Watermark

by E. J. Kay

  “The university’s IT records show you as being logged into the computers there at all the times and dates when the blog comments were made. Can you explain that?” asked Robson.

  Thackray looked blank. “No, I’m afraid I can’t. It may simply be a coincidence. I can assure you that I have not made any public comments on any of Dr Whickham’s work. I wouldn’t know how to comment on a blog, in any case.”

  “How long have you been lecturing Divinity?” asked Kelly, looking for a way to keep him talking. She just couldn’t get a handle on the man.

  “All my working life. I studied at Oxford and then began teaching there. After six years I left and moved back here to teach at the local school, and then I moved to the university twenty-three years ago. Of course, it was the polytechnic then.”

  “This is a very ... unusual house,” said Kelly, struggling for the right word.

  Thackray smiled unconvincingly. “Yes indeed, it is rather eccentric, I suppose. It was built by my great grandfather in 1885. My family has provided the vicars of this parish for three generations. It was the vicarage until 1960 when the parish combined with its neighbour, Durdley. The vicar of Durdley parish church became the vicar of this parish too. My father lost his position and, rather than move, he took the position of divinity teacher at St Thomas Aquinas private school, just next to the church here. I have followed in his footsteps as far as teaching divinity is concerned, but not into the priesthood. Being the youngest meant that I didn’t face any particular pressure to follow the family tradition. I was able to do it because I wanted to. My eldest brother had to rebel, as the greatest expectation fell on him, of course.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He studied archaeology, in point of fact. A strange coincidence under the present circumstances. He’s seventeen years older than me and is now retired, however.”

  Kelly judged that they had probably got as far as they were going to at this interview, and she was running out of ideas to keep him talking. She looked at her watch. “Well, thank you for your time Dr Thackray. We may need to be in touch with you again.”

  He stood up. “To eliminate me from your enquiries, as the saying goes?” There was a sarcastic edge to his voice.

  Kelly stood up too, and smiled briefly. “Something like that. Thank you for the tea.”

  Thackray led them out of the house and down the steps to the wooden door in the front wall. Kelly and Robson walked through and turned to say good bye, but he had already closed the gate behind them with a clunk and they could hear the bolt being drawn across the lock. They walked back to the car.

  “What do you make of him?” asked Robson.

  “I really don’t know, but there’s a lot more we’ll need to talk to Dr Thackray about. I’m sure of that.”

  “So, what next?”

  “Don’t know that either. I’ve got some ideas but I need to let them ferment for a while.”

  “Are you dropping a hint that you need a drink?”

  “There you are, you see,” said Kelly, opening the car door. “You’re not that daft after all.”

  Chapter 12

  Mike swiped his ID card through the door control to the outer office of lab G012 and he and Joseph went in. It was the first time Joseph had been back to the lab since finding Alec dead, and he hadn’t been looking forward to it. Mike hadn’t been there since before Alec’s death, but he too felt the emotion of being in the place where Alec had died. They walked towards the lab door and stopped just outside it; they looked at each other, silent and uneasy. Joseph nodded to Mike and he swiped his card again. The lab door slid open.

  Joseph noticed that the smell had changed, which was a relief. The metallic tinge had gone and the more familiar, dry bone and dust smell had returned. He walked over to where the two trolleys had stood. Now there was just one. Nimue lay there, with the fossilized mussels still placed around her head. Mike followed him over to the trolley. “Wow. God. Amazing! No wonder Alec was so excited about this,” he whispered.

  Joseph nodded. “She is pretty fantastic, isn’t she? And why are you whispering?”

  Mike smiled. ”I’ve no idea,” he said, in a normal voice. “I guess she gives me a feeling of …” He frowned and shrugged, unable to express it.

  “Reverence,” said Joseph.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly it...” His voice became quieter again. “Reverence.”

  “I didn’t get much chance to see her last time I was here,” Joseph said, with sadness in his voice. “But now I do, I envy you working on her. Even though she is quite a jigsaw puzzle in places.” He carefully picked up part of the pelvis and turned it round in his fingers. “She’s amazingly complete.”

  Mike looked over the pieces carefully. “Yeah, and Alec and his team have done a good job in the reconstruction so far.” He pulled on a pair of fine gloves, picked up part of an ulna and stared at it, transfixed.

  “Are you OK?” asked Joseph.

  “I’m fine. I think the astonishment of knowing I have the responsibility of leading this has hit home. I nearly fell over when the VC called me at the weekend and told me that the Kenyan authorities had made it a condition that I direct the project if she’s to remain here for the planned four months. I guess it’s because my mum is Kenyan and worked for the National Museums. I’m dead excited, but truthfully, pretty nervous.”

  “You’ve got Alec’s team working with you though. He always rated them highly.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. Oh, I’m really chuffed to get this opportunity, don’t get me wrong. It’s just the responsibility.”

  “You don’t like responsibility, do you?” asked Joseph. It sounded a bit hard, harder than he meant it to, but he let it stand. Mike didn’t seem offended.

  “No, that’s true. Never have. Still, it’s what’s coming my way now, so I’ll need to buckle down and get used to it.”

  Joseph smiled. “I’ll let you get started then. I expect minute by minute updates, remember!”

  Mike smiled back as Joseph walked towards the lab door.

  “Joe?”

  He turned round. “Yeah?”

  Mike looked like he was about to say something, but then changed his mind. “Wish me luck!”

  “You won’t need it. Can’t think of anyone more capable of doing this.” The door slid open and Joseph left.

  Mike looked back at the skeleton lying in front of him. He picked up the skull and looked at it closely. Distinct brow ridges; two clear ridges running from the tops of the eye sockets across the crown; yep, looks like Homo ergaster alright. He turned it round to inspect the back, expecting to see the familiar anterior ridge. But that isn’t what he saw.

  ----------

  Joseph had just got back into his office when his phone rang.

  “Joe, get back down here quick!” It was Mike.

  “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “Just come down now. You have to see this.”

  “OK.” He put the phone down with a sickening sense of déjà vu. Mike sounded exactly as Alec had done on the evening he died. Joseph almost ran out of the office and down the stairs to the lab block. He swiped his card and walked into the lab to see Mike holding the skull and looking at it with disbelief. He held it out to Joseph, back first.

  “Get some gloves on and look at this.”

  Joseph obeyed, took hold of the skull and immediately saw that there was a hole in the rear, at the base. It was wider at the centre than at the edges and the bone around the edges of the hole showed signs of radiating hairline fractures. Even though he was not a human anatomy expert, Joseph could immediately see what it was. “Good God! It’s a wound.”

  “Yeah, and look at where it is. And its shape. Watch this.” Mike retrieved the skull from Joseph and picked up the hand axe that had been found next to Nimue. He pushed the point into the hole. It fitted very convincingly.

  “That’s incredible. She was killed with this hand axe?”

  “I’d bet a reasonable amount o
f money on it. Or at least that she was badly injured and died in the water as a result. She wouldn’t have stayed conscious very long with an injury like this. But the really weird thing is that it’s the same kind of injury that killed Alec.”

  “Yeah, it certainly looks like it,” said Joseph. “This must have been what Alec was so excited about. It couldn’t be the reason he was killed, could it?” Both men looked at each other with apprehension, and then Joseph shook his head. “No, what on earth for? What kind of motive would that be?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m getting increasingly jittery about this whole fucking thing!” Mike put the skull and axe back on the trolley and leaned on the bench behind him. “What do we do? Should we tell anyone? Does it matter?”

  “We probably ought to tell the police. They didn’t touch the skeleton when they investigated the accident here. They were only interested in Alec. They did look at the hand axe after I suggested to Kelly that it could be the weapon that was used on Alec, but apparently they didn’t find any traces of blood or anything.”

  “I’m also having another awful thought. How many people knew about the wound to this skull?”

  “I don’t know. I guess Ben, Lily or Egraine might have known, but knowing Alec I’d say he probably didn’t tell anyone. He mostly worked alone and was pretty defensive about his own pet bits of projects. I know he was working on Nimue’s skull in his office and wouldn’t let anyone in to see it.”

  “He could have told Juliet,” said Mike with a wince.

  “Yes, he could indeed. Maybe in the heat of one of their arguments. But actually I don’t think it’s likely.”

  “Well, Alec was famous for keeping things to himself,” said Mike.

  Joseph sat down on one of the lab stools. “True, but someone did know a lot about Alec’s views on human evolution, and worked closely with him.”

  Mike looked surprised. “Who?”

  “I don’t know, that’s the problem.”

  Mike looked confused. “You’re losing me.”

  “Remember that paper we found on his network drive?”

  Mike nodded.

  Joseph sighed. “Well, I read it over the weekend and it’s ... unexpected.”

  “How?”

  “It’s well-balanced, based on evidence and doesn’t make any really wild claims.”

  Mike laughed. “Very unexpected!”

  Joseph smiled. “Yeah, exactly.” He looked thoughtful.

  “So,” said Mike, “you’d better tell me what it says. It’s obviously eating you up.”

  “It’s just disturbing when you think you know someone. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe no one really did.”

  Mike sat down on another of the lab stools. “Come on, tell me.”

  “Well, he concentrates on the two L’s of human characteristics. Locomotion and language. As far as locomotion goes, he makes the point that the archaeological evidence seems to show that there were apes capable of walking upright more than four million years ago, and that some authors argue that humans and chimpanzees might have had ancestors with very early tendencies to spend at least some of their time upright before the chimpanzee/human split from the common ancestor.”

  Mike nodded. “Yep, well, nothing new there. Orrorin tugenensis finds have been dated to around six million years ago, and they look like they may have had some bipedal adaptations.”

  “Yes, true. But then, oddly for Alec, he makes the point that by four and a half million years ago, species like Ardipithecus ramidus were no longer suspending from branches or knuckle-walking and had both bipedal and,” Joseph made air quotes, “careful-climbing adaptations. Dentition appears to show that Ardipithecus ate a largely plant-based diet and analysis of other animal specimens in the same strata as Ardipithecus are indicative of a woodland environment, distant from large bodies of water. So he reaches the conclusion that early upright walking is unlikely to have been an adaptation to enable wading in an aquatic environment, or at least that upright walking can and did begin to develop away from large bodies of water.”

  Mike frowned. “Well, again, none of that’s any surprise to me. But it sure doesn’t sound like Alec.”

  “No, exactly my feeling, too. But he does go on to argue that upright walking confers a significant advantage on apes that capitalise on water as a source of food, by enabling them to wade easily, and therefore gives them access to rich food sources like fish and shellfish. This would be especially advantageous if other sources of food had become scarce. And then, of course, he plays his ace. The location of these finds,” Joseph pointed to Nimue, “on top of an ancient shellfish bed, is strong evidence that early Homo species were living in close proximity to these food sources, and might even have been swimming regularly. Alec argues that wading in gradually deeper water may then have led to voluntary swimming and, ultimately, the ability to dive. Both of these abilities are much better developed in us humans than in any other of the great apes, as we know. He finishes that line of argument by saying that many examples of bipedal apes later than Ardipithecus, such as the Australopithicines, have been found near rivers and lakes.”

  “It sounds pretty toned-down for Alec,” said Mike. “The arguments about the transition from bent-knee walking to completely upright forms of locomotion are well-known, but I wouldn’t have expected him to come down near the middle of that argument.”

  “No, but of course, being Alec, he couldn’t resist being a bit controversial. He cites Unertan Syndrome[4].

  Mike broke in with a howl. “Oh Christ, I thought this was sounding too good to be true!”

  “Yeah, I thought that would get a reaction,” said Joseph with a wide grin. “I know you’re pretty sceptical about it.”

  “That’s an understatement!”

  “Anyway, I don’t remember him making much of it in the paper. It’s just an example of how genetics might be able to identify some of the upright walking genes in the future. As far as I’m concerned, the really interesting stuff is about brain and language development.”

  “But that’s right outside Alec’s range, isn’t it? Was, sorry.”

  “Yes, it is. And that’s one of the reasons I’m so sure that someone else worked with him on this paper. He makes the point about large human brain size – no controversy there – and goes on to ask why it developed. He quotes what sounds like a fascinating book ; The Talking Ape by Robbins Burling. I’ve ordered myself a copy from the library. Anyway, Burling makes a couple of points that seem to me to get right to the heart of questions about human brain development. Firstly, in asking questions about the evolution of language, he says the question is often posed the wrong way round.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Mike.

  “That we should be concentrating on how language is understood, rather than how it’s produced. Burling argues that in much of the literature on the development of language, emphasis is placed on its production; you know, making sounds, developing syntax and grammar, and so on. But logically, the ability to understand pre-language meaning from instrumental acts like pointing and other hand and body movements is more likely to have evolved first. There’s no point in making sounds, or indeed doing anything else, to convey meaning if the receiver isn’t equipped to understand that meaning. Communication requires an understanding receiver as much as, if not more than, a skilled producer. Apparently research into the capacity to understand language shows that we understand more than we can say. So, if comprehension needs to predate production, Burling asks what selective pressures could have driven the evolution of human ancestors towards interpreting the instrumental acts of other individuals?”

  “So what point does Alec take from this?” asked Mike.

  “Well, Burling also argues that human brain development was driven by sexual selection for language, imagination, music, humour – all the cognitive and emotional attributes that differentiate our species from all other animals. In a way he agrees with Elaine Morgan in The Descent of Woman. That evolutionary theory has
been, and to an extent still is, very sexist. ‘Man the hunter’ and all that crap. When you look at the couple of million years that Homo species were evolving, you see very little change in technology, as far as we can see, until the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens. Even then it took us around two hundred thousand years to develop agriculture. It’s hard to credit that our brains would triple in size to enable us to hit two rocks together, however good we got at it! So what drove all that increase in brain size?”

  “Yeah, that’s what we’d all like to know. Whatever it was, it does seem unlikely that it was selection for developing cleverer technology. But what’s water got to do with it?”

  “Well, Burling asks two more interesting questions. Why did we move from visual ways of communicating to using our voices? And how did we physically evolve to be able to make the kinds of sounds we now call language?”

  “And water might have played a part in that?” asked Mike, shifting his weight on the stool in obvious discomfort.

  Joseph noticed the uncomfortable squirm and stood up. “Yeah. Anyway, my bum’s getting pretty numb sitting on this stool. I’ve gone on about this long enough for now. There are other things in the paper, but they can wait. You get the gist?” He stretched and then walked towards the lab door.

  “Absolutely. I think you’re right that it doesn’t sound like Alec. At least, not undiluted Alec,” said Mike as he stood up and took one last look at Nimue before following Joseph out of the lab. “Y’know, I get the oddest feeling when I look at her.”

  Joseph turned around. “Nimue?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What feeling?”

  “Can’t explain it,” said Mike. “Like she’s trying to say something.” He switched off the lab lights. “Ignore me. I’m just going bonkers.”

  Joseph laughed as they stepped through the doorway and the glass door slid closed behind them. “Maybe you can help her to tell her story.”

  “I hope so.”

  They switched off the remaining lights and left the lab, dark and still. Nimue lay on the table, smiling.