Dying Fall, A (23 page)

‘There were some skeletons excavated in a RomanoBritish cemetery outside York. I don’t think they did DNA tests but the limb proportions and skeletal facial features appeared to point to the men being black African. Also there was a North African legion stationed at Hadrian’s Wall. They were from Morocco, I think. They found African DNA in the local populations around Hadrian’s Wall which suggests that the soldiers intermarried with the local people. It was actually Septimus Severus who made it legal for serving legionnaires to get married.’

‘So our man could maybe have been the son of one of those soldiers?’

‘It’s possible, yes.’ She can almost hear Max’s mind working. ‘Maybe his father went back to Rome with the legions. Our man could have been trained by his father in Roman cavalry arts and gone on to become a war leader, defending his people against the Picts. Those communities must have felt very vulnerable after the Romans withdrew.’

‘So King Arthur could have been black or mixed race?’

‘Why not? That could be the reason for all the mythology around him, the suggestion that he was different, somehow “other”. It could even account for the Raven King legend.’

‘Because ravens are black?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I wish we still had the bones,’ says Ruth. ‘Then we’d know for sure.’

‘How are the investigations going?’

‘Slowly.’ She doesn’t tell him about Pendragon or about the increasingly threatening text messages. In turn, Max doesn’t offer to come up to Lytham. After a few further archaeological exchanges they say goodbye.

Ruth turns to find both Cathbad and Thing staring at her.

‘Max says there were African Romans in the north of Britain,’ she says. ‘There was even an African legion at Hadrian’s Wall. King Arthur could have been the son of one of those legionnaires.’

‘How are things with Max?’ asks Cathbad.

Much later, after Cathbad and Kate are both in bed, Ruth goes back to Dan’s diaries.

10 May 2010

Excavation day. I went to the site early to watch the sun go up. So beautiful over the river with the birds flying in from the sea. Made me wish I could paint or sing or something. The others turned up at nine and I started excavating the bones. I still felt bad removing them from their
grave but I felt that I had made my peace with King Arthur last night. I felt that he understood.

Clayton determined to do it all by the book. Lots of people watching—Guy, Elaine, Sue Chow, some old dears from LAS. It was a bit of a shock to see Pippa there. Why did she come? It’s not as if she has any interest in archaeology. We didn't speak but once or twice I saw Elaine looking over as if she suspected something. Clayton was oblivious, though. All he cared about was whether the local press had got wind of it. For some reason, he wants it all kept quiet until we know for sure. It’ll make a bigger splash then, I suppose.

Oh my God, my first sight of the fully exposed skeleton! He looked so kingly and peaceful, lying on his back, hands crossed over his chest. I heard Guy mutter ‘Jesus’ and even Sue seemed moved. I lifted out the head—the skull is complete, lovely nuchal crest, large mastoid bones, heavy brow ridges. He was a fine, strong man. Beautiful eye orbits, almost rectangular, wide nasal cavity, adult teeth all erupted. I looked at it for so long that Clayton started to get impatient, reminding me that it was imperative to get the excavation completed by the end of the day.

When it was all done—all the bones numbered and bagged, recording sheets complete, bone and teeth samples taken for analysis—I wanted to take him back to Pendle. Actually, what I really wanted was to take him home but (wisely) I didn’t say this. Then Guy said that the bones should go to the CNN lab in Blackpool. He has contacts there, apparently. I thought Guy was becoming too obsessed with the White Hand and said so. We shouldn’t let ourselves
be dictated to by a bunch of fascist lunatics. But Clayton agreed with him so Guy drove the Raven King to the lab. I hated to see him go.

Ruth looks up from her laptop. It’s dark outside; the house is silent. She can recognise so many things in the diaries—the thrill of discovery, the moving and exacting task of disinterring a human skeleton—but there are also many elements that surprise her. She is amazed at Dan’s quasi-mystical identification with King Arthur. All this talk of paying homage to the Raven King, of making his peace with him. She just can’t relate this to her memory of Dan—that cheerful, cynical student. The old Dan would never have gone to watch the sun come up, she is sure of it. As a matter of fact, once they watched the sun rise together, after an all-night party in Denmark Hill. She remembers standing on a balcony drinking Bloody Marys and watching the first dossers of the day arriving in Ruskin Gardens. Dan did not declare a burning desire to paint then: he had expressed a wish for a McDonald’s breakfast and had set out in search of one. Somewhere along the line Dan had become a fully-fledged New-Age thinker. She wonders if he was ever taught by Erik.

And there are other surprises too. The references to Elaine tie in with what Sam told her but what’s all this about Pippa Henry? Elaine looked over ‘as if she suspected something’ but Clayton was ‘oblivious’. Was Dan having an affair with Clayton Henry’s wife? It certainly looks that way, though Ruth can’t make out if the affair was over by the time of the dig. She thinks of the elegant Mrs Henry in her scary shoes. She can’t imagine Dan being involved with her but, as is becoming clear, she doesn’t really know Dan at all. Or rather, the Dan she knew existed twenty-odd years ago. She doesn’t know this Dan, the New-Age Don Juan of Pendle University, at all. Dan was always good-looking, women were attracted to him, but she would never have thought that he would be the sort of man to have an affair with another man’s wife. But, then again, who would have thought that she’d become the sort of woman to have an affair with a married policeman? Love does funny things to us all.

Was Dan in love with Pippa Henry? Was he ever in love with Elaine? If so, it certainly doesn’t come across in the diaries. There is only one loved object here—King Arthur. Dan airily dismisses Clayton as ‘oblivious’, but what if he wasn’t? What if he suspected that the wife (whom he so clearly adores) was sleeping with a member of his department? Wouldn’t that constitute a motive of some kind? Ruth resolves to mention this to Tim (she can’t face Sandy, even over the phone).

The description of the skull is interesting too. There is no doubt that this isn’t the skull that Ruth examined at the lab. It’s complete, for one thing. And, with hindsight, it’s interesting that he mentions the eye orbits and the nasal cavity. African skulls tend to have rectangular eye orbits and wider nasal apertures. Did Dan suspect, even then? He says that he took a long time examining the head. Did he guess the amazing truth? That the Raven King was, like the bird itself, black? If so, he didn’t record it in his diary.

At her feet Thing sighs and twitches in his sleep. He has stuck close to her all evening. Is he missing his master? Pendragon has been an unspoken presence in the house all day. Ruth can’t imagine what it was like for Cathbad, finding his friend’s dead body in that way. Cathbad doesn’t seem to want to talk about it and Ruth respects that. They both took refuge in talking about the dog, about his trauma and possible distress. Ruth leans down to pat him now while she scans the screen. She is, of course, looking for references to herself.

Under 20 May she finds one:

I’ve been thinking I need a second opinion and suddenly I thought—Ruth! She’s made quite a name for herself in forensic archaeology (was involved in a big murder case in Norfolk a few years back) and I know I could trust her. Funny, I haven’t thought of her for years, but I can picture her quite clearly. Dark, ungainly, with lovely eyes. Clever, intense, but funny too. I kissed her once and remember thinking that she’d probably be terrific in bed. I looked for her on Friends Reunited but she wasn’t there. I didn’t think she would be somehow. I got a new invitation from an outfit called University Pals. I sent off my info but I'm pretty sure she won’t have joined them either. She’s probably married with ten kids by now. Like everyone else from those days. Anyway I can find her easily enough through her
university. There can’t be many forensic archaeologists in Norfolk. I’ll wait until I get the results and then I’ll contact her. Until then, I won’t tell anyone except

And there, maddeningly, the entry ended. Ruth sits, staring at the words, feeling slightly dizzy. She has often wondered what other people think of her. Well, now she knows. Ungainly, that’s about right. But—lovely eyes, terrific in bed? Ruth loves sex but has never wondered whether she’s good at it. That’s something new to think about it. She recognises the bitterness of thinking that everyone else your age is married with children. How often, over the last twenty years, has she felt the same thing? First it was the wedding invitations, then the birth announcements. When, in her forties, they eventually stopped coming, she had felt relieved. Now, at last, they would leave her alone. And then she had her own miracle baby. Dan couldn’t have expected that. No one did, least of all Ruth herself.

Thinking about babies makes Ruth want to check on Kate. She is stretched out sideways in the double bed, sleeping deeply, mouth open. She has caught a slight cold, probably from paddling yesterday. The joys of a summer holiday in England. Not that this is a holiday exactly, what with a sinister fascist group spying on her, death around every corner and the shadow of the Raven King looming over them all. And Dan had been contacted by University Pals, the outfit Tim suspects of being an internet scam designed to steal your identity. It’s a frightening thought, put like that.

Cathbad’s door is shut and Ruth does not go in. Downstairs she pours herself a glass of wine and goes back to the diaries. Thing settles heavily on her feet. Like Kate, he’s a noisy breather.

22 May 2010

Threatening letter received today. Know it’s from the WH as it has all their stylistic signatures. The references to pure-blood, England (not Britain) and the so-called Gods of Yore. The salutation ‘Dear Jew’ was a nice touch, I felt. What worried me more was they obviously know something about the Raven King. There was a line ‘Curst be he who touches the bones of King Arthur’. That mock-archaic sentence structure is also typical. How did they know about the possible Arthurian link? Maybe someone from LAS has been gossiping. News travels fast around here.

I told Clayton about the letter and he panicked as usual. I said I thought that we should involve the police but he said no, the uni had had enough bad publicity lately. Be worse publicity if someone’s killed, I said (joking). Clayton went white and said ‘Oh, dear boy, it won’t come to that’. I wonder if he has been threatened himself.

When I got home there was a dead bird on my doorstep. Neighbouring cat or death threat? It’s hard to tell. Elaine looked over the wall when I was burying the bird and asked what I was doing. ‘Gardening,’ I replied. She flounced off inside, obviously thinking that I was taking the piss. After all, as Howard Jacobson says, who’s ever heard of a Jew gardening?

Later

Just occurred to me that if someone did leave the bird as a message, they must know about the bird skeletons we found on the site. Uncomfortable thought.

Ruth wonders what LAS stands for. She googles and comes up with the Lancashire Archaeological Society. She remembers Clayton telling her that some members of the society were present at the dig, ‘old dears’, Dan calls them. Even so, it might be worth the police checking the names of the old dears. She adds that to her list for Tim tomorrow.

Dan had sounded slightly shaken in the diary entry, she thinks, but not scared. He was blasé enough to joke about someone being killed. In fact, he sounds every inch the contemptuous academic—take the references to ‘mock-archaic sentence structure’ and ‘stylistic signatures’. Even the anti-Semitism is treated lightly, though Ruth is surprised how much Dan obviously thought of himself as Jewish.
Who’s ever heard of a Jew gardening?
She is sure that in all the years she knew him he never once referred to himself as a Jew.

The tone of Dan’s letter to her had been very different. Then he had seemed genuinely frightened.
I’m afraid . . . and that’s just it. I'm afraid.
What happened to make him change his mind?

25 May 2010

Elaine called me today. That’s unusual in itself. And she suggested meeting at the Mount Hotel, which seemed a
strange choice of venue. I was teaching all day and couldn’t get there until six. I knew when I arrived that she’d already had a lot to drink. She started off by railing against Guy, saying that I shouldn’t trust him etc. etc. I'd heard all this before but said (quietly) that Guy was one of my best friends and that I’d trust him with my life. She laughed rather wildly and asked me what I thought my life was worth. I said I didn’t want to have this sort of discussion with her and got up to leave. She grabbed me then and started crying. She said she still loved me but she was afraid. What are you afraid of?’ I asked. ‘Not what, who,’ she said. She was in a really terrible state. I did try to get her to drink water or coffee but she swore at me and ordered another bottle of wine. I half hoped they wouldn’t serve her but they did. I escaped to the loo and rang Guy. He came immediately, thank God. By this time she was so drunk that she was hardly able to stand, but she went with Guy quite calmly. He is so good to her. I don’t know how he puts up with her behaviour. I don’t know if they are lovers or not (Sam says not) and I don’t want to know. All I know is that he has been a wonderful friend to her. And to me.