‘That’s got it,’ said Andrew. He moved back and aimed at the crack.
This time the slab broke, a chunk falling into the space below, leaving another chunk sagging. Andrew pulled it up with one end of the sledgehammer. As it fell clear, a jagged hole about a foot across was revealed.
‘Give me that torch.’
But, as Andrew turned to take it, Nick recoiled, amazed to see a swarm of tiny flies rising from the hole in the slab. A strong smell hit him in the same instant, not just of stale air, but of something much fouler.
‘Bloody hell.’ Andrew saw the flies as well and coughed at the smell. ‘What in God’s name
Nick moved reluctantly forward, batting his way through the flies as he might through a cloud of midges on a summer evening. He trained the torch on the hole in the slab and saw the ribcage of a skeleton.
‘Christ almighty,’ murmured Andrew. ‘Is that what it looks like?’
‘I hope not.’
‘Get out of the way.’ Andrew cast the sledgehammer aside and fetched the crowbar. ‘Let’s see for sure what’s there.’
He wedged the crowbar under the slab on the far side of the hole and levered it up. Cement cracked off at the margins as the slab rose. Nick craned round him and shone the torch into the space below.
And there, beyond the ribcage, was the skull, unquestionably human, staring back at them through empty eye-sockets, with flies crawling and hopping across the bone and the suety remnants of flesh.
But the flies were not what caused Nick to mutter ‘My God!’ under his breath. An inch or so above the left eye socket there was a large, splintered hole in the bone. There was no doubt in Nick’s mind: they were not looking at the remains of someone who had met a natural death.
CHAPTER NINE
The body had been buried carefully, almost respectfully. That was clear from the planking lining the trench in which it had been laid. Digging a crude hole in the earth would have been quicker and easier. But there was something meticulous about this covert interment that made it more mysterious still.
Nick and Andrew covered the broken slab with the tarpaulin their father had long kept in the garage and stood the empty rack back across it. Then they left the cellar, locking the door behind them.
‘Dad only fitted that lock to the door to stop Basil and me going down there and wreaking havoc,’ said Nick, breaking a long silence during which they had done what needed to be done through a fog of bewilderment. ‘There was nothing to hide then.’
Andrew did not at first respond. He led the way back into the drawing room, flung another log on the fire and poured large Scotches for both of them. He sipped his while leaning against the mantelpiece, on which a gilt-framed photograph of their parents on their ruby-wedding anniversary in 1989 projected an entirely conventional image of a contented old couple posing proudly in the entrance porch of their charmingly rustic family home.
‘Think that was down there then?’ he asked, tapping the rim of his tumbler against the frame. ‘Think Mum knew about it?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Bloody difficult to overlook, though. Burying a corpse in the cellar. Not to mention turning some poor sod into a corpse in the first place.’
‘We don’t know what happened.’
‘We know what killed him, though. A hole in the head. And I don’t reckon he got it accidentally.’
‘I’m no pathologist, Andrew. Nor are you. We can’t even be sure it’s a man.’
‘Where did those flies come from? How did they get down there?’
‘We’re not entomologists either. There are human remains under the cellar. That’s all we can be sure of.’
‘Not quite. We can also be sure we’re supposed to report a discovery like this to the police. Then they can call in the experts. Establish sex, age, cause of death, date of death—all that stuff.’
‘You’re right.’
‘Is that what you think we should do, then?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Really?’ Andrew pushed himself away from the mantelpiece and flopped down into an armchair opposite Nick. ‘Just let’s talk it through. It won’t only be this house the police start swarming all over, you know. It’ll be Dad’s past—our family’s past. Whoever Joe Skeleton is, somebody did him in. Who are the police going to finger for that? I can’t see any way round it. Dad’s got to be the prime suspect. And the police will give us the third degree in his absence. They may even pencil us in as possible accessories.’
‘That’s nonsense. We’d hardly dig up the body and report it if we knew it was there.’
‘Wouldn’t we? With Tantris’s big fat offer sitting invitingly on the table? Be serious, Nick. They’d look at every angle, every single dark and dirty theory they could come up with. And then there’d be the media. Journalists hanging on my gate, ringing your doorbell. Before you could say “No comment” they’d haul your five minutes of fame in Cambridge out of the archives.’
‘Surely not.’ But, even as he said it, Nick sensed that Andrew was right. They were at the beginning of something that might have no end. ‘Well, OK. Maybe it would pan out like that. But—’
‘And what about Tantris? A wealthy recluse like him might be scared off by tabloid headlines with the word murder in them. A police investigation would sure as hell hold up the sale. It might scupper it altogether.’
‘Yeah. It might. But what alternative is there, Andrew? Tell me that.’
‘We could ’ Andrew leaned forward and lowered his voice, though who exactly he was worried about being overheard by was unclear. ‘We could cover it over again. Pretend we knew nothing about it.’
‘And leave Tantris’s people to find it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then they’d call in the police.’
‘But we’d already have the money for the house.’
‘Which could make it look worse for us if the police noticed the slab had been recently replaced—as I suspect they would.’
‘All right.’ Andrew thumped the arm of the chair in irritation. ‘There’s no easy answer. I admit it. Our father is likely to be branded a murderer. It looks as if he almost certainly was a murderer, though who he murdered—and why—we haven’t a clue.’
‘You don’t know it was murder. It could have been self defence.’
‘Yeah. It could. I’m happy to believe it was. But will the law be? I doubt it. More dirty laundry than we knew existed is going to be washed in a glare of publicity. And it’ll drag on for months, maybe years. They may never get to the bottom of it. Just how much evidence is there in a bundle of bones? This could be an unsolved mystery hanging round our necks for the rest of our lives. Dad may have failed to cheat us out of Trennor, only to succeed in—’ Andrew stopped abruptly. A slow frown of realization crossed his face. ‘Hold on. Is this why he changed his will?’
‘Maybe.’ But another thought had already occurred to Nick. ‘It certainly explains his refusal to sell the house.’
‘Yeah. He couldn’t, could he? Not at any price. Especially not to someone who wanted to start checking it over for hidy-holes. All that crap about knowing better than us was just to save his own skin.’
‘Tantris’s offer must have come as a nasty shock to him.’
‘Not as nasty a shock as the one we’ve just had. He knew the body was there. He put it there. And he thought he could leave it there. Then he realized he wasn’t going to be allowed to. He knew we’d sell the house to Tantris, which meant it was bound to be discovered. He didn’t want to be remembered as a murderer. His reputation was always important to him.’
‘Maybe he was thinking of us.’
‘By disinheriting us? Nice try, Nick. But it won’t work. This was all about him.’
‘If you’re right—’
‘Oh, I’m right.’
‘Well, if so, that means he was confident cousin Demetrius wouldn’t sell. The risk of discovery would be just as great otherwise.’
‘Christ, that’
s true. Demetrius wouldn’t sell. Why not?’
‘Only one answer springs to mind. Demetrius knows about the body. ’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘He may even have helped put it there.’
‘Jesus.’ Andrew sat slowly back in his chair. ‘Who is this Demetrius?’
Nick shook his head. ‘No idea.’
‘What do we do about him?’
‘There’s nothing we can do. We can’t even mention him to the police without admitting we destroyed the will.’ Nick sighed. ‘A will that could have been a valuable piece of evidence in a murder inquiry.’
‘Which we put on the fire.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I did.’
‘We all agreed.’
‘Nice of you to say that, Nick.’
‘It’s true.’ And it was true, much as Nick would have liked it not to be. To every action there was a consequence, though not necessarily the one foreseen. ‘We thought we could get away with it.’
‘And we still can.’ Andrew sat forward again, his eyes suddenly wide. ‘Don’t you see, Nick? It makes no difference whether we go to the police or leave it to Tantris. We’re buggered either way.’
‘No, no. Going to them now has to be less risky.’
‘Except for the money. If Tantris took fright, where would we find another bidder for this place? Murder sells papers, not houses. I need my share, Nick. Maybe you don’t. And maybe Basil thinks he doesn’t. But I do. And I’m not about to give it up without a struggle. As far as I’m concerned, going to the police is a risk I can’t afford to take.’
‘We can’t ignore what’s down in that cellar, Andrew.’ ,
‘I’m not suggesting we should.’
‘Then what are you suggesting?’
‘We could take the body out. Lose it somewhere.’
‘Lose it?’
‘Cornwall’s not short of old mine shafts.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘Why not? I reckon it’s an easy two-man job. The body’s rotted down to the bone, so it’s no great weight. These mine shafts are dangerous places. One collapsed under the car park on Kit Hill a couple of years ago. Nobody pokes around in them.’
‘Sure of that, are you?’
‘Pretty sure, yeah. But what would it matter if a skeleton was found down one a year or so from now anyway? There’d be nothing to connect it with us.’
‘Assuming we weren’t spotted dumping it in the first place.’
‘We wouldn’t be. For God’s sake, Nick. Out on the Moor after dark? The chances of being seen are thousands to one. Look at how long and hard I’ve been on the big cat trail with bugger all to show for it.’
Involuntarily, and much to his own surprise, Nick let out a snorting laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Sorry. It’s just Remember what Dad said about big cats? “A skeleton’s what you need. Tangible remains.” Well, that’s exactly what we’ve got. Remains that are all too tangible.’
‘Probably his idea of a joke.’
‘If so, the joke’s on us.’
‘Only if we play along by going to the police. Ditching the body’s the answer, I’m sure of it.’
‘But I’m not.’
‘You seriously want all the publicity, the attention, the rumour-mongering, the finger-pointing? We’ll never be rid of it, you know.’
‘Of course I don’t want it.’
‘Then take your big brother’s advice.’
‘You’re really willing to go through with this, aren’t you?’
‘You bet.’
‘What about Basil and the girls?’
‘Spare them the angst.’
‘You mean not tell them?’
‘We don’t have long. Laura’s due to arrive tomorrow, Tom the day after. We have a chance to settle this the quick and easy way. Let’s not blow it. We don’t need another family conference. What the others don’t know about they won’t worry about. You and I can solve the problem. Together.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘Don’t turn me down, Nick.’ There was a gleam of sheer desperation in Andrew’s gaze as he stared at his brother through the firelight. Tve never asked much of you. And I’ve never begged for anything. But I’m begging now. I need your help.’
Andrew spent the night at Trennor. Even if his whisky consumption had not rendered that essential, Nick still reckoned he would have stayed. Andrew was determined to reach some sort of decision about their discovery in the cellar and hold his brother to it. Nick, for his part, feared that every decision was in one way or another the wrong one. There was just too much they did not know. And too little time for them to learn any of it.
When he eventually went to bed in the small hours he could not sleep, his mind racing and whirling in pursuit of an unattainable truth. Without it, every course of action was at best a fifty-fifty guess. And Nick strongly suspected that the odds were not really even that good. Ever since arriving in Saltash one short week before, what he had most wanted was to leave again, free of family cares, unfettered by sibling woes. Now that happy state seemed like an impossible dream. Unless
‘I’ll do it.’
Nick held Andrew’s gaze across the kitchen, greyly filling with dawn twilight. He had entered to find his brother sipping from a mug of tea, staring out through the streaks of rain on the window into the vagueness of early morning. Then, hearing his tread, Andrew had turned to face him and slowly set down the mug on the draining-board.
‘I’ll help you dump the body.’
‘You will?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I was kind of expecting you to turn me down.’
‘I was expecting to myself.’
‘What changed your mind?’
‘I just can’t face the prospect of this taking over my life. Honestly, Andrew, I can’t. If I thought the police would take it all off our shoulders and leave us in peace, I’d happily let them. But it wouldn’t be like that, would it? It wouldn’t be anything like that simple.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘Whereas ’
‘My way, it’s done and dusted within twenty-four hours.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘Can’t fail. Look, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get much sleep last night. Which gave me plenty of time to think about good sites for this sort of thing.’
‘Come up with many?’
‘We only really need one. And I reckon I’ve got it. Why don’t we drive over there and take a look? If it seems OK, we can go back tonight and get the job done.’
‘And if it doesn’t seem OK?’
‘We find somewhere else.’
They set off in separate cars, so that Andrew could carry on to Carwether afterwards. Their destination was Minions, a village of two pubs and a post office on the southeastern edge of Bodmin Moor. Nick knew the area reasonably well from family outings in times gone by. Industrial archaeology had been no competitor in Michael Paleologus’s estimation with the real and ancient thing, but it was better than no archaeology at all, so the ruins of the Phoenix Mines near Minions had been deemed by him worthy of occasional exploration, especially since they were spiced up by proximity to some Bronze Age stone circles.
The car park at Minions commanded a wide-ranging view of Dartmoor to the east and the sea to the south, with Caradon Hill and its giant television transmitter bulking large in the foreground. It was an exposed spot, with a biting wind speeding the clouds overhead. There was a dusting of snow on the distant heights of Dartmoor, but only drifts of hail to whiten the track of the long-vanished railway that had once served the scattered tin and copper mines of the district. There were a few brave dog-walkers out and about, but they were hardly likely to see anything odd in two men without a dog setting off north along the track as it described a gently inclined curve round the flank of Stowe’s Hill.
‘Most of the shafts round here have been capped,’ said Andrew as they strode along. �
�The safety lobby have a lot to answer for.’
‘Where does that leave us?’
‘Hoping they haven’t got round to all of them. We’ll see soon enough.’
Ten minutes’ brisk walking took them to the highest stretch of the line, on a shelf of land looking down across a hummocked stretch of old workings towards the surviving engine house of the Prince of Wales Mine on the other side of the valley. A lane wound up the valley from Minions in the direction of various farms and hamlets to the north.
‘See that clump of trees down by the lane?’
‘Yeah.’
‘There’s a shaft in there. I can remember heaving a rock down it when we were boys to see how deep it was.’
‘And how deep was it?’
‘Deep enough.’
‘Close to a road, I see.’
‘Just what I was thinking. Let’s go and check it out.’
They made their way down the uneven slope through gorse and bracken and tussocky grass, crossed a fast-flowing stream and reached the clump of trees, startling an unsuspecting sheep in the process. The trees turned out on closer inspection to be hawthorn bushes and cotoneaster run wild. A barbed wire fence about five feet high, reinforced in several places, enclosed them and the overgrown ruin of an engine house.
Andrew prowled around the perimeter until he found what he was looking for: a clear view of the shaft. Nick joined him and peered through the undergrowth. The mouth of the shaft was only a few feet beyond the fence. And it was open.
‘Looks like we’re in luck.’
‘We need to be sure.’ Andrew prised a large stone from the nearby turf and tossed it over the fence. They listened and counted the seconds as it vanished into the shaft. Nick had made it to six by the time it clanged against something metallic far below and came to rest.
‘Like you said: deep enough.’
‘This barbed wire is the only problem.’ Andrew turned and looked around. There was no-one within sight. He reached into his pocket, took out a pair of pliers and stooped by the nearest fence post. ‘I’ll pull out a few of the staples. That’ll make the wire easier to bend.’ A few minutes later he stood up. ‘That should do it.’
Days Without Number Page 11
