Aware that his mobile battery had gone down, Alan returned to the General Office and picked up the phone. He looked at his watch. It was nearly two, on Monday morning. He was about to phone DCI Lane, when he remembered the three men he’d trussed up in the Packing Store. They were recovering. Kevin had even managed to half sit up. They groaned. All three men had sore heads and running eyes. But they were alive, which was more than they deserved. After he had pulled off his overalls Alan gave each of them a few sips of water, then returned to the office and phoned an ambulance. That done, he redialled Richard Lane.
A very sleepy voice answered, but by the time Alan had outlined the events of the night, he was wide awake and promised to be with him within the hour. He would also alert the local police who’d be there very shortly.
There was just one other thing Alan had to do to satisfy his own curiosity before the police arrived, and he was aware he didn’t have much time. He ran across to the main hangar doors, where he noticed the padlock had been cut and lay on the ground. Then he remembered that Lane had told him the police had done it. He rolled one of the massive sliding doors back and turned on the main arc lights. That, he thought, should keep them busy for a few minutes.
As he ran across the apron he could hear sirens approaching from Boston, far out in Dawyck Fen, breaking the stillness of the approaching dawn. They were still a mile away. Maybe more. Quickly he ducked behind a wall and ran round the outside of the archaeological building, to the side entrance. Once inside, he stumbled along unlit corridors, past his own office, across the main hall and into the Coffee Room. The door to the Out Store was locked. Paul liked to keep these keys to himself, but Alan knew Clara kept an illicit set in the top drawer of her desk. They were still there.
Back in the Coffee Room, he fumbled with the cheap duplicate key which wasn’t a very good fit. Meanwhile, out on the apron the world had suddenly come alive. Expecting trouble, DCI Lane had alerted the firearms squad, three of whom stood around the perimeter facing outwards. Two others were escorting three officers and four paramedics into the open central area of the hangar. Alan had left the door to the General Office wide open, so he hoped they’d discover the Packaging Store, where Kevin and his mates were lying. But he’d left the door to the BCA, which still held the horrors in the freezer and maggot tanks, securely locked.
At last the catch in the Out Store door moved, and he opened it. He felt around and soon found the light switch. There were no windows to the outside. In the time it took the tubes to flicker on, he had crossed to the shelves marked ‘For Christian Reburial’. He saw six boxes, in two sizes. At PFC, as at most museums, larger long-bone boxes, held all the non-cranial bones of the skeleton, whereas the more fragile skull and its mandible were placed on their own, in a smaller, square skull-box.
By and large ancient bones, with all fat and most unstable protein long gone, weigh a fraction of their immediate post-mortem weight. But each of these long-bone boxes felt unusually heavy. Alan lifted their lids, one by one. They were all packed with bones. He was certain that each long-bone box held far more than just a single individual. The skull boxes, however, contained just single heads. Carefully he lifted one out with both hands. It was light. Almost certainly ancient. He replaced it carefully.
He lowered one of the long-bone boxes to the floor and gently tipped out its contents onto a sheet of newspaper. Lying at the bottom, like so many broken pieces of a large, white-chocolate Easter egg, were shattered fragments of skull. Alan knew a certain amount about bone fracture patterns, as these were good indicators of ancient butchery techniques. One glance convinced him that the spiral fracture he could plainly see on at least two mandibles had happened when the bone was still pliable and ‘green’. ‘Green’ bone fractures cannot happen once the bone has lost its fat content and gone brittle. And that takes time.
Alan went to his own office, turning on lights as he did so. It didn’t matter if the police came in now. He picked up the phone and dialled Harriet’s number.
It was approaching 2.45 a.m., when a very sleepy Harriet answered the phone.
‘Harry, it’s Alan. I know I’m probably the last person you want to talk to right now.’
Harriet cut through his bluster. She suddenly sounded very awake indeed.
‘Oh, thank heavens you’ve called. I’ve been worried sick. Where are you?’
‘In my office.’
‘At Priory Farm?
‘What the hell are you doing there?’
Alan’s mind was too fixated on the present situation to register her concern.
‘Look, it’s too long to explain, but Richard Lane will be here soon, and I must have Alaric. I need him to repeat that lipids test. As soon as possible. It’s very important.’
‘Yes, I’m sure it bloody well is.’
And then she hung up.
Everyone could hear the scream of the siren, when it was a mile away. Then the car came hurtling up the drive and onto the hangar apron. Lane jumped out and ran across to Alan who was now standing by one of the stretchers just outside the open doors of the ambulance. A paramedic was removing the last of the cling film and parcel tape. Kevin lay there resolutely silent.
‘So he’s our man, is he?’
‘Yes,’ Alan replied. ‘He certainly had a go at me. Him and his two mates over there.’ He pointed across at two other stretchers, then being carried across the apron towards them.
‘So what happened?’
Alan then gave him a brief account of the attack and the carbon dioxide. Then he remembered the machine pistol, which he’d shoved under the Portakabin steps as he gasped for air. They walked across and retrieved it. Lane, picking it up in a handkerchief, called over to a Scene-of-Crime Officer who hurried across. SOCO pulled a new plastic bag from a roll and put the gun in it.
‘You say the man Kevin was carrying this?’ Alan asked.
‘That’s right. His prints should be on it, along, of course with mine.’
‘Anything I need to see in there?’ Lane nodded towards the General Office.
‘No,’ Alan replied, ‘it can wait. This is far more important.’
He turned round and headed across to the BCA and the maggot tank.
In the background they could see the flashing lights of another ambulance crossing the apron.
‘Wait,’ Lane restrained him. ‘We’ll need penguin suits.’
‘Just getting them, sir.’ SOCO left them and returned a few minutes later with the white paper suits and overshoes, which they carried across to the door labelled Biological Cleansing Area. Outside they all pulled on their suits. Mindful of the way Abdul had passed out the night before, at the sight of Sofia’s remains, Alan didn’t want Lane and SOCO to do the same. He thought it best to warn them.
‘Before we go in, gentlemen, I should warn you that what’s inside this room is pretty upsetting. Please be prepared.’ He undid the padlock. ‘I know you’re both used to grim sights, but there are at least two bodies in here and many thousands of maggots. You will need strong stomachs. And I mean it: I’ve already been sick myself once.’
This short statement had a big effect. The two men looked grim.
They had put on their paper overalls about three paces back from the door. As they approached it, and as if to forewarn them, they caught the stench of putrefaction. It was nearly overpowering, as they stood waiting by the door. Then Alan asked:
‘Are we ready?’
His two companions nodded. He opened the door. The severed ear was still lying on the floor. Outside, the first light of dawn was visible behind the trees. Alan suddenly felt very tired. Maybe the adrenalin was wearing off. He hadn’t slept a wink for two nights. The rat had probably returned to its run for the day. It wouldn’t be back for several hours. Rats didn’t like daylight.
While they slowly walked towards the tanks, Alan explained what he had discovered and how he had moved through the room. As he did so, SOCO held out a small sound recorder. They needed an accurate record.
They walked to the maggot tank and looked in. Alan pointed out the foot at the bottom, and as he peered at it more closely he also thought he saw long strands of dark, straight human hair.
By this point both policemen were silent and very pale. Alan then walked over to the freezer and lifted the lid. Paul was not a pretty sight, especially as his half-eaten eyebrows had frozen on contact with the lid and were ripped off when it was opened. SOCO had to turn round rapidly, his hand to his mouth. Lane placed a comforting arm on his shoulder.
‘Hang in there, son, we’re nearly through. But you must warn the others. And choose the team carefully. Who’ll be in charge?’
There was a pause while he recovered.
‘I’ll be working with Sergeant Thackeray, sir.’
‘He’s a good man. But make sure he sees me first, before anyone else comes in here. This is not for people with weak stomachs.’
Back in the main hangar the light was steadily improving. They closed the BCA door behind them and walked a few paces more to escape the stench. DCI Lane was the first to speak:
‘I’d be grateful if you could bring Sergeant Thackeray to see me here. And thank you for what you’ve just done. It couldn’t have been easy. Well done.’
SOCO headed towards the apron, where a mobile incident room had just parked-up. Lane turned to Alan:
‘How many people used those tanks?’
‘Paul was the only animal bones specialist working here. He set the tanks up and was the only one to use them, so far as I know. It’s actually quite difficult to service them. Specimens have to be kept separate and clearly labelled. And Paul was a perfectionist. He’d never let anything out of the BCA without checking every bone to see that all were present and correct.’
‘No,’ Lane replied thoughtfully, ‘and it would seem that perfection wasn’t his only motive.’
Alan was desperate for a coffee and he sucked the warm sweet liquid down, as if it were a pint of the very best bitter. He was just finishing, when Harriet’s car pulled in. She had, as the old phrase went, a brow of thunder as she got out. She released Alaric from the back and put him on a lead. By now, and to Alan’s considerable relief, Lane had rejoined them.
‘I’m delighted to see you, Harriet,’ Lane said with his customary well-mannered charm, ‘but I admit the circumstances are somewhat unusual. Do you normally start work this early?’
‘No I don’t,’ Harriet replied tetchily. ‘But when you’re worried sick because somebody has gone AWOL after unearthing a human corpse and has been too obsessed to think of giving you so much as a single call, then sometimes you do odd things. At least I do…’
She paused:
‘But then I’m normal.’
Alan intervened, trying to ease the tension. He gestured towards the dog.
‘Richard, this is Alaric. He’s here to help us with the investigation.’
‘Good heavens, really?’ Lane asked Alan.
Harriet turned to Alan, her grip on the lead tightened.
‘And are you going to tell me how, exactly, or do I have to guess at that too?’
‘I think,’ Alan replied quietly, suddenly feeling very tired, ‘we may have found the other evidence we were looking for. It’s over here, in the Out Store.’
The Out Store was exactly as Alan had left it. The lights were still on and one long-bone box was lying on the floor, its contents partially spread over the sheets of newspaper beside it.
‘Right, Richard,’ Alan said to Lane as they entered: ‘Watch this.’
The others stood back, just inside the door, as Alan took a cranium from a skull box on the shelf and placed it gingerly on the floor in front of the dog. Alaric turned his head away. It was written all over his canine face: they were going to play that strange game again.
Alan pretended to encourage him:
‘Go on, lick it boy!’
But he got no response from the dog. He put the skull back in its box.
‘Right,’ he said to his small audience, ‘that skull was medieval. No response from the dog, because all the fats had been leached out. Shall I continue?’
Lane nodded. Alan then turned to the bones in the larger box and selected two broken pieces of skull. As he carried them towards the dog, Harriet spoke sharply.
‘That’s cranium. What the hell are they doing in a long-bone box?’
‘Exactly, Harriet,’ Alan said, ‘I fear Paul is the only person who knows the answer to that – and he’s dead.’
Harriet stared open-mouthed, trying to grasp what he had just said – almost casually. Alan was so tired he’d become oblivious. He continued, as if conducting a well-rehearsed conjuring trick.
‘Now let’s see the dog’s reaction to these two skull bones.’
As he approached with the bones, Alaric strained forward on his lead, his nose quivering with anticipation. There were flecks of spittle around his mouth, and his tongue was hanging out, drooling.
‘You’ve made your point, Alan.’ Lane said, ‘that dog would eat those bits of skull if you let him. So presumably they’re not very old?’
‘No. I doubt if they’re more than five years old.’
‘Or less,’ Harriet added, her academic mind overriding her emotions. She was focusing on the facts. ‘In acidic soils you can lose fats in half that time.’
‘Alan,’ Lane said in a firm voice, ‘you’ve made your point very well. So are we right to assume that many of these boxes contain modern bones?’
‘Yes. I think Paul was processing modern bodies at an alarming rate. And had been doing so for several years.’
Lane was now looking very serious.
‘Right,’ he said, still looking down at the floor, ‘we’ll discuss all that later.’ He paused and looked up: ‘Right now I’m more concerned that Ms Webb has not been properly informed about Paul Flynn’s death. I think you had better leave that to me, Alan. I suggest you go and fetch yourself something to eat from our canteen trailer.’
He summoned a constable on his walkie-talkie. When he arrived, he gave instructions that this storeroom was also a scene-of-crime. It must be taped-off immediately. They would also need to conduct a full forensic survey. Meanwhile it must remain locked, sealed and guarded.
Alan withdrew. He had more sense than to argue with Lane, who seemed to understand and handle people rather better than he did.
In fact, as Lane put a comforting arm around Harriet’s shoulder, Alan felt a short stab of envy. And behind that, an uncomfortable, nagging question. He’d got his answers now. He’d found Sofia. He’d exposed the Kabuls’ corruption. But Paul was dead and he’d lost Harriet. Had it all really been worth it?
Wearily, Alan turned his back on the scene and slowly walked away.