Becwethan (The Leopold Dix Thrillers Book 1)

by mark mctighe

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got any sisters” Rufus said.

  We all laughed at that one.

  The next morning brought a visitor. I was still in my tent, Dominique and Gustav were under the new roof, and Rufus was crapping in the forest, “off to the dunny” he’d said as he passed my tent. Did I really need to know?

  “Hello” he said, “my name is Remy, pleased to meet you”.

  My fist was clenched; face full of uncertainty, but rationalised that he didn’t look like trouble. He recognised the pent up aggression and blurted out. “I’m Dominique’s father.”

  “I put my hand out, I’m delighted to meet you, I wasn’t expecting you, sorry.”

  “I hadn’t planned to come, but now that you’ve met Dominique, I wanted to introduce myself. Remy Von Arx, I’m your cousin”.

  You could have knocked me over with a feather, I was so surprised.

  “Please come and sit down, tea? I’ve got a shed load of questions.”

  I spent an hour talking with Remy. I established that I had two uncles living in Grimentz, Marc and Mattieau, and I had four cousins. Marc’s children were Raphy and Pierre, and Mattieau’s children Remy and Catherine.

  “It’s a long shot but Catherine doesn’t work for the commune does she?” I enquired.

  “Yes; Grimentz office”.

  “Shit, I’ve had numerous meetings with her, and never knew.” ‘She must have known’ I thought, ‘why didn’t she say anything? Creepy.’

  To my further surprise I found that my grandfather’s brother, Luke, was 85 and still going strong, and his sister Janine was 93, but weak; ‘great uncles and great aunts, Rufus is going to love this’.

  Dominique was equally surprised to see her father there, and I detected a certain coldness between him and Gustav. But I don’t know many fathers who would want their daughter to marry a man 20 plus years their senior. Dominique gave me a huge hug, “we’re family then.” I could see she was confused; why hadn’t her father said something?

  Rufus bustled over to say hello, but drifted back to the task in hand and knocked out another 15 ft of trench.

  Dominique left with her father. Gustav and I sat down to discuss what we had just learnt.

  “So we’re going to be family then,” Gustav mused. “I should have known you’d be related to half the village. It’s just one huge extended family.” Gustav paused for thought; I could see he was wrestling with something. “Leo” he began, “you know if you’re not family, they don’t half make you feel like an outsider. Did you see the reaction of Dom’s father, he can hardly give me the time of day, and I’m marrying his daughter in a couple of months.”

  “It could be something to do with your age.”

  “No, that’s bullshit, it’s more than that.” Gustav had adopted a hangdog expression. “Her family are odd you know. I’m sorry Leo; I know you’ve just started meeting them ...but..... your relatives are odd” he muttered.

  “Well I didn’t think the reception I received was perfectly normal, and that had to be family, whether immediate or distant. I think I’d like to meet these uncles; I’ve met Catherine and Remy, but not the other two cousins.

  “Raphy and Pierre” Gustav interjected. “Not normal in my book”.

  “Have you seen them around in the last month?”

  “Raphy, yes, not Pierre, Dom said he’s carrying out repairs on the summer cow sheds. They’re about 8km across from here on Point de Lona, you can just make them out there” he said, pointing south from us and slightly higher.

  “I’d like to make a visit, see what shape he’s in; I take it he’s a farmer then?”

  “Yes, I’ve never seen much of him..... Leo, there’s another thing you ought to know. Dominique’s out of it all now, but they’re all Catholics.”

  I laughed out loud, “so am I, and so is a hefty chunk of Europe.”

  “No not like that, not regular Catholics, they keep themselves separate from the church here. It’s just unusual; Dominique won’t discuss it with me. I think she’d feel she was betraying her father, but she couldn’t wait to get clear. I think I was the perfect excuse.” The cork was out of the bottle, and everything started to spill out. “The village is split, most seem to go to church as normal, or if they’re like me they don’t bother anymore. Your lot and most of the old families, they seem to be more orthodox, perhaps fundamental’s the word I’m looking for. They’ve created a different........ a bastardised version. It’s not sinister or anything but it separates them from the rest of the village. They have a service in the meeting rooms in the centre of the old town; it’s not like they’re trying to hide.”

  “So it’s not perfect here then!” I exclaimed.

  “Nearly”, he smiled, “just the usual problems with the in-laws. But now that I know you’re related to them, I thought it would be useful………”

  We both turned as Rufus, pale and sweaty approached. “You’d better come and take a look” he said.

  “At what?” I replied.

  “Just come dad, I think it’s a body.”

  I could see that a tree had forced Rufus to excavate perhaps a metre to the left of the original pipe run. He’d had to move a large rock, perhaps half a metre square, to enable him to cut through the ground.

  “This could be a grave stone” I said, tapping the large stone with the spade. At the bottom of the trench was a skull. “I’m no expert, but this looks like it’s been here a long time. Ten generations of Von Arx’s have lived here; it could be any one of them. I’ll cover the grave up and we can route the pipe around the other side of the tree.

  Rufus was a little shaken. He’d laboured hard all morning, his blood sugar levels were low, and he’d had a shock.

  “Take in some sun Rufus, Gus’ll make some sandwiches, there’s plenty of cheese left over from last night.” Gustav was pleased to have something to occupy him as I went back to the skeleton to reinstate the ground.

  With the others out of the way I took a closer look. There was some damage to both eye sockets and the jaw bone had been broken. I picked up a piece of the bottom jaw. A gold filling was evident. “Not so very old” I muttered. I checked over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching and removed the rest of the jaw bone, carefully tucking both pieces into my pocket. I backfilled the trench, replaced the stone, and traced out a new route for Rufus to follow.

  EIGHT

  We rationalised that we didn’t need delays on the project, there was no point in alerting anyone to the fact that we’d found a body, it was almost certainly 100 years old. We could always dig it up again later.

  It was with this belief that I let Gustav and Rufus continue their everyday life. Rufus continued to labour, completing the relay of the pipe by early June, and cracking on with the extension. Gustav was busy mountain guiding as the summer season really took off. I, on the other hand, had strong suspicions that we had discovered what others had been trying to hide; that the attack on the first day had been an act of desperation, an attempt to keep us from discovering this body. So I took Jack up on his offer. I sent him a note asking him to do the obvious thing; track down my father’s dental records.

  Our progress was excellent and the manual labour satisfying. The old barn had no timber that could be salvaged, but the stones made a perfect footing for the new building. I took particular care to source old wood so it would all blend in. Again we sort assistance for the roof and as June turned to July we had finished the exterior construction and had all the materials on site to finish the job.

  Every day I checked my post box in the village to see if Jack had replied. After 3 weeks I couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Jack, any joy on the records?” I enquired.

  “You should have had them a week by now” he replied. “I’ll email a copy to you from home tonight”.

  Had they been intercepted? Or was I just paranoid?

  With the best part of two months to go until the climb it was important that I kept in shape. I
ran every morning and performed three circuits of the exercises we’d set up in the forest. Pull ups, inclined sit ups, dips, squat thrusts, and finally push ups. I could still take Rufus on the pull ups, but he had me beat on everything else.

  “Come on Rufus; let’s have a pull up competition.”

  “Yeh yeh, give me a couple more weeks, then I’ll take you.”

  Rufus worked steadily on prepping the climb, frequently disappearing with Gustav to discuss the route options over a few beers.

  “I’m just off for half an hour” I informed Rufus.

  “You expecting something then?” He said looking at the laptop case I was carrying.

  “Jack wanted me to look some things over”. I headed higher up the slope to a spot where the signal strength was normally good. The computer went through its usual routine and I entered a variety of passwords. Eventually I got to my emails. There was just one from Jack, with various attachments. Tucked away in an appropriate case was a set of dental records. I opened the attachment and pulled the piece of the jaw bone out of my pocket. ‘Moment of truth’ I thought. I carefully looked from one to the other. The plasma screen illuminated my face, attracting an assortment of flies and insects. I held the jaw close to the screen, orientating it this way and that, until I got the position just right. Jack knew my limitations and had kindly had the ‘dentist speak’ transcribed into something I could understand, interpret.

  It was a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, no doubt about it; this was my father’s jaw. The forest around me was active, jays and woodpeckers returning to their nests, a golden eagle high above, riding the upward stream of air from the warm mountain. ‘Now what to do?’ I thought. It didn’t take me long to make a decision.

  “Gustav.”

  “Yes, is that you Leo?” There was concern in his voice.

  “We’ve got a problem with the body. It’s not 100 years old, it’s my father’s.” There was a moment’s silence from the other end.

  “I’m sorry Leo. You’re the expert, how do we take it from here? It certainly explains a few things.” He was waiting for direction, guidance.

  “I think you should bring Francois up here in the morning, there’s no point in hiding it, they’ll need to investigate this properly” I said.

  “How do we know it’s him?” Gustav enquired.

  “I checked the dental records”....... “With my mother’s note and the attack on the first night I thought it possible. It’s just taken this long to find his records.”

  I returned home, Rufus was humming to himself, in good spirits. I slid the case back into its hiding place.

  “It’s your grandfather buried out there.”

  “Christ, how’d you find that out?” He exclaimed.

  The chalet filled with emptiness, total quiet.

  “It’s why mother sent me here. I feel it. She wants me to bury him properly.” We sat in silence for ten minutes.

  “I’ll make a tea” I said, “then we’ve got some work to do before the police arrive in the morning. I want to have a closer look at the body.”

  “Sounds like fun” Rufus said sarcastically.

  Once more I became a police. The emotion of the situation was behind me and I needed to get information.

  “Rufus, you’re in charge of lighting, see what you can rig up. I’ll bring the tea out.” I gathered the pick, spade, a trowel, screwdriver, and camera. I could always come back if I needed anything else. My plan was to excavate back to the point that Rufus had been at, clean off the skull, get some close ups and send them to Jack for analysis. I didn’t want any mistakes at this end.

  “That’s good enough,” I said, “sorry I couldn’t manage the tea as well, it’s on the table.”

  “No worries”, Rufus was warming to the task in hand and returned speedily with the two steamers.

  The ground was soft; Rufus had done all the hard work the first time. We levered up the stone and with the spade and trowel then gently moved the final layer of soil. Everything was just as we’d left it.

  I used the screw driver to carefully scrape away the soil. The soil was dry; it had a peat like texture and flaked away from the skull easily. I found I could brush away the final layer with my fingers.

  “I need a close up of the damage around the eye sockets. You see here, and here, the bone looks jagged.” I showed Rufus the damaged areas. I took ten photographs of each socket from differing angles. The damage on the jaw was different. It looked old. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t do that with the pick.” I photographed the jaw and the pieces I’d used for identification, leaving them all together.

  “What’s this bone?” Rufus asked.

  I hadn’t noticed but alongside the head, about 5 inches apart, was a bone. I dug around it gently with the screw driver.

  “A little more light over here Rufus…. that’s better.” I excavated around the bone. It was jagged. As I exposed more I could see what it was.

  “I wonder if it’s the same on the other side”. I turned my attention to the other side of the skull; sure enough there was another bone. It was the same.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Rufus asked.

  “Yes, two arms and no hands”.

  “What the fuck happened here dad?”

  I took the camera and photographed both arms.

  “This isn’t wild animals”, I could already hear the police saying it was. “I’ve got to get these images off to Jack tonight.”

  “You’ve still not told me; how can we be sure it’s him?” Rufus asked.

  “As you’ve probably gathered, Jack’s in the loop. He sent the dental records for comparison. There’s no doubt.” I thought for second, “The problem we’ve got Rufus is that someone is on to us. I think the hard copy he sent was intercepted. It’s important that we get these photos off now. The local police could arrive, take the body, and ruin the evidence. We don’t know where their interests lie.”

  I left Rufus to cover the body with a tarpaulin and some largish stones. After all we didn’t want any wild animals messing with the evidence. I trekked up to the strong signal, transferred the images from the camera to the lap top, and emailed Jack.

  Jack

  Thanks for this. I’ve attached 20 images of the eye sockets, 10 of the jaw and 5 of each forearm. The dental records match, local police are involved.

  Leo

  I pressed send. A red cross appeared over the internet connection. No signal. A snapping noise in the forest made me jerk my head to the left. I instinctively looked to the right, that’s where the blow would come from if there were two of them. I peered into the dark forest, my eyes fighting to adjust from the brightness of the screen. Pushing the screen down the light from the computer died. The moon was strong enough for me to see four or five trees ahead. I scanned the area, knife at the ready, body absolutely motionless. I stayed like this for about five minutes. It was vital that the message was sent.

  As I waited for the attack I thought, ‘is there a signal now? Has it been blocked? If I could just press send.....’ I knew the moment I flicked the screen open I would become a sitting duck, so I waited. Another five minutes passed; still no noise.

  “Crack, crack”, broken twigs. The outline of a chamois moved across the forest and into a small clearing, lowering its neck it started to graze on the nutritious high altitude grass.

  I continued to sit it out; just to be sure. Another twenty minutes went by and I was confident that I was alone. I pulled the computer open. The connection was good and the email waiting to go. I didn’t hesitate, send.

  As one final precaution I removed the memory card from the camera, popped it into a small plastic bag, and hid it. I had a partly used spare in the camera case which I slotted into its place. I didn’t want it to look suspicious if the police asked to see my camera.

  I had been gone far longer than I expected and I suspected Rufus would be getting twitchy.

  “Where the fuck have you been dad? I was getting pretty edgy h
ere. I’m covering bodies up in the fucking forest, there are noises everywhere, and you’ve gone for the best part of 2 hours.”

  “Sorry, my paranoia delayed me. But Jack’ll have the photos now.”

  We were exhausted. Rufus fell asleep immediately; I found sleep harder, my mind going over all the information, facts, evidence, and personalities. Finally I too succumbed and fortunately fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  “I’m struggling to know what to call it” Rufus announced as he put the tea on. “Skeleton, corpse, body, granddad, your dad”.

  I smiled and nodded my head. “I’d stick with skeleton, if I were you.”

  Rufus was in good spirits, he looked taller and bullet proof. I could see he was going to supply maximum support. We finished up breakfast and waited for the police to arrive.

  “I’ll carry on with the dunny, thunder box, shit hole. Just shout if you need any teas brewing, or lunch making.” Rufus said.

  He was using the digging out of the loo as another climbing exercise regime. He’d described it to me as ‘fartlek digging’; which was particularly appropriate. He’d dig as fast as he could for five minutes, then rest for three. He’d even set his watch up to beep at the necessary intervals. The climb was proving to be a welcome distraction. Gustav and Rufus had firmed up the route and agreed that Rufus would lead the climb. He was technically the best and strongest climber, although I hadn’t seen Pascoe in action.

  At just after 10am I could see a group of men climbing the footpath below.

  “They’re here Rufus, if you sort the refreshments I’ll meet and greet”.

  I recognised Francois, who was wearing his full police uniform, Gustav was there, and two other men followed, slightly more out of breath than the rest.

  Francois made the introductions; “this is Pascal Vianni, he’ll be handling the case”.

  Pascal was a bear of a man, he thrust out a paw; yellow from the 30 or so he clearly smoked a day.

  “Pleased to meet you Mr Dix” his voice didn’t disappoint; gravelly, through the shortness of breath, and friendly. The eye contact was held.