My Little Armalite

by James Hawes

  —Thanks, Eamon! I really think I’ve got it this time.

  —I doubt it, Johnny. But I am always here for you. And just make sure you give it with style, Johnnyboy, inasmuch as your lamentable physical equipment allows for style at all. Remember the secret of modern academic life: it doesn’t matter what you’re on the box for, so long as you’re on the box.

  —Great! Thanks, Eamon.

  —My pleasure. May I get back to my other and better life now? I very much want to arrange an actual assignation tonight. Man cannot live by cybersex alone. At least, this one can’t.

  —I haven’t arranged anything with anyone all week. I haven’t been single since before the Berlin Wall fell.

  —Ah, happy days of certainty and missions! But we have eaten of the apple, John the Good, and there is no way back. It would be very fab indeed to know nothing once again, wouldn’t it just? To trust the smiling priest who just happens to like ruffling boyish hair. To march along with the bold comrades, convinced that the Warsaw Pact wants only peace and the IRA are a bunch of romantic rebels. Pity. Farewell, Johnnyboy.

  I listened to the dead phone line for quite a long moment. Then I blinked myself back to earth. Yes, the past was a happier place, but it was gone.

  Quickly, before I could begin to doubt my newly recharged postmodernism, I fired up the laptop. The Very Important Paper jumped out of its sleep again, wide awake. And yes, how plodding and serious it sounded, compared to the free-flowing playfulness of Father Eamon! That was what I needed. Right. Simple. Less boring stuff about meaning, and more pomo topspin …

  God, I had been so right to wait. The gun was perfectly safe where it was for now. All was still possible: the VIP would be a triumph and then, well, who knew?

  Just to make absolutely sure that nothing impossible had happened in our garden while I was out, I opened the French windows and peered from the kitchen into the darkness.

  Newton was still right, as usual.

  There was the filled pit, just as I had left it, sitting quietly out in the cold and the dark and the rain. Of course. It could stay there safe and sound until I came back from Oxford transfigured by the VIP. As I stood there gloating at my own rationality, I found that my long-planned bottle of Olde English ale had somehow poured itself into a glass in my hand. As I savoured the hoppy slugs of beer, I suckled luxuriously on the cigarette that had produced and lit itself. Who cared? All was well. Imagine! I could be out there now, digging the gun up like an idiot, getting soaked by that pouring rain, about to ruin my week, and hence my career, by calling the police, ha ha!

  That pouring rain.

  Which had been pouring for a good half hour now.

  Into the pit.

  Into the soil.

  No, surely?

  Oh Christ.

  22: Archaeology

  After a few seconds of panicked stillness, I recovered the use of my limbs and mind. Hastily, I dialled a number from my phone’s address book. It was a former acquaintance in the Department of Archaeology at Sheffield called Brian. I had helped him, shortly before I left, with a German excavation report, so I knew him well enough to call. Just about.

  —Hello?

  —Brian, hi, hello! It’s John. John Goode.

  —Sorry?

  —John Goode, who just left the German department up there. I helped you with that German thing, remember? That excavation report from Bavaria?

  —Oh yes, yes. John. Of course. Right. Well. Hello. I thought you were in London now.

  —Yeah.

  —So, London, eh?

  —Yes, London.

  —I suppose you’ve had to cram the poor family into a two-room flat now, eh, John? Ha ha!

  —No, we’ve got, it’s a rather nice little house, you know, original sash windows and all that sort of thing.

  —Oh. But little, eh?

  —Well, obviously, Brian, London houses have always been rather smaller.

  —Not sure I could get used to that, John. And I don’t envy you taking on a mortgage this late. Mine’s almost gone, of course. I suppose you had to get a bloody great big one?

  —Mmm? A mortgage? Oh, a reasonable one, yes, but then, well, of course, London’s London, Brian, and you naturally accept there’s a premium for living in a good area. Well, pretty good.

  —Pretty good? Crime bad there, is it, John?

  —The Neighbourhood Watch are very active, actually.

  —I suppose they have to be! Are the schools terrible?

  —Oh, very multicultural, diverse, stimulating.

  —I bet they bloody are, ha ha!

  —Ha ha. So, hey, how are you, Brian?

  —Me? Oh, great. But then I love it in Sheffield, John, as you know.

  —Yes, I know. You always said so.

  —Mmm, so, John, yeah, no, look, um, what’s up? It’s just, I’m cooking dinner right now, actually, and …

  —The thing is, Brian, you see, I’m writing something about a book, it’s an, a German thriller actually, and I was just wondering if I could check something technical about archaeology.

  —Oh. Um, well, I suppose. If it doesn’t take too long, because as I said, I’m …

  —Great! Well, the book’s a thriller, and it all hangs on this business about a man who accidentally digs up this suitcase.

  —A suitcase?

  —Yes. A suitcase full of … secret papers. And then he reburies it, you see. But then he changes his mind and digs it up again a week or so later, and he tells the police after all.

  —He digs it up again?

  —Yes. And he pretends to the police that he only just found it, you see.

  —Sorry, John, will you run that by me again?

  —It’s quite simple, Brian. He digs the suitcase up at night. Then he buries it again. Then he digs it up again a week later and tells the police that he’s only just found it. He tells them he called them straight away, like any decent honest citizen would.

  —Well, why didn’t he?

  —Sorry?

  —Why didn’t this man just call the police?

  —What? Why? Oh. Well, um, because, he, I suppose, I mean, as far as I can see from the book it was because he didn’t want to get involved with the police.

  —So, he’s some kind of criminal?

  —God no, he’s just an ordinary man. It’s just that he’s too busy. With work.

  —Doesn’t sound like much of a hero to me.

  —I found his motivation quite understandable, actually. Anyway, look, Brian, that all doesn’t really matter. It’s only a story. The point, the purely technical point, is, if someone really did that, would the police be able to tell that he’d actually already dug up the machine gun once.

  —What machine gun?

  —What?

  —What machine gun?

  —The secret papers, I mean. Sorry, God, oh yes, I forgot, there is a machine gun in the story, yes, it’s, yeah, it was buried along with the secret papers, you see. But the machine gun’s not important. Forget the machine gun, Brian.

  —A machine gun would be pretty important to the police, surely?

  —Well, yes, yes, I’m sure it would, in the real world, Brian, but this is a story and it’s all about these secret papers, you see, not the machine gun at all. I don’t know why I even mentioned the machine gun.

  —Right. John, look here, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m just cooking dinner, as I said, and I was just enjoying a quiet glass of wine, just while cooking, you know, and to be honest this is all sounding a bit complicated. Of course, one’s always happy to help out a colleague, or an ex-colleague rather. Even one who was in a completely different department. A different faculty, actually. But perhaps you could call another time, at work, when I’m a little bit less …

  —I need to know this tonight.

  —Well, look, John, I’m very sorry, but …

  —Brian, this is for The Paper!

  —For The Paper?

  —Yes. It’s a review, for The Paper
. This German thriller has just been translated, you see. And so they’ve asked me to review it. For The Paper. I’d mention your name, naturally.

  —A review in The Paper? When did you start doing that?

  —This is my first one. Which is why I want to get it right, you see. And as I said, I’d mention your name. Fulsomely.

  —Christ, John, how the hell did you get your first gig, you lucky bastard? I mean, that’s the one that matters, isn’t it? God, I’ve been offering to review archaeological books for The Paper for bloody years. Just a chance to show what I can do, that’s all I ask. Of course I can bloody do it, if they’ll just give me a shot. Standing on my head! But they never even reply to my emails, the snotty-nosed metropolitan bastards.

  —Oh well, you know, Brian.

  —Aha! Ah! Ha! Yes, of course. I do know. Ha!

  —Sorry, Brian?

  —It’s just because you’re in bloody London now, right? Aha! See? Christ, I always knew the media were like that! Well sorry, John, but I have to say that it’s bloody ridiculous. This country is so bloody London-centric. Which, considering that London is completely bloody un-English these days is a bit bloody ironic. Ha! Shit, damn, I think I’ve burnt this bloody fennel. Hang on. Oh bugger! Sod and damnation. Ow! Well sod the fennel then! Bloody stupid stuff anyway. Hang on, just get a refill. Right. So, come on then, John, how did it happen? What, did you meet the literary editor of The Paper at some poncy cocktail do in Islington? Or did you buttonhole him at some reading in the British bloody Library? Or sidle up to him at the drinks reception after some British sodding Academy lecture?

  —How? Well, um, how it happened was, let me try to remember, oh yes, I had an hour between tutorials so I just popped over to the BM, the British Museum, you know …

  —I know what the bloody BM is, John!

  —Of course you do. I have lunch there quite a lot, in the courtyard. Very relaxing. And well, yes, this woman was at the next table as I sat down, very, you know, Brian, London-looking. She was reading a German novel and I recognised the author’s name, you see, so I smiled at her and said, —Is the translation up to scratch? and she looked up and said, —God, how would anyone know? and laughed. You know, that sort of tinkly, posh laugh. So I said, —Well actually, I’d know, you see, and she said, —Golly, would you really? and it turned out she was one of the people on the books page of The Paper, and then one thing led to another and …

  I now realised that while telling this innocent little pack of white lies, I had actually slid my hand half-into my trousers. Hastily, baffled, I withdrew it.

  —Bloody London, I knew it! Christ, John, that’s so unfair. That just could never happen up here. It’s structural bloody apartheid, that’s what it is! You’ll be on the bloody telly next, I suppose?

  —Oh, I don’t worry about that sort of thing, Brian. If it comes along, it comes, of course.

  —Shit, I knew I should have applied for that sodding job at Goldsmiths! And I would have, if it wasn’t for the bloody kids. Ungrateful little teenage sods, I immure myself in bloody Sheffield for their sakes and now they think I’m just a boring old nobody. Hold on, just another splash. Well maybe I will go for the next London job. Not that anyone’ll give me a new job now, ever again.

  —Mmm? Why not?

  —Well, I was desperate last term, you see. I needed to get another article out before the next research-grants deadline, or I knew the bloody head of department wouldn’t back me for a sabbatical, and I’ve got to get away from this awful bloody place for a bit or I’ll hang myself. So one night when I’d had a few I dug out some old stuff from my PhD excavations in America. Stuff I’d never used. I polished it up for half an hour then emailed it just on the off chance and forgot about it. Next thing I bloody know it’s there in the bloody Archeological Review of America, and I’m buggered.

  —But that sounds like a premier refereed journal, Brian?

  —It is. So everyone’ll read it. So I’m finished.

  —What, was your paper wrong?

  —Wrong? Excuse me, John, my findings were rock-solid. My technique was downright classic. I presented incontrovertible archaeological evidence that the Apaches regularly massacred entire villages of Pueblo Indians, women and children and all, during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

  —Ri-ght. So … ?

  —Are you deaf, John? I said the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

  —Yes, I did hear, but I don’t really get why …

  —Centuries before Columbus!

  —Well, yes, obviously, but …

  —John, the Native Americans were all peaceful, wonderful guardians of nature, living in harmony with their environment and with one another in a highly sustainable fashion, before they were ruined by their first contact with nasty vicious capitalist imperialist white men.

  —Were they?

  —They bloody well were if you want a job in any proper archaeology department in Britain or America. The only place that would take me now would be some foul hole in Texas funded by the First Church of Aryan Creationists. God knows how I’m going to get back into everyone’s good books. If only I could do a few reviews for The Paper, that would help so much!

  —I could put a word in for you, if you’d like.

  —Could you? Would you? Put a word in for me? At The Paper? Would you really?

  —Well, I mean, Brian, now I’m here in London I can just pop along to The Paper any time, to have a chat, can’t I?

  —God, yes, of course. Well, John, hey, that’d be so good. Well, hey, that deserves a decent top-up! Just a sec. Oh, damn, better open another bottle. Don’t stop, John, go on while I just …

  —No worries, Brian. So, do you think that you can help me with this review?

  —What? Oh, that, yes, of course, hey, no problem! Fire away, John!

  —Thanks. So, Brian. Now, in this book, as I said, um, our hero finds this, this cache of secrets. The question is simply this: if he reburied it and the next week he dug it up again and then called the police, would they be able to tell that he’d already dug it up once and reburied it?

  —Yes.

  —Sorry?

  —Yes.

  —They’d be able to tell?

  —Yes.

  —Oh. Oh, right. I thought, I mean, right. I see. Um, so, what, if it was only buried again for a few hours?

  —I thought you said he buried it for a week?

  —Well, yes, that’s right. He does. I just, I was just wanting to, get my argument right. For the review. So, I mean, if the author had made his hero rebury it for just a couple of hours and then call the police that very same night … ?

  —No difference at all.

  —What? They’d still be able to tell?

  —John, I can tell you if a Neolithic grave was broken into and then refilled on the same day three thousand years ago. I must say, I’m surprised at your lack of cross-faculty knowledge, John. Layers and levels. Strata and soil types. Basic to the whole of archaeology.

  —Yes, yes of course. But look, I forgot to mention, though. This is really important. Actually, it’s the central point. It’s been, I mean, in the book, it’s supposed to have been raining heavily while the suitcase was reburied. I was wondering, wouldn’t that make it more difficult for the police to tell? Sort of, wash away the, the strata and the layers?

  —John, just think about it, will you? The backfill within the pit has just been thoroughly disturbed and aerated. Well? Is it going to absorb the water the same rate as the soil in the surrounding undisturbed matrix of the strata? Will the walls of the pit be unchanged by having their surfaces exposed to air and water? Will the backfill simply remesh with the undisturbed dug surfaces?

  —Well, I suppose … , I said, and pulled the curtain aside so that I could look out into the dark garden. Was I hallucinating, or could I really see, even in the dark, even with my untrained eye, that the filled-in pit was a blacker black than the rest of the black? Was it not indeed holding
the rain, growing waterlogged, like a fresh-dug grave?—Well, I suppose … , I repeated stupidly.

  —Well, of course not, John.

  —And, um, I mean, how long will it stay that obvious?

  —To the trained eye? For, well, basically, for ever.

  —Oh God. Ah, right but only to the trained eye, you say, Brian? I thought, I mean, the, um, the author appears to think, that the police might not notice. Being, you know, untrained.

  —What, don’t they bring in any forensic scientists? John? I thought you said there was a machine gun involved as well?

  —Ah yes. That. Yes, there is.

  Here is the news. An Armalite discovered in SE11. Pictures from the scene. SWAT teams, men in haunting white cover-alls, road blocks, vans, armed cops.

  —In the real world they’d certainly bring in forensic scientists, John. I think your German writer is being pretty sloppy.

  —No, no, they do bring in forensic scientists. Of course they do. In the book.

  —Well then. Simple, John. Any half-decent forensic scientist would know straight away that this box of secrets or whatever it is had been very recently dug up and put back.

  —Right. So, Brian, in other words, let me just get this straight. If I, I mean he, the hero of this book, dug it up, then buried it again, then dug it up again, it wouldn’t make, I mean, have made, any difference if it was that night, next day or in, say, a week. Whatever he did, the police wouldn’t believe he’d only just found it?

  —Not unless they were utterly incompetent.

  —So basically, he was buggered the moment he dug it up and then reburied it?

  —I’d have thought so. Does he get away with it, in this book of yours? Surely not?

  —What? Well, yes, as matter of fact, Brian. He, yes, actually, he gets away with it. They believe him. They just take the machine gun away. The secret papers and the machine gun that isn’t really important, I mean, after the ordinary sort of questions, obviously. And, well, then everything gets back to normal. It’s quite a happy ending, really.

  —Hmm. Well, literature’s not my thing, John, never saw the point of it much, there are enough real mysteries out there without drama queens making up bloody silly stories, but I must say that this sounds like a particularly pointless one.