Skendleby

by Nick Brown

  He turned to go stopped for a moment and murmured:

  “Sorry to just drop this on you but that’s what comes with being in charge.”

  Giles said nothing just watched the dishevelled Steve and the slim hipped girl weave their way through the crowded pub to the door wondering how he managed to attract a never failing supply of attractive young women. Then he sat back with his drink thinking over Steve’s unease; he was glad he hadn’t told him about Carver and Richardson. He reached across and picked up a tattered copy of the evening paper left on an adjacent table, its front page headline screamed ‘Violent maniac loose in south of city, streets unsafe at night.’

  The piece reported a series of random, motiveless attacks along an axis leading from the area round the university along the main routes south out of the city. The police were baffled and had released no information other than a warning that the perpetrator was highly disturbed and that people on the streets after dark had to take special care. He was about to turn over and read further when he noticed that the paper had a small feature on tomorrow’s excavation so he turned to that. Thinking of the excavation worried him: it was too hurried, almost as if something was pushing them to go too fast, he tossed the paper back onto its table.

  Alone he wished he had a girlfriend like Steve always seemed to have. Any girl would do; in the pub all the women were either in groups or couples. He didn’t want to return to his empty, shabby house so he drank on alone until closing time. That night he had the dream again: he was closed up in the frozen stone chamber with the frightening dark haired woman. It shook him up so much that he lay awake till five and then almost slept through the alarm.

  ***

  Jim arriving early parked up the Shogun outside Lisa’s flat and rang the bell. She was eating a piece of toast as she opened the door and unenthusiastically offered him a coffee. Jim noted the colourless flat reflected the void personality of its owner. Since her illness she’d maintained a strict routine that dictated the pattern of her life. It was this clinical desire for organisation which had made her first year as a freelance photographer successful. Well, that and the influence of her father. He sat at the pine table in the sparse kitchen and read the notice board on the wall where Lisa had written down all her appointments for the week. While he drank his coffee waiting for her to gather and check equipment he gazed around the flat.

  It was a one bed-roomed apartment with combined living and dining space and a small bathroom, well maintained and decorated and yet entirely impersonal with no more atmosphere than apartments bought to let. No pictures, memorabilia or mess; nothing that spoke of the owner; a complete contrast to her parental home, which was filled with mementos of the career, interests and successes of her father, along with every modern trend in furnishing and conspicuous consumption.

  Jim was trying to work out how the houses of the father and the daughter could be so different, occupying both ends of the spectrum from vacant to vulgar, when Lisa entered the room. Perhaps it was because he’d been thinking about her that made him study her more closely than usual. He saw, despite her attempt to conceal appearance, she’d grown up to be an attractive woman.

  She did everything she could to disguise this, trying to fade into the background, unnoticed. It was like seeing someone for the first time and it jarred with his normal acceptance of her as just the daughter of a friend he’d known since she was a toddler. Lisa wore an anorak over her oatmeal sweater and Primark jeans. Her hair was scraped back into a pony tail with an elastic band and, as always, wore no makeup: like camouflage. There was no conversation: he finished the coffee and they left the flat, but there was something different about Lisa today: a type of impatience he hadn’t noticed before and that she was trying to conceal.

  In the car she reminded him in a bored flat tone that tonight was her father’s pre- Christmas drinks party and attendance was obligatory. This party was a tradition. Councillor Richardson annually held what he called the ‘first event of the festive season’ at the beginning of December and intended it to set a tone of opulence that others would find difficult to match. Lisa was her normal subdued self during the drive and some of this transferred itself to Jim. Perhaps it was the thought of having to put in an appearance at Derek’s party, which would painfully extend what was already going to be a long day. He’d lost interest in the site and was irritated with Giles, who seemed to operate on two levels: either self pitying sponging off him or an almost manic enthusiasm for the dig evidenced by the tone of the phone message he had left.

  When Giles first the idea of the Journal’s exclusive coverage of the excavation he’d been carried along by the persuasive manner. Yet, this morning, Giles told him that despite their agreement, there was to be coverage by the local TV news and maybe other coverage drummed up by the university coms people. He was reflecting on how most of his old friendships brought him little pleasure these days when he realised they’d reached the estate boundary. He steered the Shogun down the bumpy track through the trees and parked up behind one of the Unit’s minibuses. He helped Lisa get her gear out of the car aware of a rustling noise above him growing in volume. Looking up he saw that the crown of every tree was packed full of dark black crows.

  The day was cold and sombre without any trace of a breeze, the atmosphere seeming to muffle the sounds of the dig. At the entrance to the site an unusually animated Steve was in conversation with two mud splattered young women who he could vaguely place as Jan and Leonie. Not a conversation, a heated argument and Jim wondered how people could get so worked up about scraping about in the mud to find bits of pot and bone. By now he was close enough to hear Leonie shouting.

  “What else do you need to make you understand, Steve? Rose was attacked, I’m being stalked, a vicar wants to exorcise the site and someone’s leaving long dead animals and birds all over. I can still smell that fucking crow on my fingers.”

  “Leonie, chill: you only need to hang on for a few days then we’re away.”

  “Steve, how fucking stupid are you? The villagers walled this thing up to hide it and then ran away ’cos they were terrified, and you, you want to open it.”

  She threw her trowel at his feet and rushed off towards the mound. Jim saw she was crying. Steve placed an arm around Jan’s shoulders and she momentarily rested her head against his chest only to quickly straighten up when she saw Jim watching. Steve removed his arm and greeted them.

  “Sorry about that, archaeologists can be as temperamental as actors; actually it’s your visit that caused it. Leonie thinks we should postpone excavating the barrow until after the pit’s been investigated. She thinks it has some sort of ritual function warning anyone who wants to mess with the entrance. Claims that it will only take them another day and that what they find will help us when we open the feature.

  “But Giles is dead set on opening it today so you, and the film crew over there, can record it. Anyway it’s too late in the year to excavate properly so the sooner we get the thing opened up the sooner we get off this site and that’s what most of us want; it’s too cold and dark to be doing this type of work in December.”

  While he was talking Giles appeared, clean shaven, reminding Jim of how he used to look before his problems.

  “Hey, Jim, you’re just in time,”

  The clean cut Giles called out,

  “We’re almost ready to break through into what we hope is a unique Neolithic barrow. Steve thinks it’s like a really small version of the Five Well Chambered Cairn. But the real deal is that this one is in a location unlike any other. Congratulations, you’re about to record history being made.”

  The journalists followed Giles who continued to brief them as they crossed the forlorn and neglected village excavation. Clustered around the entrance of the mound were most of the diggers listening to Leonie. She was standing on the edge of the pit waving her arms and shouting.

  “Look, you can see why we shouldn’t do this: it’s entertainment not archaeology, we’re messing
with something we don’t understand.”

  As Giles reached the mound Leonie turned on him and demanded,

  “Listen, Giles, please delay opening the chamber until I’ve excavated this pit.”

  Giles was angry; she was challenging him in front of the press. He noticed the film crew was filming the scene and he didn’t want human interest, he wanted the coverage to record a major discovery. He asked calmly as he could.

  “Why Leonie? What difference would that make?”

  “You’re meant to be an archaeologist, you should know: if you open the mound before the pit you destroy evidence and lose what it can tell you about the mound.”

  “Don’t worry we’ll be careful.”

  She spat out at him,

  “Right, then here’s the real reason. Once you’ve seen what I find in it you won’t want to go anywhere near that chamber.”

  And he shouted back,

  “Now you’re being hysterical.”

  Steve pushed past Giles reaching out to Leonie, trying to calm her down.

  She turned and slapped him hard across the face then strode across to Giles.

  “I’m leaving this dig, it’s a mess. You do what you like, do what you fucking well like. You can’t screw around with this type of thing. You bloody fool; do you still not get what happened to Rose?”

  She burst into tears and half ran towards the site exit with Jan calling after her.

  Jim turned to Lisa, she was laughing.

  It took Giles and Steve about half an hour to calm people down and reorganise the opening of the chamber. During this time, while Lisa was checking light settings and working out the best camera shots, Jim, feeling like a spare part, stood by the site boundary looking across to the woods which bordered the estate. His attention was drawn to a movement or disturbance at the edge of the woods. He was trying to make out what it was when he was tapped on the arm and turning round saw Jan, hands deep in the pocket of her coat and with sloped shoulders, looking diminutive and defenceless.

  “Mind if I talk to you?”

  Jim had to resist the impulse to put an arm round her like would with his children, he asked her,

  “I can see how upset your friend is but I don’t understand all the stuff about the pit and the chamber.”

  “She thinks they’re linked in some way and the pit’s a warning. What we found down there is pretty disturbing. It’s been filled in a deliberate way; it’s sealed in a series of different layers. Each of these layers contains fetish objects: things of power that have been deliberately placed in context. But what really freaked Leonie is that not all of the finds in this pit are Neolithic; some are contemporary with the village. This means that before they covered the feature over they’d found this pit directly in front of the entrance. It bothered them enough to replace it as it was and to add their own power fetish for extra protection.

  “Leonie’s sure we’ve nearly reached down to what’s really buried in there. She thinks its part of the villagers’ attempts to keep whatever’s inside that feature buried. So we should delay opening the chamber until we excavate the pit. She feels it so strongly it’s freaking her out, stopping her sleeping, she’s sure it’s not just her imagination. She says we’re being watched from the woods over there; thinks she was followed home last night. She’s overwrought and strung out, but I guess we all feel a bit that way now.”

  Jim could see Jan was almost as scared as Leonie. To him it was no big deal if the photos and story in the Journal were a day late. So if it calmed things down he’d suggest putting back the opening until the excavation of the pit was finished to everyone’s satisfaction. He was just about to suggest this to Jan when there was a shout from over by the mound.

  “OK, get ready, we’re going in.”

  CHAPTER 9

  THE OPENING: JIM AND LISA

  Giles was standing with his back to the mound explaining to the semi circle of journalists, excavators and interested visitors how the feature was going to be opened. Behind him crouching by the entrance was Steve with Lisa close up holding the camera. Jim found himself at the back having to stare over people’s heads and shoulders to get a glimpse of the entrance. It was too late to stop this now but when he turned to tell Jan he saw she’d disappeared. Then he saw her small hooded figure standing over at the perimeter fence staring towards the woods.

  Giles hyping it up: introduced Steve as one of the world’s leading Neolithic specialists. Jim thought maybe Giles had missed his true vocation in life and could have made a career promoting media events. All the same, he felt a sense of unease mixed with distaste for the way this was being conducted; ironic considering Giles was turning it into some type of media event for the benefit of his paper. He briefly entertained the image of a celebrity opening; perhaps the footballers and wags whose mansions were close by would be available. Then the small crowd surged forwards and he saw Steve had started.

  The work on the entrance had stopped at the point where, theoretically at least, only a few loosely positioned large stones remained between the outside world and what the scientific survey suggested was a small passage leading to a burial chamber. Most of the preparatory work had been completed so Steve’s task should, therefore, be largely cosmetic taking only a few minutes. This would allow a shot of the opening followed by a shot of Steve entering the chamber. What followed would depend on what the chamber contained and whether it was in a fit state to be filmed. Whatever the result, Jim had reserved a full page, which would largely comprise colour pictures. The Journal’s readership would not want too much archaeological detail and if the chamber proved either not to exist or to contain nothing of note, then the piece would work just as well as local interest focused on personalities at the site.

  He began to feel the cold and realised they’d been watching Steve for fifteen minutes. The murmurings of expectation had ceased as the onlookers shifted from foot to foot shuffling and stamping about in the still, cold air. It seemed that between the entrance and the chamber the short passage was partially filled with rubble; not a promising beginning. The fifteen minutes extended to forty-five and Jim began to think that, not only had this been miscalculated, but that the whole event had been a waste of time. He could see Lisa becoming increasingly frustrated and biting at her finger tips and Giles crouched by the entrance, shouting at Steve,

  “Come on, Steve, get a move on it’s freezing out here.”

  There was a piercing scream.

  ***

  Later, when Jim tried to recall the scene he could never quite get the sequence. It seemed distant; almost as if everything happened in slow motion or the participants were wading through treacle.

  The scream came from behind him in the parking area. He turned and saw a rapidly moving woman in a hooded coat with long dark hair. She was shouting and gesticulating as she ran up on to the path that led through the village excavation to the mound. Striding across the mud in long dark boots, coat flapping around her legs, she reminded Jim of a strangely elegant scarecrow. He heard her shout,

  “Dr Glover. Stop. You’ve got to stop. You don’t know what you’re meddling with. Please, please stop this now.”

  Jim supposed that this must be the woman Giles had described as ‘mad as a badger’ in the restaurant. Close up she was extremely attractive, if inappropriately dressed for a mad rant on an archaeological site.

  A loud yelp of pain came from the direction of the chamber and Steve staggered out, hands clasped over his eyes. He lurched a few steps towards Giles who threw his arms out to support him. The elegant scarecrow pushed her way through the confused onlookers towards Giles at the epicentre of the drama.

  Jim caught a scent of perfume as she passed and then had to blink his eyes closed. A violent tearing wind had suddenly risen blowing directly out of the mouth of the chamber, howling across them, whipping dust and debris up from the site into their eyes. When he opened them and blinked through the tears he saw the TV cameraman on his knees holding his face. The mad woman
had reached Giles and was haranguing him while Giles, obviously unnerved, was trying to support Steve.

  They made a bizarre triptych, the long hair of Steve and the woman being whipped and mingled by the ferociously strong wind, with Giles at the centre turning his head rapidly from left to right trying to calm Steve, listen to the woman and look towards the mound. He seemed desperate to watch something at the entrance, Jim remembered Lisa.

  Lisa, where was she? Now for the first time Jim engaged; Lisa was his responsibility. Jan grabbed his arm and pointed.

  “Your photographer, she’s gone into the chamber, I saw her near the entrance when Steve came out. Look she’s gone in!”

  Jan had to scream so her voice could be heard above the rising noise of the wind, which had blown her hood back and caused her hair to stream back behind her in the flow of dust and larger detritus that was blinding them. Above them hundreds of crows circled, cawing and screeching.

  By the entrance Steve and Giles were struggling to stay upright and the mad woman was shouting with increasing urgency. But her words were being blown away flying rapidly with the wind to Jim.

  “She’s in there. She’s gone in. You have to get her out now, get her out, get her out, go and get her out now you fool. Go.”

  Giles went stumbling bent double into the whirlwind that was blowing straight out of the mound’s entrance leaving the woman to support Steve. Jim saw him disappear through the entrance and into the chamber. The woman followed, leaving Steve, still clutching at his eyes. She stopped a few feet from the chamber, turned her back to it and stood blocking the entrance to anyone else. She was still shouting but the wind had risen so violently that he couldn't catch even the fragments of words. But her meaning was obvious; she stood eyes blazing, legs braced and arms stretched out at her sides like an image of crucifixion. Her hair and clothes were blowing wildly; she was now the centre of the storm and an impenetrable barrier to the chamber.