A Carol for the Dead – Illaun Bowe Crime Thriller #1 E-Book

Patrick Dunne

• Herausgeber: Gill Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005

Seitenzahl: 575

Beschreibung

Uncover the deadly secrets hidden behind impenetrable walls in A Carol for the Dead, the first Illaun Bowe crime thriller by bestselling master of Irish crime fiction Patrick Dunne December 16, dead midwinter. A light dusting of snow is falling over Newgrange, an innocent white to cover the dark soil. A small group is huddled around a shallow grave, dug out of the earth, one of them reaching out to touch what lies inside … When an ancient female body is discovered in a peat bog close to the megalithic tomb of Newgrange, archaeologist Illaun Bowe hopes it is the career-boosting find she's been searching for. But the body she finds is like none she's encountered before – its eyes have been gouged out, its throat slashed and there is a sprinkling of holly berries in the earth beside it. Who could have subjected it to such a grotesque and violent end? Hoping the brutalised body will provide much-needed scientific data on the rituals of the pre-Celtic people who built the famous Boyne Valley necropolis, Illaun begins her research in an area full of supernatural history and ghost stories, encountering shady property developers, mysterious locals and, most interestingly of all, a secluded convent that doesn't appear on any maps. And then the murders begin. One by one, those who were with Illaun at the site are picked off: eyes gouged out, mouths stuffed with holly. It would seem that there are more than bodies buried in the ancient soil … and someone is prepared to go to any lengths to safeguard them … Gripping, clever and unpredictable, A Carol for the Dead is a captivating and suspense-filled thriller by internationally renowned crime writer Patrick Dunne. Contemporary murders are intertwined with ancient Celtic mysteries in an intoxicating web of spine-tingling conspiracies. You won't be able to put it down! The past always comes back to haunt us … Praise for Patrick Dunne Dunne may be the next big thing in the thriller field out of Ireland. Irish Independent [Patrick Dunne], in his multi-layered novels, explores the darker recesses of the human psyche where his plots are powered by the mysterious and the macabre and include strange happenings in such places as 'plague pits' and cemeteries. The Meath Chronicle A Carol for the Dead is a very exciting crime novel; it is filled with unexpected turns, which keeps you on the edge of your seat until the surprising ending. The Crime House Archaeologist Illaun Bowe is the character charged with uncovering a complicated and many-layered plot which takes so many turns that it leaves the reader's head spinning. The Irish Emigrant … attractively-drawn heroine Illaun Bowe neatly combines archaeology, medieval history and current sociological tensions in Ireland in an absorbing read. Irish Independent

Leseprobe

PATRICK DUNNE

A CAROLFOR THE DEAD

In memory of my mother and father and of Mary and Liam; and for Rowan

A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins. Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

December 16th

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

December 17th

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

December 18th

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

December 19th

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

December 20th

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

December 21st

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

December 22nd

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

December 23rd

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Christmas Eve

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

New Year’s Eve

Epilogue

Copyright

About the Author

About Gill & Macmillan

Exclusive look at The Lazarus Bell

December 16th

Chapter One

Her body looked like metal that had been charred and twisted in a fire. But when I reached out and took her hand, the skin was like moist leather, the way my gloves became when I’d been throwing snowballs as a child. And just then snow as fine as flour began sifting down, speckling the black earth and the woman compressed within it.

Seamus Crean, the digger operator who had found her, was sitting above me in the cab of his JCB, having angled the bucket so I could better observe the body lying lengthways inside it. An hour earlier, Crean had been widening a drain along the side of a marshy field when he scooped up what he thought at first was a gnarled bough of bog oak wedged in the peat. He climbed down to investigate and was horrified to see that he had unearthed the remains of a woman. That the corpse was female, he had had no doubt; and now I could see why. Although from feet to skull she was smeared thin as sandwich filling between two layers of damp peat, her right arm and shoulder emerged from the muck full and perfect in every detail – from the whorls of her outstretched fingertips to the fine hairs on her skin, from the cords of muscle and sinew in her forearm to the pressed-out pillow of her breast.

The field in which the preserved remains had been unearthed lay across the Boyne river from Newgrange, one of several passage tombs in the five-thousand-year-old ceremonial necropolis of Brú na Bóinne, a World Heritage site. Small fragments of bone are all that has ever been found of the Neolithic people who built the Boyne tombs, so I was excited by the – admittedly slim – possibility that the bog body might be from that distant period. If so, it could shed some much-needed light not only on who the tomb-builders were, but on what exactly they were at.

Yet, as soon as I began to examine the body trapped in its clammy sarcophagus, my inclination to regard it purely as an object was overwhelmed by sympathy for the woman and her unkind fate: not only immersed – possibly drowned – in a watery grave, but then, over time, transformed into a leather fossil that would soon be put on display for utter strangers to gape at. And so I wanted to approach her with some decorum, and I thought that touching her hand – even squeezing it gently – was a beginning. My fellow archaeologists would not have approved. Shaking hands with mummies isn’t strictly professional.

My next concern was with something apparently buried with the woman. According to Crean, it had been under the exposed hand of the corpse, partially hidden in a chunk of peat that had been split from the main slab by the bucket’s teeth. He described it as being like a wooden carving or a doll, and said that it had fallen into the drain below when he tried to retrieve it.

I signalled to Crean, who cut the engine of the JCB and climbed laboriously down from the cab. By the time he alighted, his already florid cheeks matched the red in his heavy plaid jacket.

The wheeled digger was perched on a raised causeway that ran along the drain to the river’s edge and separated the marsh from a neighbouring pasture, in the centre of which some Friesian cattle, enveloped in a cloud of their own mingled breath, were huddled under a leafless tree. The snow was falling more heavily and the mid-afternoon light was quickly fading. It was time to get the body under cover. I could rely on the Garda Forensics team to do that, and they were due any minute.

Crean had started his work that morning by clearing away an elder hedgerow so that he could reach across to the far bank of the drain. Where the bushes had been uprooted there was now an uneven ledge, a metre or so below ground level and about the same distance above the bottom of the drain. As Crean approached, I slid down onto the ledge, and from there into water that came halfway up my rubber boots. ‘Where exactly did it fall, Seamus – the thing you said she was holding?’ I was facing the far bank, out of which he had dredged the body, and from this vantage I noted how much material had been excavated – far more than required to widen a drain, I thought. But I was starting to fret about preserving the site.

‘I don’t know if she was holding it or not, Missus,’ he said as I turned around again. ‘It was more like she was reaching out for it.’ He was standing on the causeway above me, nervously lighting a cigarette with a cupped match. I realised that, while I had been using his first name freely from the time I arrived, he had no idea who I was.

‘Sorry, Seamus, I should have introduced myself. I’m Illaun Bowe.’

He looked at me blankly.

‘I’m an archaeologist. After you contacted the Visitor Centre, I was called in to assess the find.’

‘How do you do, Missus Bowe?’

Missus? Crean’s form of address implied that I was a good deal older than him, despite my estimation that he, like me, was in his mid-thirties. Overweight and slow-moving, he gave the impression of being a slow thinker as well; but I was impressed by the fact that, on discovering the body, he had stopped work, called the Newgrange Visitor Centre on his mobile phone and sent away the dump truck he had been loading since early morning.

‘I’m fine, Seamus. Now, where did it land?’

‘There,’ he said, hunkering down and gesturing with his cigarette. I couldn’t see anything apart from the side of the drain and the black ooze that was stealthily rising higher up my boots. Dammit, why doesn’t he just come down here and show me?

Crean pushed away a coil of hair flopping onto his forehead from a mop of greasy curls that put me in mind of wet seaweed. ‘It’s just there, beside you … halfway down.’ He seemed determined not to come any closer. Only then did I realise he was scared.

I bent to inspect a fractured lump of soil clinging to the ledge carved out by the digger. Inside it I could make out something that resembled a curved leather pouch. I thought of a swollen wineskin: it bulged at one end and was puckered along the top, where it would have been sewn up. Like the corpse, it had absorbed the tannin in the peat, but it was less tarry in appearance. How could Crean have mistaken this for a doll?

I glanced up – I wanted Crean to hand me down one of the red-and-white ranging rods I had brought with me, so I could mark the spot and take a photograph – but he had moved out of sight. The side of the bucket was jutting out overhead, and I noticed the woman’s hand extending over it, silhouetted against the ashen sky and pointing down to where I was standing. I blinked for a moment as snowflakes caught in my lashes. Then I turned my attention back to the bag-like object.

I leaned in closer to examine it, and something – a faint odour of decay, I think – made me realise I was looking at the body of an animal. And yet not quite an animal, not fully formed – unless … I quickly stepped back, my eyes forcing me to reach an absurd conclusion: this was a curled-up cocoon, and the corrugations I had attributed to stitching were its multiple pupa-limbs.

The notion that a huge grub in a leathery case had been incubating for years in the bog was ridiculous, and yet I was overcome with revulsion. So what must it have fed on?

I didn’t get time to think the unthinkable: as I recoiled the bank must have quaked, enough to free the sac from the earth adhering to it and to send it rolling into the drain. Instinctively I raised my foot to prevent it hitting the water.

I thought it would burst open on impact, but it thumped solidly against the inside of my boot as I wedged it against the bank. I could see a deep gash on the side that had been hidden from view before. It had obviously been inflicted by a steel tooth on the bucket, and it exposed a substance the colour and consistency of smoked cheese.

Then, to my horror, I detected movement along my leg. I watched helplessly as the bulbous end of the creature sagged back and I found myself staring down at what might have been a shrivelled human face, except for the fleshy horn sprouting from the middle of its forehead and, below that, under a gelatinous plug of matter, two eyes gazing out from a single socket.

I looked up to see where Crean had gone, but all I could see were the hydraulic arms of the yellow digger and, behind them, the snow-covered branches of trees spread out against a pewter cloud like bronchi in a chest X-ray.

From the side pocket of my parka I pulled out a latex glove, which I had removed before touching the dead woman’s hand. ‘Seamus!’ I shouted, pulling on the glove with some difficulty; my fingers were stiffening with the cold. ‘I need you down here.’ I would have to lift the creature up onto the bank before it slid down my boot and into the water.

A cough made me look up again, and there was Crean, standing above my head with a square-bladed shovel in his hands. ‘I had it lashed to the bike,’ he said, crouching down and pointing it towards me. ‘Never know when you’ll need a shovel.’

Taking a deep breath, I seized the thing and laid it on the shovel. It felt firm between my hands, and I estimated it weighed about two kilos.

Crean lifted the shovel with a grunt, holding it as far from himself as he could manage. ‘What will I do with it?’

‘Put it beside the body, near the ranging rod, so I can take a photograph.’ I began to haul myself up from the drain.

‘What do you think it is?’

‘You said it fell out from under her?’

‘Yeah. But what the hell is it?’

You have a wonderful imagination, Illaun. But keep it in check. That mantra had followed me from playschool to PhD.

‘I don’t know … a cat or a dog, maybe.’ I didn’t want to scare him even more. And, to prevent my wonderful imagination running riot, I had settled on the opinion that it had to be some kind of animal.

Crean deftly shucked it onto the slab of peat, beside the striped metal pole that I had placed roughly parallel to the woman’s body. I took out my Fuji digital and flashed off a couple of shots; and then, as if I had set off a chain reaction, another light came slicing through the falling snow, its rapid revolutions strobing the flakes into swirling blue sparks.

A Garda squad car pulled up at the gate behind my lavender Honda Jazz. Then came a black Range Rover, in tandem with a white van bearing the words ‘TECHNICAL BUREAU’. Two yellow-jacketed Gardaí started down the path, followed by a tall man in a green duffel coat and a tweed fisherman’s hat – Malcolm Sherry, State pathologist. Although only in his early forties, Sherry liked to affect the airs and appearance of a country doctor from a bygone era. The irony was that his boyish good looks – wicked smile, impish blue eyes and, beneath his grown-up hat, feathery blond hair like a baby’s – were sometimes a disadvantage when it came to convincing others that he could reliably interpret the dead. But as far as I was concerned Sherry was a welcome sight; from previous dealings with him following the discovery of ancient skeletal remains, I knew he appreciated their importance to archaeologists.

I went up the path to greet him. At the back of the van I could see three other individuals, two men and a woman, pulling on white coveralls.

‘Ah, Illaun, is it yourself?’ Was there some condescension in Sherry’s voice? Probably not. His rustic manner of speech went with his image. ‘What do you think we have here – one of our venerable ancestors?’

‘Think so. Unfortunately, she’s not in situ, but I estimate she was under about two metres of bog. That indicates a fair old stretch of time. She’s not alone, either.’

‘Oh? I wasn’t told to expect two.’

‘I’m not sure what the other is. Some kind of animal, looks like.’

Sherry arched an eyebrow. ‘Woman trying to rescue her pet pooch falls into boghole?’

‘A six-legged dog? I don’t think so.’

Sherry raised the other eyebrow.

As we approached the JCB, I described what had just happened in the drain. Then I introduced Crean as the man who had discovered the body.

Sherry clapped him on the back. ‘You did the right thing, Seamus; well done. Now let’s take a look. In here, is it?’ He peered into the backhoe, over the split stump of an elder bush stuck in its teeth.

‘No. It’s in this one.’ Crean led him around to the wider bucket at the front of the machine.

Sherry glanced up at the sky. ‘It’s very gloomy, Seamus. And it will take a while for Forensics to rig up their lighting. Could you turn those on for me, like a good man?’ He pointed to the lights on the roof of the cab.

Crean climbed up wheezily into the driver’s seat, but before he could switch on the lights, a screech of tyres out on the road made us all turn in that direction. A silver S-class Mercedes had turned in through the gate and was bearing down on us.

Crean shouted a warning. ‘It’s Mr Traynor; you’d better –’

He was drowned out by the car skidding to a halt, spitting gravel. Out of it leaped a balding, dark-haired man in a heavy blue overcoat, purple shirt and silver tie. His plump, black-stubbled face was marbled with capillaries. ‘You people are trespassing on my property,’ he barked at me. ‘I want you out of here – now!’ The shape of the final word allowed him to bunch his mouth tight in fury.

One of the Gardaí, wearing sergeant’s stripes, stepped forward. ‘Take it easy, Frank. We’re investigating the finding of a body.’

‘Only ancient remains, I believe. I want them removed for examination elsewhere. I’m sure you’ll oblige me, Sergeant?’

‘Of course, Frank. We just have to go through the motions, then we’ll be out of your way – isn’t that so, Dr Sherry?’ The sergeant was being far too conciliatory for my liking.

Sherry, who had been taking a look in the bucket, joined the circle. ‘You were saying, Sergeant?’

‘I was just telling Frank here –’

Traynor stepped up to Sherry. ‘That you’re all getting off my property, pronto.’

The three men were in a tight circle around me. Not for the first time in my life, I was in the midst of people taller than me addressing one another over my head – literally. I became aware of the strong scent of Polo aftershave.

‘Hold it!’ I said, loud enough for them to pay attention. ‘Dr Sherry and I have been appointed by the State to carry out certain procedures here, free of interference – that’s the law.’ I wasn’t so sure that it was, but I thought it might do the trick for now. I nodded to the pathologist to pick up the baton. He had more authority in this situation.

‘Dr Bowe is quite correct, Mr … ah … ?’

‘Traynor. Frank Traynor.’ He looked Sherry up and down with obvious contempt. ‘The fishing season hasn’t started, has it?’

I saw a smirk on the sergeant’s face.

‘I’m Malcolm Sherry, State pathologist. And you’re the owner of this field, I understand?’

‘You understand correctly.’ Traynor was on the verge of mimicking him. I noticed that his shirt, his face and my car out on the road were all a similar shade.

‘Well, understand this correctly. We know nothing yet about the body that’s been found here, nor about whether or not a crime has been committed.’ He looked gravely at Traynor, as if to hint that any objections might cast suspicion of some kind on him. ‘Until I say so, this field is out of bounds to everyone – including you.’ He looked up towards the Technical Bureau’s van and raised his voice. ‘Let’s get some crash barriers down here. I want this area secured.’

Traynor was about to object but hesitated; then, as bullies often do when faced down, he switched to ingratiation. ‘Of course you have to do your work, Dr Sherry; I understand that perfectly. Any idea when you’ll be able to remove the body?’

Sherry and I exchanged glances. He knew I would want the area cordoned off for a thorough examination even if he decided it wasn’t a crime scene. While he was deliberating, the white-clad Forensic team, ably assisted by Seamus Crean, arrived with a couple of tubular crash barriers and a roll of blue-and-white tape.

‘Irrespective of when we move the body, this area will be declared a crime scene and sealed off …’ Sherry looked at me again.

I raised an index finger and mouthed a ‘W’.

‘… for some days, possibly a week.’ He was buying me time and saving me having to cross swords with Traynor.

But Traynor noticed the signals passing between us. ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ he said, rounding on me. Some stray molecules of Polo went up my nose and made it twitch. ‘You have “archaeologist” written all over you.’ He ran his eyes down me as if checking off all the items he needed for verification – green Gore-Tex waterproof parka, ski sweater, jeans, rubber boots, multicoloured woolly hat. He was probably disappointed I wasn’t carrying a trowel. ‘Always trying to stop progress, you lot,’ he growled.

I remained calm. Traynor had perhaps revealed more than he intended. ‘What do you mean, progress?’ I said. ‘What’s so progressive about widening a drain?’

‘Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not widening a drain; I’m stripping out the entire bog.’

That could only be for one reason. But surely it couldn’t be happening. We were less than a kilometre across the river from a World Heritage site, in a part of the valley off limits for development.

Traynor walked back to his car looking self-satisfied. His scent still hung in the air. The snow had stopped falling and the ominous cloud had fragmented, allowing a cuticle of moon to float into view like a stray snowflake. Darkness was closing in and, with clear skies, the promise of a sub-zero night. And that could pose a problem.

Two of the Forensics clanked past me with lighting and photographic equipment and an inflatable tent, which would provide the team with shelter and the site with some protection from the elements.

As Traynor reversed back up the causeway, I stripped off my latex gloves and fished out my mobile phone from an inside pocket. My priorities now were to get a legal injunction against any further destruction of the site, and to prevent the bog mummy’s tissues from deteriorating through drying out or, as seemed more likely tonight, through frost damage. I called Terence Ivers at the Dublin office of the Wetland Exploration Team, the organisation charged with recording and preserving archaeological material found in Irish bogs. It was he who, after being notified by the Visitor Centre at Newgrange, had asked me to go to the site on their behalf. I left a message, noticing as I did that Traynor had halted near the gate and was talking out his window to Seamus Crean, who was helping the third member of the Forensic team to unload another crash barrier.

My phone chirruped as Crean, carrying one end of the barrier, passed me by. ‘Terence, thanks for getting back … Excuse me a second.’ Crean was walking with his head bowed, blushing. ‘What did Traynor say to you, Seamus?’

‘He fired me, Missus. Said he wanted this place dug by Christmas and I’m after costing him thousands of euros.’

I was stung by the unfairness of it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. Crean walked on. Traynor’s spiteful action only reinforced my determination to get the better of him. But Ivers needed to act fast.

‘Terence, I have good news and bad news. First, the find looks old, possibly Neolithic. That’s the good news.’ I knew I was sticking my neck out by suggesting that the remains were from the Stone Age, but it might add urgency to the case. ‘Second, if the find-spot is to be surveyed we need to get a court injunction, fast.’

‘Damn. What’s the story?’ I could imagine Ivers at his desk, taking off his glasses, cradling the phone between jaw and shoulder and polishing the lenses nervously with the end of his tie as he listened. There were probably beads of perspiration already appearing on his temples.

I looked at my watch. It was coming up to four. Ivers had only a very short time in which to get to a court that was in session and lay the facts before a judge. I filled him in briefly, and then together we summarised the main points that we hoped would get us the injunction: find possibly of major historic importance; destruction of site imminent, with loss of further material that would assist archaeological inquiry; permission for development in land zoned as a Heritage Park highly unlikely to have been granted in the first place.

‘I’ll liaise with Malcolm Sherry on what to do with the body in the short term, if that’s OK with you.’

‘You do that,’ he said. A droplet or two of sweat had probably run down his jowls by now, and, judging his tie unequal to the task, he was dragging a drab-looking handkerchief from his pocket.

‘And I take it you’ve notified Muriel Blunden at the National Museum, as well.’

Ivers grunted confirmation. Because of their overlapping responsibilities, there was a degree of friction between WET and the Museum, frequently made worse by Muriel Blunden’s abrasive personality and her readiness to assert the Museum’s statutory authority over the junior organisation.

‘Then we’d better keep her informed of what we’re doing now,’ I said.

‘Why don’t you do that, Illaun? I’ve got to get going on this injunction.’ Ivers put down the phone.

I gritted my teeth and rang Muriel Blunden’s mobile number. Powered off or out of reach. I rang the Museum and got a secretary, with whom I left a brief message for the Excavations Director. It was a relief not to have to talk to Muriel.

Then I introduced myself to the Garda sergeant who had spoken to Traynor. ‘And I’m letting you know, Sergeant … ?’

‘O’Hagan’s the name. Brendan O’Hagan.’

‘You should be aware, Sergeant O’Hagan, that we’re seeking an injunction to stop any further work on the site here.’ I handed him one of my business cards.

Without looking at it, he slipped it into his breast pocket. ‘You’ll have a fight on your hands going up against Frank Traynor.’

‘You know him well, then?’

‘Ah, he’d be a well-known businessman in this part of County Meath. Tough customer when it suits him. All above board, of course.’

‘What’s his line of work?’

‘Frank Traynor?’ He winked at the Garda officer accompanying him, then sighed loudly, as if underlining for the other man the kind of patience you had to display when dealing with strangers. ‘Frank’s a property developer – hotels, mainly.’

I gasped. I had imagined a house, a private dwelling with maybe, at most, a craft shop selling coffee and souvenirs to tourists. Even that would have contravened the ban on development. But a hotel? Not here. Not along this flat expanse of river meadows, whose only contours were unexplored grassy mounds in which were stored secrets as old as time.

Chapter Two

Angels we have heard on high

Sweetly singing o’er the plains,

And the mountains in reply

Echoing their joyous strains:

Glo-o-o-o-o–

‘Hold it – hold it, please … Hello?’

Gillian Delahunty, our musical director, had ceased playing the organ and was trying to call a halt to the runaway choir. A few harmonised voices carried on regardless, until Gillian clapped her hands loudly and they sheepishly petered out.

‘I said legato, not staccato! It should flow … like so …’ She made a wave-like motion with her hand. ‘All in one breath …’

It was first-night enthusiasm: carol practice in the church, instead of the parochial hall, which was our usual venue for rehearsals. And I would normally have been full of the good feeling carol-singing creates, but I wasn’t.

From the time I’d left the site, something had clung to me like a bad odour. Not the whiff of decay – this wasn’t physical. I would have described it as a feeling of melancholy. But why? Let’s face it: archaeologists like nothing more than finding preserved human beings, be they desiccated in desert sand, cured in salt mines, deep-frozen on mountaintops or pickled in bogs. Mummies are time machines, allowing us to travel back and tick off what was on the menu for a peasant’s last meal, or tell if a monk’s joints grated from arthritis, or trace the tracks of the parasites that gnawed a pharaoh’s liver.

I’d taken a long shower when I got home, for therapy as much as hygiene. And then, still trying to lift my mood, I’d decided to dress up a bit, choosing a seasonal theme for the night that was in it: a dark-green velvet sleeveless dress over a red T-shirt, plus a pair of vintage silver Docs I could never bring myself to throw out, all topped off by silver bell-shaped earrings and a red beret to keep some control over my unruly curls. But despite these efforts – and a brief flicker of amusement when one of our elderly male choristers flirtatiously called me ‘a little Christmas cracker’ – I couldn’t shake off the feeling. My mind was still elsewhere.

I was looking down on a frozen field that for perhaps thousands of years had held the bog woman in its chemical embrace, slowly dissolving her bones, gradually rendering her skin to leather. But how did she get there? And was she as old as I hoped she was?

At least there was a chance we would find out more about the circumstances of her burial. As I drove home to Castleboyne, Terence Ivers had called me to say we had won a temporary injunction from a District Court judge. The likelihood was that the National Museum would license us to carry out a full excavation before any further work on the site was allowed. Ironic, I thought, that what we would be doing as archaeologists was not that far removed from what Traynor had wanted to do in the first place. Archaeological excavation equals destruction, as it says in all the textbooks.

Traynor would have been notified of the injunction, so I had impressed upon Ivers that he should warn the local Gardaí of the court’s ruling about the field, which I now knew was called Monashee. Seamus Crean had told me its name before I left the site, as the snow began to twinkle with points of frost in the lights of the JCB. I thought of the Gaelic word and what it meant. ‘That means “the fairy bog”, I think?’

‘“The Bog of Ghosts” is what we called it as kids,’ Crean said dourly.

‘Spooky, eh?’ I said.

He didn’t smile.

Monashee. Remembering that bodies from the distant past are sometimes called after where they’ve been found, I thought: Monashee … Mona-shee. Here was a ready-made woman’s name.

‘Let’s call her Mona, then,’ I said to Crean. ‘Makes her seem more of a person, don’t you think?’

He didn’t answer.

Accompanying me to my car, he mentioned that people in the area believed Monashee was haunted. ‘It never gets the sun during the day, and they say you should never set foot in it at night.’ I could tell he believed that the remains he had uprooted were proof of the place’s sinister reputation.

But from now on maybe Monashee would not be haunted. The field I could see in my mind’s eye no longer had its tenant. Tonight Mona was in the old morgue at Drogheda Hospital.

I had shared my worries with Malcolm Sherry, about preserving the body as best we could before a decision was reached about its future. It had been in the anaerobic environment of the bog, where there was little bacterial activity; now it would begin to deteriorate, like any organic matter exposed to the air. And this process would be accelerated if it was allowed to freeze and thaw again. Much would depend on how thoroughly altered – in a word, tanned – her flesh was, and this would only be revealed by examining her skin in cross-section.

After a quick examination of what he could see of the woman’s remains, Sherry agreed that the body had been underground for a long time – just how long would require a battery of tests to confirm. In the meantime, he thought it best to proceed as he usually would on discovery of a possible crime victim. ‘Though it will be difficult to work on her here, because she’s wedged in the peat. The question is how we can get her to a morgue.’

‘It would suit my purposes if she could be moved with the slab of peat remaining intact,’ I said. ‘I’ll want every scrap of the matrix examined. So here’s my suggestion. Drogheda Hospital is only a few kilometres away. Why not leave things as they are in the JCB, pack polythene sheeting around the slab and ask the Gardaí to escort Seamus Crean to the hospital? I’ll make sure he gets paid for doing the job. When he gets there, he can lower the load onto the polythene so it can be hauled inside somewhere out of the weather.’

‘Excellent idea. And I’ll leave Forensics here to poke around for a few hours.’

There was something else on my mind. ‘I don’t trust Traynor to stay away from here for long, so if your guys put up scene-of-crime tape and leave the tent overnight with a Garda on duty, it will help to deter him and protect the find-spot until we get the go-ahead to dig.’ I was thinking of other arrivals, as well as Traynor – some just curious sightseers trampling the site; others, far more destructive, armed with metal detectors and shovels.

Sherry told the Gardaí and the Forensic team what we had decided, and I asked Crean if he would transport the body to Drogheda.

‘I would, Missus, but it’s not my digger. Mr Traynor hired it and I’m meant to leave it here. That’s why I have the bike for getting home. It would really annoy him if he found out.’

‘I think Mr Traynor will be quite happy to see it being used if it means getting the body off his land.’

‘I’d prefer if it was going to annoy him. But I’ll give it a go.’

I smiled at Crean’s show of spirit and gave Sherry a thumbs-up.

‘I’m going to take a quick look at the other specimen,’ he called over to me. ‘Then we’ll pack them up.’

I rang my secretary, Peggy Montague, filled her in on what I was doing and asked her to contact Keelan O’Rourke and Gayle Fowler, my two full-time staff. They were out at the proposed site of a new interchange on the M1 near Drogheda, where we were just completing some test-trenching for an environmental impact assessment, an EIA. I told Peggy they would be needed at the hospital early the next morning, to excavate the block of peat in which the body had been lodged – something which would require bagging and tagging a substantial amount of soil.

‘Illaun … Illaun …’ Someone urgently whispering. I felt a sharp sensation in my ribs and snapped back to the present.

‘Would you like to join in with us, Illaun?’ Gillian Delahunty’s eyes were boring into me.

My friend Fran, beside me, sniggered under her breath. It was she who had elbowed me.

‘Sorry, Gillian,’ I said. ‘I was daydreaming.’

Gillian frowned disapprovingly before addressing the choir. ‘Take it from the first “King of Kings” – sopranos, let’s hear you. Ready, please!’

Somehow we had got through ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’ and well into the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Messiah without my being aware of it. Had I been singing at all? I had no recollection. But my less-than-full commitment had obviously been noticed in the ascending ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ section, a challenge for the sopranos.

As we sang, I watched Gillian’s feet dancing on the organ pedals and noticed she was wearing green ankle-boots. I wondered if Mona had worn leather footwear and, if so, whether it might have survived. I wouldn’t know that – or even if her lower limbs were intact – until after Sherry had completed his autopsy, something he preferred to perform with only members of the Forensic team present. But, from previous experience, I knew I could rely on him to draw anything he thought relevant in archaeological terms to my attention.

Before leaving the site, I had climbed up into the driver’s cab to take a photograph of the find-spot, which I’d staked out with ranging rods. Below me Sherry’s team were starting to pack polythene sheeting around the peat, while he examined the other occupant of the bucket. Less than a hundred metres away I could see the Boyne sliding like black oil past snow-clad banks; on the far side, crowning the summit of a hill above the river, the low dome of Newgrange with its quartz façade glowed in the dusk, only a shade less white than the snow around it.

I climbed down again, and Sherry came around the side of the digger. He leaned close to my ear and said in a low voice, ‘I think that creature may be your bog lady’s offspring.’

After the Handel piece, our last Christmas carol of the night was ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, one that seemed to be imbued with the same mood that had enveloped me all evening. Through Christina Rossetti’s words my feelings at last found a voice.

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter

Long ago …

Frances McKeever had been my friend since playschool. The only physical resemblance between us was our pale skin, but she had freckles on hers. She was also red-haired, green-eyed, long-limbed. I was none of these things.

Fran was also a full-time geriatric nurse with two teenage children to rear by herself. She had rung me the day before, to arrange to meet for lunch or dinner before Christmas, and I had promised to get back to her; but it had slipped my mind.

‘It’s always the same at Christmas,’ she said. ‘We see less of each other than we do the rest of the year.’

We were walking down the bare wooden stairs from the choir loft, Fran one step ahead so that our faces were more or less level.

‘Are you on days or nights?’ It wasn’t always so easy to rendezvous with Fran, who worked a lot of unsocial hours.

‘I’m on nights this weekend, Friday to Sunday, then off for the week. Back on duty Christmas night. Not a bad deal, eh?’

‘You’ll miss the practice this Saturday, then?’

‘Yes. But I’m sure you’ll all manage.’

‘OK, let me think …’

‘Hey, how about a drink while you’re doing that? Just a quickie on the way home.’

‘Sorry, Fran. There’s been a bog body found near Newgrange …’

‘I heard about it on the news. You involved?’

‘Yes. And it’s going to keep me busy tonight. Starting with a visit to Finian to get his opinion.’

Fran made a snorting noise. ‘Bah, that guy … he should either piss or get off the pot.’ Fran took a dim view of Finian Shaw. He and I had been close for fifteen years and though of late he seemed to be acknowledging that we were more than just friends, as far as Fran was concerned, he was not only playing with my emotions but also stymieing my chances of getting another man, as she put it.

‘Charming turn of phrase, as always.’

‘OK. Let’s do lunch on Monday at Walter’s. Twelve-thirty, OK?’

‘Deal.’

Fran’s irreverence was a welcome relief from the gloom that seemed to have settled into my heart as stealthily as the snow in the poem.

Chapter Three

‘That field is an anomaly,’ said Finian, his steel-grey eyes afire with enthusiasm for his discovery. ‘A rectangle of bog sitting there on its own, surrounded by fertile meadows. From the air it must look like a stain on a patchwork quilt.’

Finian Shaw was a history teacher and folklorist who had abandoned teaching for his primary passion – gardening. But his was not a hobby that involved pottering around a few raised beds. At Brookfield, the family farm on which he had been reared, he had created a garden that drew visitors from all over the world.

Finian’s hair and close-cropped beard were black shot through with silver, just as they’d been when he was teaching me in secondary school. Tonight he was wearing a black polo-neck and grey chinos. Except for his work clothes, he rarely strayed from black and grey, a complete contrast to the breathtaking displays of colour he made bloom at Brookfield. But this was the fallow time of the year, and Finian was at a loose end. I had phoned him on my way home, given him brief details of the find and said I’d call to the farm after choir practice. I could use his knowledge of the county and its history.

He had spread out an Ordnance Survey map of the Boyne Valley between two piles of books on a low table, in a room that was part study, part drawing room, and was kneeling on the thin carpet to examine it. Arranged in a crooked circle around him was a battered leather suite, two armchairs and two sofas, each scattered with unmatched cushions. Surrounding this inner ring of furniture were various objects and features set against the walls: a PC on a desk, side-by-side with an eighteenth-century glass-fronted writing bureau; two alcoves filled with bookshelves, flanking a large marble fireplace; a pair of tall windows draped with green damask curtains, an upright piano in the bay between them. Most of the spaces between these items were occupied by lamps, on stands or on cloth-covered occasional tables, and on the walls were numerous prints and framed photographs, lit by candle-shaped sconces. Finian called the look ‘Farmhouse Fusion’.

On the armchair closest to the glowing fire, his father Arthur lay back snoring. Opposite him their elderly golden Labrador, Bess, snoring in a different key, took up most of one of the sofas.

‘Look here,’ said Finian, tracing the U-bend of the Boyne around Newgrange with the forefinger of one hand while lifting one of his books with the other and quoting: ‘“The fertile floodplain of the Boyne from Slane to Donore overlies carboniferous shales and ice-age gravels …”’ He raised his head from the book. ‘So how can there possibly be a bog there?’ He frowned at me like an inquisitor sniffing out heresy.

A floorboard under the carpet creaked as I knelt down opposite him and laid my PowerBook and sketchpad on the table. I pointed to an elevated bean-shaped feature on the map, south-east of the river: Redmountain – 120 metres. The ridge formed the local horizon, above which the sun would climb on the shortest day of the year to illuminate the opposite hill. Between it and the Boyne lay Monashee.

‘It’s not as anomalous as you think. There are wetland areas here …’ I pointed to a feature called Crewbane Marsh, on the left leg of the U; then I traced my finger along the river, almost to the top of the right leg. ‘… and here – Dowth Wetland.’ Monashee lay between the two areas. ‘I suspect that water draining down from the ridge above got trapped, forming a fen to start with.’

An extra-loud snore came from the armchair. Arthur, now in his late eighties, had nodded off a short time earlier, after chatting to us for a while about catching salmon in the Boyne as a lad. He had little interest in the discovery at Newgrange. The mention of the river was just another excuse for him to indulge his recollections.

‘Hmm …’ Finian tapped the map with his finger. ‘Now that I think of it, wasn’t there a rare species of fen grass – a rush of some kind – discovered in a field along the riverbank there, only a few years ago?’

I sat back into one of the armchairs. ‘You mean Juncus compressus?’

‘Spot on. Round-fruited rush. I’d forgotten you were so well up on our wild flora.’

‘Not me, Finian; my dad. Other kids might have been brought to the zoo on a Sunday; P.V. Bowe brought his on field trips searching for wildflowers. Some of it sank in, I guess.’ As had the Latin lessons, and the lines from plays that he used to learn off by reciting them aloud to us in the car.

Finian folded up the map. ‘It occurs to me that, if there are only one or two small areas of bog in the vicinity, it points towards your lady being a sacrificial victim, doesn’t it?’

‘Or volunteer.’ Reassessment of the practice of human sacrifice in pre-history has suggested that some ‘victims’ were willing participants in their own executions. But Finian had a good point. She would hardly have strayed by accident into the boggy field. And it nudged the argument further in favour of her being prehistoric: human sacrifice and bog burials had died out even before Christianity came to Ireland.

‘Well, I don’t know if there’s any evidence of violence,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to wait until the autopsy tomorrow morning.’

On my way to Brookfield, Malcolm Sherry had rung to say that – after considerable time and effort – they had extracted Mona from the block of peat, and that he was postponing any further examination of the body for another twelve hours. He had been allocated the old morgue, housed in a separate building on the hospital grounds, which suited both our purposes. Our examination of Mona would not take place in a facility under siege from the recently deceased.

Finian sat in the other armchair and started to flip through my sketches, while I found the digital photos I’d loaded into the laptop.

‘So you found yourself at Newgrange earlier than expected. Didn’t you tell me you were going there for the solstice?’

‘Yes. The second part of an interview for Dig. It’s an American archaeology magazine that’s doing a feature on Irish women in the profession, and they’ve asked us to assemble there at sunrise on the day. For photos, mainly.’

‘Will you be going inside?’

‘No. Apart from a couple of VIPs, it’s limited to twenty people drawn by lottery. And we’ve all seen it before, as far as I know. It wouldn’t be fair.’

‘Bet you there’ll be a politician or two there.’

‘The Minister for Tourism and Heritage is scheduled to put in an appearance, I believe.’

‘Told you. And that reminds me: I have an invitation for two to a pre-Christmas soirée at Jocelyn Carew’s house in Dublin. I’d love you to come.’

‘When is it?’

‘Em … soon.’ He went to the mantelpiece and picked up a plain white card printed in black. ‘Jocelyn and Edith Carew – At Home,’ he intoned. ‘Drinks seven to ten pm, December twenty-first.’

‘That’s next Monday night!’ Same day I was having lunch with Fran.

‘Yes, I’m sorry. I’d intended asking you long before now.’

I closed my eyes and tried to think what other engagements I had, if any. That close to Christmas, probably only social ones, or perhaps the choir, but my mind had drawn a blank. Unless something was unavoidable, I would skip it or move it. Professor Jocelyn Carew was an Independent member of the Dáil, as well as being a medical doctor, drama critic and conservationist; I was certainly curious to meet him and his wife ‘At Home’. And to be there with Finian would add to the enjoyment.

‘Love to,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you know for sure tomorrow, if that’s all right.’

‘Whenever. I’ve said yes already. It’s just that I really don’t want to go on my own.’

That was infuriatingly typical of Finian – to offer me an invitation, then make it appear like an afterthought. I let it pass. He knelt back down at the table and peered at a photo I was displaying on the PowerBook screen, something in it making him frown.

‘If the intention was to clear the bog, why was Crean using a JCB? Far too heavy to work on soft soil.’

‘He must have intended to dig down to the rock or gravel below; then he’d have a solid base on which to drive in and dig out the rest of the topsoil.’

‘Hmm … you said the body was originally lying about a metre and a half beneath the surface. That’s not very far down if you’re hoping for a prehistoric date.’ Finian was thinking of the rate of growth of the bog. ‘For your theory to be right, Monashee has to have been growing for over five thousand years. Surely it should be much deeper.’

‘It might have been, at one time. But it was probably dug away for fuel – who knows? Drainage would also lower the overall level. And there’s something else that gives me cause for optimism. Any archaeologist will tell you that Ireland boasts one of the oldest bog bodies in Europe – well, a skeleton, actually. The remains of a man found in Stoneyisland Bog in Galway clocked in at about six thousand years old – that’s Early Neolithic.’

‘Fair enough. But what are the chances, Illaun? Let’s do a rough calculation.’ He sat back into his armchair and held up the little finger of one hand between the thumb and forefinger of the other – a gesture he always made when summarising information. ‘How many bog bodies have been discovered in Ireland in total?’

‘About eighty.’

‘How old were they, on average?’

‘The majority … probably medieval.’

‘Five hundred to a thousand years old, let’s say. And across the rest of Europe?’

‘Iron Age, mostly.’

He calculated for a moment. ‘Two to two and a half thousand years old?’

I nodded. ‘On average.’

‘So the likelihood, Illaun, is that this lady ain’t a Stone-Ager.’ He grinned like a boy, proud of his little pun. ‘And your best hope is that she’s a Celt.’

‘But, my learned friend, she was buried in the vicinity of Newgrange in circumstances that we both agree were unlikely to have been an accident – meaning the location was significant to whoever put her there – whereas, by the time the Celts arrived, the meaning of Brú na Bóinne was already long lost. So if her burial had a purpose, then it has to be Neolithic. I rest my case.’

The phone rang out in the hall. Finian excused himself and left the room.

The activity interrupted Arthur’s sleep, and he woke up in mid-snore. ‘… Boyne Drainage Scheme … stupid bastards … destroyed best salmon river …’ He had sat up and was resuming his input into the conversation at the same point where he had nodded off. A mild stroke had affected his speech so that he slurred some of his words, but it was easy to get the gist of what he was saying, because it was his favourite hobby-horse. ‘See … on wall …’ He was gesturing behind him. I followed his thumb to a framed photograph of a woman standing beside a fish that was hung up by the tail. It was nearly as tall as her and swelled to about the width of her shoulders. ‘See! Big salmon at Newgrange … and female anglers … even then.’

I walked over and read the inscription:

Mrs Myrtle Hastings with a 60lb. salmon caught on the Boyne below Newgrange in 1926. Length 4ft. 6in. Girth 2ft. 9in.

‘So many salmon … trout … Could walk across river stepping on their backs …’ Arthur cackled. ‘And not just game fish – pike, eels, perch …’

‘Mmm …’ I had no wish to offend him, but my interest in the topic was waning. He must have sensed this, because he halted his inventory and said, ‘Father once told me a black body … found floating in Boyne … Newgrange … a hundred years ago or more. A man – a Nubian, they said … built pym … pymr …’

‘Pyramids,’ I said, sitting down in the armchair Finian had vacated. Arthur must have heard snatches of our conversation as he drifted in and out of his doze. He had my full attention now, and he knew it. His eyes were twinkling mischievously. ‘So they thought there was some connection between the body and the construction of Newgrange?’

The old man nodded. I knew he had a reputation for telling tall tales, but this didn’t sound like one.

Finian came back into the room at that point.

‘I’m off to bed. Good night,’ said Arthur.

Finian handed him his walking-stick and helped him to his feet. Bess climbed down from the sofa and followed Arthur out of the room.

‘Your father’s just told me something that could be very significant as far as our bog body is concerned,’ I said, as Finian closed the door after them.

He gave me a sceptical glance. ‘What’s he on about now?’

‘There may have been another one found in that area.’ I repeated his father’s story. ‘… So, if that was another bog body – but mistaken at the time for a black person – it would strengthen the case for securing the whole field for a proper excavation. We may have stumbled across a sacrificial burial site. God knows how many bodies have been preserved there.’

‘You’ll need more than one of my father’s yarns.’

‘The Meath Chronicle archives?’

‘But you haven’t got a date. It’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack …’ Finian noticed I was looking at him intently. ‘You expect me to do it?’

I gave him a big smile.

‘Oh, all right, then,’ he said, sitting on the sofa in front of the laptop and peering at the photo of the foetus or whatever it was in the digger beside Mona. ‘Sherry thinks she may have given birth to this?’

‘Or it was still in her womb.’ I hadn’t asked the pathologist to clarify his use of the term ‘offspring’, and the gash on its side might be an indication that it had been ripped from Mona’s body by the digger.

Finian looked aghast. ‘It’s not human, surely?’

‘I’m afraid it is. And I think I’ve seen something like it before. Recently, too.’

Finian looked at me over his glasses.

‘Not in reality. A representation. On a church or a grave-slab – something like that.’

‘A painting? Something nightmarish by Hieronymous Bosch, maybe?’

‘No. Definitely a stone carving.’

‘Did this guy Traynor know it had been found along with the woman?’

‘I don’t think so. Why do you ask?’

‘Just trying to figure out why he doesn’t want you near the place.’

‘Yeah. It’s funny how he wants to tear up the field, but he objects to us doing practically the same thing.’

‘Who do you reckon alerted him to the find?’

‘Sergeant O’Hagan, I’d say. He and Traynor seem pretty close.’

‘Speaking of which,’ said Finian, patting the seat beside him, ‘couldn’t we sit a little closer?’

I joined him on the sofa.

‘That’s better,’ he said, closing the laptop and putting his arm around me.

I leaned my head on his shoulder. ‘You do want me to go to Jocelyn Carew’s party with you, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do,’ he said, drawing me closer. ‘I’m sorry I made it sound so offhand. I was just embarrassed at having forgotten to ask you until now.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said, snuggling against him. ‘You’re forgiven.’

I got home just before midnight. Turning on the kitchen light, I noticed a yellow Post-It note on the door of the fridge. My mother had inadvertently picked up my father’s habit of leaving notes like this around the house, and it reminded me painfully of him every time. I peeled the note off the door. ‘BOTH FED. BOO WITH ME.’

My mother and I lived separately in what had been the family home, a 1930s bay-windowed bungalow on the outskirts of Castleboyne. The arrangement meant that I could keep an eye on my mother as she coped with a condition even lonelier than widowhood. And the house also served as the business address of Illaun Bowe, archaeological consultant, giving me a base in the area from which most of my work came.

The fact that County Meath was daily being absorbed into greater Dublin meant that the archaeological landscape was under constant threat, which was good for my business – a paradox that had not escaped my notice. With a staff of four, including myself, it was nevertheless a modest enterprise. When expertise beyond my own was needed, I had a panel of specialists to call on and a site team – often made up of students and graduates – that I could assemble at short notice.

I was about to turn off the kitchen light when my stomach told me with sudden urgency that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It was too late to make anything, so I searched the fridge and found a limp slice of pizza. Biting off a piece, I chewed it hungrily, but even with my sharpened appetite I could detect little flavour in it; I put the remainder of the slice in the microwave and set the dial.

A single deep-throated bark came from the extension where my mother was sleeping. Horatio was asking me to acknowledge his presence and no doubt to rid him of Boo, who was probably lying on his doggy cushion. If I didn’t go now, he would wait politely – and infuriatingly – until I had just settled into bed before barking again. I opened a door leading into the shared utility room, which contained a washing machine, a dryer, my bicycle, umbrellas, garden implements, mud-caked rubber boots and the pets’ food bowls, and which also acted as a sort of buffer between my mother’s part of the house and mine. Horatio was scratching the far door; another sound, a soft thud, indicated that Boo was throwing himself at it, something he preferred to do rather than mew, for some inscrutable cat reason. When I opened the door, what looked like a wisp of smoke streamed past my leg while two large paws landed on my shoulders. I lifted my chin to avoid full contact with Horatio’s dripping muzzle and got licked on the throat instead.

‘Yes, boy – good boy. Down!’ The fawn-coloured Great Dane was really my father’s dog, but now he provided company for my mother as well as affording a sense of protection – although the truth was that any intruder would probably have been greeted by little more than a slobbery lick on the face. ‘Night, Horatio,’ I whispered, and closed the door.

The microwave pinged as I went back into the kitchen; I took out the pizza and slapped it on a plate, poured some milk into a tumbler and went through to the living room to watch the news. Boo, my grey Maine coon cat, had just stretched out on the same sofa where I had been thinking of sitting. Rather than struggle to lift him off while he attached himself to various cushions, I decided it was best to go to bed. I was tired, and Friday was likely to be a long day.

After munching the pizza and finishing the glass of milk while I sat on the bed, I climbed in, turned off the light and tried to bring to mind as much as I could about bog bodies. That was a mistake: I kept seeing myself in the drain at Monashee, holding the creature as it uncurled. Having tossed and turned for long enough to know that sleep wasn’t coming, I put on a dressing-gown and slippers and shuffled off to the office.

There was nothing much of relevance on the shelves, so I tried the internet. There were numerous sites devoted to mummies, the Egyptian variety leading the field as always. In the bog-body category there were some statistics – two thousand known finds across northern Europe, about a hundred radiocarbon-dated, et cetera, et cetera – and popularity lists, the top attractions in a sort of Euro Bog-Body Contest. ‘Let’s hear it for our contestants, ladies and gentlemen. First on stage is that handsome, red-stubbled Dane – yes, it’s Tollund Man. And representing Germany, with her half-shaved head, it’s the trendy teenager, Windeby Girl. Next we go to Holland, and with typical Dutch quirkiness they’ve entered a headless male couple – the Weerdinge Duo. And finally, for the UK – he may have two identities, but he only owns one item of clothing – yes, it’s Lindow Man, a.k.a. Pete Marsh, sporting his sexy fox-fur armband …’ I wondered if Mona would eventually join this bizarre parade on the mummy websites of the world.

Many of the bog people were thought to have been midwinter sacrifices. The stomach contents of Lindow Man even included the pollen of mistletoe, something we associate with a seasonal kiss but which the Celts saw as a sacred plant belonging to neither earth, sky nor water. What would they make of my stomach contents if I were to be found two thousand years in the future? Flour, cheese, olives, tomato, artichokes and anchovies – that would keep them scratching their heads for a while.

My flippant mood faded as the grim realisation dawned that every one of the people I’d been reading about had suffered at the hands of other human beings even before being immersed in dark bog-holes; some of them had been strangled, some clubbed to death, others butchered, and at least one subjected to all three atrocities. And, while a few were reckoned to be the victims of capital punishment rather than ritual sacrifice, either way they bore mute testimony to a harsh life on the edges of the mires of northern Europe, a life that that must have seemed all the bleaker during the long winters.