Rise (20 page)

‘Well, have you tried calling it?’ asked Hannah.

‘Och aye, of course they’ll’ve . . . we’ll. Aye, that will definitely have been done, Mrs Anderson.’

‘Well can you check? Or give me the bloody number—’

‘Oh, we couldna do that. Data protection. But I will check. You have my word. It’s no actually us now; the main investigation’s been passed to Traffic.’

‘Can he no tell you anything himself?’ the colleague asked Hannah. He had oily black hair, too long for his cap. It stuck out at the sides.

‘He can’t speak?’

‘I know. But could you try writing? Drawing?’

‘We tried all that, Roddy,’ said the other policeman. ‘But he couldna really remember. No the now. So, we’ll interview his pals, eh? A fresh line of enquiry.’ The cop nodded, entirely satisfied with this new development he’d decided on, then his baldy brow had risen like the sun. ‘Maybe you could offer a reward . . . ?’

‘For Christsake—’ And then the ironing basket tumbled over. Or Hannah kicked it, perhaps. Tripped on it, certainly. Who was to say, who is ever to bloody say if a thing is accidental or not? How do you know it yourself, in your head, even at the very second it happens? It’s only what you tell yourself after that decides. People use that as a defence for murder.
Were you angry?
Yes!
Were you furious; clouded with rage?
Yes!
Did you mean to do it?
I don’t know.
Did you crash into a kid, phone for help, then drive away?

After the police left, assuring Michael there was
no harm done
, and they
quite understood
, they sat her in the kitchen. Michael rubbing her shoulders, Ross curling on her knee. Justine had dished out sugary tea, and seemed, at one point, to be crying with her. Michael insisted she take a break, get outside. Even packed her up a sandwich. She doesn’t deserve it; it’s she should be fussing him.

She fouters with the clasp of her notebook. Sometimes it’s easier to love the thought of Michael than it is to look him in the face. The notebook’s black cover is muddy from the dig; it’s packed with notes and sketches. When she gets the words right, it makes her feel fixed in purpose. The site at Crychapel’s been transformed. She looks up. Already, almost half of the cobbled cairn is bald: just raw skinned earth, with two deep trenches cut parallel to one another. Smaller holes have been drilled like little wells, and tarpaulin strung everywhere. The air is full of copious, fusty smells, which Hannah has been sniffing, and labelling, like wine. ‘Dry earth and dust’. ‘Maggoty tumblings’. ‘A dark, forbidding decay’. When she looks at what she’s written, it’s mostly phrases like this. It’s mostly poetry.

It doesn’t matter. She’s enjoying this dig so much, the sweat and muck of the work, how layers of life are being peeled away. So long as she goes where she’s told, the guys are happy for her to wield a trowel. One has even offered her a shot of his mattock, but she’s not sure if that’s a euphemism. So far, they have recovered: an old plough blade; a beaker, some flints, three clay pipes; a tiny shard of slate – and some interesting ‘traces’ in the unearthed cist. Professor Tom believes they’re cremated remains. Hannah’s on first-name terms with him already; he’s quite a funny man, though he doesn’t realise this. They know not to disturb her when she’s writing. And she knows not to walk across till summoned either. She sees Tom striding over, wiping his hands on his backside. ‘Well. Very exciting! Very. I’d say we have evidence of several interments.’

‘Yeah?’ She stands up. ‘So, are the standing stones grave markers then?’

‘No, no, that’s what’s so interesting. They’re nothing to do with the graves at all. The actual stone circles appear to have been built hundreds of years before any burials. We think a couple of the stones date back to at least 3000
BC
. The burials begin around five hundred years later.’

That’s not good. The story thread Hannah has been embroidering won’t work if that were true. She has her heroine building the circle, and the grave needs to be . . . She chews the top of her pen, briefly. Then decides:
Meh
. Occasionally, her kids possess better vocabulary than she does.

‘But you think more than one grave?’

‘Definitely. We’ve got traces of the cremation in the cist you found—’

She dimples. They both know she had nothing to do with finding it.

‘—plus signs of two or three cremations from much later on. Judging by the topographic survey, I think we may also have another cist under there as well. We’ll start on that area after lunch. But, as I say; when the cists and urns were placed here, I’m sure the circles were sites of great significance already.’

‘You’re saying circles? Plural?’

‘Yes! We had anecdotal evidence there may have been a north and a south circle, but it was never recorded. But . . . walk this way . . .’

The professor steers her to where one of his colleagues stands deep in thought. They have a singular pose, these archaeologists, that says:
This is not me in a dwam
.
No, I am pondering some great mystery
. Back straight, hip tilted. Arms optional – either lightly folded, or one-in-pocket while other-cradles-chin. They all do it. A bit like quivering meerkats; it was the signal to gather round. Although this poor chap, Bobby, looks as if he’s been voguing it for quite some time. All the other meerkats have drifted to the pub. He perks up when he sees them coming. ‘Behold!’

A hole. Just a wee hole in the ground, but deep.

‘See?’ says the professor. ‘Wooden sockets. This north circle was made of timber – that’s why they couldn’t find it before!’

‘Yeah.’ Bobby joins in. Pretending to be casual, but speeding, speeding his delivery as the excitement gets too much. ‘We’ve found a few stones too, which suggest they started replacing the timbers, but the circle was never completed. It seems they covered it over with cobbles and started on the other one. Then, of course, the peat came . . . climatic change, you know. So, it kind of disappeared?’

Hannah goes back towards the south circle. Only a few yards separate the two. Levers and rollers: hundreds of hands pushing and pulling until they got the stones into place. They’d drum in time to the movements, keeping the rhythm going, singing with the wind. Line them up with older cairns, with the sun and the stars, with shadow, with the moon. Calculating where the light would bleed beneath. She can feel the beat of the rhyme, there’s a shape it’s making, a long, rolling drumming. Pocking the stone with pits and grooves, in patterns like ringed cups. Then they would feast: shellfish, milk and curds. Mashing barley in clay bowls for the children, masticating it for the babies. Origin of the first kiss: mother-chewed food passed to hungry gums. She opens her notebook again. Scribbles: ‘land healing itself from human intrusion’.

The professor, with Bobby at his heels, follows. ‘Looking at it, we think this older north one was built to align with the sun.’

‘At midday on the winter solstice,’ agrees Bobby.

‘Well, that’s the theory . . . We’ll have to wait till December to find out.’

‘And this one?’ Hannah stands on the edge of the stone circle.

‘Again, we’re not sure. This isn’t really our area of expertise. I have a colleague who specialises in megalithic astronomy. We’ll need to run a series of surveys. But I suspect these circles may, at least at some point, have worked in tandem. Possibly both lunar and solar observations.’

‘Yes,’ says Bobby. ‘Potentially the entire landscape is being used here. It’s very exciting. If you look at these preliminary sketches I’ve made,’ he thrusts his clipboard at Hannah, ‘the north-east direction of the Crychapel Wood circles most likely orientates to the rising major standstill midwinter full moon. But the long axis of the southern circle is towards the Nether Meikle stones – and the setting of the southern major standstill moon.’ The clipboard droops. ‘Obviously.’

‘So, wait.’ She’s been puzzling what Tom said, not Bobby. ‘The cist we uncovered isn’t in the circle at all?’

‘No. It’s possible that the interior of the circle was still sacred at the time of burial. Too sacrosanct to disturb.’

‘Like a church? And this was the graveyard?’

‘I suppose so. It appears they built the cist just outside the circle, topped it with this slab – what we call a kerb – and then built a flat cairn on top. Whether the cairn was part of the burial ceremony, or something built years later, for some other purpose, we’re not sure. Anyway, over time, the cobbles that seem to have been placed inside the circle have joined up with these outer cairns. All a big jumble, really.’

‘But why all the cobbles? I don’t understand.’

The professor is animated, sharing his knowledge generously. ‘Well, around 1700 BC, we think smaller river cobbles were used to fill the gaps between the standing stones, to stop people getting access to the interior. Sealing it off, if you like.’

‘Mhairi said that too!’

‘Who’s Mhairi? Is she an archaeologist?’

‘No. She runs the café next to the church.’

‘I see.’ The professor glances, briefly, at Bobby.

‘It was her that contacted the uni.’

‘Splendid. Well done that lady. Well, it looks like an outer bank’s been added at some stage. Here, see how there’s been another spiral carved higher up on the northernmost stone. I think that’s because the earlier spiral was hidden by this bank. Then, something changed too about the nature of this space. Burials started happening inside the circle – the cremations we’ve discovered. They were covered with cairns as well. Haven’t managed to date them yet, but they’re definitely later than this cist. Then, what with agricultural improvements and so on over the last few hundred years, I reckon fieldstones have been dumped here too. Hence our lovely guddle.’

Hannah kneels down, smoothing her hand along the worn edge of the cist. Trying to imagine it. Dark and drumming. Flames and chants, the body curled.

‘How d’you know there was an actual burial?’

The professor rubs muck from his specs. ‘We don’t, yet. Let’s just see what cist number two reveals. GPS indications are that it’s considerably bigger than the one we’ve already excavated.’

‘So there’s still more to be found here, you think?’

‘Gosh yes. Oodles, I imagine. Unfortunately, we don’t have that much time. Another week at the most, then it’s back to Glasgow for me, I’m afraid. And we’ve yet to make a start on Mary’s Well.’

‘Unless we get an extension,’ pipes Bobby. ‘I don’t mind camping if it means—’

‘Yes, but I have the Balearic dig to arrange. Plus, there’s all this hoo-hah with the electricity company now. I don’t want to be some pawn—’

‘What hoo-hah?’ says Hannah.

‘Apparently we don’t actually have the correct permissions. Historic Scotland are fine with us being here but . . . ah.’ He rubs his specs again. ‘What do you know about all this windfarm nonsense?’

‘I know there’s a proposal in, for further up the hills. But we’re fighting it. They can’t build something like that here.’

‘You’d be surprised. I’ve seen motorways constructed over Roman villas. Had to scrabble for what we could get – literally gouging up hunks of mosaic before it disappeared. All very undignified.’ He replaces his specs. ‘Very little stands in the way of progress nowadays. And it seems your Sentinel Power folk are very prescient. Over a year ago, they bought up several tracts of land in Kilmacarra – including the access road past the primary school, various fields and pockets of moorland – and a large chunk of these woods, I’m afraid. Part of some solar-power scheme for the school.’

‘You’re joking. Bought from who?’

‘Local landowners, the council—’

‘The council? So they were doing deals with Sentinel over a year ago?’

‘“Doing deals” might be a little harsh, but it’s fair to say some, um, collaborative groundwork’s been done. Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure it’ll all get sorted.’

‘This is unbelievable. How can Sentinel have bought up half the glen without anyone noticing?’

‘Well, I’m not clear on the specifics: the local-authority bods are being a little difficult.’

‘Not Graeme,’ says Bobby stoutly.

‘No, but then he is one of us – Graeme’s the council archaeologist. Anyway, there’s all sorts of issues over rights of access, particularly if we want to extend the area.’

‘You’re here now. Can you not just dig out the rest of the circle, at least?’

‘But we’ve never had permission for that. You must understand, dear: the conditions for excavations are very specific. Every time we swing a pick, we inflict some damage on the land. Our work is about conservation: each action is a careful balance between discovery and destruction.’

He has slipped into lecture mode. Over to the east the blue hills roll like waves. The stones sit as they have done for five thousand years, turning mauve as the tree-shadows move. Squat, not soaring. Squat and graceful, quietly in their place.

‘In the meantime, we’ll continue to do what we can,’ says Tom. ‘I’ll certainly lobby hard for a continuance. We’d need to attract more funding of course . . .’

‘But we think these could be amongst the most sophisticated astronomically significant alignments in Scotland.’ Bobby hugs his clipboard. The small, nervous bursts he speaks in seem to exhaust him.