Come on. Work, dammit. Work!
Suddenly there is a fizzing noise, a flashing, the lights flicker again, and then stay on.
Yes!
A cheer rings out through the pub. Tilda joins in, smiling at the thought that no one else can have any idea how happy she is to see those lights working.
‘What do you want to drink?’ Dylan appears at her elbow. He has an easy smile, with bright white teeth and eyes that have a mischievous sparkle to them. He rubs his hands together and nods at the array of taps on the bar. ‘Mike’s a real ale man. One or two stunning little beers here. The Mountain Goat’s a bit strong, but you might like Hiker’s Heaven. Or Sheep Dip, that’s popular around here.’
‘Sounds like you’re a bit of an expert,’ Tilda says.
‘Oh, I do my best to support local businesses,’ he tells her.
‘Well, I need to eat something before I have a drink or I’ll fall over. I’ve got to try the steak and kidney pudding.’
‘With chips?’ asks the barmaid, tapping the order into the till.
‘Definitely with chips.’ Tilda finds her mouth actually watering at the thought of the food. ‘And half a shandy while I’m waiting, please.’
‘Lightweight,’ Dylan teases, ordering himself a pint of the famous Black Sheep ale.
When she sits on the settle, close to the fire, Dylan slides along to sit beside her, and Lucas takes the chair opposite. Thistle stretches out in front of the hearth, her earlier nervousness appearing to have lessened. The room is wonderfully warm, so that Tilda has to remove her hat, scarf and coat. She can feel a dozen pairs of surreptitious eyes upon her now, her striking hair revealed, her face no longer partially obscured by all her winter clothing, her eyes exposed as she takes off her sunglasses. She senses that Dylan is going out of his way not to stare, not to notice, whereas Lucas is still looking at her as if she were a rare specimen that he might label and exhibit in a museum, given half a chance. She is amused to find that she cares less about them noticing her albinism than she does about the fact that she hasn’t washed her hair for an age.
Better odd-looking than scuzzy. Pure vanity, silly woman.
‘Professor Williams tells me you are a ceramic artist, so you’ve an interest in Celtic art, am I right?’ Lucas asks.
‘Yes, for my own designs. But … well, apart from that, I want to learn more about the history of the place. You know, being new here, I’d like to find out … stuff.’ She is aware how badly she is explaining herself, and knows it is because of what she is not saying.
Ghosts and murders: discuss. Not an easy conversation opener over lunch.
Dylan takes a couple of gulps of his pint and then leans close to Tilda.
‘My uncle is pretty much the expert on local history around here, you know. I’ve never heard anyone ask him a question he couldn’t answer.’
‘Yes,’ she says, nodding and sipping cautiously at her shandy, ‘and he’s been really helpful already. It’s just that, well … I’m curious about the dig.’ She turns to look at Dylan, just quickly enough to catch him gazing at her hair. He meets her eye and then looks away, mumbling an apology into his beer. Standard embarrassed reaction. But then he raises his eyes again and regards her steadily, his face serious. He sighs, seemingly about to speak, but then does not. There are a few seconds, a fleeting moment, where he is awkward, having been found out, and his guard has dropped. The grin is gone. So is his habit of making light of everything, keeping things upbeat. Safe. She likes this version of him better. Out of habit, she continues talking to smooth over his discomfort, but, really, there is no need. An unspoken apology has been given and accepted. She understands that his interest is not voyeuristic, nor is it morbid curiosity, but it is something genuine. Sincere. ‘I’d like to know about the grave.’ She turns back to Lucas, who has missed what passed between her and Dylan entirely as he was busy texting. ‘Who do you think you’ve found?’ she asks him.
As he speaks, Lucas looks at her without faltering, yet his gaze does not connect. Rather his eyes move to take in all her features, all her strangeness, as if filing it away. ‘It would be easy to jump to conclusions, given the pointers we’ve found … Point is, I’ve learnt from the many digs I’ve been involved in, things are rarely as obvious as they seem. Human lives are complicated … and people sometimes, well, they go out of their way to hide things. Or at least, to make them less simple to discover.’
‘Perhaps the dead don’t want us digging up their secrets,’ Dylan suggests, wiping beer foam from his top lip.
Lucas gives him a hard stare. ‘Some people have a problem with disturbing a grave, however well-meant the investigation. If you are one of those, why did you agree to dive for us?’
Dylan shrugs. ‘Every man has his price. Isn’t that what they say?’
Tilda is unconvinced.
Lucas leans forward, elbows on the worn and polished wood of the table, concentrating on Tilda now, keen to share his theories regarding his discovery with her. ‘What we know for certain at this stage is that this is a double grave. There are two people buried here, both interred at the same time.’
‘Members of the same family?’ Tilda asks.
‘It’s possible, but … well, there are signs that suggest something rather different. You see, the bodies are lying not side by side, but one on top of the other. And only the lower one has a coffin. Which is unusual. As is the fact that there don’t appear to be any grave goods accompanying the upper body.’ Lucas waves his hands expressively as he talks, needing no prompting to explain further. ‘Given the date we believe the grave to have been dug, this is strange. Grave goods were things people put in with a deceased person that they believed they might need with them in the next life. Weapons, plates, jewels, things that would mark out their status, signs of wealth or standing in society as well.’
‘And your grave…’ Tilda corrects herself. ‘Sorry, the one you’ve found … there are none of these things in it?’
‘There may be some in the coffin below, we don’t know yet. But the body nearer the surface appears to have been buried without any possessions whatsoever.’
‘Perhaps they were very poor,’ Tilda suggests. ‘Maybe they didn’t have anything to take with them.’
‘It is possible, but unlikely. Most people would have had something. Or if they didn’t, relatives or community members would have provided at least the most basic items. It is odd to find a body with nothing at all. Unless…’
‘Ah, food!’ Dylan alerts them to the arrival of the meals. Tilda is torn between her desire to tuck into the first decent plate of food she has seen in a very long time, and her wish to know what it is that Lucas is hinting at. Muttering thanks to the young waiter, who blushes when she finds him gawking at her, she presses Lucas to finish his thought.
‘Unless?’
‘Unless the person we’ve found was executed. If the killing was a punishment, the carrying out of a sentence for some sort of crime, then the culprit would not have been allowed any grave goods. It would have been part of the punishment. An important part, as it condemned the executed person to struggle and hardship in the next life too.’
‘I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade,’ Dylan says, liberally sprinkling salt on his chips, ‘but there could be a much simpler explanation.’
‘Such as?’ The irritation is plain in Lucas’s voice.
‘The person in the coffin took all the stuff with him or her. The second person, the one on top, wasn’t buried at the same time, but a little while later. That person had nothing left, couldn’t afford a coffin or a decent burial, but wanted to be in the same place as their loved one. Still happens today, after all, people being buried in extra-deep graves so that their spouse can be laid to rest in the same spot when they eventually die.’
Lucas gives him a weary look and adopts the voice of a tired parent addressing a bothersome child. ‘In the first place, we know roughly when the grave was dug—somewhere between 850 and 950 A
D—and at that time couples were always buried side by side, no matter how many years after the first one died the second one joined them. Stacking bodies was a tactic employed because of a lack of space. By the Victorian era, for example, there simply wasn’t room to put people next to each other, particularly in urban areas. Hundreds of years before that, out in the countryside, when the population was a fraction of what it is now, space wasn’t an issue. In fact’—he pauses to enjoy a mouthful of shepherd’s pie before going on—‘it would have been much easier to dig two shallow graves side by side than one deeper one. Anyway, there is a more compelling reason to suppose this was a punishment killing.’
Tilda hurriedly snatches at some chips while she waits for Lucas to go on. He has paused again, in part to eat some of his food, but more, she suspects, for dramatic effect. And possibly to annoy Dylan.
‘The body near the surface is prone, not supine.’ He waits, clearly hoping one of them will ask what that means. Eventually he saves them the trouble. ‘It was buried facedown, not faceup. Hardly a respectful and dignified way to treat a corpse. And as if that weren’t enough, a very large, very heavy flat stone was placed on the back of the deceased.’
‘To hold him or her in place?’ Dylan gives a light laugh. ‘Hardly seems necessary if they were dead.’
‘But very necessary if they were still alive,’ Lucas points out.
‘What?’ Tilda is aghast. ‘You mean that the person who was executed was punished not just by being killed, but by being buried alive?’ All at once she can feel her appetite fading.
Lucas shrugs and tucks into his meal with enthusiasm. ‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, just what crime they must have committed to have deserved such a fate?’
A thoughtful silence descends on the table, during which Tilda attempts to rekindle her appetite. The steak and kidney pudding is delicious, and soon the nourishing food, the heat from the fire, and the small amount of alcohol in her shandy soothes her into a more pleasant state of mind and body than she has experienced for quite a while. Even so, the notion of such a gruesome execution taking place so close to home disturbs her. Could the ghost be the spirit of the body the archeologists are so intent on unearthing?
It would explain why my visitor is so angry.
‘Will you be able to find out who exactly it is you’ve dug up?’ she asks Lucas as he polishes off the last of his pie.
He shakes his head. ‘Highly unlikely. Very few written records exist for tenth-century Wales, and a lot of what there is would have been written sometime after the events, so it’s pretty unreliable. At least if you want specifics. So, no, basically, we are not going to be able to give you name, rank and serial number. What we hope to do—what lovely, lovely science now enables us to have a stab at—is to say male or female, age, cause of death, health and diet during life, and, possibly, position in their community. Given that this looks like an execution, we may get more clues when we reach the coffin below.’
‘Would the two deaths necessarily be connected?’
‘There is a precedent. There was a grave in the southeast of England found with a similarly dispatched guilty party on top, and studies strongly indicate that the body below was the victim of the crime. So, it’s possible our upper-level remains are those of a murderer, and the body in the coffin was murdered by them. But we are getting ahead of ourselves,’ he warns her, washing down his food with some mineral water. ‘Lots to search for yet. Lots to prove, or disprove.’ He might have been about to say more, but Molly looks up from her laptop on the next table and calls him over to see something.
Thistle, relaxed at last, begins to show an interest in the food. She gets up and stretches lazily, before reaching up to sniff the edge of the table, her nose twitching. Tilda smiles at her.
‘I’ll save some for you, I promise,’ she says, handing her a chip to keep hunger pangs at bay.
Dylan watches. ‘She’s looking better. You’ve done a good job of getting her right.’
Tilda considers the corner-shop diet she has been feeding the dog, the irregular hours of sleep and the erratic exercise patterns she has been subjected to. ‘I think she pretty much got better by herself,’ she says. ‘Though I can see why the men who had her gave up. No way is she ever going to catch a hare.’
‘She looks built for it.’
‘Maybe so, but when we came across one the other day she bounced after it and then just played with it. Had no intention of catching the thing. And the hare knew it too.’
‘Really?’ Dylan raises his eyebrows.
‘I swear, it just sat there, washing its face. It knew it wasn’t in any danger. Thistle didn’t even bark.’
‘Well, she wouldn’t. Proper coursers don’t. They hunt silently. That’s why they make rubbish guard dogs. They don’t track by scent either—they’re sight hounds. Though yours is probably just shy ’cause she’s embarrassed about wearing that collar.’
Much as it irks her to admit it, the pink band does look all wrong around Thistle’s neck. Tilda leans forward and unbuckles it. ‘I don’t think you really need this, do you, girl?’
‘Much better,’ Dylan says.
Tilda looks at him. ‘Why are you helping with the dig, if you really don’t like what they’re doing? And don’t tell me it’s for the money. Your uncle said you go all over the world diving for people. Doesn’t sound like you’re short of work.’
He smiles, shaking his head. ‘To be honest, I jumped at the chance of an excuse to come home for a while. I miss the place. ‘Away’ is not always all it’s cracked up to be.’
‘So you’re okay with them opening a grave?’
‘I can’t really disapprove, can I? It is more or less what I poke around in too, a lot of the time. Not formal graves, maybe, but wrecks often end up being the final resting places for many people. Some of them have been there a very long time too.’
‘You’re surely not expecting to find a wreck in the lake?’
He laughs. ‘No. This is more of an exploratory bit of diving. The lake has been fairly thoroughly searched over the years, but now they’ve found something new so near to the water, well, it’s worth having another look. The changing levels of the water, particularly if there have been floods as well as droughts, can shift things. New stuff becomes visible. Just! It’s pretty murky down there.’
‘I read that the lake has its own water horse.’
‘Gorsie, you mean?’
‘Gorsie?’
‘That’s what the locals call it. Nessie in Lock Ness: Gorsie in Llangors. Everyone around here has heard about our very own deep-water monster.’
‘Have there ever been any … sightings?’
‘A few claim to have seen it, mostly after a late night in the pub. I think there are a couple of dodgy-looking pictures circulating’ He grins. ‘I’ll let you know if I find it.’
Tilda forces herself to return to her list of reasons for venturing out. Despite Lucas’s insistence that it is too early to be certain about the find, she feels there may be something there which will provide answers to what she feared were unanswerable questions. Something connecting the body in the grave to her frightening visions. Even if those answers do involve words like ghost and murderer, and the terrible idea of burying someone alive. It is a start. She glances over at the professor. He is sitting next to Molly, and they are all very busy with something on the laptop. She had been going to ask him for his help, but the thought of fusing that computer, with everyone there, so close. Just because she fixed the lights doesn’t mean she can be certain she won’t adversely affect things again. Instead she turns to Dylan.
‘I wonder, could you do something for me?’
‘Bring you the head of the water horse, perhaps?’
‘Ha ha,’ she responds mirthlessly. ‘A bit simpler than that. My … my computer isn’t working, and I need a couple of books. Any chance you could order them for me online? Here, I’ve written down the sort of thing I’m after. I need to build a wood-fired ki
ln. That is, I want to build one. I’m trying out a new technique. And new glazes. That’s the name of a ceramicist who works this way. If you search his name, other potters and authors should come up. I did build something similar years ago, at art school, but, well, I could do with more information. I was going to ask the professor…’
‘Happy to help,’ he says, taking the piece of paper from her.
‘Thanks. Let me know how much they cost and I’ll give you the cash.’
‘No problem. But you should get your PC fixed. Can’t be easy living up there without the Internet, especially as you don’t drive.’
‘I do. I mean I can drive. I just … don’t have a car at the moment.’
He appears to be waiting for her to explain further, but she does not, so that the silence between them becomes a little awkward. Tilda begins to feel stupidly tired. Lack of regular sleep, the shock of the visions, the pace at which she had been working, all have combined to leave her feeling drained and lacking in stamina. On top of which, she is unused to spending time in company, and feels the need to be on her own again. She gets to her feet and begins putting on her outdoor clothes.
‘Leaving us so soon?’ Dylan asks.
‘I need to go to the shop. Catch the post before it goes. Thanks for the drink, and for offering to get the books for me.’
‘Like I said, happy to help.’ He watches her replace her hat and glasses. ‘Let me know if you fancy going out on the lake any time,’ he tells her. ‘I’ve got a boat.’
Now it is her turn to smile.
‘The one with the dodgy motor?’
‘It’s got oars too.’
She shakes her head. ‘I prefer dry land, remember?’
Before he can keep her talking further, she waves good-bye to the others, whistles to Thistle and slips out of the pub. Tiredness aside, she feels more human and more normal than she has in weeks. At the village shop she buys as much food as she can carry in her backpack, including some proper dog food, but not forgetting plenty of soup and chocolate. She pauses at the post office counter, selects a picture postcard, and pens a few cheerful lines to her parents. As she puts it in the letter box she sends a silent wish with it that her parents will be convinced she is all right and that she will be able to talk them out of a visit. Much as she would enjoy seeing her father, there is so much that needs her attention right now, there are so many things she knows she has to face up to and deal with, she really does not want to have to manage their worry about her on top of it.
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