The Way, the Truth and the Dead

by Francis Pryor

  ‘That depends on their depth. If the graves are deep, the lower filling may well prove to be waterlogged, in which case you may be right: some of the soft parts, even pieces of clothing, may be preserved.’

  Craig smiled. Alan knew he had redeemed himself.

  * * *

  Before Alan rejoined the team in Trench 1 to resume trowelling down through the filling of Grave 3, he turned the monitor’s sound up. For five minutes they all worked busily and Alan even had the time to fill and empty a bucket into the black barrow, which he’d moved back to the edge of the trench when the film crew had left. Nearer the centre of the trench, John wheeled their full barrow out of the shelter towards the spoil heap, where Reg and the other local metal detectorists would give it a good going-over. Then the monitor switched from the studio panel to Jake in Trench 2.

  Alan looked up and smiled. On Day 1 Craig had conducted most of the interview with Tricia, as the trench supervisor, Jake, seemed far too nervous. But not now. He was still quiet, even reserved, but he was far more confident. Earlier in the day, the Trench 2 team had recovered several fragments of bronze from the old land surface around what was clearly now an emerging timber-built wall. They’d left a baulk untrowelled at right-angles to the wall, to preserve the succession of soil layers that were beginning to emerge. Normally such baulks are quite narrow – say a foot, or so, but some instinct made Alan decide on a wider one, which he knew they would need in order to maintain stability should the wall prove to have deep footings.

  Jake explained to Tricia (who knew perfectly well already) where they’d found the various fragments of bronze. Then he made an excuse and resumed digging. This worked well and added to the sense of urgency.

  Tricia acted as if she’d never seen the finds before and was very excited. Almost too excited, Alan thought. Alan could see from the look on Craig’s face when the camera cut-away to him for listening – so-called ‘noddy’ – shots, that he was feeling the same. But somehow her enthusiasm about the finds won through. And they were most remarkable: more examples of lorica segmentata, Roman leather armour fittings, and for the first time some rather undistinguished-looking loops and strap-ends, which Tricia confidently identified as coming from military horse harnesses.

  At this point Tricia produced one of the very new iPad tablets, which had only just been released in Britain. She’d been given it by her brother in the States and she was very pleased with it. Her fingers flashed across the face of the screen, rather like a magician at a children’s party, Alan thought as he watched her, fascinated. Then she showed the screen to the camera to reveal a clear drawing of a Roman cavalry soldier on his horse. She spread her fingers on the screen, which miraculously enlarged the horse’s head, to show slightly pixelated close-ups of the various harness fittings they’d found.

  Meanwhile Jake had been cleaning back to the sharp edge of the baulk. He was working quite rapidly as he was keen to start going down to the next level. Suddenly he stopped. His trowel had just exposed a spread of green-coloured silty soil. He leant forward and started to probe very, very gently.

  Jake hadn’t said anything, but the sudden change in the way he was working caught Craig’s attention. He broke in to Tricia’s explanation of three-linked horse bits.

  ‘Hold it, Tricia, I think Jake might have found something.’

  The camera zoomed-in to see Jake’s hands and the green silt. By now he had produced the small plastic ice cream spatula that he always kept in the change pocket of his jeans. He was carefully scraping.

  ‘Yes, Craig,’ he said, his voice had a strange booming ­quality as his words resounded off the ground just below him. ‘It’s definitely copper alloy and I’d guess it’s about three or four millimetres thick. In remarkably good condition …’ His voice trailed-off. He was concentrating.

  By now Harry, the lighting engineer, or gaffer, had produced a small floodlight which he pointed down at Jake.

  ‘Alan?’ It was Weinstein’s voice in Alan’s earpiece. ‘We may have to stay here. Could you drop everything and come through to Trench 2?’

  When Alan arrived, he could see Jake had revealed a slightly curved oval or triangular piece of bronze about 5 or 6 inches long. He’d seen something like it before. He frowned, trying to remember. In a museum case somewhere. But locally or in London? He couldn’t recall where. Then Tricia looked up at him. She mimed something with both hands on either side of her face. For a moment Alan was perplexed. Then suddenly he got it. He looked back at her, open-mouthed. She smiled. Gently he shook his head in amazement and looked down into the trench again, more closely this time. And yes, she was right.

  * * *

  Alan joined Jake in the trench. By now Jake had cleared all round it. The piece of metal was in remarkably good con­dition, largely, Alan suspected, because it had lain sealed beneath the clay, which had maintained it within a uniform environment – not too wet and not too dry – and without too much oxygen, either. Most of the surface was remarkably uncorroded, probably, Alan thought, because of a thin coating of a paler metal, possibly tin, but where the bronze had been exposed it had acquired a greenish tinge.

  ‘Alan,’ Craig’s voice broke in to his thoughts. ‘Can you tell us what Jake has discovered down there?’

  This was not what Alan wanted or needed. He didn’t have time for explanations right now.

  His reply was not what Craig or the viewers at home expected, either. He pulled out his comms. ‘Alan for Hen Clancy, finds supervisor. Come in, please.’

  Her voice crackled back through the handset. ‘Hi, Alan, Hen here.’

  ‘We’ve got a piece of bronze about twenty centimetres long which may need rapid lifting. We’ll need your emergency kit, ASAP, if that’s OK’

  ‘Will do, Alan. See you shortly.’

  Next Alan turned to Jake. ‘What about the surface oxidation? D’you think it’s getting worse?’

  Jake straightened his back to get a more distant view of the object. Then slowly he nodded. ‘Hard to say for sure, but I’d be nervous about re-wetting it and it’s certainly starting to dry. Some of that greenish colour around the sides might be getting worse, too …’ He trailed off, leaning forward to resume clearing soil away from the last part of the edge.

  Alan was also now leaning forward. Very gently he scraped a small patch of silt from near the apex of the most rounded side. As he suspected, the bronze sheet here had been reinforced with a stout iron rib beneath.

  ‘There’s iron beneath it,’ Alan said quietly to Jake, but Grump had raised the mike levels and his words came across clearly to millions of viewers at home, now glued to their screens. This beat any of the orchestrated ‘spontaneity’ of the rubbish reality shows.

  ‘Oh shit!’ Jake muttered, he’d completely forgotten they were live on national television. ‘Bi-metallic corrosion. That’s all we bloody need.’

  As if on rails, Hen slipped silently into the shelter carrying a substantial box, which she carefully placed on the edge of the trench.

  Making no apology for not answering his first question, Alan looked over to Craig, who was now kneeling on the trenchside. Two cameras followed his movements.

  ‘Sorry to keep everyone in suspense, Craig, but I think we’ve found a helmet cheek-piece.’

  ‘What Roman?’

  ‘Oh yes, Roman all right. It’s made of sheet bronze, probably given a thin coating of tin. But what’s important is that it has an iron reinforcing rod on the inside.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Alan didn’t want to give away too much, too quickly. ‘Well that means it was almost certainly intended to be used.’

  ‘You mean in combat?’

  Alan nodded. ‘That’s right. But Tricia will know more. I just dig these things up.’

  Thanks to her tipping Alan off, Tricia had given herself time to go online and research Roman military helmets. Now she was standing by Craig’s side.

  ‘Alan’s dead right. It’s the left cheek-piece of a Roman cavalryman’s
combat helmet. But what’s extraordinary is that there’s one that’s almost identical in the British Museum. It’s got large bosses, just like this one—’

  Alan broke in. ‘And where did that come from?’

  As she was speaking it had come to him. He could have answered his own question, but it was time to repay Trish for her tip-off earlier.

  ‘That’s the extraordinary bit …’ She paused and was about to continue speaking, then rapidly changed her mind.

  Alan thought he heard Weinstein in London whisper, ‘Oh, this is bliss!’ under his breath.

  She pulled out her iPad, which she showed to Craig, but being a professional she actually angled it towards the camera alongside him. Very gently she spread her fingers. The image grew larger. Craig was leaning forward to see the screen.

  ‘Cavalry combat helmet,’ he slowly read aloud. ‘First century AD, from Witcham Gravel, Ely, Cambridgeshire.’

  There was a long pause, while the camera homed-in on the screen. Tricia winced at the effort of holding the iPad dead still for the close-up. Alan sympathised. Across the back of the camera their eyes met. He smiled encouragement. She was doing a fabulous job; they made a great team.

  For the last minute and a half, Hen had carefully covered the helmet with cling film, then gently started to apply the plaster of Paris bandages, which would provide the rigid framework they would need when they attempted to lift it the next day.

  It was all too much for Jake, still kneeling in the trench. He was looking on, wide-eyed. ‘That’s fucking amazing …’ he muttered under his breath.

  But the highly sensitive mike had caught every breathy syllable.

  As the end-credits rolled, a delighted Weinstein told Alan through his earpiece that Jake’s naughty words had echoed what viewers were thinking everywhere. Alan was delighted, too. It was a great find, but now he would have to rethink the entire site, which had suddenly become hugely complex. The earlier settlement had somehow morphed into a major military installation, complete with helmet-wearing cavalrymen. For a moment, Alan imagined John and Sebastian Cripps charging at each other like jousting medieval knights. No, nothing was ever what it seemed, when you really started to dig.

  Eleven

  It was Friday. Day 5, early in the morning. Alan leant across to the chair by his bed and looked at his watch: 6.30. Damn that, he thought to himself, I need more sleep. So he lay back and hoped for oblivion, but nothing happened, except in his head, which was full of last night: an excited Frank jabbering, ‘Seven million, seven million!’ to anyone who’d listen. And then there was that helmet. He had a lot of reading and thinking ahead of him.

  A passing headlight threw a pale gleam across the bedroom ceiling. And then another. And another. He could hear the cars decelerate as they approached the Abbey Farm drive. Had he nodded off, as he’d hoped? He glanced across at his watch again: 6.35. He couldn’t believe it: visitors were arriving already.

  He had an important phone call to make, but it would be unfair to call anyone at this ungodly hour. So what to do? More cars passed in the road outside. He knew that reading a book wasn’t going to send him to sleep. He was far too awake. Better get up. Then he had an idea. He dressed ­rapidly, took his phone off charge and climbed aboard the Fourtrak.

  Alan was driving south-west towards Sutton and Mepal when his mobile rang. He pulled into a field gateway. Only one person would call him this early. And he was right: ­Richard Lane was the name on his screen.

  ‘Bloody hell, Richard, how did you know I wouldn’t be asleep? It was frantic last night.’

  ‘Yes, I saw it. An amazing show. I thought Mary was going to pass out when you revealed the cheek-piece. Talk about tension!’

  ‘I’d love to, Richard, but I don’t suppose that’s why you phoned. Are you angling for a site visit, because I’m sure I could find you a couple of site crew passes, if you’d like?’

  ‘No, Alan, wrong on both counts. Of course we’d love to come, but I know you’re crowded out and I’d hate to add to the crush. And Mary doesn’t care for large crowds, either. She gets a bit claustrophobic.’

  ‘So how can I help you?’

  ‘It’s simple, really. Yesterday I was checking through my desk diary and it’s been just over six weeks since that man Joe Thorey vanished off the face of the earth. I know what country villages are like. Have you heard any rumours? Any gossip? Anything at all?’

  ‘No, absolutely nothing. That’s the odd thing. Trouble is, in the village everyone wants to discuss the dig. It’s the sole topic of conversation. And I didn’t hear anything before the shoot began, either. Remarkably quiet, come to think of it.’

  ‘Have you had any conversations with members of the Cripps family since then?’

  ‘Of course I have. I talk to Candice every day.’

  ‘Yes, but you know what I mean, Alan: private, one-to-one chats. Anything like that?’

  Alan thought for a moment. Then he remembered that drive in Sebastian’s Land Rover. ‘Oh, I did learn one interesting thing: Sebastian can’t stand Joe Thorey. I think he’d sack him tomorrow if it wasn’t for Sarah and the shoot. He told me the shoot was essentially keeping the estate afloat. Those rich London shooters pay a fortune.’

  ‘That’s fascinating. I’d always taken Sebastian and Sarah as a closely-knit team. That suggests there’s tension between them.’

  There was a pause. Alan was the first to break the silence. ‘And if Thorey has disappeared, it also gives Sebastian a motive …’ He trailed off.

  ‘Quite, Alan,’ came Lane’s dry reply. ‘My thoughts precisely.’

  Suddenly there was silence. Irritated, Alan glanced at his phone. No signal. Bloody Hell! Alan put the phone down on the seat beside him and eased the Fourtrak back into motion and glanced in the mirror: the road behind was completely empty. Deliberately he put thoughts of Thorey and Sebastian out of his head. He had to focus on that helmet cheek-piece. Presumably the Roman cavalryman would have spent most of his time on the uplands of the Haddenham Ridge – one of the highest of the islands on the western approaches to Ely. During the ‘live’, Tricia had gone on to explain that the helmet might well have been made on the continent in the decades just prior to the Roman Conquest of AD43. But where would its wearer and his cohort have been based?

  He could remember his university lecturer at Leicester stressing that the Roman Army of the conquest period was an extraordinarily flexible fighting machine and that cavalry, the cohorts equites as they were known, were distributed through the legions and their auxiliary camps and fortresses. It wasn’t until much later that more specialised cavalry forts, such as The Lunt near Coventry, were built. So the men who wore the Witcham and now, Alan thought with some pride, the Fursey helmets would have been based locally. But where? That was the question that still needed answering.

  He drove around for about 15 minutes refamiliarising himself with the landscape, then a passing shower hit. Like much early spring rain, it was quite heavy. Peering through the rapidly misting windscreen, Alan spotted a deeply rutted and very muddy farm track, which he entered rather too fast, sending up a huge spray of puddle water that covered much of the driver’s side of the vehicle with a dark coat of peaty mud. He stopped, turned off the engine and looked around him. He was parked near an old, flooded gravel pit.

  Presumably the track had been closed off when the gravel pits were dug, probably in the 1950s or ’60s. In those days old gravel workings were just abandoned when they were quarried-out. There was no attempt at restoration. As a consequence, bits of rusty ironwork were protruding from the deep, cold water; grebes, moorhens and ducks swam busily through the industrial debris, among thick stands of reeds, flag irises and willows. Today, of course, Alan knew from personal experience, having excavated at numerous quarries, that the planners dictate how worked-out pits must now look, with trimly landscaped edges and nice, neat-looking platforms for individual fishermen. But as he gazed at the ducks and debris, he knew his sympathies lay in the o
lder, unplanned days.

  He wound down the window to let in the fresh spring air, then picked the phone off the seat. He glanced at the handset, which now showed a strong signal. He scrolled down to the name Harry and looked out of the window again. This wasn’t going to be easy. But this time it was going to be very different. Work would come first, second and third. He owed it to the loyal team at Fursey: to Jake, Hen, John, Kaylee and the diggers. And of course to Stan. He sighed at the memory. Time passed.

  Then he pulled himself together, now more determined to do it. He had to call her: she had unique experience in the post-Roman period; in fact, she was the only person capable of revealing the site’s full potential. But would she be willing to take part at all? Sadly, he had his doubts – serious doubts – about that.

  He took a deep breath and pressed call.

  It was some time before her irritable voice answered. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello,’ he replied brightly. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘OK.’ His heart sank. ‘I’ll be brief. I’m digging at a site near Ely and we’ve found three graves.’

  ‘Yes, Alan, I’m well aware of that. I’d have to be brain-dead not to have heard of your exploits. Half Britain is watching you.’

  Not a promising start.

  ‘The thing is, I need somebody good to excavate the stiffs. And we’ve got the Home Office approval. I did all that weeks ago.’

  ‘But surely you’ve got somebody there who’s experienced?’

  Alan knew that Hen Clancy dug a good stiff, but she had her hands more than full with the finds. And of course, if needs be, he or Jake could dig them, but neither could be spared. And besides, none of them had the specialised know­ledge of palaeopathology that the very best skeleton excavators possess.

  ‘Yes, there’s me and Hen—’

  ‘Do give her my love. It’s been years since we dug together.’

  ‘I will.’ Alan was now getting worried. ‘But couldn’t you find the time? We’ve only got three graves. They shouldn’t take you more than a week.’