Grave Consequences

by Dana Cameron

  Andrew’s face fell. “Brilliant. I was just thinking, Sabine, that I needed another brainy female to have a go at my work.” I was surprised at how suddenly, openly antagonistic he became.

  “Ah, but we girly swots have always been rather a bit of a specialty of yours, haven’t we, Andrew—”

  Andrew went scarlet.

  The woman continued, not noticing or not caring about his discomfort. “—But, in any case, I do think a little more respect for the dead is in order. Particularly this poor soul.”

  “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  It was at that point I realized that the woman was wearing a clerical collar. She was quite plain and it was only by the grace of strong cheekbones and alert green eyes that kept her face from looking a blank oval: when she pursed her lips, as she did at Andrew’s retort, her mouth seemed to vanish. She also had a pale scar along her right eyebrow that gave her a look of skepticism even when there was none expressed. She stared down at the skeleton.

  “You’ll be talking to Detective Rhodes, won’t you?” the woman asked.

  “Already am.” Andrew was almost petulant.

  She pointed to the burial. “This isn’t recent, though, is it? I mean, judging by that stratigraphy—”

  I looked up, startled. It was usual for me to hear a civilian so casually discussing the layers of soil we studied.

  “Yes, yes, smartyboots.” Andrew struck me as being unusually irritated.

  She turned, offered her hand to me, and indicated the way toward a church down the way from where we were working.

  “I’m Sabine Jones. I’m the vicar down at St. Alban’s. Or perhaps I should say, up at St. Alban’s, depending on how you look at things.”

  I noticed she pronounced her name “Sah-bee-nah,” whereas Andrew had called her “Say-bine.” Obviously, theirs was a longtime relationship and there wasn’t much love lost between them: Sabine took his rudeness in stride.

  I dusted off my hand and shook hers. “Emma Fielding. I’m a friend of Jane’s, helping out for a couple of weeks.”

  “Ah, yes, the long-awaited American visitor. Welcome to Marchester. We’re all excited about the work Jane’s doing here.”

  I recalled the comments that both Pooter and Palmer had made. Sabine nodded, conceding this unspoken point. “Well, perhaps ‘everyone who matters’ is a better way of putting it. One of the local contractors wants to put a supermarket in here. Although the land rights are somewhat at question, he’d prefer Jane not find anything terribly interesting, but it’s too late for that, I think.”

  “It would be a shame to put a supermarket in here, it’s such a nice view,” I said.

  Sabine shook her head. “That’s as may be, but it would make it easier for the older folk on this side to get their shopping done. There’s sure to be some compromise, though. And then there’s Morag…oh, dear. Literally, there’s Morag. She’s late getting to work today.”

  She pointed to the field just beyond the area of the dig, where a tall woman in gauzy black skirts was engrossed, walking back and forth across the grass, sometimes pausing with her hands outstretched. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have guessed that she was field walking, looking for artifacts that had washed out of the soil in the rain, or looking for variations in the ground level that might indicate the presence of subsurface features. I wasn’t certain, but I thought I heard the faint tinkling of tiny bells on the wind as she moved across the grass.

  Andrew twisted around to see where she was pointing. “Now you’re talking. Morag the Moonbeam is more my speed, right now. Thick as two short planks, that one.”

  “Well, I think she’s available,” the vicar replied.

  Andrew ignored the remark, scanning the site for something else. “Jane will be foaming, about now. There’s nothing she can do about it either. Lovely.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, twisting around and craning my neck. Just as Andrew predicted, Jane had taken a few steps toward the edge of the site, then stopped. She had the same tense expression as she had this morning, when she was yelling at Andrew, or last night, when she was arguing with the police officer. Jane spent a lot of time being tense, I noticed.

  “Ley lines,” Sabine said, as if that explained everything. “According to Morag, the place is thick with ’em. A convergence spot, I think she called it.”

  I dragged my attention away from the little drama across the site. “Lay lines? Is that something to do with the church, you know, laity? Poo—Jeremy Hyde-Spofford used the same word yesterday, I think.”

  “No, L-E-Y. Ley lines are…well, they’re supposed to be lines of cosmic power that course through the earth. A person’s power is supposed to be enhanced when in their vicinity. Pagan, neopagan thought, really.”

  “Load of shit, really,” Andrew muttered to himself.

  “Now, now, Andrew,” Sabine murmured. “There are places that are considered powerfully holy in our religion too—”

  “It’s not my religion. I don’t believe in that rubbish, either.” He looked up at Sabine hopefully.

  “Nice try, Andrew, but I simply won’t rise to it.” She turned back to me. “Morag claims, as do quite a lot of others, that there is a particularly strong ley line running into a convergence in this area. Probably right through the old site of the abbey. Draws a lot of attention from the local neopagan crowd.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Well, I don’t know how they determine where the ley lines are,” she explained, “but oftentimes churches were built on the sites of pagan shrines, to try and convert the heathen, so that may be what inspired that notion.”

  “Don’t forget Saint Whatshername,” Andrew piped up.

  Sabine finally looked pained, much to Andrew’s delight. “The abbess was a particularly holy woman named Mother Beatrice. Lived about 1437 to about 1472, or thereabouts,” she explained to me. “She’s actually been considered for canonization, but although she was supposed to have seen visions, she came up a little short in the miracles department. The Wiccans have decided, probably for the former reason, that she was a secret worshiper of the Mother Goddess, as they call her, and have claimed her as one of their own.”

  “And that narks you no end, doesn’t it?” Andrew grinned unpleasantly.

  She shrugged. “I’m not one to question someone else’s religion, but when it comes to earthly matters—people, for example—I like to work with the evidence at hand—”

  “Which is, of course, why you dropped geology to become a priest, isn’t it, Sabine?”

  She finally lost her patience and I was glad that she wasn’t mad at me. She stepped toward Andrew, and I involuntarily stepped back a pace. “Andrew, if you ever stopped to listen to yourself—”

  I decided to jump in.

  “What do you think was important about Beatrice, Sabine?” My question had the effect of drawing Sabine onto a more interesting topic and disappointing Andrew.

  “I don’t know, I’m not much for history, but I think we ought to consider her example. She was responsible for supporting a large number of poor through some difficult times, if the church records are any indication. She looked after her townsfolk, even to the point of political conflict with the bishop, but she won out in the end and continued her work. That’s what I think is important about her. That’s the point.”

  Her lecture over, she glanced at her watch. “I must run. Very nice meeting you, Emma. If you’d like, sometime, I’d be happy to show you the view from our bell tower. It’s a nice way to see Marchester and it has a good view of the site. And of course, you’re always welcome to join us on Sunday.”

  “Thanks for the offer. Nice to meet you, too.”

  “Good-bye, Andrew.”

  “Go away, Sabine.” He didn’t look up.

  She paused, said a little prayer over the skeleton, shook her head again at Andrew, and then left, but just a few steps away, Sabine paused, looked around, and took out two items from her cardigan pocket. She took out a piec
e of rolling paper, and quickly rolled herself a cigarette from a little block of tobacco. She lit up with something like the same reverence I saw on Dora’s face when she smoked her cigar.

  “Doesn’t want her parishioners to catch her with her filthy rollies,” Andrew said with relish. “Not quite a holy enough image, you see, for all it is a sound socialist practice.” He shook himself. “Oh, don’t mind me. Sabine’s all right; we just get up each other’s noses. It’s nothing, really, just a long-standing habit.”

  I had to wonder what had engendered the sparring in the first place. I decided to change the subject. “So those plates I see over there, they’re marking the ley line? Sometimes we use plates to mark postholes for aerial photography.”

  “They will mark the line until someone gets annoyed enough to rip them off. Then Morag’ll put them back again. Jane claims she’s not the one doing it, but my money’s on her anyway. She and Morag don’t see eye to eye on much of anything and Morag doesn’t think twice about wandering around the site, trying to get others to feel the vibe, or whatever. I swear, you can almost see Jane’s blood pressure shoot up when she’s around.”

  “Oh. What should I do next?”

  “Write up your observations on the recording sheets. I’ll call the police and they’ll initiate a proper investigation. I’m afraid that’s it for you working here, though, once we help Avery get his pictures taken.”

  I shivered at the thought; that guy Avery gave me the creeps. Andrew left and I soon finished with my few notes, so I decided to get a head start on preparing for the record photographs. I carefully started cleaning the dirt that had dried into little pills away from the bones I had exposed, then began to work my way across the rest of the skeleton. I didn’t get far when—

  “Oh, God! Wait! Look, what is it you’re doing?” Andrew had returned from making his call and was almost hopping, torn between getting me to stop and trying to do it nicely. “Hold off, half a tic—”

  I stopped, wondering what he was getting so excited about. “We’re done here; I’m cleaning off the surface so we can get some pictures.”

  He tried to compose himself. “Right, yes, but…there are certain things we need to look out for, especially now that we know it’s a recent crime scene. Comparatively recent crime scene. First we call Avery over, so he can start setting up. Then I’ll draw in those last three bones onto my plan, then I will clean it off.”

  “Hey, okay, it’s okay!” I got the impression that one more minute, and Andrew might have snatched the trowel from my hand. “I’m not going to hurt anything.”

  He made small, rigid chopping motions with both hands, as if he were measuring out each word carefully. “Emma, I know you’re not going to hurt anything, but I just want you to—”

  I was tired of being lectured to by one and all. “Look, I know enough to hang onto any insect parts I find, note unusual soil stains, or anything like that. I know we need to be careful. I know anything I find might impact the police investigation.”

  Andrew took a deep breath. “I know, I know, but it’s not like it is in America, this kind of burial is strictly the purview of the Home Office forensic pathologist. We wait on the police in these matters, let them dictate what they want done and how. It’s not that I doubt your skills—” here he let loose with a knee-melting smile, “—but it’s just, some of these students…well, let’s just say that there’s a wildly diverse range of abilities at work on this site. It’s easy to forget there are some real professionals here. I am a bit of a perfectionist, but it really does matter, particularly in this situation.” He examined my handiwork. “But there’s no harm done.”

  I could feel my face burning. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped the gun like that. Really, I thought it would be all right. I should have asked.” I grinned to myself when I thought, but I’m the one digging; he should know he has nothing to worry about. Whatever else there was about Andrew Freeman, he was manifestly concerned with how work on “his” skeletons was undertaken.

  Andrew called for the photographer, then took out a plan that was almost complete and hastily drew in the last of the bones. I glanced over his shoulder; it was beautiful work, done with a minimum of fuss in the measuring.

  Trying to make up for my gaffe, I said, “Do you want to get an elevation on the bones I exposed?”

  He nodded. “I’ll get the rod now.”

  We measured the depth of the finger bones and then Andrew called the photographer over. I tried to be as helpful as I could, putting together sign boards and clipping roots on the edge of the unit so they didn’t cast shadows, but I noticed that Dean Avery, the photographer, would look up from his work almost every time I glanced at him. Andrew and he pulled aside to discuss whether more shots were needed.

  Suddenly, I noticed that all the rest of the crew was walking away from the site. Jane appeared by my side.

  “What’s going on?” I asked in alarm.

  Jane furrowed her brow and looked around. “What do you mean?”

  “Where’s everyone going?”

  “Oh.” She looked at her watch and her face cleared. “Ten-thirty already?”

  “What’s at ten-thirty?” I relaxed a little. At least whatever was going on was an expected occurrence.

  “Morning coffee; half hour break.”

  “But we just started at nine,” I protested. “How can you get anything done with a break in the middle of the morning?”

  “It’s a proper workday,” Jane said defensively. “Start at nine, morning coffee at half ten, lunch from noon to one—”

  I was aghast. “You take a whole hour for lunch?”

  “—Then tea at three-thirty and off site by five pip emma. Why, what do you do?”

  “Start at eight-thirty, thirty minutes at noon, wrap up at four-thirty.”

  “My God, you’re a slave driver!” She mulled it over and shook her head finally. “You don’t stop for any breaks?”

  Now it was my turn to be amused. “No, not really. I usually just make sure everyone drinks enough water, if it’s hot out.”

  “Water?” Jane’s face now registered as much confusion as mine had: How could any crew manage on just water? she seemed to ask.

  “It’s pretty standard. Actually, I’m considered a kind and beneficent director.”

  “Uncivilized.” Jane was having a hard time grasping the Yankee work ethic. “Are you saying that you don’t want coffee now? I’d’ve thought you’d be glad, after this morning…”

  “Actually, I’m floating. Maybe just a quick trip to the…what was it you called it? Porta-loo?”

  “Yes, just over there. And when you get back—” She paused indecisively.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I’m not stopping at the moment either. Perhaps we could discuss where to put you next.”

  She must have seen Andrew hopping around. “Look, I’m sorry about how things went with Andrew, but I don’t think he can use me anymore—”

  “I thought you did splendidly with Andrew,” she interrupted evenly. “He hasn’t complained about you and you haven’t cut his throat. He can be a charmer, when he chooses, and when he doesn’t choose, he can be something considerably less appealing. It’s just that you can’t work there any longer and we can use you better elsewhere in the meantime.”

  I nodded. “I’ll just be a moment then.”

  When I returned from my mission—and despite the different name, the British version of the outdoor convenience was no more appealing than its American counterpart—I idly followed the line of paper plates over to the edge of the site. They seemed to point directly to the center of the site, where I now saw Jane standing, waving me over to where she and Greg had been talking earlier that morning.

  Jane was uncharacteristically hesitant when I arrived. She stood beside a wide excavation area that was described by twelve nails that marked out the corners of six one-meter squares, three units over three. I noticed a faint, darker stain in the soil, about six feet
by two, located just to the south of the middle set of nails. It was another burial.

  “I’d like you to work here,” Jane said abruptly. “It’s rather sensitive and…I think you’re the person I’d trust most with it.”

  I frowned. “What about you or Greg? What about Andrew? The rest of your crew have been here longer than I—”

  “I can’t do it myself, obviously, and oversee the rest of the site. I wish I could. Greg can’t, because he has to help me and supervise the lab work as well. Andrew can’t because generally he doesn’t focus on just one burial—the one you were working on was special, because it looks like it is a crime scene. He has to help with that as well as keep an eye on all the other skeletons that are exposed. Julia would have been the one…but she’s not to be found and I can’t wait any longer. This is burial nineteen…and it’s important. It’s important to Marchester and it’s important to me, personally, truth be told.”

  We were much closer to the last remaining wall of the abbey, closer to the river itself. I looked up and down the site, orienting myself, and guessed that we were well within the confines of the old abbey. The students were a ways off, definitely outside the building itself. If what I knew from my reading held true—

  “You think this is where the abbess, Beatrice, might have been buried, don’t you?” I said.

  Relief washed over Jane’s face. “Yes. The rest of the crew…well, they’re nowhere near as experienced as you, of course. Some of them I don’t want near it simply because I’m afraid that they are more susceptible to some of the new agey rubbish that some people have been propagating around town.”

  I nodded slowly, understanding. “You mean Morag.”

  Jane was amazed. “How do you know about her?”

  “Andrew and Sabine—the vicar?—told me a little when she stopped by.”

  My friend chewed her bottom lip. “I’m sorry to have missed Sabine, but I wasn’t about to take my eyes off that Morag. Well, yes, in any case, the more experienced ones are where I need them to be, and putting you here keeps them from being jealous of a fellow student getting the honor. And the less experienced ones just don’t get to cut their teeth on Beatrice.”