I

The Fallen Stone

THE NIGHT-PORTER had gone to sleep: there was no doubt about it, although he had tried to make out that Mrs Boyce had asked for a call at 03.00, instead of 02.30. But it was no use arguing about blame. By the time he had made them a pot of tea and they had put their luggage in the car it was close on 03.30, and Professor Boyce was beginning to think that it was barely worth setting out. His womenfolk, however – Mrs Boyce and their nineteen-year-old daughter Juliet –were determined sightseers, and reckoned they could just about do it. ‘And we’re not likely to have another chance of seeing the sunrise at Stonehenge at midsummer,’ Mrs Boyce said forcibly. That clinched it. With misgiving Professor Boyce followed the women to the car and got into the driving seat.

The hotel was in Gloucester, where some seventeenth century Boyce ancestors had come from. The road trip of around fifty miles, through Cirencester, Swindon and Marlborough, seemed straightforward, and on the roads at home, through the wide open spaces of Iowa, it was certainly possible to do fifty miles in an hour. At that time of the morning English roads should at least be clear, and the car they had hired for their vacation seemed a good one. They made good time to Swindon, and their hopes of keeping their appointment with the sunrise rose. But they had not bargained on the complexities of crossing the motorway at Swindon, took a wrong turning and lost ten minutes. By the time they got to Marlborough it was already 04.30.

Professor Boyce turned into an empty car park in the middle of Marlborough’s magnificently wide High Street and stopped. ‘Sunrise is in thirteen minutes, and we’ve all of twenty miles to go. We can’t do it, Miriam,’ he said.

Back home, Juliet was majoring in archaeology. ‘Can I have the map, Mummy?’ she asked.

Mrs Boyce, who had the map open on her knee, handed it to her daughter in the back seat.

Juliet studied the map for a moment. Then she said, ‘Look, I’ve got an idea. Let’s go to Avebury instead of Stonehenge. It’s only four or five miles on. Everybody goes to Stonehenge; we’ll be different and see the sunrise at Avebury.’

‘What is this Avebury?’ asked her mother.

Juliet had done her Prehistoric Britain. ‘It’s the greatest Stone Circle in Europe – older than Stonehenge, or bits of it are,’ she said. ‘We’ll be able to say we’ve been there, when lots of people haven’t.’

‘OK then,’ said her mother. ‘How do we get there?’

Juliet glanced again at the map. ‘Straight on, Daddy, I’ll pilot you,’ she said.

*

They got to Avebury with about two minutes in hand. They had just time to put the car in the deserted car park and climb to the top of the great embankment on which the huge stones stand when the sun glinted into the Kennet valley and a shaft of light touched one of the standing stones. None of the little party said anything for several moments. They were quite alone, for sunrise at Avebury is not a tourist spectacle, and the empty grandeur of the place was strangely moving.

‘Well, that was quite something,’ Miriam Boyce said at last.

‘We’re lucky to have a clear morning,’ said her husband.

It was a most beautiful morning, sunlight now sparkling on the young green of the trees and making diamond-drops of the dew that still lay on the grass. Slowly the three of them began to walk round the great embankment, Juliet a little ahead. Miriam Boyce slipped her fingers into her husband’s hand. ‘It’s all right now, Stephen, I wouldn’t have missed this for worlds,’ she said. ‘You can keep your old Stonehenge.’

Suddenly Juliet called back, ‘Oh, Daddy! One of the stones has fallen, I think.’

They were approaching the Eastern Entrance (actually slightly north of east) of the Great Circle, from which a track leads to the Downs, and sure enough a huge boulder near the entrance seemed to have fallen on its side. Juliet hung back to join her parents, and the three of them walked up to it together.

‘I suppose they must fall sometimes,’ said Professor Boyce. ‘And quite a lot seem to be missing – where they’ve put concrete posts to mark the place of stones.’

When they were still a few yards from the fallen stone Miriam Boyce gripped her husband’s hand hard and gasped out, ‘Stephen, look . . .’ There was no need to say any more, for they all saw it. The brilliant morning seemed somehow to turn cold. Projecting from beneath the fallen stone was a man’s foot.

Professor Boyce would not have called himself a man of action, but he had served in the war and long-repressed memories of a dreadful beach in Normandy came flooding back. Telling his wife and daughter to stay where they were, he ran up to the stone. There was no chance of a mistake. A foot, wearing a grey plimsoll, protruded from the stone, and somewhere underneath the mass of that enormous boulder there was presumably a body. Boyce pressed on the boulder, leant against it, shoved with all his might; it moved not a fraction of an inch, for it weighed twenty or thirty tons. He went back to his wife and daughter. ‘We can do nothing here, we’ve got to get help,’ he said. ‘And I don’t think there’s much anyone can do for whoever it is underneath the stone – he’s surely dead.’

‘We’d better wake someone in the village,’ Miriam Boyce said.

‘I suppose so.’

They ran back along the embankment towards the houses they remembered near the car park, but when they reached the village street Juliet saw a telephone box. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to call up the police?’ she said.

Her father thought for a moment. Then he said, ‘I guess so. We don’t know anybody here, and it looks like being a job for the police.’

Juliet said, ‘I know what you do – it’s in the thriller that I bought in Cheltenham. You dial 999.’

‘Yes,’ said her father. ‘That’s what it says on the notice in the box.’

He dialled 999 and almost at once a man’s voice answered. ‘What’s the trouble?’

‘I’ve found a body, a dead body. I think I need the police.’

‘Right, putting you through now. Don’t go away from the telephone.’

Professor Boyce had not hitherto been impressed by the English telephone service, but this, he thought, was good work. A moment later another man’s voice was on the line. ‘North Wessex Police, Marlborough,’ it said. ‘Can we help you?’

‘Yes,’ said Boyce. He gave a brief account of coming upon the foot projecting from the fallen stone. The police voice was matter-of-fact. ‘You think whoever it is, is dead?’ it asked.

‘Yes, I don’t see how it could be otherwise. That stone must weigh many tons.’

‘Then we’ll need some heavy lifting equipment. I’ll get on to the Fire Brigade. And a doctor, of course, and an ambulance. What is your name, sir?’

‘Boyce.’ He spelled it out. ‘Professor Stephen Boyce, of Iowa, in the United States.’

‘Thank you, Professor. We’ll get someone out to you straightaway. Where exactly are you speaking from?’

Boyce explained, and the voice said. ‘Can you wait by the telephone box until a police car comes?’

‘I’ll wait by my own car in the car park. It’s just across the road.’

The police voice said that would do very well, and Boyce put back the receiver. ‘What’s happening?’ asked Juliet as he came out of the box.

‘Well, the police say they’re coming. Also, apparently, the Fire Brigade, to lift the stone. We’re to wait in the car park. God knows how long it will all take.’

It was not yet half-past five. Boyce felt additionally aggrieved at the negligent night-porter, but he couldn’t help also feeling rather excited by the whole affair. He joined his wife and daughter, standing forlornly by their hired car: it seemed the only evidence of reality in a weird dream, or nightmare.

A police car arrived much sooner than Boyce had dared to hope, and a constable got out. ‘Professor Boyce?’ he asked.

Boyce acknowledged himself, adding ‘and my wife and daughter’.

‘Thank you, sir. I was on radio patrol and got a message that you had found a body. Can you show me where it is?’

‘Of course. It’s up there.’ Boyce pointed along the embankment.

The constable considered for a moment. Then he said, ‘We’d better get to it. But there’ll be a C.I.D. Inspector along in a few minutes, and the Fire Brigade. Do you think, sir, that you could take me to the body while the ladies wait here to tell the others where we’ve gone?’

They agreed at once, and Boyce went off with the constable to climb the embankment and take him to the fallen stone. Everything was exactly as he had left it. The constable knelt down and gently felt the ankle of the projecting foot. ‘Seems quite cold,’ he said, ‘but you can’t rightly tell with so little showing. Did you feel his foot, sir?’

‘No,’ said Boyce. ‘In my country we are told to touch nothing at the scene of an accident, but to wait for the police – unless, of course, you can do something to help an injured person. In this case there did not seem anything I could do.’

‘You were quite right, sir. Ah, this’ll be the C.I.D.’

A small party, led by Juliet, came up. ‘Mummy’s waiting for the Fire Brigade,’ she said.

A youngish man, still under thirty-five, Boyce thought, introduced himself as Detective Inspector Revers of the North Wessex Police, and he introduced an elderly man with him as Dr Mortimer. The doctor knelt to examine the foot. ‘The bone is crushed just above the ankle,’ he said. ‘If the rest of the body is underneath that stone, it will be dreadfully crushed. But I can do nothing until the stone is lifted.’

‘There is no chance of life, doctor?’ the Inspector asked.

‘I should say none at all.’

The Inspector studied the stone. ‘They are called sarsens,’ he said to Boyce, ‘great blocks of rock left on the Downs from an earlier cap that covered the chalk before it was broken up in one of the Ice Ages. You can see plenty of sarsens between here and Marlborough. How prehistoric people manhandled them to positions like this beggars understanding. But they did. I wonder why this stone fell?’

He walked slowly round the stone. The mass of the boulder was roughly lozenge-shaped, and it had stood on one of its points, deeply embedded in the chalky earth of the embankment. In front, where the face of the stone had fallen, there was nothing much to see: the stone had fallen slightly downhill, covering the turf and everything beneath it except the grim projecting foot. At the back there was a large cavity, the earth wrenched up by the base of the stone as it had toppled over. There were pieces of wood that looked like timber shuttering, some of them splintered, lying in the earth of the hole.

‘Do you know if this was one of the places where that archaeological team has been excavating?’ the Inspector asked the constable.

‘I don’t, sir, but it looks a bit like it. That might explain why the stone fell.’

‘It might. Well, we shall have to find out.’

Mrs Boyce appeared, leading another, and this time rather larger, party.

The Inspector drew Professor Boyce aside. ‘This is the Fire Service lifting crew,’ he said. ‘I don’t know yet how they’ll get their equipment here, and it may take some time to get the body out, but they’ll manage it. I don’t think there is any need for you and the ladies to stay: indeed, I think you ought to go, because what is underneath that stone will not be pleasant. Are you staying in Marlborough?’

‘No,’ said Boyce. ‘We’ve been stopping in Gloucester. We left early this morning intending to see the sunrise at Stonehenge, but the journey took longer than we’d reckoned and we came here instead. My daughter is studying archaeology.’

‘Where can I get in touch with you?’

‘Well, my home address is Milman University, Agostine County, Iowa – I’m Professor of English there. We haven’t got any fixed address in England. We’re on vacation, and touring around. We left Gloucester this morning, and thought that we might find somewhere around Salisbury tonight.’

‘I don’t want to bother you for a statement now, and I do want to see everything I can of the state of the earth around the stone before the lifting operations disturb it. Would it be possible for you to come to the police station in Marlborough some time later today?’

‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t stay in Marlborough if there’s a hotel with room for us.’

‘There are several hotels. If you like, the constable will drive back with you to Marlborough and see that you are fixed up. Then I could call on you, say around midday.’

‘Yes, that would be all right.’

*

Like a good many Americans – indeed, like many people anywhere – Professor Boyce was fundamentally afraid of the police. It was not exactly a conscious fear; it was rather a sense of individual helplessness in dealing with a strange but obviously powerful machine. These English police had been polite enough, he thought, but they might as easily turn nasty. He did not know what powers they might have to hold him and his family as material witnesses. He had to think of getting back to the States: the financial planning of their vacation was pretty tight, and an extra week or two in England would be hard to manage, to say nothing of the possibility of losing their already booked return flight. They were foreigners, they didn’t know any lawyers in England, and it was better to keep on the right side of the police. And why not stay in Marlborough? From what he had seen of it in the half-light before dawn it seemed a pleasant old town, and it was certainly in a lovely countryside. He explained the situation to Miriam and Juliet. Somewhat to his surprise, they jumped at the idea. ‘Well, we didn’t think of stopping in Marlborough,’ Miriam said, ‘but now that we’re here we might just as well stay. And I must say I’d like to learn more about what happened to that stone.’

Juliet, too, seemed pleased. ‘When the shops open I’ll get a guide book,’ she said. ‘I saw a sign near the car park pointing to a museum, and we’ll be able to explore a bit. That queer Silbury Hill is somewhere in the neighbourhood, and there’ll be all sorts of interesting places. It will help a lot with my course back home.’

*

The hotel the constable took them to was an old coaching inn, with low beams and lots of horse brasses, but it had been discreetly (and, as it turned out, comfortably) modernised. It was barely seven o’clock, and without the constable, Boyce reflected, they’d probably have had a pretty cold reception. The constable, however, was splendid. He persuaded a cleaning woman to fetch the manageress, and when she appeared in a dressing-gown and with her hair in curlers he produced a wonderful mixture of officialdom and charm. Without explaining precisely why the police were interested in the Boyce family he conveyed that they were somehow important people who had turned up unexpectedly early, and that it was necessary for Marlborough in general and the manageress in particular to do everything they could for them.

‘Have they had breakfast yet?’ the manageress asked practically.

‘No,’ said Mrs Boyce.

‘You poor things – and after coming all that way!’ It was early yet for breakfast, she explained, but if they’d go into the dining room the kitchen would soon manage something. After breakfast she’d see about their rooms. If they’d put their car in the yard, and give her the key, the porter would bring up their things.

She hustled off, and the constable said that he must be going, too. ‘You’ll be all right here now,’ he said. ‘The Inspector will come about noon. I’ll tell him you’ll meet him in the hall, and then either he can go up to your room, or perhaps you’d care to go round to the station with him.’

Boyce felt relieved to be on their own again. ‘That door’s marked Dining Room,’ he said. ‘I suppose we go in there.’

They had not previously thought about breakfast, but now that it had been mentioned, they realised that they had been up for hours with nothing but that hasty cup of tea before they left Gloucester. They had not been in the dining room for more than a minute or so, when the manageress came back and put them at a big table in a bow window. ‘Being Americans, I expect you’d like coffee,’ she said.

‘Yes, please,’ said Juliet.

*

The manageress’s idea of a rushed-up breakfast turned out to be an enormous meal. They began with orange juice and porridge, went on to bacon and eggs, and finished up with toast and marmalade – and the toast was really hot. ‘Well, Stephen,’ said Mrs Boyce. ‘I reckon we came here an odd way, but this is the best meal we’ve so far met in England. I don’t know what it will do to my figure, but I sure needed it.’

*

The manageress, dressed now, took them up to their rooms, a big room with a double bed for Professor and Mrs Boyce, and a charming small room across the corridor for Juliet. Their suitcases were already there, the labels read intelligently so that they were in the right rooms. Boyce tried to thank the manageress, and felt that his rather professorial words sounded horribly lame.

‘Get along with you,’ she responded cheerfully. ‘A hotel’s a place for helping people. Now, if you’ve been up all night, I daresay you could all do with a rest. No one will bother you. Lunch is any time from 12.30 to 2.30. You’ll find a bathroom at the end of the passage.’

Juliet said, ‘I’m not particularly tired, so when the town wakes up I think I’ll have a look round. Do I have to be here when that inspector comes?’

‘I don’t know,’ said her father. ‘But probably it would be as well.’

‘OK. I’ll be there at midday, then.’

*

Miriam Boyce took off her dress and lay down on the big double bed. ‘I feel as if I’ve been up for ever,’ she said. ‘We’ve got nearly four hours before we have to do anything. I’m going to have a sleep. What about you, Stephen?’

‘I shall rest a bit, but I don’t think I could go to sleep. I’m still rather worked up. I can’t help wondering who it was under that stone; and how he got there.’

*

The firemen had no great difficulty in getting lifting gear to the fallen megalith, for the Great Circle at Avebury encloses some twenty-eight acres, and a road runs through it. They had no crane to lift over twenty tons, but they did not need one. With hydraulic jacks and long crowbars they tilted the edge of the stone sufficiently for the body to be dragged clear, and at that point Inspector Revers halted operations.

‘With a tackle led to the winch on the lorry I reckon we could get her upright,’ the chief fire officer said.

‘Yes, and I’d like you to do that if you can, because I want to examine the ground underneath. But not just yet. First we must see to the body, and then I want to have a good look at the foundations round the base of the stone before we start pulling it back. I wonder who the poor devil was.’

The doctor was already examining the crushed, pathetic body. It was horribly mutilated. It had been lying face downwards, head towards the stone, but what had been the head was barely recognisable as such, for it was smashed almost to pulp. The clothes were blood-stained, but seemed oddly undamaged – faded blue jeans and a grey pullover.

‘Can you tell us anything about him? Age? How long dead?’ the Inspector asked.

The doctor shook his head. ‘Not much, I’m afraid. Not very old, I think – it looks like the body of a fairly young man. As for time of death – practically impossible at the moment. Not very long, probably less than twelve hours. How much less I can’t say. We may learn more from the autopsy. I can’t do anything here.’

‘Cause of death?’

‘Well, apparently multiple injuries caused by the falling stone. But again I can’t possibly be sure without an autopsy.’

‘He’s got something in his hip pocket,’ the Inspector said. He knelt down, put his hand in the pocket and extracted a wallet. It held two or three pound notes, and various bits of paper, among them a driving licence. ‘That’s a bit of luck,’ the Inspector said. He opened it to discover that it had been issued by Cambridgeshire County Council to Paul Andrew Clayton, of St James’s College, Cambridge. He gave it to the constable, who had returned from settling the Boyces in Marlborough. ‘You’d better take it to the station,’ he said, ‘and ask them to get on to the Cambridge police to see if they can find his next of kin and someone to identify him. It’s not absolutely certain that he was this Paul Clayton, of course, but it’s about ninety-nine per cent likely. Poor kid. What a hell of a blow to his parents.’ The Inspector had a two-year-old son of his own, and he hated the recurring police task of bringing bad news to parents whose children met with accidents or got into trouble.

An ambulance had drawn up behind the Fire Brigade’s heavy-duty lorry. ‘Can we get the body away now?’ the doctor asked.

‘Yes, I should think so. But tell me, doctor, are you as puzzled as I am by one thing?’

‘You mean the position in which he was lying?’

‘Yes, if he’d been walking past the stone when it fell he’d have been knocked sideways. If he’d been trying to climb the stone, he’d have fallen on his back. In either case his head would have been outwards, his feet towards the stone. I can’t at the moment think of any action that would have brought him head-on to the stone as we found him – unless he’d been lying on the ground asleep.’

The doctor agreed. ‘It certainly is puzzling. The autopsy may enlighten us – he may have had a heart attack and fallen before the stone collapsed on top of him. Or he may conceivably have been drunk, or drugged. These youngsters do sometimes get mixed up with drugs, though on the very inadequate examination I’ve been able to make his body doesn’t look like a drug addict’s. But it’s another thing to look out for at the autopsy. I’d like to get that put in hand as soon as possible. And I think I’ll call in one of the forensic pathologists from Oxford.’

The Inspector nodded. ‘Well, let’s get him away, then.’ He called up the ambulance crew. The poor, broken remains were put on a stretcher, and covered decently with a blanket.

*

‘While we’re waiting to try to lift the stone a bit more, do you think your chaps could rope off an area of about twenty yards all round the stone?’ the Inspector asked the chief fire officer. ‘And while they’re doing that, could you go to the phone box for me and ask the station to send along another uniformed man? We don’t want the public trampling over things – and in any case the stone may still be dangerous, and people ought to be kept away. I also want a photographer – could you please ask them to send out a photographer as well?’

‘Of course.’ The fire officer told his men what to do about the rope and went off to telephone. Revers went round to the pit at the rear of the stone and cautiously climbed down into it.

There were signs of recent excavation on this side of the stone, but it did not seem to have gone very far; what looked like controlled digging reached nowhere near the base of the stone. And the work had been carefully done, with two thick timber baulks placed across the cavity to secure the stone as the earth was removed. One of them had fractured, and the other had been thrown out of place as the stone fell. Revers could not see any obvious reason why it should have fallen at all; and why hadn’t it fallen into the hole instead of away from it? Well, it had fallen, and presumably there was some uneven distribution of weight in the mass of the thing itself which caused it to topple as it did. He examined the splintered ends of the broken baulk of wood. In the middle of the break was what looked like a knot-hole and searching in the surrounding earth he found a piece of knot-wood that roughly fitted the hole, though it was impossible to be sure because there was so much splintering. That might, perhaps, explain the fall, but it was curious that the sound baulk had not held.

He asked one of the firemen for a spade, and began clearing loose earth around the base of the stone. It was an enormous boulder, at least four feet thick, and it seemed to have been roughly squared or shaped before being erected. About a foot from the bottom, a hole about an inch in diameter ran right through the stone, though whether this was natural or had been made for some purpose in antiquity was hard to tell: the stone had been standing where it was for at least 3,000 and perhaps nearer 4,000 years.

In its fall, the embedded base of the stone had broken through the surrounding earth, throwing it up in a tumbled heap. Revers dug down through the broken earth to see how far it went before he came to solid soil. The spade suddenly went through to its handle, and the Inspector fell on top of it. He was getting to his feet when a man rushed shouting at him. ‘What are you doing there? Come out at once!’

Revers achieved a more dignified position and looked up to see a tubby little man, with a mop of white hair, standing on the rim of the hole waving his arms wildly. The man appeared to be very angry. ‘You have no right to be here, you are a great oaf, you will spoil everything,’ he said.

‘I am Detective-Inspector Revers of the North Wessex Police. There has been an accident,’ Revers said as calmly as he could.

‘Accident? What accident? Good God, the stone has fallen,’ the little man exclaimed. He began running his hands through his hair, apparently trying to pull out hunks of it.

Revers climbed out of the hole and dusted his trousers. ‘Come, sir, there is no need to be so excited,’ he said. ‘May I ask who you are, and what you are doing here?’

The little man calmed down a bit. ‘I am Dr Ragmund Arbolent,’ he said importantly. ‘I am the archaeologist in charge of all excavation in this area. It is most important work, and I act with the authority of the Department of the Environment.’

‘Did you know a young man called Paul Clayton?’ Revers asked.

‘Paul? Of course I know him. He is one of my assistants.’

‘Then I must ask you to go as soon as possible to the mortuary at Swindon to see if you can identify a man killed by that falling stone. We have reason to fear that it may be Mr Clayton. If you will wait here for a few minutes a constable will take you to Swindon in a police car.’

Dr Arbolent sank to rather than sat on the ground at the edge of the hole.

‘Paul dead? I cannot believe it. But I cannot understand what has happened,’ he said, all self-importance gone.

Revers spoke gently. ‘We ourselves do not yet know what happened,’ he said. ‘Apparently this stone collapsed at some time during the night, trapping and killing a man who was found beneath it. We have not yet identified the body, but papers found on it suggest that it was Paul Clayton. You may be able to give us material help – if you had not come, I should myself have called to see you. Can you tell me what sort of excavation work was being done around the stone? We have to determine how and why it fell.’

For a full minute Dr Arbolent was silent. Then, in a voice that contrived to be both thin and pompous at the same time – Revers, when he got to know him better, called it his ‘lecturing voice ’– he said, ‘You are, I suppose, trying to hold me responsible for whatever happened here. I shall, of course, say nothing except in the presence of my solicitor.’

Revers was considering a diplomatic reply when Dr Arbolent’s whole body underwent a sort of electric jerk, he hurled himself into the hole and began scrabbling round the base of the stone. ‘Look, look,’ he screamed. ‘This proves everything! And a police witness – what could be better? Get out your notebook, man, and write: “I ”– whatever your name is – “being an Inspector of the North Wessex Constabulary” – put police if you like, I don’t mind – “was present when Dr Ragmund Arbolent discovered the wheel-drawing at the base of Stone No 29 of the Avebury Great Circle . . .” Write, man, write! Why aren’t you writing?’

‘What, exactly, have you discovered?’ Revers asked.

‘Can’t you see? Come down and have a look. It is the greatest find in archaeological history. It will make even your name famous, just for being here.’

Revers climbed down into the hole again and stood over the crouching Dr Arbolent. He pointed to a shallow engraving near the bottom of the stone of what looked like a circle with several radii.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘It’s a wheel, the wheel,’ Dr Arbolent said excitedly. ‘Count the spokes, man. How many are there?’

Assuming that the lines or radii drawn from the centre of the circle to the circumference were the spokes, Revers counted them. ‘I make it nine,’ he said.

‘Exactly! So there can be no doubt any longer,’ Dr Arbolent said triumphantly. ‘You must get a police guard – oh, I suppose you will have one anyway. I must get this photographed, and myself go to London as soon as possible. Give me a hand out of this pit.’

Revers helped him out of the hole, and as they climbed out the uniformed constable and police photographer who had come in response to the fire officer’s message walked up.

‘I do not understand the significance of what you have found,’ Revers said to the archaeologist, ‘but there is a photographer here now, and he can take a photograph of your drawing, if you like. And if you would like a statement from me to the effect that I was present when you saw the drawing, I’ll gladly give you one. You can get to London from Swindon, but I must ask you to call at the mortuary on your way to the station to see if you can identify the unfortunate young man who was crushed when the stone fell. We do not yet know how and why he died, and the investigation must proceed. It will be a great help if you will let me put a few preliminary questions now. If you wish to consult your solicitor I have no objection, though it will obviously delay things. And you will have to answer questions put to you by the coroner at the inquest, in any case. You can be of great assistance by cooperating with us now. I should have thought that was the duty of any citizen, but I cannot force you.’

Dr Arbolent was still in a state of great elation. ‘Of course I’ll do my best to help you. You took me by surprise – I responded naturally. It is quite different now. What do you want to know?’

Revers adjusted himself to this new tack, and produced his notebook.

‘First, sir, your full name and address.’

‘I have given you my name – Dr Ragmund Arbolent, Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology in the University of Oxford. My address is King Alfred’s College, Oxford, but I am staying with the Caponets, Sir Cyril and Lady Caponet at the Hall, while I supervise the work here.’

‘Thank you, sir. And the work involved excavation round this stone?’

‘Yes, but indirectly. The major work is excavation of the Wansdyke Great Barrow, of which you must have heard. I am well known for certain theories about the Megalithic Culture here, and in the course of my work at Wansdyke I discovered certain things which suggested that it might be useful to extend our excavation to the Avebury Circle. As you have seen, it was an inspired thought. But the work here started only a few days ago. I put young Clayton in charge of it.’

‘Was he a competent excavator?’

‘Of course. He is a Cambridge man, but a promising archaeologist.’

‘Can you suggest any reason why the stone should have fallen? And would it be part of Mr Clayton’s duties to be here at night?’

‘To your first question, no. To the second, Paul was in charge of the dig we’d just started at Stone 29. There was no need for him to be here at night, but if he wished to inspect something, to refresh his memory on some detail, there was no reason why he should not visit the stone at any time. He had quarters in the hutted camp on South Down: it is only about a mile away, and he could get here easily enough.’

Revers remembered the disappearance of his spade, and his own fall.

‘Do you know anything of what is apparently a deeper cavity underneath the excavation?’ he asked.

Dr Arbolent was tremendously excited. ‘Another cavity? Good God, man, do you realise what you are saying? Where, precisely, is it?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Revers. He explained how his spade had gone through the rubble suddenly to a full spade’s length, suggesting that there was a deeper hole, perhaps some fault in the earth, underneath the stone. It would have to be investigated, because it might explain the collapse of the stone. And if the subsoil had shifted for some reason, it might make some of the other standing stones unsafe, so it was doubly necessary to discover the exact nature of the lower cavity, or fault.

‘Do you mean that you propose to dig down further?’ Revers nodded.

‘You will do nothing of the sort. Or rather, you will dig only in my presence, and under my instructions. I forbid you and your men to touch anything more around that stone.’

Revers was a little uneasy. He knew that the site was an important one, scheduled as an Ancient Monument, and protected by the Department of the Environment. If this half-mad archaeologist was right, clearly the stone, or the drawing on it, had some particular significance. He didn’t want questions in Parliament about the police interfering with possibly valuable archaeological evidence. At the same time there was a death to be investigated, and everything surrounding the fallen stone needed looking into. It was time, Revers thought, to get in touch with higher authority. He said, tactfully, ‘You will understand, sir, that I must consult my superiors, but I cannot think that there will be any objection to your being present when we have to dig.’

‘There had better not be. I am not without friends in the Government.’

‘That’s as maybe, sir. May I suggest now that you let us take you to Swindon? There’s a train timetable in the car and the driver will see that you get the first available train to London after calling at the mortuary. Will you be coming back tonight? I can arrange for you to be met at Swindon. We need to get on with digging as soon as we can.’

‘You are forgetting the photography.’

‘No, sir, I have not forgotten. You shall have a photograph of your wheel.’

‘But there must be a photograph of me discovering it.’

‘Oh, God,’ thought Revers. But he said politely. ‘Very good, sir. If you will return to the stone I’ll ask the photographer to take a picture.’

Dr Arbolent liked being photographed. He fussed about the positioning, said that he must have several photographs of the wheel itself, but was clearly mollified by the Inspector’s consideration. The photography did not take long, and he then announced that he was prepared to go to Swindon.

‘When will you be back, sir?’ Revers asked.

‘I must go to the British Museum, but I have only preliminary work there at the moment I shall try to return tonight, I think. There is no need for you to meet me – Sir Cyril Caponet will send his car.’

‘Can you be here tomorrow afternoon? At three o’clock, say?’

‘Yes, I can be here then. Meanwhile, the site, I take it, will be under guard?’

‘The whole area, as you see, has been roped off. There will be a constable on duty the whole time.’

*

Revers was thankful to see the man go. He had provided some useful bits of information, but his pomposity had been insufferable. As for his ‘discovery’, Revers did not know what to think. He and his wife had often visited Avebury, and while they had no expert knowledge they felt the fascination of the Great Stones. He enjoyed reading books about the past, and he was aware that new knowledge could come to light suddenly from some chance find. Only last year, on a trip to London, he had seen the Sutton Hoo treasure at the British Museum. There did not seem any obvious treasure here, but a hitherto unknown carving on one of the Avebury stones was likely to be important in itself, whatever it might mean. He looked at his watch: the day had begun so early that it seemed to have gone on for ever, and he could scarcely believe that it was only half-past ten. He remembered that he and the firemen had had no breakfast, and that he had still to take a statement from the Americans who discovered the body.

Revers interpreted his undertaking to Dr Arbolent not to dig without him as not including a further attempt to tilt the stone so that he could examine the ground on which the body had lain. He asked the chief fire officer how long it would take to lift the stone sufficiently to look beneath the fallen face. About an hour, the fireman thought.

‘Right,’ said Revers, ‘Get your tackle fixed, but don’t try any lifting yet. When the tackle’s in position, knock off, and go into Marlborough for some food. The lorry with the winch will need to stay here, but the photographer can run you into Marlborough in his car. I’ll pick you up at the police station at two o’clock, and we’ll lift this afternoon.’

He arranged things with the photographer, told him that he wanted pictures taken all round the stone, of the broken earth in the hole and particularly close-ups of the splintered timbers, and he then set off for Marlborough himself. It was so late for breakfast that he decided that he might as well wait for lunch. His appointment with Professor Boyce was at noon, so he had time to go to the police station first. There, they had news for him. The Cambridge police had just telephoned to say that they’d been round to St James’s College and confirmed that there was a student there called Paul Andrew Clayton, doing post-graduate research in archaeology. Personal details were more difficult because most of the college had gone down, but they’d got hold of someone in the bursar’s office who was able to tell them that Paul Clayton was away, assisting a certain Dr Arbolent in an archaeological dig in Wiltshire. Clayton appeared to have no home outside the college: his next-of-kin appeared to be the Shropshire County Council, in whose care he had been brought up, his parents having died or disappeared. He normally spent his vacations working for some museum or other. The question of formal identification was going to be difficult, for he had no known relatives. The college was going to see if it could find someone who knew him well enough to identify his remains, but as his friends had all gone down, that might take a little time. The college also suggested that the North Wessex Police might get in touch with the social services department of the Shropshire County Council. The Cambridge police would report any further information they might get from St James’s College.

Revers was relieved about one thing: at least there seemed to be no parents who had to be told of their son’s death. With half an hour in hand before his call on the Boyces, he went across to see his superintendent.

Superintendent Macleod was a Scot who had married a Wiltshire girl during the war, joined the North Wessex Police when he came out of the army, and had now spent rather more than half his life in southern England. He was a conscientious and exceedingly alert policeman – with a high regard for Revers. He knew, of course, of the finding of a body at Avebury, but did not yet know many details. Revers gave him a rapid summary of his activities since being called out early that morning, emphasising his own puzzlement about the fall of a stone which had apparently stood securely for between 3,000 and 4,000 years, and the self-importance and possible hostility of Dr Arbolent.

In spite of his long domicile in England, Superintendent Macleod retained traces of his Scottish accent. ‘If anybody can blame us puir bluidy coppers nowadays, they will,’ he said. ‘But you know, John, the man has a point. Archaeological digging is skilled work; they need to record exact levels all the time, so that if they find anything they know just how far down it was, and can try to date it. An awfu’ lot of knowledge of our own history has been lost by bulldozers tearing up old towns for redevelopment. I can understand your chap’s wanting to be there when we dig deeper into his precious hole, particularly as he seems to have discovered something there that he regards as important. I don’t see how we can object to his being there when we dig tomorrow – you did well to tell him so. At the same time I think I’ll have a word with the Home Office to get authority to act on our own if need be. You can’t overlook the fact that this Dr Arbolent has had a direct responsibility for the stone, and maybe he’s to blame in some way for what happened – from what you say, a point that he is quite aware of.

‘Now John, you’ll be needing to see your American Professor, and as soon as you’ve done that you’ll be badly needing a bite to eat. I’ll sort things out with the powers that be while you’re away, and I think I’ll come out with you myself this afternoon to have a look at the place.’

*

The Boyce family was assembled in the entrance hall of the hotel when Revers got there. During her walk around Marlborough Juliet had fallen for, and bought, a bright yellow pullover, which she had put on. She was looking, Revers thought, remarkably pretty. Professor Boyce was looking – and feeling – slightly ill at ease.

‘I am sorry to have to trouble you like this,’ Revers said, ‘but I am sure you will understand that it is my duty.’ Professor Boyce gave a little bow, and Revers went on, ‘Would you like to come to my office – it’s quite near – or would you prefer to talk here?’

‘There’s a Residents’ Lounge that seems to be quite empty,’ Juliet said.

‘Let’s go in the lounge,’ Mrs Boyce added.

*

The lounge was empty. It was equipped with writing tables that didn’t seem to be much used, and a television set which was presumably used in the evening but which was mercifully blank now. Revers drew three chairs round one of the writing desks and sat down at the desk with his notebook. ‘I have your name only as Professor Boyce,’ he said, ‘may I have your first names also?’

‘I am Stephen P. Boyce. My wife’s name is Miriam and my daughter’s Juliet.’

Revers wrote down the names. ‘Stephen P – I’m sorry, I didn’t get what the P stands for.’

‘Well, in my country it’s known as a “Middle Initial”. It’s never used except as “Stephen P”. But if you need to know I was christened Stephen Percival.’

‘Your address I have as Milman University, Iowa. You have no address in England?’

‘Nothing better than c/o The American Express Company in London. I’m sorry. We’re just in England on vacation.’

Revers felt Boyce’s slight edginess and tried to comfort him. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘you have nothing whatever to apologise for. We are in your debt. You acted promptly and very sensibly. It is rotten luck that your holiday should be interrupted like this, and I’ll do my best not to interrupt it much. Do you know England well?’

‘My people came originally from England, but the family has been in the States for generations. I was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford a long time ago, and I was stationed in England for a short time before the D-Day landings – when I was in the Army. I haven’t been back since. Miriam and Juliet have never been in England before. This was to be the vacation of our lives.’

‘Don’t let this spoil it. I shan’t keep you much longer. Which of you first saw the man’s foot?’

‘I think I saw the fallen stone first, I was a little ahead, and I called back,’ said Juliet.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Boyce. ‘You waited and we came up. As for the foot, I think we all noticed it more or less together.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘Well, I went to the stone to see if I could move it, but of course I couldn’t. So we went back to the village to get help. Then we saw the telephone box and thought we’d better call the police. We didn’t know anyone in the village, and we didn’t know whom to knock up.’

‘You did very well. We got your call at 05.18. Can you estimate the time at which you saw the foot?’

‘Sunrise was at 04.43 – we know that because of planning to go to Stonehenge. We were on top of the mound just about in time for the sunrise. We waited about for a few minutes, and started to walk round the circle. We didn’t walk quickly; we were enjoying the morning. It must have been around 05.00, or a few minutes after, when we got to the stone, but I didn’t think to look at my watch.’

‘Approximately 05.00 – that will do fine. Did you see anything – anything at all – to suggest how the man had got beneath the stone?’

‘No, nothing. But then we didn’t look for anything. All we thought about was to get help.’

‘You did everything you could. I think that’s about all – and thank you all very much. I’ll get this typed out, and bring it round later for you to sign. I’m afraid you may be required at the inquest.’

‘That may be very awkward for us – we’re due to fly back to the States in ten days’ time.’

‘I don’t think you need worry about that, Professor. We have to try to find out why the stone fell, and that may take some time. So the inquest will probably have to be adjourned. But the coroner will want to open the proceedings quickly, so that he can issue a burial certificate. I expect it will be the day after tomorrow. If you can give evidence then, I don’t see why you should be required again.’

Boyce was relieved. ‘We can certainly stay here until then,’ he said.

‘Do you know who the man was, Inspector?’ Juliet asked.

‘We don’t know for certain, but we think he was an archaeological student who had been helping with some excavations in the area. I have met the man in charge of the work – a certain Dr Arbolent, who is staying with Sir Cyril and Lady Caponet quite near by. I am hoping that he may be able to identify him.’

‘How awful! I’m doing archaeology at Milman,’ said Juliet. ‘And I’ve heard of Dr Arbolent – he wrote that book on the Etruscans that I’ve got at home, Daddy. I think he’s quite famous. Shall we see him at the inquest?’

‘I couldn’t say, Miss, but it’s quite likely.’ Revers got up to go.

*

When he had gone, Juliet said, ‘Oh, Daddy, it’s a dreadful story. But I can’t help finding it all rather exciting. And I would like to see Dr Arbolent.’

Boyce didn’t reply for a moment. Then he said, ‘We seem to be stuck here for a couple of days, anyway. What was it the Inspector said – that some people called Caponet live nearby? It’s an unusual name, but I think it must be the same. I was at Oxford with a man called Cyril Caponet, though he wasn’t a “Sir” then. He’d certainly remember me, we were quite good friends. Let’s find a phone book, and I’ll call him.’

There was a telephone box in the hall. Boyce made his call, and came out of the box delighted. ‘It is Cyril Caponet,’ he said, ‘and he really did seem pleased that I’d got in touch with him. We’re all asked to dinner for tomorrow night. What’s more, Juliet, you’ll be able to meet your archaeologist. Cyril said he’s got him staying there, and he hoped we wouldn’t mind.’