The Way, the Truth and the Dead Read online

  Alan tried a smile; he knew that wouldn’t be the case. But his mind was still working overtime: did she really think that booze was the reason he hadn’t turned up? Or did she guess that her words had hit a nerve? When they had last worked together, Alan had come to respect Harriet’s powers of deduction – and even more her intuition.

  * * *

  Alan stayed on to help clear up, then made his way back to his cottage with a heavy heart. He was sure Harriet had guessed the truth about Tricia. He paused at the end of the Fursey drive to let a huge John Deere tractor pass, with lights flashing, rubber tracks and a vast Danish seed-drill behind. Somebody’s getting their spring barley in early, he thought. As his eyes followed the tractor down the village street towards Littleport, he noticed the pub was open. That’s what I need. A pint of Slodger – and to hell with women. Suddenly he felt less tired.

  He was expecting to be greeted with cries of ‘Itsagrave!’, but it didn’t happen. At the bar, the two Hibbs brothers, Davey and Sam, were having a quiet drink together. Alan joined them. The discovery of Joe Thorey’s body was mentioned, but respectfully. Then they discussed other topics: the price of wheat, the weather, football, the impending Olympics – things that mattered. It was very relaxed and friendly. The beer was going down well, too.

  Halfway through Alan’s second pint Sam asked Davey. ‘I thought your new job was meant to start today?’

  Suddenly Alan felt concerned: Davey had been his machine driver and he was relying on him to do some more work.

  ‘No, they had trouble with Cripps’s agent: he wouldn’t give them way leaves. But the office phoned this afternoon. It’s all sorted.’

  ‘So you start tomorrow?’ Sam asked.

  ‘A long contract?’ Alan asked.

  ‘It’s with the IDB, so it’ll probably last a couple of months.’

  Alan always liked to keep an eye on the IDB’s dyke maintenance. Freshly scraped dykeside were the only way to get a clear idea of what lay far beneath the surface, well beyond the reach of most geophysics.

  ‘Do you know where you’ll be working, Davey?’

  ‘If I told you, you’d be down there like a shot. I know you archaeologist blokes. Too curious by far!’

  This was said with a huge grin. Davey and Alan had worked very well together. It was one of those easy-going relationships where differences in education were irrelevant and where respect was earned, not assumed.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Alan replied. ‘But seriously, d’you know where you’ll be working?’

  ‘Course I do. We’ll be starting in the Padnal Engine Drain, by that big running silt we thought we’d fixed last year. Your mate Stan was always visiting.’

  Alan knew precisely where he meant. The Lidar had showed the ridge of a large rodden crossing the fen quite close to the abandoned sluice gate, that Stan had used for his TBM (temporary benchmark) in the notebook. Roddens, or rodhams, were the remains of pre-Roman tidal creeks, many of which still ran with water in wet seasons. This water took the form of ‘running silts’ which could destabilise and undermine dykesides, often causing a landslip, or in severe cases, the blocking of the entire drain. Today, some IDBs held back running silts with porous geo-textiles; but the traditional way was to make bundles of hawthorn branches and pack these fascines into the dykesides, where they acted as pipes-­cum-filters.

  ‘What happened?’ Alan was curious.

  ‘Matt said they’d used the wrong grade of textile. Not porous enough. So this year it’s back to bundles.’

  Alan smiled. He’d met Matt Grimshaw, Padnal Delph IDB’s chief engineer, before. He was hands-on and very conservative. Alan could imagine his delight when the new technique had failed.

  ‘Can’t think why they changed.’

  ‘Money,’ the two brothers said in almost perfect unison.

  Then Davey added, ‘The Board reckoned it was cheaper to try the modern way. But it didn’t work.’

  Alan had a thought. If he was going to follow up Stan’s work, he’d need permission to visit and sample IDB dykes.

  ‘Will Matt be there tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, at seven sharp. We’ve got to shift that old sluice gate. It’s messing up the new profile.’

  Suddenly Alan was galvanised. That sluice carried the TBM and without it, he would never understand the levels in Stan’s notebooks. He had to level it into the Ordnance Survey benchmark at the pumping station. Put simply, if he didn’t get an accurate level on the TBM, all the work Stan had done would be useless. Laying aside the question of the motive behind Stan’s killing, Alan owed it to his old friend not to see all that work made irrelevant – because that’s what would happen if they lost that TBM on the old wooden sluice gate. He decided not to have a third pint. He had to be on top form tomorrow.

  * * *

  The following morning Alan decided to drive round to the pumping station rather than trudge across the fields, especially given the rain of the night before. The portentously named Padnal Pumping Station Number Two looked remarkably like Padnal Pumping Station Number One, which Alan could see from off the Fursey-Chatteris road. The building had a cast concrete date stone with the legend ‘PDIDB Padnal Pumping Station No. 2 1957’. Presumably, Alan thought, this was where the new electric pumps were installed, but like most IDBs, they had kept the older, 1930s diesel pumps as a back-up and they were housed in a slightly smaller building alongside. This building had a tell-tale massive exhaust pipe protruding from one side. Behind both buildings, and at a slightly lower level, were the mould-made bricks of the wall footings of the Victorian steam pumping house. He was about to start looking for traces of the original windmill scoop-pump, when someone called out his name.

  It was Matt Grimshaw, chief engineer, complete with a folder of papers and an assistant who was carrying an expensive, state-of-the-art GPS total station down to the dykeside below the high Delph banks.

  ‘Young Davey Hibbs phoned me last night. Said you might be here.’

  Typical of Davey, Alan thought: always considerate. They shook hands.

  ‘Been working out the sequence?’ Matt asked.

  Like many engineers in the Fens, he had a profound interest in the history of Fenland drainage. Alan was familiar with a couple of papers he had written for the ‘Notes and News’ section of the county archaeological journal. He knew his stuff.

  ‘Yes.’ Alan smiled. He pointed to the early wall footings. ‘That, I presume, is the Victorian beam-engine house, but where were the earlier windmills?’

  Matt stamped his foot. ‘Beneath us. They demolished them in 1938 when the Delph bank was raised. I’ve got photos back at the office.’

  They stepped to one side as the IDB’s large Swedish ­Ackerman excavator tracked by, driven by Davey, who greeted them with a cheery wave. But he was concentrating hard, as the digger’s wide bog-crawler tracks were protruding a foot or so over the edge of the gravel roadway beside the Engine Drain. The digger’s bucket and long-reach dipper had been replaced with a heavy-duty hook and chain. Alan knew what that was for.

  ‘Matt, I’ve got to check for a temporary benchmark on the sluice gate. It was put there over a year ago by my colleague Stan Beaton—’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Grimshaw broke in. ‘That was sad news. Terrible, really.’ He shook his head. Alan could see he was genuinely upset.

  ‘Yes, dear old Stan. Everyone liked him. Didn’t have an enemy anywhere.’

  ‘No, not anywhere …’ Alan agreed softly, with just the slightest hint of a question.

  Again, Grimshaw shook his greying head. Alan waited. Nothing. It was worth a try. Rapidly he resumed. ‘When Stan was working down this dyke last summer, he drew up a series of dyke profiles and tied them all into a single TBM—’

  ‘That’s right, he told me, it’s on the sluice gate – but didn’t he level it in?’ Matt sounded genuinely surprised.

  ‘No,’ Alan replied. ‘I don’t think so. At least it certainly didn’t find its way into his notebook.’ Sud
denly a thought came to him. ‘Why, did he ask where the OS datum point was?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘So he intended to come back and level his TBM in?’

  ‘Yes. But we had a better idea.’

  ‘Really?’ Alan was intrigued.

  ‘That’s because the old Ordnance Survey benchmark had gone when we repaired the foundations here three years ago. Early last year the OS people came down and surveyed in another one, but it’s round the front, down there.’

  As he spoke, Matt pointed down to an engineering brick stub wall, just above the double pump inlet sluice. Alan peered at it: he could just see a metal plaque with the distinctive arrow benchmark.

  ‘Anyhow,’ Matt continued, ‘we used it to transfer a level to the sluice gate for him. We were working here, so it was no extra work to do it. And he was such a nice bloke. It was the least we could do.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Alan sighed. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t seem to have survived.’ He paused, deep in thought. If the crucial TBM had been levelled in, surely he would have found the information somewhere? It certainly wasn’t something a professional like Stan would mislay. So had it been removed? And if so, by whom?

  Matt broke into his thoughts. ‘Well, don’t worry.’ Suddenly he was more businesslike. ‘That’s easily rectified.’

  By now Matt’s assistant, Dave, had set up the GPS. A few minutes later he looked up from the instrument, and called across the Engine Drain from almost a hundred yards away. ‘Minus zero point four seven!’

  ‘Blimey, that’s high!’

  Alan had expected a level at least half a metre below that. It meant that the archaeological levels around the edges of Fursey island would extend far further out into the surrounding fen than he’d originally expected. Stan would have been astonished too.

  Matt shouted back. ‘Please check that, Dave.’

  There was a short pause while his assistant went back to the instrument. Then he looked up. ‘Same result: zero point four seven. That’s below OD,’ he added to make himself clear.

  ‘Thanks, Dave!’ Alan shouted back, giving him a thumbs up.

  Meanwhile Matt was helping Davey attach the chains to the steel framework of the old sluice.

  ‘Hope that level’s OK, Alan,’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘A bit higher than I’d expected.’

  Alan was gazing across the peaty fields surrounding them. He now knew there was far more archaeology beneath their surfaces than anyone could possibly have imagined, even five years ago. It was great news for archaeologists, but other people – farmers, landowners, developers, for example – would be less than delighted.

  ‘Yes, I could see that from your face. But I’m sure it’s accurate. Dave’s very good on the GPS – and it wasn’t a long traverse.’ He paused briefly to check the final position of the chains. ‘Right, Davey, my friend, time we got this old lady out of the way.’

  He nodded at Davey who had returned to the excavator. He tweaked the throttle lever, to the right of the driver’s seat. Alan expected to hear the revs roar, but there was only a small puff of smoke and a very slight noise as the huge machine effortlessly pulled the old sluice gate, still embedded in its concrete footings, bodily from the mud of the fen. It was almost too easy; an anticlimax. Alan glanced up. The sun was now well above the horizon and an old grey heron was surveying them quizzically from 50 yards away. At the far end of the field across the dyke, Alan could see a tractor with a set of rolls turn in through the gate. A Land Rover followed it. A large man got out and shut the gate. Then suddenly his attention was reclaimed by a loud splash and gurgle as the gate swung clear of the ground. Pieces of reed and lumps of peat dropped into the clear waters of the Engine Drain.

  As he headed back to the pumping station, Alan couldn’t help thinking that they’d nearly lost that TBM. No wonder Stan had been so excited when they’d last met. Those levels were very much higher than anyone could have supposed. Even the Royal Geographical Society’s 1970 survey couldn’t have predicted they’d find Roman occupation at just a gnat’s above OD. He sighed heavily: it had been a close-run thing. For a few satisfying moments, he let relief take over. He felt better. Much calmer. More relaxed – even a bit complacent. But these were not emotions he was very familiar with. In fact, they were so strange, he began to wonder why his sub­conscious should regard something as relatively trivial as a lost benchmark so important?

  Then he realised. It was all about credibility and authority. Had the levels in Stan’s notebooks been a bit hit-and-miss, they wouldn’t be so significant. The fact was, they were tied in to an OS benchmark and the TBM had been on a known and fixed point in the open fen. So there could be no pos­sible argument about it: those levels were absolutely accurate and could be validated by anyone. They proved beyond any possible doubt that there were extensive and superbly well-preserved, waterlogged ancient remains in the depths of this fen. More to the point, Alan reflected, their significance was not lost on someone. And that someone was worried. Scared even – but enough to commit murder? Quite possibly. But who – and why?

  As he climbed into the Fourtrak, Alan was suddenly overtaken by a feeling of dread. He knew he wasn’t on top of this case. He was aware that things were happening and that people out there were being driven by powerful motives. All his instincts told him, too, that the pace was about to hot up. But this time, he thought, I’ll be ready and waiting.

  Sixteen

  Alan was still thinking about those high benchmark levels, as he drove away from the pumping station and headed left back towards Fursey. As he came up onto the island, he noticed that the grass was starting to acquire that lush, early spring green and some trees, especially the older limes, were just coming into leaf. Then the sun came out. He found he was feeling very peckish so he wound down his window and eased the Fourtrak into a field entrance. Time for a mug of coffee and a bite of breakfast (a ham roll bought in the pub the previous evening). It was a fabulous early spring day. In the distance he thought he heard the bleating of young lambs, between, that is, the noise of passing cars on the road beside him. He glanced down at his watch: 8.50. Late-running commuters were hurtling through the village on their way to Ely and Cambridge. He took a long drink of coffee. Then his eye was caught by a familiar Mini Cooper, but unlike the others, it was heading into the village. Alan recognised it at once: it was Harriet. Guiltily he finished his coffee and wolfed down his roll.

  As he drove up the avenue towards the abbey, his stomach started to gurgle. Of course he knew why Harriet’s passing had made him gobble down his makeshift breakfast. And yes, he had to admit, he did feel guilty. He knew he’d been disloyal: disloyal to her and to himself, too. He still couldn’t admit it, but he was slowly becoming aware of the depths of his own feelings for Harriet. And they put him in a weak, Subservient position – something he wasn’t used to, and was finding hard to accept.

  Deliberately, he drew up on the opposite side of the car park to the Mini Cooper. He went round to the back and took out his toolbox, camera case and waterproof. As he slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock, he was being overtaken by a very different emotion – his mother would have called it ‘your stubborn side, Alan’. Dammit, he thought, she’s not my boss. It’s the other way around. I’m the one supposed to be in charge around here.

  He headed straight down to the dig. He knew that Harriet would be at the cafeteria. She couldn’t function without an early coffee. And he was right. Jake and Kaylee had just arrived and were pulling the last plastic sheets off the trench surface. A few moments later, Harriet joined them, mug of coffee in hand.

  ‘Morning, everyone,’ she said as she lifted the shelter flap to one side. She was carrying several empty finds trays, all neatly labelled and ready to receive bones. She put them on the ground, then stepped down into the trench. While she was doing this, Alan picked up the trays and carried them across to Grave 2. As she approached, he handed her the coffee she had left in the top tr
ay.

  ‘Thanks, Alan,’ she said as she took a sip. ‘Ah, that’s better. Very much better.’

  By now Jake had joined them. ‘Will you want me to be your clerical assistant, Dr Webb?’

  Jake was smiling broadly as he spoke. He was also brandishing a Sharpie felt-tip pen and a roll of self-seal plastic bags.

  ‘I think so, Jake,’ she replied with joke formality. ‘If you can remember what we did for Grave 1, we might as well repeat the procedure for Grave 2.’

  ‘Right, ma’am.’ Jake tugged his forelock, then up-ended a wheelbarrow and sat on it.

  Alan looked on. He wished he could be a part of the scene before him. He’d give anything to be Harry’s ‘clerical assistant’, right now. But it wasn’t to be. And that wasn’t just because he was dig director, either. Frankly, he didn’t feel he was worthy to be sitting down there on that barrow.

  ‘Must get on,’ Alan said quietly, and slipped away.

  But Jake and Harriet didn’t notice; they clearly had other, far more important things to think about.

  * * *

  The following morning, as Alan arrived in the car park, a clean hire car (experience had taught Alan to recognise them a mile off), driven by Frank, the Test Pit Challenge director, drew up alongside him. Behind them was an unfamiliar crew van. Frank lowered the passenger window and leant across to speak to Alan.

  ‘Sorry, Alan, didn’t have time to tell you, but Lew wants us to spend a day on-site getting cut-aways and GVs for the main doc crew, who’ll be coming here later. He was worried in case we missed the lifting of the bones. I hope Harriet hasn’t finished, has she?’

  Cut-aways and general views would be used either as illustrations, or to conceal edit cuts in longer sequences of the main film.

  ‘No, she hasn’t, but you’d better get a move on, I don’t think there’ll be many bones left in Grave 2 by the end of the day.’ He paused. ‘And then she’s got to start exposing Grave 3.’

  ‘OK, that’s fine. We won’t bother you and will try not to get in the way. Speed and Grump are on another job in Norway, I believe. So we’ve hired some local stringers.’