by Leo McNeir
One binder contained nothing but individual photos of the archaeologists, each with a name under the image and sometimes a phone number and/or an e-mail address. The person Lamb was hoping to find, the young man dressed in black, did not feature in any of those pictures.
Finally, there were two video-cassettes. One of them was a recording of the Timeline television series of digs all over the country on the subject of witchcraft, that year’s theme. The other was labelled Odds and Ends.
Lamb placed Karen’s items back in the box, shoved it under her desk and took the two video-cassettes down the corridor to a meeting room. Finding it unoccupied, she hastily switched on the television monitor in the corner and loaded the first cassette into the video machine. With a finger on the remote’s fast-forward button, Lamb raced through the material, pausing from time to time when she thought she saw her target.
And there he was, average height, lightly built, with blonde hair, dressed in black and dark grey. She had taken him originally for an archaeologist, on seeing him with the site director when a find had been made. One of the students had held up a tiny fleur-de-lys, gleaming like gold in the sunshine. The site director and the man-in-black had for some unknown reason shaken hands. Lamb froze the image and stared at it. Could he be the phantom cyclist, fleeing the scene of Garth Brandon’s murder?
Lamb ejected the cassette and fed the Odds and Ends tape into the VCR. It was well named, containing a hotchpotch of sequences, mainly snippets from news bulletins, national and regional. The BBC’s Look East programme had used the image of the handshake as a backdrop to one of its reports on the Glebe Farm dig and the discovery of the shallow graves.
Lamb finished the tape and sat back in her chair. One young man in black; a cyclist who may have been the same person; his sighting – assuming it was him – near the scene of the Brandon murder; the connection with Glebe Farm, Marnie Walker and the archaeologists; the reappearance of the man. There had to be something to it all.
Suddenly, the door flew open and Lamb nearly jumped out of her seat, woken from her concentration with a start.
“There you are, Cathy.” It was DS Marriner. “Got that burglaries report done?”
“Yes, sarge.” It was close to the truth. “I want to check it over, but you’ll have it this afternoon.”
“Good.” He looked at the TV monitor. “What’re you doing in here?”
Lamb thought quickly of the material she had assembled, the images from London, Glebe Farm and the road traffic camera. Taken together, it was all evidence, all verifiable fact, even if it was open to interpretation. No-one could call it intuition. She took a breath and summoned up her courage.
“Sarge, there’s something I want to show you.”
*
At the end of the lunch break, Zoë gathered the student archaeologists together at surface level by the top of the ladder. Donovan had been right about the weather. The sky had turned a dull grey.
While Zoë gave a summary of that morning’s progress, Anne rang Marnie on the office number. She had already tried a few times during the mid-day break, but had only reached the answerphone. Now, Marnie took the call after two rings. For a few minutes they discussed their local interior design projects before Anne gave an outline of her morning as sound engineer.
“We’re going down to the ships this afternoon,” Anne said.
“Well be very careful,” Marnie warned. “After what happened to poor Dr Fennimore …”
“Don’t worry, Marnie. I’m sure everything’s fine. Zoë’s just giving the safety lecture to the students as we speak.”
At the end of the safety lecture, Zoë despatched the students to their various stations, standing beside the ladder, giving words of encouragement to them all as they returned to work. Finally, she signalled to Donovan and Anne, who followed her down the ladder.
Arriving at the lowest level, Zoë went straight round to the students to check everything was running correctly. Anne was the last to reach the lower level and found Donovan standing quietly to one side with his head bowed, as if lost in deep reflection. Then she saw it.
In a part of the site that had been cleared and installed with reinforced shuttering, a tiny light glowed. Anne walked over to Donovan and took hold of his arm. On the muddy ground a candle was burning in a jam jar. Around it, a few bunches of flowers had been laid, a final tribute to Dr Fennimore from his students. Anne felt deeply moved at this simple offering. She swallowed hard and felt her eyes welling.
As they stood together in the grey light, Zoë came to join them.
“Not an imposing monument,” she said softly.
Donovan replied without looking up. “Its strength is its sincerity.”
“Yes,” Zoë agreed. “D’you know what happened here this morning when they did this? One of the foremen from the builders told them they weren’t allowed to litter the site in this way … litter the site … amazing.”
“What did they do?” said Anne.
“They stood staring at the foreman in total silence. One of the girls knelt down and lit the candle. The foreman went away.”
“A health and safety hazard,” Donovan murmured. “A naked flame plus a slippery surface, with articles likely to cause an obstruction or hindrance to passage.”
Anne thought it sounded as if he was quoting from a safety manual.
Donovan reached into his rucksack, removed a small object and placed it beside the jam jar. Anne saw it was a glass ball with a flat base and a gap in the top. Into this, Donovan slotted a nightlight and lit it with his Zippo. Anne felt her cheeks tingling as he stood up.
“Thank you, Donovan,” Zoë said.
Without another word, they moved away to set up their next sequence.
*
DCI Bartlett sat in the meeting room in divisional HQ, silently staring at the screen after Cathy Lamb had switched off the VCR. His expression was sombre. Also present was DS Marriner. In the long moment that followed, Lamb wished she had spent her day finishing the paperwork on the burglaries.
“So you think there’s a connection here?” Bartlett said eventually.
Lamb took no comfort from his tone. “I did wonder, sir.”
“Spell it out.”
Lamb summarised her thought processes: the glimpse of the young man on the cycle at the building site in London and on the traffic camera in Northampton two years earlier; his link with Glebe Farm; his proximity to the Brandon killing.
“It’s all very tenuous,” Bartlett said. He looked at Marriner. “What do you think, Ted?”
Lamb realised she was holding her breath.
“It is tenuous,” Marriner agreed. “On the other hand, I can see Cathy’s point. What she’s produced is at least some sort of evidence. We didn’t see much of that on this case.”
“The thing is, Ted, are we even sure it’s the same person?” Bartlett countered. “Do we know who he is?”
“His name’s Smith.” Bartlett raised a quizzical eyebrow. Marriner continued. “Nikolaus Donovan Smith. We interviewed him a few months ago in connection with that death in the canal.”
Bartlett nodded slowly. “I remember. Was he fingerprinted?”
“No call for it, sir,” Marriner said. “One other thing, he’s German, or at least part German. When he presented himself for interview, he produced a German ID card.”
“Your point being?”
“The Nazi connection.”
Lamb was glad the experienced, male DS Ted Marriner had said that, rather than herself. Coming from a woman, that might have been an intuitive step too far, even for her relatively open-minded boss.
“That’s past history, Ted.” Bartlett sounded dismissive. “And in any case, this guy is far too young to be part of all that. What is he … twenty something?”
“Early twenties, sir. But there are plenty of people around who still hanker after far-right ideas. And the bullets that killed Brandon were fired from a 9mm Luger pistol.”
Bartlett fell sil
ent again. Lamb knew better than to speak.
“Was this young man interviewed about Brandon? Do we have solid evidence that he was around at the time, other than just that image from the traffic camera?”
“I don’t think anyone interviewed him back then, sir,” said Marriner.
“There’s nothing on record,” Lamb confirmed.
More silence from Bartlett.
“Do we know how to get hold of him?”
Sensing that her boss was gradually taking the matter seriously, Cathy Lamb became more confident.
“He seems to be involved with that building project in Docklands, sir, or perhaps with the archaeologists.”
Bartlett was ahead of her. “Where the Met investigated the death of the archaeologist in charge …”
“Dr Fennimore,” Lamb said.
Bartlett nodded. “So presumably they would have interviewed him and got his details on record.”
“Shall I check it out, sir?” said Marriner.
“You do that.”
*
On balance, Anne had no real regrets about missing out on trips to museums and galleries. Filming the dig had been an interesting experience. Fulfilling the role of sound engineer, she felt involved, carrying out her tasks with total concentration.
Watching Donovan at work, she admired anew his meticulous attention to detail. Every shot, every camera angle, he set up with infinite care, balancing the lighting to give the greatest advantage in the restricted space around the ships’ remains.
And she had to admit that Zoë was an ideal presenter. Before each sequence, Donovan checked what Zoë would be saying before giving her ideas about when to point at an object or turn to look in a certain direction. She followed his advice scrupulously, but made her gestures and movements seem natural and unscripted. Zoë felt relaxed under Donovan’s guidance, which made her performance confident and professional.
When Donovan set up two-shots, where Zoë discussed a find with a student, he devoted equal care to preparing both of them. The scenes unfolded like natural conversations between colleagues, not artificially staged performances.
The first half of the afternoon flew by, and when Zoë called out, Clear up your loose, Anne could hardly believe they had been working for two hours. Zoë insisted that everyone should go up to the surface for their half-hour break. After shepherding the students up the ladders, Zoë put an arm round Anne’s and Donovan’s shoulders, guiding them along. The body language was clear: they were a team.
When they stepped off the top of the ladders at surface level, Zoë went quickly to check her e-mails, leaving Anne and Donovan to make their way to the staff hut for refreshments.
“I think that went well,” Anne said, “and Zoë’s obviously pleased.”
“For the moment,” Donovan agreed.
“Oh? You think that’s going to change?”
“Don’t you, Anne? Don’t you think she’ll be less than delighted when she remembers Dick’s discovery of King John’s treasure?”
“Ah, that …”
“Yes, that. And where is Dick?” Donovan said.
“Professor de Groot said he’d be here today or tomorrow.”
“Even so,” Donovan said, “I’d have expected him to be here by now.”
“Why?” Anne asked. “And don’t give me your usual, isn’t it obvious?”
Donovan grinned. “Okay, but I would’ve thought it was obvious why he should be here.”
“Go on.”
“There’s only a limited amount of time for him to complete work on the Saxon remains. His absence means that Zoë can use all the available manpower on her ships.”
“He must be really stretched at the moment,” Anne said, “with his PhD thesis, the Saxon skeleton and now King John’s treasure. It’s like a lifetime’s work all compressed into one bundle.”
“Like the skeleton and the tidal Thames,” Donovan said vaguely.
“That’s fairly obscure even by your standards, Donovan.”
“Sorry. I was just thinking … Dick’s in way over his head.”
Anne nudged him in the ribs and dragged him off for tea.
*
DS Marriner knocked twice on DCI Bartlett’s office door and entered, followed by DC Cathy Lamb. Bartlett listened while Marriner outlined his phone conversation with DCI Bruere in London. It was not the result he wanted.
“Didn’t interview him at all?” Bartlett said.
“No, sir. They established that this Smith character is a student at Brunel University doing some sort of filming with the archaeologists. He was nowhere near the site when the accident happened, so there was no reason to question him.”
“There were any number of reasons,” Bartlett growled. “Smith could have provided information about the condition of the shuttering. If he’d spent time down there filming, they could have asked to see his footage as photographic evidence. He could have overheard conversations, seen things, at least gained some impression of what was going on. It all seems very lax …”
“Yes, sir. I gather DCI Bruere had enough evidence to prove that it was just a case of partial collapse of the protective shuttering and scaffolding and he saw no point in further investigation.”
Bartlett sat forward with his elbows on the desk and rested his chin on his hands.
“Even so …”
Marriner and Lamb stood in awkward silence, waiting for Bartlett to pronounce. Lamb had the feeling her idea of following up on Donovan Smith was about to go down the drain.
“I think …” Bartlett began. “I think we’ll tackle this more thoroughly than the Met.”
Marriner cocked his head on one side. “Sir?”
Bartlett sat up straight. “Ted, I want you to track down this young man, find out where he lives. We’re going to pay him a surprise visit.”
“It’s in London, sir.”
“Don’t worry about that. Leave the protocol to me. I’ll talk to Bruere.”
Lamb could not prevent herself from smiling. Bartlett noticed.
“Don’t get too carried away just yet, Cathy,” he said. “It may lead nowhere, and we’ve got a long way to go on this.”
“To London, sir.” Her voice was filled with optimism.
“Yes, and while we’re away, I want you to get all the paperwork on the burglaries well and truly wrapped up.”
Lamb tried not to sag visibly. “Yes, sir.”
*
The final shoot that afternoon went well. Donovan showed Zoë and Anne the results on the small monitor at the bottom level while the students made their way up to the surface. Wearing a headset plugged into the machine, Zoë gazed at the screen with absolute concentration. She said nothing until the recording reached the end of the tape.
“Not bad,” she murmured appreciatively, removing the headset. “You were right about the sound quality, Donovan. It is better with the new mic. It’s a pity the earlier stuff sounded so poor in comparison.”
“I can camouflage that to some extent,” he said. “I’ll use some of the better quality soundtrack as voice-over as much as possible.”
“Good. Thank you for that.” A glance at Anne. “Thank you both. So what next?”
“I’d like to get some of this material edited as we go along,” Donovan said, “rather than save it all up for a huge job at the end. So unless there’s something vital that needs to be filmed tomorrow …”
“No, that’s fine,” Zoë said. “We’ll carry on down here. I want to get as much done as I can while the going’s good.”
“Presumably you can only use all the students while Dick’s absent,” said Anne.
Zoë shrugged. “It’s his loss … and my gain.”
*
Cathy Lamb did her best to hide her disappointment and very nearly succeeded. Back at her desk, she set about finalising the report on the burglaries. The statements by the victims were complete and ready for filing. The lists of stolen property she divided into two files: one comprised those items f
or which the owners had provided serial numbers, the other contained those without. It always amazed her that so many people failed to take the most basic care of their possessions, as if they were convinced their homes were impregnable. Or perhaps that was normal; only the police expected burglaries to happen.
Then she made another connection. She rapidly bundled the burglary files into a single folder and focused her thoughts on that tempestuous summer two years before. The young man on the bicycle seen by the traffic camera flashed into her mind. Next, the report of a police search of the town centre that had produced no evidence considered useful or relevant at the time. But it had produced one or two unexpected finds, among them a baseball cap and a pair of jeans found in a skip and a bicycle wedged between the skip and the end wall of a back yard. There was something about that bicycle … Lamb was convinced that if she thought about it for long enough, she would remember what it was.
DS Marriner was not at his desk, but the cassette from the traffic camera was sitting in the middle of his blotter. Lamb quickly grabbed it and sped down the corridor to the meeting room. She fed it into the VCR and fast-forwarded till she reached the section showing the mystery cyclist. Several times she ran the tape backwards and forwards until she had isolated one image in particular, showing the cyclist leaning over to turn a corner. It was far from sharp and gave no clue as to the identity of the rider. On the other hand, it gave a reasonably good view of the frame of the bicycle. The picture was little more than a blur, but it enabled Lamb to make two deductions.
The first was that she was looking at a mountain bike. The shape of the frame, the handlebars, the chunky tyres, all these left her in no doubt.
The second was the tubular construction itself. The image was black and white, but it was good enough to show that the frame was basically a light colour with the make of the bike woven into some sort of pattern in a darker shade.
And that was the connection.
The cycle found stuffed behind the skip had been a mountain bike with a dull yellow frame bearing the name, Muddy Fox, in black letters. On either side of the name was a pattern of pawprints. Now that she knew what she was looking for, Lamb could see that the bicycle on the traffic tape could be just such a bike.
