Relics (15 page)

‘My God,’ he whispered, his eyes riveted to what he’d read. He scanned it again. And again. More of the Celtic script was carved into other parts of the chamber and he knew that it must all be uncovered, but his eyes kept on returning to the single complete sentence he had so far revealed.

He tried to swallow but his throat felt as if it were full of chalk.

As he stepped back he found that his hands were shaking.

‘Not bloody cheese again.’ groaned Mike Spencer, pulling back one edge of his sandwich and examining the contents. He bit into the bread and chewed quickly.

‘Why don’t you ask your wife to put something else in them?’ Colin Mackay asked.

‘I make them myself,’ Spencer told him, grinning. ‘Cheese was all we had in the fridge, except salami, and I didn’t fancy any of that stuff. I’d have ended up smelling like a bloody Italian.’

The other men inside the Portakabin laughed. There were half a dozen of them, all on their lunch break. Outside, on the building site itself, earth-moving machines rumbled back and forth and the roar of powerful engines was a constant background to the men’s conversation. Close by, a bulldozer was flattening some ground, the excess earth being scooped up by a JCB. The clanking of caterpillar tracks reminded Spencer of a war film he’d seen the night before. The lorry which he drove back and forth to remove the excess earth was parked on a small incline about thirty feet from the Portakabin. Usually he’d had his lunch at a cafe in Longfield, but that was proving to be expensive so he’d decided to start bringing sandwiches. He’d just come in, having retrieved them from the parcel shelf of the ten-ton Scania.

‘You know, I bet the leisure centre is a wreck within six months,’ Keith Riley said, gazing out of the window towards the building beyond. ‘Once the bloody vandals get at those walls with their spray cans and what have you.’

‘I saw a good bit of grafitti in town the other night,’ Spencer announced. ‘It was sprayed on the bottom of a poster for abortion, and it said “
You rape
’
em
,
we scrape em
.” ’ He laughed throatily, almost choking on his sandwich.

‘I know what Keith means, though,’ Mark Little added, pouring himself a cup of tea from his thermos flask. ‘I mean, we spent weeks painting that place and it’s going to be ruined.’

‘You don’t have much faith in kids do you?’ said Frank King. ‘Wait until you’ve got a couple of your own.’

‘Sod off, I’m not having kids,’ Little told him. ‘They tie you down.’

‘Only for the first twenty-five years.’ chuckled King.

‘So what happens if your old lady gets pregnant, then?’ Spencer asked his companion. ‘You haven’t got the money to pay for an abortion.’

‘You can get it done on the National Health, you berk,’ Little said. ‘Anyway, she’d better not get pregnant. She’s been on the pill long enough.’

‘My wife’s got the coil,’ Spencer informed his colleagues. ‘On a good day she can pick up Radio One on it.’ He burst out laughing again. ‘She was going to use the Dutch cap but we couldn’t find one to fit her head.’

‘How much longer are we supposed to be working on this site, Frank?’ Colin Mackay asked the foreman.

‘That depends on what Cutler decides to build next,’ he said. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

‘I don’t care how long we’re here,’ Spencer said. ‘At least the money’s good.’

‘Come on, fellas,’ King said, looking at his watch. ‘If
Mr
Cutler decides to pay us a visit I don’t think he’ll be, too happy to find us all lounging about in here.’

Amidst a chorus of complaints and mutterings, the men filed out of the hut. All except Spencer.

‘Come on, Mike,’ King said.

‘Can I just finish my coffee, Frank?’ he asked.

‘Don’t be too long about it,’ the foreman said and closed the door behind him leaving Spencer alone.

Inside the Portakabin, Mike Spencer fumbled in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes, cursing when he realized he must have left them in the lorry. Sod it; he’d wait a few more minutes. He took a sip of his coffee.

If he had been asked to swear on a stack of Bibles, Mike Spencer would have said that he had left the Scania’s handbrake on when he parked it on the incline near the Portakabin.

And Frank King naturally would have expected the driver to have done so.

That perhaps was why the foreman was so taken by surprise when he saw the juggernaut move slightly, then begin to roll towards the hut, picking up speed as it did.

For a moment he stood frozen, watching the heavy Scania roll inexorably down the slope, bumping violently over the rough ground as its speed increased. By the time he was able to shout a warning, the lorry was moving at an unstoppable speed.

Still lounging in the Portakabin, Spencer took one last mouthful of coffee, then got to his feet and stretched, becoming vaguely aware of the sound of shouting from outside. He crossed to the window, trying to locate the source of the noise. He frowned in puzzlement as he saw Frank King running towards the hut. Spencer could see him mouthing words but he could not make out what they were.

A second later the lorry ploughed into the hut.

Frank King shouted one last hopeless warning, then he could only stand helplessly and watch as the Scania hit the Portakabin.

The entire structure buckled as the huge bulk of the lorry flattened it.

Others nearby turned to see what was happening, their attention caught by the noise, especially the high-pitched scream which rose from the wreckage.

The foreman started running again, joined by Keith Riley and John Kirkland, and the trio dashed stumbling and swearing across the uneven ground towards the remains of the hut.

Mike Spencer had been caught completely unawares by the collision. The truck had caved in the side wall and the roof of the small building, pinning him beneath the debris, unable to move before the massive rear wheels ran over his legs and thighs. The bones were crushed into pulp by the weight of the huge lorry. Both femurs snapped like matchwood, one jagged edge tearing into his femoral artery before bursting through the skin and muscle of his pulverized thigh. Most of his pelvis was also crushed by the giant wheels. Mercifully, he blacked out as a huge fountain of blood sprayed from the torn artery, rising in a great crimson parabola to splatter the rear end of the truck.

Seated high in the driving seat of the bulldozer, Bob Richardson saw the lorry flatten the hut and immediately jammed the great machine into neutral and switched off the engine. Using one of the caterpillar tracks as a ladder, he began climbing down to join the other men who were running towards the scene of disaster.

He actually had one foot on the ground when the bulldozer’s engine roared into life.

Bob looked up in dismay and surprise as the machine rolled forward, instantly trapping his left hand between two of the tread links.

He had one brief second of terrifying realization, then the searing agony began.

As the machine rolled forward he felt an unbearable pressure on his wrist and arm as the ‘dozer dragged him a few feet. It was moving slowly but not slowly enough for him to extricate his arm. He shrieked in pain as the tread crushed his wrist and hand, the snapping of bones clearly audible above the clatter of the tracks. He tried to pull himself free, to stop the unbearable wrenching at his shoulder. The entire limb was going numb, the material of his coat tearing under the prolonged tugging.

With one final despairing roar of pain, Bob felt his hand come off.

He sprawled in the mud, the bloodied stump spouting crimson while he screamed for help. His severed hand rolled free of the track as if it had been spat out and he noticed, even through his pain, that the fingers were still twitching.

The bulldozer rolled a few more yards, then stopped.

Bob Richardson continued to scream.

Frank King turned and saw the bulldozer driver sprawled on the ground, his shattered arm spewing blood, the severed hand lying close by. The foreman spun round in time to see Riley and Kirkland, who had reached the smashed but ahead of him, trying to pull the motionless form of Mike Spencer from beneath the Scania. Apparently they were unaware that too much pressure could rip his body in two. Whether either of the injured men could survive, King didn’t know. He stood, hands pressed to his. temples, listening to the shouts of alarm from other men running to help, and the next voice he heard was his own, yelling frantically.

‘For God’s sake get an ambulance!’

George Perry lifted the crate into the back of the Land Rover, grunting under the weight. He set it down as gently as he could, then stepped back, wiping the dust from his hands.

‘There are twelve skulls in there,’ he told her. ‘That should give you plenty to work with.’

Kim smiled and raised her eyebrows.

‘Have you been able to decipher anything from the tablets yet?’ Perry asked.

‘A little, but I’m still working on them,’ she said, looking closely at her colleague, who seemed somehow distracted. ‘Is anything wrong, George?’ she finally asked.

Perry sighed.

‘As a matter of fact there is,’ he told her. ‘It’s Cooper. There’s something wrong with him. I don’t mean he’s ill. It’s . . . I don’t know, his personality. His entire character seems to have changed in the last day or two. Ever since we discovered the chamber of skulls. He spends all his time in there. He doesn’t like anyone else going near it.’ The archaeologist sounded indignant. ‘He’s got no right to do that. I intend having a look myself, whether he likes it or not.’

‘Has he found anything else?’ Kim wanted to know.

‘If he has, he hasn’t mentioned it. He seems . . .’ Perry struggled to find the right word, ‘I don’t know . . . obsessed with what he’s doing. But it’s not only that Cooper’s become more aggressive. I think he’s frightened as well.’

‘What of?’

‘I wish I knew. He’s found
something
in there and whatever it is, it’s scared the hell out of him.’

The two archaeologists looked at one another for a moment, as if both were lost for words.

‘Let me know if anything happens,’ Kim said finally, climbing behind the wheel of the Land Rover.

Perry nodded, watching as she started the engine and drove off across the field.

He felt a sudden chill sweep through him and it felt uncomfortably familiar. He turned and looked towards the gaping mouth of the shaft.

It took Kim over five hours to carbon-date the first four skulls and put a reasonably accurate fix on their age. Like the rest of the relics recovered from the site, they were at least 2,000 years old. A fluorine test, together with the petrological microscopy, confirmed that fact.

As she worked with the skulls, Kim glanced almost unconsciously at the stone tablets still laid out on the work- top. She intended to continue with them as soon as she’d finished with the skulls.

The museum was closed and she worked alone in the silence, having decided that the building was best left shut while she toiled over the finds.

As she worked, though, she was aware of the ever-present chill which filled the air like invisible freezing fog. She got up to check the radiators, deciding that if it got much colder she could not continue working in the museum.

She returned her attention to the skull before her. She had removed the lower jaw and part of one side, leaving the yawning cranial cavity gaping at her. She had used a small portion of the jaw to grind up for a nitrogen test, but it was the cheek bones and eyes which drew her attention. She studied the same features on all the skulls more closely and saw that each of the skulls bore deep, irregular striation marks. Particularly around the eyes, both above and below. As if some sharp object had been used on them at some time. A knife perhaps.

The thought sent a shudder of revulsion through her body.

It looked as if, all those centuries ago, the eyes had been gouged from their sockets.

There were twelve of them.

All naked.

The youngest barely sixteen. The eldest yet to reach twenty.

As they moved back and forth in the clearing the dead leaves rustled beneath their feet and the branches of the trees shook spidery fingers at them. The gloom of the starless night was like a black shroud which had closed over the wood as if to hide what was going on.

Henry Dexter stood slightly to one side of the crudely fashioned cross, his face impassive, his grey hair ruffled by the breeze which swept through the wood.

The cross consisted of two large pieces of wood, nailed together at the apex. They were merely particularly large tree branches which had been broken off and joined by three large masonry nails. A youth stood in front of the cross, a lad of sixteen with a smattering of acne on both his face and shoulders. He faced three girls, all of the same age. One was tall and slender, the other two a little overweight, their bellies and thighs slightly too large.

At a signal from Dexter, Gary Webb and another youth stepped forward and pulled the acne-spotted lad towards the cross, tying his arms securely to the cross-beam so that he was spreadeagled. He shuffled uncomfortably, feeling the ropes cutting into one wrist where they had been fastened a little over-zealously. He put up with the discomfort without complaint, however, because he knew what was to follow.

Led by the tallest, the trio of naked girls knelt before the boy, whose penis was already beginning to harden. As the first girl reached out and drew one finger tip along the shaft, his organ rapidly attained its full stiffness.

The second girl leant forward, took his penis into her mouth and sucked gently on it for a minute or two before the next girl did likewise, tasting her companion’s saliva as well as the salty taste of the lad’s erection. He strained against the ropes as the feeling of pleasure began to grow more intense.

The tall girl took her turn, this time massaging his swollen testicles while the other two ran their hands up and down his thighs.