by Paul Finch
She yanked herself free, at last furious with him. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that! Ever!”
And she stormed away over the top of the ridge, stopping only to plonk the idol down in the specimens tray. Alan followed her, no longer worried about drawing attention to himself.
“Linda … come on,” he pleaded. “I’ve said I’m sorry. Just come back, eh. Come on.”
“I’m busy,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I’ll do anything …”
“Then leave me alone,” she hissed. And with that she was gone, hurrying away down the hillside towards the outer cover of the pines, finally breaking into a run.
Alan was left there like a spare part, staring after her, as bewildered as he was crestfallen. And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, there was a voice in his ear, murmuring quietly. “Look … Alan, I don’t want to make a big thing out of this …” Alan turned sharply, to find Clive there, a disapproving frown on his broad, normally genial features. “But, listen, we’re going to be pretty busy over the next few days. So the last thing we need is stresses and strains in the ranks …”
“Yeah, well it’s fucking all right for you, isn’t it!” Alan retorted aggressively. “I mean you’re fixed up aren’t you, Clive. You’ve got Miss Bloody … Bloody …”
And then it came back to him: reality, swimming around him as though a fog had suddenly lifted. This wasn’t just a tutor he was talking so rudely to, but a friend and colleague, someone who’d been with him, providing care and guidance, since pre-grad. On top of that, it was also someone who’d be marking his end-of-course papers, who’d be assessing his general performance, both in the class and in the field, someone who’d be making recommendations and references. In short, someone who was in a very good position to damage Alan’s prospects for further advancement, if he so desired. Not that this was Clive’s style, but beneath the cuddly, loveable exterior, they’d always suspected there’d be a bullish core, and now, briefly, it showed itself. The tutor’s expression hardened; his normally grinning mouth curled the other way for once. His private life was strictly off-limits. That was one area in which he notoriously took no prisoners, especially in relation to his out-of-hours contacts with Professor Mercy. He and she were the worst-kept secret on campus, but woe betide anyone who started blabbing about it.
Hurriedly, Alan held up his hands. “Okay … okay. Sorry. Well out of order, and I know it. Just a bit stressed … All this excitement, you know.”
Clive said nothing. Simply stared him out for a few seconds, then gave a curt nod and ambled away. When he’d gone, Alan glanced around worriedly, wondering who else’s cage he might have rattled. There was no sign of Barry; he was probably inside the barrow … which was something of a relief, no matter how unimportant Alan held him to be. Nug was leaning over a table up at the field-lab, studiously involved in something; his back was firmly turned. And of course, Craig and David hadn’t showed up yet from their morning’s excursion. That left only Professor Mercy. She was over by the megalith, studying the inscription there. She too seemed to be preoccupied, but Alan knew it wasn’t his imagination that she was scrutinising him from the corner of her eye.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath. “Fuck, fuck fuck …”
7
It was shortly after one o’clock when David re-appeared, still yawning, scratching his overhanging belly as he sauntered lazily through the trees.
“Wow,” he said. “Something smells good.”
Nug nodded. “It was.”
“Uh?” David glanced around, non-plussed. There was no sign of the fried bacon he’d been sniffing. In fact, the fire had been doused. Everyone else now seemed to be wrapping up their plates, and laying out their tools again.
“Lunch is finished, David,” Professor Mercy said.
“Oh, come on …” he protested.
“Where’ve you been all day?”
“Oh.” He rubbed his brow. A yellow crust of sleep was still visible under each of his eyes. “Er … sorry about that. Didn’t get much kip last night. Ended up dozing off on a nice patch of dry grass. Totally lost track of time.”
She pursed her lips as she considered.
David looked round hungrily. “I accept I’ve missed the fry-up, but is there anything going? I’m starving.”
Clive tossed him a packet of peanuts. “Here. These’ll help keep your energy up.”
David examined the snack disconsolately, as the rest of them got their equipment together. “It’s a laugh a minute, this, isn’t it,” he finally said.
“How can you think of food on a dig as exciting as this?” wondered Nug.
“Listen pal, I can think of food at any time,” was David’s tart reply.
“Where’s Craig anyway?” the Professor asked him.
He looked up at her, surprised. “Isn’t he here?”
There was a brief silence, then Alan came forward. “What do you mean, ‘Isn’t he here’? He was with you.”
“Only for about 20 minutes,” David replied. “The moment he started climbing, I sloped off. Been wandering around the island, sight-seeing. Like I say, I finally ended up nodding off.”
Professor Mercy gazed at him for a moment, then turned to Alan. “Craig went climbing alone?”
Alan made a helpless gesture. “Well yeah … but it’s not as if he’s inexperienced, is it?”
By this time, everybody else was listening. There’d been no sign of Craig Barker since most of them had woken up.
“I don’t care how experienced he is,” the Professor said. “Solo climbs are risky. You know that, Alan.”
“I doubt he’ll try and tackle any rock-faces,” David offered. “I mean, he hasn’t got the ropes or pins or anything.”
Alan shook his head. “Craig climbs freestyle.”
“What time did he set off?” the Professor asked.
“Five-ish,” Alan replied. “Said he’d be back for breakfast.”
She turned to David again. “And you definitely haven’t seen him?”
David shook his head.
“He’s probably just lost track of time,” Alan put in. “I’ll find him.”
The Professor nodded. “David, go with him, please. Show him exactly where Craig went. And get a move on, can you, lads. We’ve had only half a team on all morning, as it is.”
The two of them made their way speedily downhill, slogged around the western edge of the bog-pools, passed the cave and were soon walking back uphill via the island’s inner southern slope.
“I just assumed he’d be all right,” said David, after a few moments.
“He probably is, don’t worry,” Alan replied.
“I mean, there wouldn’t have been much I could have helped him with, anyway.”
“I know. Like I say … don’t worry.”
They proceeded in silence, tense minutes passing as they pressed on, threading between the trees, breathing progressively harder. Sweat started to bead their brows as the slope angled steeply upwards.
“I’m pretty sure we went this way,” said David, veering towards the left but still ascending.
Forty yards ahead, the ground rose up into an almost sheer gradient of roots and broken earth. They’d come perhaps 1,000 yards from the camp, and the pine cover had thinned out dramatically, until only one or two of the sturdiest specimens remained. Not far beyond those, the slope suddenly transformed into a vertical wall of rock, which climbed tier upon tier towards the azure sky.
“I’d left him to it by this time,” said David, leaning forwards, panting. “I assume he went straight on.”
Alan shielded his eyes to gaze upwards, hoping against hope that he’d spy Craig’s lanky frame coming gracefully down, leaping from ledge to ledge in that carefree, goat-like manner that he had, a big cherubic grin on his wholesome Welsh face. There was no such sign. The tho
ught was reassuring, however, that their pal – who, of course, on this first ascent had not intended to get all the way up to the eagle’s nest – had let his enthusiasm get the better of him, and had kept on going, finally finding a fantastic angle on the eyrie, and was now snapping shot after shot. That would certainly be like the ornithologist, though he was generally more responsible than to while away so many hours without at least letting someone know where he was.
Alan scrambled forwards again, not exactly sure where he was going to go from this point; unlike Craig, he had minimal skills on the rock-face, but he was urgently aware that he had to get a result of some kind. It was now well into the afternoon, and the sun was at its zenith.
It was this that gave them their first clue.
It threw a misshapen shadow onto the cliff-face. At first it was an amorphous blot, a confluence of branches twisted here, there and everywhere, tangling themselves in a knot at the centre. The more Alan stared up at this, however, the more he fancied he could see human limbs inside it – limp and dangling, maybe the indistinct outline of a lolling human head. Suddenly, a bolt of terror went through him. Alan stopped dead and turned, gazing up into the trees behind them. David did the same.
Horror jolted the pair of them, violently.
Craig was up there, hanging from one of the higher boughs – not by his hands, or by a piece of clothing caught on a twig, or even by a rope. He was hanging from the branch because he’d been bent over it. Backwards. It was a horrible and yet impossible sight. The back of Craig’s head almost touched the backs of his heels. It was as if he had no spine at all. He’d simply been thrown over the branch and draped there like a wet towel. Even from far below, they could see that his rigid face bore an expression of excruciating pain. His camera still hung by its strap from one of his dangling wrists.
“Oh my God …” David breathed, scarcely audible.
A second of stunned silence passed, then Alan jerked into action. “Quickly!” he said. “Give me a hand.” He dashed forward, jumped for one of the lower branches and tried to haul himself up.
“But he must be dead,” David protested.
“We don’t know that.”
“Know it? But he’s been folded up like a piece of paper …”
“David!” Alan shouted. “Just get your arse over here and give me a hand!”
David hurried to comply, and at last Alan got a decent purchase, swung himself up and began to climb properly. He went up steadily, moving from one gnarled limb to the next. Ten feet, 20 feet … He continued to clamber, never once looking down, oblivious to the soon-precipitous drop below him; not because he was naturally fearless, or even because he was particularly good at climbing trees, but because the circumstances wouldn’t allow it. He knew only one thing – that he had to get up alongside Craig in order to discover that the casualty was actually okay, that it looked far worse than it was, maybe even that the Welsh guy was shamming, just playing a sick joke on them.
But long before he reached the jack-knifed form, he knew this wouldn’t be the case.
Craig hung in a posture for which humanity had never been intended. As David had said, he’d literally been folded in two. The only explanation was that his backbone had snapped, probably with the impact on the heavy branch.
Alan finally got alongside his friend, and shinned out towards him. Hurriedly, he reached down and took Craig’s wrist in his fingers. There was no pulse he could detect; the flesh was stone-cold. Alan let the hand drop and peered upwards. There was maybe 20 yards of open air between this tree and the rock-face, and as the rock-face ascended it leaned further and further away. It was difficult to see how Craig could have hit the tree at all in a straightforward fall. But then, one never knew. On such a slope, at such an angle, spaces could be deceptive. One thing was certain: Craig was not shamming.
“Shall I go and get the others?” David called up.
“You … you might as well,” Alan replied, trying to keep his voice steady.
David hurried off down the slope, leaving him there alone … which was something of a relief. Alan was at last able to hang his head. Tears squeezed out onto his cheeks. It was hardly the manly response to a crisis, but after all the emotional turbulence of the morning, this was the last thing he needed. On top of that, of course, there was shock. He’d never known anyone of his own age who’d died before; only now was the numbing realisation seeping through him that Craig Barker, a buddy since his first week in college, would never again figure in his life; that a few hours ago the cheeky chappie from South Wales had been healthy and perky as a spring-lamb, and that now it was all over and he was gone. They hadn’t even had the chance to say “See you”.
Several minutes passed as Alan silently wept, at the end of which time he struggled to get it back together. He couldn’t afford to let the others see him like this. In addition, there were things he had to do. Like, somehow, get Craig’s body down to ground level.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but the problem was solved for him; as he took hold of Craig’s trouser belt and tried to lug him along the branch towards the main trunk, the body dislodged and slid free. It fell heavily but limply, twisting and turning as it plummeted the remaining 30 or so feet to the ground. Alan winced at the sound of the collision, even though he knew that Craig was far past the point of pain.
It took him another five minutes to get himself down safely, and even then there were one or two hair-raising moments, smaller boughs bending or cracking beneath his boots, his hands occasionally losing their grip on the flaking, silver-gray bark. At long last, however, he touched down, then walked over to where Craig lay. The Welshman had landed on his back again, his arms and legs splayed out, his neck to one side. One of his eyelids had opened slightly, the already-yellowing orb visible below it. The mouth was still twisted in a rictal grimace of pain. There was a horrible rigidity about that final ugly expression – it was like an image carved from wax, rather than a human face.
Alan gazed helplessly at it for several more minutes. He was still doing so when the others arrived, scrambling up through the trees, David at their forefront. The students gathered around in stunned silence, while Professor Mercy and Clive attended to the body, checking the carotid artery at the side of the exposed throat, planting ears against the narrow, motionless chest. No check they made came up positive, however.
Another minute seemed to pass before anyone spoke. The tutors were standing up again as Alan began a long rambling explanation about how and where they’d found Craig, and how he’d accidentally knocked the body to the ground while trying to recover it. His words petered out as Clive hunkered down and checked again for vital signs, still to no avail.
Eventually, Professor Mercy looked up and gazed around at them. Her expression was difficult to read. Linda, on the other hand, was visibly upset, her green eyes glazed with tears. Nug was grim, David still white-faced. For all his usual bravado, even Barry Wood seemed shaken up.
“This is a bitter lesson to us all,” the Professor finally said. “It just shows … this is not some holiday idyll. This is wild countryside and we’re out on our own in it. From now on, recreational activities are out, okay? No exceptions.”
Alan looked up at her in surprise. “From now on? You mean we’re going on with the dig?”
She shrugged. “What else can we do?”
“But surely we’re at least going to call someone?” he said. “I mean, the Coast Guard for instance. McEndry said we could …”
The Professor eyed him keenly. “Why should we alert the Coast Guard? Nobody’s in danger, nobody needs rescuing.”
Alan was astounded. “But someone’s just died!”
“People die all the time, Alan,” she replied. “Accidents happen. It’s terrible, I admit, tragic, but we’ve got a boat coming on Thursday evening. We don’t need to call the Coast Guard.”
“Don’t you think we sho
uld at least report it?”
“We will do,” she said. “As soon as one of us gets back to the mainland.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this …”
Now Barry Wood stepped in. Inevitably, because the Professor was occupying a position contrary to Alan’s, he was on her side. “There’s nothing anyone can do, is there?” he said. “No-one can bring him back.”
Alan looked from one to the other. “So you’re saying we just carry on as though nothing’s happened?”
“We’ll put Craig in the monks’ cave for the moment,” the Professor replied. “No sense in burying him when we’ll be out of here soon …”
“Are you serious?” Alan turned for support from some of the others. “Surely I’m not the only one here who thinks we should call for help?”
Clive looked uncertain. “It’s legally beholden on us to report the incident, of course,” he said.
“But that would mean making the find public knowledge before we’ve even half excavated it,” the Professor replied. Now Alan caught a glimmer of the way she was rationalising the tragedy. It both horrified and sickened him.
Clive nodded to himself. “That must be a consideration.”
“Why don’t we take a vote?” said Barry.
Alan was incredulous. “A vote?”
“On whether we carry on, or call for McEndry to come early.”
“For Christ’s sake, someone has just died!”
“Yes, but this is the find of the century, we’re sitting on here,” the Professor argued. “The last thing we need now is the press crawling all over the island, not to mention souvenir hunters.”
Alan found himself staring at her in disbelief and no little disgust; a stare she returned intently. For a fleeting moment, it was like he was looking at someone else, someone who also had beauty and power, but who had ice running through her veins instead of blood, who had a thing of iron where her heart should be. It was a side of her that he – in fact any of them – had never seen before.