The Severance Trilogy Box Set

by Mark McKay

  She stopped at the fence, taking in the scene. There was nobody around. In fact there was nothing to see but a large heavy looking tarpaulin, which covered the area directly in front of the crane. She was perplexed. There were signs that test rods had been used to gauge the soil beneath most of the area, but why the crane? There was absolutely no need for it. Unless… She took a quick look around and then climbed over the fence.

  The tarpaulin was staked down with metal pins. She wrestled with each of them and finally extracted the last one. She was sweating now. The tarpaulin was as heavy as it looked and she began to roll it back from the end nearest the crane. A part of her knew what it had to be covering and as the smooth two thousand year old slab revealed itself she gasped in sheer wonder and joy. There were elaborately carved letters in Brahmi coming into view, and she laughed a little hysterically as the words “Son of Ashoka” sprang out at her. There was more, but that could wait. The slab was some ten feet long, no wonder they needed the crane. She was kneeling on it now, rolling the tarpaulin back on itself. Then the slab ended, but the tarpaulin continued. She managed to stop rolling it back enough to prevent it from falling into the gap beyond and then she leapt off the slab and attacked the gap from the other end.

  They had dragged the slab back with the crane so the tomb entrance was only partly uncovered, but the gap was six feet across and wide enough for a man to get into. She could see steps. This was incredible, but she wasn’t going anywhere without light. She ran back to the crane. There was a toolbox in the cab and thank God, a decent size torch, too. And it worked. Her heart was beating like a drum and she took another look around, the place was still deserted. Then she slipped carefully into the gap and slid down the first few stairs, until she could stand unimpeded. She switched the torch on.

  The stairs were wide and smooth and were certainly just as they had been so long ago, when this place was built. She was entering a time machine. She descended for what must have been thirty feet and then the stairs ended, and she was on a dusty stone floor. She shone the torch upwards and saw an equally smooth stone ceiling, about fifteen feet above. The air down here was stale but breathable, and she started walking ahead.

  They began to appear on either side of her, about five footsteps apart. Long rows of proudly seated lions towering a foot or so above her, with their mottled stone manes and their majestic heads, staring ahead. It was pitch black and she had to swing the torch from side to side to capture them in the light before they were gone again. She counted twenty on each side and then they stopped.

  She could see that the hall of lions had opened out into something more spacious, but the torch beam wasn’t doing much to penetrate the darkness ahead of her. She played the light around her feet and saw a generator off to one side. There were cables extending from it and she figured it must be driving some sort of lighting system. She bent down and unscrewed the petrol cap. She could smell fuel, so she primed the pump and steadying her foot against the generator, pulled the cord.

  The first two tries produced nothing but sputtering. ‘Come on,’ she breathed. Then on the third pull it came to life and a moment later, the arc lights came on. Rebecca stood transfixed, she felt sudden tears of wonder streaming down her face. The hall had opened into a circular chamber and in the middle of this was the tomb of Baladitya, with a sarcophagus resting on a raised stone dais. Looking down on the sarcophagus were four more seated lions, each positioned in its own quadrant of the circle so its gaze was directed centrally towards the dais. But these were no ordinary lions. Each was at least eight feet high, elaborately sculpted and staring at their charge with huge emerald eyes. And they weren’t made of stone. Each one of them, from head to foot, was fashioned exquisitely in gold. Rebecca was willing to bet that it was solid gold, too. Four solid gold lions, of great splendour and utterly priceless.

  It was a dream. She pulled out her phone and took photos in rapid succession, some to get as wide an angle as possible and then moving in close to ensure she got the sculpted detail of paws and manes and heads. And the sarcophagus, of course. She reached up to stroke one golden mane, marvelling at the craftsmanship. Then the generator spluttered once more and she thought it must be low on fuel. Time to go. When she switched the machine off the silence was deafening and the darkness impenetrable, apart from the shaft of light illuminating the entrance steps at the far end of the hall of lions. Easy enough to get back with the torch, all she had to do was walk in a straight line. She was halfway there when she heard the sound of voices. People were coming down the stairs!

  For a moment, she panicked. Then she killed the torch and felt her way into the gap between the two closest lions. Was there any space behind them? Yes, there was just enough room to stand upright directly behind one of them. She waited, trying to breathe as quietly as possible, but she was sure the sound of her racing heart must be loud enough to be heard ten feet away. The voices came closer, a man and a woman speaking a language she didn’t recognise, advancing as she had done, by torchlight. They stopped talking and passed her by, but she couldn’t see them. She only knew they had gone further on because she saw the beam of the passing torch. Had they stopped? Were they looking for her? She didn’t dare move.

  The generator started up. Rebecca inched her way out and looked towards the sound. The arc lights were on now and she could see two figures silhouetted by their glare, with their backs to her. Over the noise of the generator she thought she heard one word in French from the woman, a simple ‘Magnifique’. She hoped the magnificence referred to would hold their attention for as long as it took her to get out of here and then she quietly slipped her shoes off and ran back to the entrance, thinking the generator would cover any noise she was making. Before she went up the steps she turned back to see what was happening. They seemed fully occupied and hadn’t moved and from here they were just distant figures, anyway. She ascended as fast as she could, only pausing to take a look around the site before emerging fully into the daylight. There was nobody else up here. She stopped briefly to put on her shoes and then ran through a gap in the fence where it had been unlocked and set a brisk pace back to the car.

  When she got there she was perspiring freely in the heat. The car had air conditioning, she thought. A Mercedes was parked not far away, and after getting in her own vehicle she wrote down the licence plate number. She started the car and drove out of Chipra. If the two people she’d just narrowly avoided had registered the presence of her car and seen that it was a hire car by the sticker in the rear window and bothered to take the details, then she might be in trouble. And the locals she had passed would remember a white woman. She told herself to calm down and rationalise the situation. They wouldn’t have been looking for anything out of the ordinary until they got to the site and saw that the tarpaulin had been moved. And as they had left the place unattended, it could have been moved by anyone. She couldn’t understand why they would leave it open to trespass in any case, but she knew that any prospective tomb robber would need to bring in some very heavy lifting gear to stand a chance of getting the lions out. They weren’t going anywhere, any time soon.

  She was elated, confused and terrified all at once. Elated at the amazing discovery, confused by Marsh’s assertion that there was nothing to be found when there so patently was something, and terrified by the implications that her discovery might have for her continued well-being. Two people were dead in connection with this already and she didn’t want to be number three. She needed to get out of sight for a while and think. She concentrated her attention on the road ahead and half an hour later she was back at the airport hire car terminal. She dropped the car and took a taxi into town. She had a hotel booked for one night where she figured she could hole up, calm down, and try and make some sense of all this.

  Later that evening she was none the wiser. All she really thought she knew was that Alexander Marsh had lied to her. To locate the tomb entrance and uncover it and then get the crane in to drag back the slab would take at
least a week, maybe two. Simon had flown back from here, presumably directly after giving Marsh the information, on July 4th. Then on the 8th he was murdered, and today was the 22nd. So it was doubtful that the team Marsh claimed he’d sent had been and gone away empty handed in that time, leaving the site free for another team to just appear from nowhere and find what the first one couldn’t. She had to conclude that Alexander Marsh must have had other plans for any potential find right from the moment Simon and he first met, and then having found something way beyond expectation wasn’t about to share it with anyone else.

  Rebecca, on the other hand, fully intended to share her discovery with the Archaeological Survey of India’s Kolkata office as soon as she got back. If they already knew about it, then it would be because Marsh had gone down the proper channels, though that didn’t explain his lie to her. But if they didn’t know, they could get an official team up there and take over the site. That seemed like a plan to cover all the bases, but it didn’t relieve her anxiety. She had intended to do a little sightseeing and then find a restaurant, but decided against it. She would eat in her room.

  At 9.30 she called DCI Severance.

  ‘Rebecca, I’m relieved to hear from you. Are you OK?’

  ‘Fine. I found something. Give me your email address, I’m going to send you some photos. Take a look at them and then call me back, will you?’

  Ten minutes later he returned the call. ‘Am I looking at what I think I’m looking at?’ he asked.

  ‘I found the tomb, just where Simon thought it would be. In archaeological terms it’s a huge find, just amazing.’

  ‘You must be over the moon. Are these lions I’m looking at made of gold? They must be worth a fortune.’

  ‘Yes, solid gold I think. But when I say I found it, I wasn’t the first. I’m worried. I was told by the man at the India Society that there was nothing there.’

  ‘But you went there anyway? Does he know?’

  ‘No, but I’m not sure what’s going on now.’ She gave him the full details. ‘The people who came down as I was on my way out must know the site was disturbed.’

  ‘Did you get a look at them?’

  ‘No. A man and a woman, but I only know that because I heard their voices. I don’t know what language they were speaking. I thought she said something in French, later on.’

  ‘Ah, that’s interesting.’

  ‘Really? In any case it could have been anyone disturbing the place. They’d left it unattended, for how long I don’t know, of course.’

  Nick was concerned. ‘I think if what you say is correct and Alexander Marsh is doing a little private enterprise, then you’re probably going to be the prime suspect. We can’t protect you while you’re in India. And now we have another man murdered and I can only assume there is a link, but I don’t know what it is. Do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘What are your plans, once you’ve spoken to the Archaeological Survey people in Kolkata?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I could come back to London. I’d intended to do a week or two of travelling here, first.’

  ‘Where are you staying in Kolkata?’

  She gave him the address.

  ‘I’d like you to keep in touch,’ he said. ‘Let me know what they say in Kolkata. I would prefer it if you came back to London as soon as you can.’

  Rebecca sighed. ‘Will I be safe there? Simon wasn’t.’

  ‘We should be able to help with protection.’

  ‘I’ll let you know. Right now, I don’t feel safe anywhere.’

  She flew back to Kolkata the next day and arrived early evening. Ross was still in residence and met her on the way into the hotel.

  ‘Back already? Find anything in that village of yours?’

  ‘No, nothing. Are you doing anything for dinner?’

  They went to another restaurant, of his choice. The food was excellent, but she couldn’t give it the attention it deserved. She felt jumpy, on edge. Some of this was communicated to her dining partner.

  ‘What’s up, Rebecca?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Alright, don’t bite my head off. You seem a bit nervy, that’s all.’

  ‘Time of the month. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  He was unconvinced, but left it at that. She wasn’t about to share her concerns with anyone, besides it was a long story and would sound like nothing more than a fantasy to someone she’d just met. She hardly believed it herself. She tried to calm down, but her gaze kept straying to the door whenever anyone entered the restaurant. It was ridiculous. It was a perfectly normal evening in a perfectly normal restaurant and all these people coming and going were no threat whatsoever. And tomorrow she could share the details of her find with the proper authorities and get out of here. Still, she wanted to be out of sight and not sitting here feeling so vulnerable in a public place. When Ross suggested dessert she just looked at him and he took the hint. By 9pm she was back in her room.

  She’d ordered a large gin and lime from the bar on her way through, and now she sat cradling it. Hopefully it would calm her down a little and even help her to sleep. She checked the mirror. Tomorrow she would get some hair dye and take out the purple streaks. Yes, she should become as anonymous as possible and then leave Kolkata. Maybe she could go up to Rishikesh and get lost in an ashram for a week or two. As long as the lions were safe first… There was a knock at the door and she flinched. Perhaps it was Ross, wanting a nightcap. Well why not, just the one. She opened up.

  ‘Ms Slade?’ A woman, wearing a burka. How did they do it in this heat?

  ‘Yes, who are you?’

  ‘May I?’ The woman advanced and Rebecca took an involuntary step back. The woman closed the door behind her.

  It was disconcerting. Rebecca could only see the eyes and they didn’t look friendly. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’d like you to come with me, please.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, with anyone. Would you leave now?’

  The woman reached into her shoulder bag, quite casually. Then she was pointing a small handgun at Rebecca’s midriff.

  ‘This gun is very quiet and at this range, very lethal. Please do as you’re told.’

  Rebecca stumbled back and found herself sitting on the bed, speechless.

  ‘Get up.’ The voice wasn’t polite any more. ‘Walk in front of me, quite normally. Don’t make a noise or do anything to attract attention or you will regret it, I promise.’

  She did as she was told. She prayed that Ross would appear as they walked through the foyer, but it was deserted. Everyone was in the lounge, or out in the courtyard. There was a car waiting outside and as Rebecca got in she wondered if she would ever see the inside of this hotel, or any other for that matter, ever again.

  Chapter 6

  Nick was restless. The most productive line of enquiry was obviously Alexander Marsh in Kolkata, assuming Rebecca was right about him misleading her. Someone should be asking Mr Marsh some questions, a task complicated by the fact that the prospective questioner was now sitting in an office thousands of miles away. There was the phone, of course. It had been twenty-four hours since his conversation with Rebecca and she should now be back in Kolkata, talking to the Archaeological Survey of India people about her find. If it wasn’t them at the tomb, then who? He should really wait until Rebecca called him back with an update and then he could contact Marsh, fully briefed. But what the hell, why not talk to Marsh now, anyway?

  He checked the time, 1pm. That meant 6.30pm in Kolkata. Surely the India Society had a web page, with some contact details. He googled them and found the page. There was even a phone number for the Secretary’s office listed, so he dialled it. Half a minute passed and then he got a recorded message telling him the office was closed till 10am the following morning. He made a note of the number and decided he would try it again from his flat tomorrow morning, around 6am.

  That evening he went to a training
session. He hadn’t seen Lauren since their return from Paris. They had spoken on the phone and she had been rather brusque, saying she was on her way to Manchester for a week to do some work. She was obviously still annoyed with his silence on the small matter of her pregnancy, but it wasn’t discussed and they hadn’t spoken since. He didn’t expect to see her tonight, so was surprised when he stepped onto the mat to find her there. She was on the far side of the dojo, eyes closed and kneeling in seiza, the sitting on the heels pose that Aikido students customarily adopt when in meditation or watching the sensei, or teacher, demonstrating. She held her hands in her lap, one over the other and palms up, the whole pose being a way to centre one’s concentration in the hara, or literal centre of the body, just below the navel. This was where the power source was concentrated and where all movement in the art was initiated from.

  He thought she looked quite serene. Her blonde hair was tied tightly behind her neck and the white jacket she wore highlighted her fair complexion, accentuating the contours of her cheekbones. All perfectly complemented by the lightly closed, generously shaped and unmistakably feminine mouth. You can look at someone so many times and forget how lovely they are he thought, ruefully. Then she opened her eyes and looked directly at him. The image of serenity was replaced by a barely perceptible pursing of the lips and a questioning stare. He felt a stab of guilt, but smiled back and then started some warm up stretches.

  She came over, there was no greeting kiss. He wasn’t sure if she was just observing dojo etiquette or if the omission was deliberate.

  ‘I thought you were in Manchester,’ he said.

  ‘Finished early. We need to talk.’

  ‘I know. Should you be training in your condition?’

  ‘Oh you remembered I’m pregnant. Well done.’