble persuading him. More to the point, Steve knew how to work it and was able to pass on some useful short cuts.
Alan could hear the two of them chatting together as he, Stu, Darren and the student tied up the last of the damaged fencing. Later, on the drive back to Priory Farm, he learned that Kevin had given Steve a weekend job, re-surveying the old Home Farm buildings, which weren’t accurately positioned on existing estate maps. This would require a lot of kit, so whenever he needed it, Alan agreed to lend him the Land Rover in exchange for the PFC van.
All in all, at the end of the afternoon both Alan and Steve knew they’d done well. The new project had got off to a good start. More importantly, they’d established a good working relationship with the contractor’s men on site.
The next day Steve took the Land Rover and a couple of experienced surveyors to Impingham to lay out the grid and do a contour survey; while Alan remained at Priory Farm, to finish editing the first draft of the Guthlic’s report.
Once Steve had left, Alan returned to his office. Part of him wanted to be out and about at Impingham, but at the same time Ali and Guthlic’s were worrying him. Why was life never simple? Something you really want to do happens, while something else stops you enjoying it. So with some foreboding he turned on his computer, only to find an email with the preliminary radiocarbon dates from Cambridge. Suddenly his doubts vanished. This was important. It had been sent to Paul and copied to Harriet, who was round in his office a few minutes later, with the printout in her hand,
‘Well that’s interesting,’ she began reading from the list, ‘the three from that Saxon group near the tower are all kosher. And a bit earlier than I’d expected.’
‘Yes…’ Alan replied, still slightly preoccupied, as he absorbed the new information, ‘Mid-eighth to early ninth centuries…Yes, that is on the early side.’
‘And the Indian,’ Harriet added, ‘he’s slightly earlier than we expected too, but not quite so much.’
‘No, I’d have said early to mid-fifteenth is about right. It’s what I’d have guessed.’
‘But those three babies are interesting, aren’t they?’ she asked, half to herself, ‘And so very similar. The whole group’s got to be contemporary, don’t you reckon?’
‘Yes, without a doubt.’ Alan was choosing his words carefully. ‘Late nineteenth or just possibly early twentieth century. That’s remarkably late for such things.’ He paused for a few moments. Then asked brightly: ‘Fancy an early cup of coffee?’
By now she knew this was code for: ‘we need to discuss this somewhere private.’
Once outside, they headed round to the hangar apron, instinctively taking the route that avoided Paul’s office window. Alan began:
‘That large piece of pottery…’
She shook her head; she obviously couldn’t recall it. ‘D’you remember, the half saucer I found sealed in the churchyard wall foundation trench?’
Suddenly she smiled.
‘Yes, right, I remember. A modern glazed one…’
‘Well, that made me think they were probably late nineteenth century. No earlier. And the new carbon dates confirm it. If anything they’re more Edwardian than Victorian.’
‘It’s getting very recent, isn’t it?’
Alan nodded pensively. But not half as recent as those bones Alaric sniffed, he thought. Better stall for time. Things are bound to get clearer soon. Very soon. Meanwhile he didn’t want Harry jumping in – that would complicate an already tricky situation.
‘Yes it is. In fact we’re probably going to have legal problems with those babies.’
‘The fact they’re so recent?’
‘Of course. And you don’t have to massage the figures, either. If you take the upper range of the standard deviations it puts them at the start of the First World War. I’ve no choice: l’ll have to report them to the coroner before too long, or I’ll lose my Home Office licence, but it’s going to need careful handling.’
‘Is it? I thought it was fairly straightforward, not as cumbersome as…’
She’d missed the point.
‘No, not the coroner, Harry,’ Alan broke in impatiently, ‘Alistair. He’s going to need very careful handling. So not a word: certainly not to Paul, and probably not to Amy either. OK?’
Harriet was looking serious.
‘OK.’
‘I don’t think it can wait,’ Alan continued, ‘I’d better go and see him this morning.’
‘I’m sorry, have I missed something?’
‘Those dates make the babies more or less contemporary with the new sexton’s shed. That was also the time when the churchyard wall was diverted. And who carried out that work?’
‘Presumably a member of Alistair’s family. Didn’t it have the Crutchley coat of arms on its gable end?’
‘Yes, his great-great-grandfather built it. More to the point, I’d be willing to bet good money those babies are – or were – Alistair’s direct relatives.’
‘Oh my God…’ This clearly hadn’t occurred to her. ‘How horrible. Poor man. Yes, I agree, you’d better go and see him.’
They paused for a few minutes while Alan read through the technical information from the Cambridge laboratory; it was about calibration curves and standard deviations. Routine stuff, but all seemed in order.
‘Right,’ he said, folding the printout and stuffing it into his pocket, ‘I’m off to Scoby Hall…’
‘Wait a sec, Alan,’ she said, laying a restraining hand on his arm. ‘What am I going to say, if Paul phones through?’
‘He won’t. He’s in York all day, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, but he’s just got an iPhone, which he loves very dearly. I think it’s his new little friend. Anyhow, he’s bound to check his emails with it. Probably already has.’
‘Just tell him they confirm your original views – which they do. Say there’s no conflict with the stable isotopes. He mustn’t suspect anything.’
She lowered her voice, as if even outside walls had ears.
‘You don’t think those results change the things we were worried about, do you?’
‘No. Not a bit. Don’t forget, I selected the samples myself before Easter when there
was all that chaos in the Stores. I’m certain the contamination happened after I took them out of their boxes, and before they went back to the Out Store. The C-14 dates have got to be kosher.’
‘So the mix-up must have happened over Easter weekend?’
‘Yes. And the dates themselves prove it.’
‘So there’s no doubt about it,’ said Harriet sadly. ‘At best, Paul’s stretched himself so thin that he’s become incompetent and at worst he just doesn’t care.’
‘Let’s just take it one step at a time,’ said Alan.
Harriet nodded, and squeezed his hand.
Alan watched as Harriet slowly made her way back towards the office.
The more time that passed, the more Alan hated lying to her. He wondered for a second whether this is how it had happened for Paul: a series of small scams and fiddles at first, easy to justify when he worked so hard, had sacrificed so much for his job. And then, step by step the thing had snowballed…
A part of Alan still had a trace of sympathy for the bloke. After all, he had survived on his wits in a competitive world. And now Lane suspected him of murder. Poor bastard. But whatever he had or hadn’t done, Paul was up to his neck in it. There could be absolutely no doubt now: the money and the modern Anatolian bones were both inextricably linked to PFC.
* * *
A chilly breeze was blowing off the North Sea, as Alan drove Brutus up the tree-lined avenue to Scoby Hall. He rang the bell and Alistair came to the door.
He was on his own. A few minutes later sitting comfortably in the warm kitchen, over mugs of hot tea and biscuits, Alistair was keen to discover the latest Guthlic’s PX news. Alan was warming to him: not only had he been a good excavator, but he also cared about what had been found – and it was unusual to find someone from outside the profession who treated it as more than a good healthy hobby. Alan was also painfully aware that his friend’s amateur interest was about to become closer – and very personal. He just hoped against hope that he had the moral strength to follow the trail to its very end. Alistair began.
‘Now tell me, what have you been learning from all those tests?’
Alan began by telling him about the radiocarbon results from the graveyard. Then he moved on to the stable isotopes and how the results might fit with Harriet’s theories about migrations and folk movements in Saxon England. He thought it wisest not to discuss his and Harriet’s doubts about those results at this stage, and not just because that might cause Alistair to withhold future funding. He was also becoming aware that there were now a number of disturbing parallels between the Kabuls and Alistair’s family, the Crutchleys, which were better left unstated at this stage.
Alistair listened closely, while Alan spoke. Normally his natural shyness made him look people in the eye in short bursts, often when enthusiasm or affection made him bolder. But while he was speaking Alan was acutely aware that Alistair was staring deep into his eyes, the whole time. It was as if he were trying to bore into his brain to recover every last grain, every atom of information. When Alan had finished, Alistair sat back and sighed deeply.
‘Well,’ he began, ‘wasn’t that fantastic. I don’t think I’ve ever spent money better.’ He paused. ‘No, never.’ As he rose to collect the teapot from the edge of the Aga, he turned to Alan and asked, ‘But what about those babies you found over by the sexton’s shed?’
First the good news, now for the bad news. Alan was not looking forward to this. Harriet had made him promise that he would never tell Alistair about Alaric’s ‘lipids test’. To his discredit Alan had argued the point with her. But now he had to agree: human bones, especially those human bones, should never be offered to dogs.
‘Yes, I was coming to them,’ Alan began, gathering his thoughts, ‘the radiocarbon results suggested quite strongly that they were all put in the ground at the same time.’
Alistair was leaning forward, his eyes wide open. He couldn’t contain himself.
‘And the dates? How old are they?’
‘As you know, it’s not unusual to find young children and babies buried near churchyard wall in the Middle Ages, but these were far more recent…’
Again, Alistair cut in. ‘What, Victorian?’
‘Possibly, but more probably Edwardian, or early twentieth century.’
‘And there can be no doubt?’ This was asked in a far quieter voice. By now he was sitting back, his stare towards the ground.
‘I have to say, Alistair,’ Alan continued as gently as he could, ‘I was very struck by the fact that the babies were found so close to the sexton’s shed. It made me think there might be a family connection?’
‘Yes, it sounds to me like they were buried at about the time AAC built it.’
‘Doubtless the person or people concerned wanted to take advantage of the building works. Disturbed ground, that sort of thing. It happens today, all the time.’
‘So you don’t think there has to be a family connection?’
Alan didn’t want to hit him with the whole truth in one sitting. Much better give the process time. It would be easier to accept.
‘Good heavens, no. As I said, building sites disturb the ground and offer opportunities. Think of those concrete bridges in east London where gangsters disposed of their victims.’
‘Could we analyse their teeth, like the other bodies?’
‘No, that won’t work, I’m afraid. They were too young; their teeth weren’t properly developed.’
‘Is there anything else?’
‘Well actually yes, there is,’ Alan replied. ‘DNA tests would soon be able to determine if they were related in any way to the Crutchleys.’
‘Fine, fine,’ Alistair said assertively. ‘Let’s do that. And I don’t care what it costs.’
Alan then explained that he didn’t want to involve the police at this stage and he could get the DNA work done through friends at Biomedia, a small company in Cambridge set up by two postgraduate students in the Genetics Department. They’d done some very low-cost samples for him, back in 2005. Alistair agreed to this with a nod. Words had become superfluous.
* * *
Two days later, Alan was back in the secure classroom at Blackfen. He’d told himself that it would be unfair on the other students if he pitched the lesson to suit his investigation of Ali, but he was also painfully aware that somehow he must raise the pressure. So he moved the session on Death, Burial and the Afterlife, that he was going to give the following month forward. To today.
He began the talk by pointing out that people in the remote past were no different to ourselves. All they lacked was our science-based view of the world, and just like us, they were struck by grief when a close member of their family died. One of their ways of coping was to focus on the afterlife through special ‘ritual’ objects that were placed in and around the grave, at the funeral. He had half suspected that his audience, most of whom were convicted killers, or multi-murderers, would have smiled, or worse, sneered at what he was saying. But as he looked around, he could see his words had made quite a profound impression. As the lights went up at the end of his talk, at least two men were wiping their eyes with their sleeves.
At the start of their one-to-one session Alan noticed that Ali had lost much of his former energy. He also seemed more like the Ali he knew back in 2002. More natural, if not more relaxed. Alan decided to stick to archaeology at first and then see how things developed. He reached below the desk and took out three boxes. The first contained a roll of plastic gloves, which they both put on. The second contained a head torch and large magnifying lens, which he passed through the little hatch below the grill.
‘Blimey,’ Ali said quietly. ‘Quite a build-up. What’s coming next?’
Alan was concentrating on the third box before him, but he could hear the suppressed enthusiasm in Ali’s voice.
‘It’s rather special, Ali, in fact I ex
cavated it myself, so I don’t want it damaged. Hence the gloves…’
Alan lifted the lid and removed something that looked like the blade of a huge paper knife, but it was dark greenish brown and the cutting edge was rough and uneven.
‘What’s that?’ Ali asked as Alan carefully passed it through to him. As Alan expected, Ali’s gloved hands handled it with great delicacy.
‘It’s a broken sword blade…’
‘And how old?’ Ali cut in. He couldn’t contain his excitement.
‘Late Bronze Age. About 900 BC.’
‘I’ve never held something that old before…’ Ali murmured, more to himself than Alan.
‘Now put on your head torch and look at the edge of the blade under the lens.’
Ali did as he was told.
‘Looks like someone’s bashed it against a brick or something with a hard edge.’
‘You’re absolutely right, Ali. That’s exactly what happened.’
‘But why do that?’
‘We’ll never know for certain, of course, but it was probably their way of removing it from our world – from the world of the living – and transferring it to the afterlife.’
Ali looked puzzled.
‘It was probably done shortly after the man who owned it died and it would have been done as part of his funeral service.’
Ali adjusted his head torch to a slightly different angle and peered at it even more closely.
‘And it seems to have been broken clean across the blade. That seems odd?’
‘Well spotted. I’ve had students miss that.’
‘But why the break?’
‘The sword was miscast and had broken across a flaw, a fault, in the metal. Hence the clean snap.’
Ali shook his head in amazement. He was completely wrapped-up in the magic of the three-thousand-year-old object in his hands.
Time to move things on. He motioned to Ali to return the blade, which he did even more carefully than before.
The Lifers' Club Page 28
