The Lazarus Bell – Illaun Bowe Crime Thriller #2 E-Book

Patrick Dunne

• Herausgeber: Gill Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006

Seitenzahl: 487

Beschreibung

A gruesome summer crimewave in the Boyne Valley complete with ritual murders and a mysterious plague-bringing Madonna – intrepid archaeologist Illaun Bowe is back in Irish king of crime Patrick Dunne's spine-tingling The Lazarus Bell! 'It's not what you think,' he rasped, his tongue dry and clicking inside his mouth. A look of fear had invaded his eyes. I came as close as I dared. His voice dropped to a barely detectable whisper. 'It's worse … far worse.' A beautiful carved wooden Madonna, sealed tightly into a lead coffin, is discovered in a plague graveyard in the sleepy village of Castleboyne in Ireland – a fascinating but routine call-out for archaeologist Illaun Bowe. That is, until they take the coffin out of the ground and a black liquid oozes out from the casing, accidentally spilling over one of the workers. Within 24 hours, his skin breaks out in pus-filled lesions, and his organs fail, one by one … Soon hysteria breaks out in Castleboyne, with a quarantine imposed on the town by the Department of Health and nasty tabloid speculation that the disease has been brought to the area by the new immigrant population. Illaun has to get to the bottom of what was in the coffin to reassure herself that a deadly disease hasn't been unleashed upon the community because of her carelessness. Then a young boy is brought into the hospital, with the same symptoms as Terry … As the summer temperatures soar, the hysteria is fuelled by the finding of a torso floating in the River Boyne, an African woman killed for ritual purposes. Meanwhile, someone is making it dangerously clear to Illaun that they want that statue … Dive into The Lazarus Bell, another heart-stopping macabre thriller from internationally bestselling author Patrick Dunne. Full of twists, turns and uncovered conspiracies, join archaeologist Illaun Bowe in this unpredictable, atmospheric novel guaranteed to give you goosebumps. Who knew archaeology could be so interesting – and dangerous? 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 gripping thriller Books Ireland … 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

THELAZARUS BELL

For my beloved wife Theckla and in memory of Sheila

A sinister little flower, in the mournful colour of decayVita Sackville-West

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Postscript

Acknowledgments

Copyright

About the Author

About Gill & Macmillan

Prologue

At the bend of the stream, the flow of water had carved out a pocket in the grassy bank. Beneath the bank a sandy shoal had built up, and beyond it the stream swirled lazily under an overhanging willow. Flotsam was often trapped there to circle round and round until an irregular eddy or gust of wind set it free. In summer, flowering water-weeds added traction to the whirlpool’s grip.

On a Friday morning in May, Arthur Shaw leaned on a wooden footbridge over the stream and took in the scene. The sun had turned the water below to see-through honey. Above it, electric-red damselflies hovered and darted. The scent from drifts of frothy meadowsweet was wafting in from a nearby field. In the woodland shade downstream, the water rippled past a moss-clad outcrop of limestone boulders. Up at the bend, a mat of white-and-yellow crowfoot swayed in the current. It brought him back to his youth, to the way the Boyne had been before the riverbed, and with it every island, weir and millrace along most of its course, was torn up to provide better field-drainage.

The tangled crowfoot reminded him of something else – one of his favourite paintings: Ophelia lying in a stream on a bier of flowers. Just as some people liked still lifes or winter landscapes or pictures of horses, anything to do with rivers appealed to him, more so if the subject matter was tragic. Because, although the aging Arthur Shaw lived in the twenty-first century, his heart was antique Victorian: cast iron on the outside, cushion-soft within.

His brief meditation over, he was about to continue on his walk through Brookfield Garden when he noticed something glinting in the water upstream. He left the bridge and walked a few metres along the bank to get a better look. He was disappointed to find it was just a beer can on the bottom reflecting the sunlight. It made him feel grumpy. It was bad enough that kids were bringing drink into the garden, but dumping their rubbish in it was unforgiveable. For all their protests about polluting the planet, this generation was no more caring of the rivers and streams than those officially sanctioned vandals of the twentieth century who had ruined the Boyne.

Then Arthur noticed something else, this time detected by his sense of smell. A dead sheep or lamb, he thought. They sometimes drowned in the spring floods, were swept downstream and got trapped in the pocket at the bend.

He could see there was something bulky caught in the weeds, all right, but it wasn’t a sheep. It looked like a sack. There were flies buzzing on it in clusters. Someone’s drowned a litter of kittens, he thought, dipping his head beneath the willow and approaching the edge of the inward-curving bank.

He had his walking-stick with him. It helped to prop up the side of his body that had been weakened by a stroke. With some difficulty he climbed down onto a patch of dry sand under the bank and pushed at the sack with his stick. Instead of floating free of the weed, the sack rolled over, and something attached to it rose above the water.

It was a foot. And he knew it must be a woman’s because there was purple nail polish on some of the toes. He saw that the corpse’s skin was strangely mottled, like the plumage of a magpie. He blinked hard, wondering if the dappled light under the tree had confused him.

Her piebald skin wasn’t the only odd thing. Ophelia’s pale face in the Millais painting was upturned, her long tresses trailing out into the current. This woman’s face was invisible at first, or so he thought; but as the bloated torso completed another revolution in the current, he saw that all that was left of her head was a stalk of bone emerging from between her shoulders.

Chapter One

The accident with the lead coffin occurred on the far side of Castleboyne at around the time Arthur Shaw was taking his walk. My archaeology company, Illaun Bowe Consultancy, had excavated a medieval graveyard on the original outskirts of the town and we were preparing to hand over the site to the local authorities. And that’s where it happened.

A little earlier, I’d been trying on a cream linen jacket and skirt in the mirror when I got an excited phone call from Gayle Fowler, one of my team, who was acting as Finds Assistant on the excavation. I was due to meet a representative of the Town Council, to formally sign off on the project that had occupied much of my time since Easter, but for some reason I wasn’t happy with the suit, though I liked the white V-necked cotton top I had on under it.

‘We’ve discovered two coffins…’ Gayle was practically breathless. ‘Lead-lined…just outside the site perimeter…a section of ground near the chapel subsided when we were about to start backfilling. You have to come down here, Illaun.’

I could understand her enthusiasm. None of the other remains had been buried in containers of any kind, let alone lead coffins.

‘Are they intact?’

‘One of them seems waterlogged. The other, well…I think you need to see for yourself.’

‘If there’s any question of it containing soft tissue remains, you know the drill. It’ll have to be sealed in heavy-duty plastic and reburied.’

‘It’s not like that. That’s why we need you here.’

I was in my office, less than a kilometre away, glad to be able to shuttle back and forth quickly from site to office for once, and pleased to be working on an important excavation in my home town. I looked at my watch. Was this the excuse I needed to change out of the suit? Light-coloured linen wasn’t the best attire for a site visit, and I needed to lose weight to wear it anyway. I had just enough time to change, go to the site and still make the meeting.

‘OK, I’m coming. Meanwhile, handle the lead as little as possible. Tell anyone who’s working with you to gear up. And safety helmets to be worn around that collapse.’

The team was used to donning protective clothing, including micro-biological masks. The site we had excavated was a mass grave, its occupants victims of the Black Death.

The road from Dublin forked in two as it entered old Castleboyne, and in the V, behind a low stone wall, was a triangular field that widened out as it sloped uphill from a barred iron gate. Most people passing by would have been unaware of its past. There were no headstones, crosses or markers of any kind; the only clue was the hummocky, uneven ground under the grass. At one time there had been a Magdalene hospital, chapel and graveyard in or around this location. The site was now honeycombed with earthen trenches that might have been made by a giant waffle-iron. They had been due to be filled in when the subsidence had occurred further up the field. I could see members of the team there, hunched around a gaping hole in a grassy bank, which was surmounted by a wall and the gable end of the ruined chapel. To one side of them was a spoil heap and a pile of dismantled scaffolding, and to the other a yellow Hymac excavator.

Gayle saw me arrive and detached herself from the others. Like me, she had on a white safety helmet, and from under hers a wedge of frizzy black hair stuck out. She was wearing glasses the size of saucers, baggy jeans and a black Pixies T-shirt that billowed around her as it was caught by the summer breeze. Gayle had lost a lot of weight recently but had failed to buy new clothes to take account of it. I noticed with growing concern that her helmet was the only protective item she was wearing.

‘Hi, isn’t this exciting?’ she said.

‘What happened, exactly?’

‘The Hymac operator was about to start backfilling when he noticed the ground caving in under one of the tracks. He moved on just before it fell away and exposed a partially collapsed vault under the wall. It must have been part of the church at one time. It was just about big enough to contain the coffins. We’ve got one of them up here – the smaller one.’ She led the way towards a rectangular, ash-grey container lying on the grass slope. As I followed her along the wooden walkways and earthen baulks between the trenches, I was glad I’d worn cargo pants and lightweight hiking shoes. I was still wearing the white top, but if I’d worn my business suit, with the helmet, my briefcase and heeled sandals, I would have looked like one of the politicians or public officials who had made frequent visits to the site over the months. As we got nearer the coffin, which was lying on the grass about ten metres from where the ground had subsided, I noticed there were streaks of rust running down the sides, probably all that was left of iron bands that had once surrounded the coffin’s long-rotted timber container.

‘How did you get it out?’ I asked.

‘With scaffolding bars as rollers and planks as levers. Then we lashed ropes around it and raised it onto the bank with the Hymac. The gang’s working on the bigger one now. It seems to be waterlogged, like I said. You can hear something sloshing around inside.’

Her mention of this earlier had set off a tiny but insistent noise in my head, like a distant house alarm. I glanced over at the activity beside the excavator. The heads I could see there were all sporting safety helmets, at least, and a couple of the team had also donned white coveralls and masks. I opened my briefcase and took out a white dust-mask and two pairs of heavy-duty latex gloves.

‘There’s no need, believe me,’ said Gayle, patting my arm reassuringly as I pulled on the gloves and fixed the mask over my mouth.

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ I said, the authority in my voice somewhat muffled by the mask. Because we’d been working outdoors most of the time and dealing only with bones, and because diseases usually last no longer than fifty years in skeletonised remains, it was understandable that the crew had developed a relaxed attitude to wearing protective gear, especially on a warm summer’s day like this one. But sealed lead coffins can harbour lethal diseases, and lead dust can carry spores and parasites’ eggs through the air.

I was about to follow Gayle up the grassy slope when a warning shout halted us in our tracks. At the top of the field, the other coffin was being hauled up in a rope sling by the arm of the excavator. The heavy lead box spun slowly in the air as the operator rotated the arm in our direction, evidently intending to set the coffin down beside the other one. I wasn’t entirely happy with what was going on. If the coffin was waterlogged, it was probably damaged, which meant it could leak its contents or disintegrate before we had time to get it sleeved in heavy-duty plastic.

Short of its target by a couple of metres, the Hymac began to crawl down the slope. Gayle and I circled away from it but kept our eyes on the gyrating coffin. Without warning, the excavator lurched sideways as the ground gave way beneath its caterpillar tracks and subsided into the vault where the coffins had been. The site workers fanned out away from the machine as it leaned precariously, threatening to fall over on its side. Gayle and I were rooted to the spot, as though any movement might make it topple.

Some members of the team shouted at the operator to get out of the cabin, but he kept the machine under control and managed to reverse away from the collapsed vault and regain an upright position. But by now the hastily tied-up coffin was swinging wildly. Suddenly one of the ropes slipped off and the coffin tilted downwards at a steep angle. Now I became really alarmed.

Gayle instinctively headed up the slope towards the excavator. ‘Hold on,’ I warned her. ‘Let’s not get too near.’

While the operator hesitated, unsure of which way to manoeuvre the revolving coffin, one of the workers reached up in an effort to keep it still, calling to the others to help him. I recognised him as Terry Johnston, an experienced journeyman digger – one of those who make a career of flitting from site to site. And, true to form, Terry was dressed only in a singlet and shorts that displayed his leathery, matchstick-thin arms and legs as he tried to wave instructions to the driver. The coffin was right over his bare head.

‘Get back, Terry,’ I shouted.

The coffin spun away from him again and he decided to stay where he was. But, like a pendulum, it turned back, and I noticed what I thought was a thick cobweb hanging from one of the downturned corners. Then it caught the sunlight.

I ran towards him, waving my arms in the air. ‘For God’s sake, get out of there!’

There was liquid spilling from the coffin.

Terry began to retreat but stumbled and fell on his back. Then the base of the coffin, deprived of the support provided by the earth for centuries, gave way. Terry yelped in fright as a dark, viscous fluid poured down on him.

We all ran to help him. But the stench stopped us in our tracks.

Chapter Two

While the men hosed down a stripped-naked Terry behind the excavator, Gayle and I approached the area where the liquid had spilt and saw that it was seeping fast into the earth, dry from a long rainless spell. I signalled to the Hymac operator to lower the dripping container onto the ground there and then. While the remainder of the rope cradle had prevented the lead base from falling on Terry, there was no guarantee it would hold.

I handed Gayle my car keys. ‘There are some sample jars in the back. Grab a couple and we’ll try and collect some of this stuff.’

Gayle made a face and moved off. Ribald laughter rose from the area around the stand pipe, where Terry was being liberally sprayed with the hose we used to dampen the earth from time to time when digging. No doubt his colleagues were trying to raise his spirits after his experience.

I watched as one end of the coffin, tilted at forty-five degrees, approached the ground. Suddenly it slipped its cradle and rotated into a vertical position. Something solid inside it fell to the bottom, then out onto the ground. It was a heap of blackened bones, and they landed not with a clatter, but like sods of damp turf.

The remaining ropes gave way and the entire container landed on its end, stayed upright for a few seconds, then toppled over and landed less than two metres away from me, making the earth tremble under my feet.

‘Wow, Illaun, that was close,’ said Gayle, rejoining me with the specimen jars, each in a paper bag.

‘Close? This is turning out to be a disaster at every turn, Gayle. I wish to God you’d…never mind.’ I had to resist the temptation to take out my frustration on her. Even though I thought she’d been precipitate in removing the coffins, I would probably have criticised her for not using her initiative had the vault collapsed before we could remove them.

The fallen coffin lay upside down on the grassy slope, the partly sheared-off base uppermost. It looked like an outsize half-opened sardine tin. A dusting of pulverised bone lay scattered about it, but most of the pile that had fallen lay underneath, probably crushed to powder.

Inside the container, a residue of black, foul-smelling gloop still adhered to the surfaces. I had no doubt it was ‘coffin liquor’ – a kind of soup created by the rendering down of human tissue by decomposition.

‘Oh, my gosh…the smell, it’s awful,’ said Gayle. She was swallowing hard to keep from retching.

I had to agree it was truly repulsive. And in the noonday heat it seemed to be rising up at us in ever more pungent waves.

‘Stand back a bit,’ I said, slipping my mask over my nose and mouth again.

A glance inside revealed that the lead box was otherwise empty, a brown tide-mark a third of the way up the sides indicating how much liquid had been in it before it drained out. I was disappointed to find there were no other bones present. Estimating the age or sex of the individual was going to be impossible. There was nothing for it now but to scrape off some of the residue and gather it into an airtight container, to prevent it deteriorating any further now that it was exposed to light and air.

Gayle handed me one of the sterile sample jars – a clear plastic vial with a built-in scoop and handle forming a resealable lid. The combination of mask and helmet was making perspiration trickle down my forehead – I would have to be careful not to get any drops of sweat mixed with the sample. I unscrewed the lid and, taking a deep breath, leaned under the projecting section of the base and scraped some of the substance into the scoop, holding the jar underneath to catch any that dripped down.

Still hunched under the stiff tongue of lead, I started screwing the lid-scoop back on. Then I noticed what looked like a sodden tangle of fibres in a corner of the coffin below me.

I ducked out from under the base, turned and breathed in some fresh air. ‘There’s something else there,’ I mumbled into my mask. I handed the sample jar back to Gayle. ‘Open the other one, please.’

I bent down into the coffin again, but it wasn’t until I had hooked up the fibres on the tip of the scoop that I saw it was a clump of matted hair, like what you might extract from a long-neglected plughole.

As I lowered the dripping tangle into the jar, something inside clicked against the plastic. I rotated the jar and saw what looked like a blackened flake of lead dangling from a strand of hair.

Trying to suppress nausea, I quickly closed the receptacle and handed it to Gayle, then removed my mask and helmet and breathed in deeply.

‘Are you OK, Illaun? What’s in here?’

‘Some hair…and what looks like a human fingernail.’

‘Ew, that is just so gross,’ said Gayle, holding the jar at arm’s length and squeezing her eyes shut in case she might be tempted to look inside.

What to do with the samples? Bones I could have sent to the osteoarchaeologist who’d been working with us on the dig up until the previous week. But this?

‘I’m going to see how Terry’s doing,’ I said. ‘One way or another, I’ll take him to St Loman’s – along with those.’

‘You’re bringing them to a hospital?’ she said, puzzled.

‘We’re hardly sending them to the National Museum.’ Then I realised that, while Gayle was repelled by what was in the jars, she wasn’t thinking that it might be a source of disease.

Terry emerged from behind the excavator, drying his close-shaven black hair. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and jogging pants donated by one of the team. I stuffed my mask and gloves into one of the paper bags, tucked my helmet under one arm, picked up my briefcase and waited for him to join us.

As he approached, I could see he was pale beneath his tan.

‘How are you feeling, Terry?’

‘Can’t get the fecking pong out of my nostrils. Otherwise, I’m grand.’ Terry was English, but had absorbed numerous idioms from his years of working on and off in Ireland.

‘That was a narrow escape. The whole thing could have crashed down on you. Did you swallow or inhale any of the liquid?’

‘No, dear, I’m trying to give it up.’

Gayle thought that was hilarious.

‘I’m taking you to St Loman’s anyway,’ I said.

‘I had a tetanus jab only a few weeks ago.’

‘It’s not tetanus I’m worried about.’

‘It’s just coffin liquor,’ he said with a swagger. ‘I saw plenty of it when I was working on the Christ Church removals in Spitalfields.’

‘Wow, you worked on the crypt excavations? In the 80s, wasn’t it?’ said Gayle, clearly impressed.

‘Yeah. We lifted the remains out of a thousand coffins, more or less. Mostly eighteenth, nineteenth-century. Touched plenty of that cadaver sauce. Bodies floating in the stuff. Smallpox was a big worry, though, and the level of lead in our blood. But the biggest problems turned out to be psychological.’

‘Be that as it may,’ I said, ‘we can’t be too careful. I want you to get a full medical examination.’

‘You’re worried that it might be a plague burial, aren’t you?’

‘I don’t know whether it is or not. But at this stage it’s better to presume that it is and let the medical people assess the danger to your health.’ I pointed to the gate. ‘Let’s go.’

‘What about the other one?’ Gayle asked as we descended the field.

I glanced back at the smaller coffin lying on the grass. ‘We don’t want a repeat of what’s just happened. Let’s regard it as a health hazard for now. I don’t want anybody going near it until I come back.’

Gayle and Terry exchanged glances.

Terry got into my recently acquired dark-green Freelander, which had my name and contact details in yellow on the doors. I put my briefcase in the back alongside a large cardboard box containing waterproof clothing, a kneeling mat, hiking boots and various tools. As I found a space for my helmet, Gayle wedged the jars between the briefcase and the box.

‘What about the mess up at the top of the field?’ she asked, as I got into the car.

‘Get the Hymac guy to haul the damaged coffin back nearer the vault and cover it in heavy-duty plastic. Same with the other. Then cordon off the whole area up there with crash barriers and get some large warning signs put up.’

‘What’ll I put on the signs?’

‘Hmm…’ Coffin liquor is classified as clinical waste, but that might not have sounded scary enough. ‘“Danger: Toxic Waste.” Ask Peggy to print them up in the office for you. It’ll only be temporary – the Council will be officially responsible for the site in’ – I checked my watch – ‘about half an hour. But it’s only fair we do that much for them – they weren’t bargaining on having a problem like this land on their laps on a Friday afternoon.’ I turned on the engine.

‘Right, let’s get Typhoid Terry seen to,’ said Terry, putting on a brave face. But as we got closer to the hospital his chirpiness evaporated. ‘Are you insured for this kind of thing?’ he asked.

‘Accidents on site? Sure.’

‘If there’s a charge to be paid at the hospital, you’ll look after it, won’t you? I’m flat broke.’ He gave me a thin smile and began to hum a familiar tune ending with the words, ‘And I spent all me tin on a lady drinking gin…’ Terry liked to garnish his conversation with snatches from old ballads and folk songs.

‘I hope she was worth it,’ I said. All my team had received a generous bonus for completing the project ahead of time. It had been in their paychecks just the previous day.

He looked at me enigmatically. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘Go ahead,’ I said, letting down the window on my side. Then I wondered if the packet had been in his clothing. ‘Sure they’re not contaminated?’

‘Nah. Wouldn’t light then, anyway.’ He cackled and cleared his lungs before inhaling. His mood had changed again. ‘I heard a story from a mate on the Spitalfields excavation. Something that happened after the Great Fire of London. Two inquisitive gentlemen decided to drink the remains of a Dean of St Paul’s who’d been buried in a lead coffin a hundred and fifty years earlier.’

‘Ugh.’

‘It seems the broth had been heated up by the fire as it passed.’

‘They really drank the stuff?’

‘Apparently so. Tasted of iron, that’s wha—’ He started coughing and threw the cigarette out of the window. ‘Fecking cancer sticks,’ he said.

I shot him a brief glance. Terry looked like someone who’d been force-fed the coffin broth he had just described. His face was grey underneath his tan and his eyes were bloodshot.

‘I seen some odd things in Spitalfields myself – empty coffins, one filled with stones, a few with double burials – but nothing like what we unearthed today, eh?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You didn’t take a look at the other coffin, then?’

‘No. Why?’

We were just entering the gates of the hospital. Terry smiled knowingly. ‘You’ll see.’

Chapter Three

While Terry was being triaged in A&E, I saw one of the doctors on duty passing by the waiting room. Cora Gavin and I had been at school together in Castleboyne and were still friendly, if not close, so I took the opportunity to explain what had happened to Terry and to put it in the context of our work at the graveyard. We sat down together in the waiting room. There was no one else there. St Loman’s was a small local hospital; its facilities and staff were of a high standard, but A&E was seldom busy.

Cora listened closely. She had a long face with a small undershot mouth, features that were emphasised by the way she scraped her hair up from her forehead and temples into a high bunch on top.

‘I doubt that the coffin was harbouring bubonic plague, even if its inhabitant was a victim of the disease,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Our main concern at this stage would be lep and hep. We’ll take some blood samples to keep for analysis in case something develops.’ Leptospirosis and hepatitis A are hazards occasionally encountered by archaeologists where soil has been contaminated by sewage, or water by rat urine.

‘I think he’s more rattled by what happened than he’s letting on,’ I said.

‘Then maybe, to get him over his fright, we’ll hold on to him for a few hours and keep him under observation.’

‘Good idea. Can I leave these with you?’ I said, picking up the sample jars from the seat beside me. ‘I guess, to be sure we’re doing everything by the book, this stuff should be screened for the plague bacillus – and maybe smallpox and anthrax. Just in case.’ I handed her the jars.

‘Hey, when did you guys become lab scientists?’ she said, peering at the jars. The way it came out, it sounded like a put-down. Cora was one of those unfunny people who on occasion choose to attempt banter, often with disastrous results. Her most redeeming feature at school had been her passion for justice and human rights, and if she was on your side in a dispute you could have no better advocate, albeit a rather humourless one.

The way to deal with Cora was just to answer her straight. ‘If we think we’ll be taking samples of non-solid organic material on a site, we come prepared.’

‘Well, we won’t be able to analyse this ourselves. I’ll send them off to CRID in Dublin.’

‘CRID?’

‘The Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases. They have Bio-safety Level Three containment facilities there. Just in case, as you said.’ She put the jars into the pockets of her white coat and stood up. ‘Now, I’d better go and talk to Mr Johnston.’

At the entrance to A&E she turned around. ‘Why don’t we play a game of tennis one of these days?’ she called out.

Like her, I was a member of the local tennis club, but I hadn’t played for the best part of a year. ‘Sure. I’d like that,’ I answered. In the back of my mind I recalled Cora stretching up to serve and then a cannonball coming over the net in my direction.

Cora continued on her brisk walk into A&E. I looked at the clock on the wall. 12.05. I was already late for the meeting with Dominic Usher, Manager of the Town Council. I turned on my mobile phone and texted him to say I was running late. Then I turned it off again.

Minutes later, Terry joined me in the waiting room.

‘They’re taking me in for observation,’ he said, sitting beside me.

‘I’ve been talking to one of the doctors. You’ll be well looked after. I presume you told the nurse I would be paying the hospital charges.’

He nodded.

‘And did you tell them who to contact if there’s any treatment to be discussed?’

He shook his head, smiling grimly. ‘My childhood friends and my own relations,’ he murmured, ‘have all passed on now, like melting snow…’

‘A ballad, I take it?’

‘“Carrickfergus”. One of the best. By the way, could you lend me a few shekels? Just in case I need to make a phone call.’

‘Sure,’ I said. I rummaged in my purse and gave him whatever change I had, as well as a fifty-euro note.

‘I’ll pay you back,’ he said gratefully. ‘When the kangaroo comes in.’

‘The kangaroo?’ Was he raving?

‘My ship. The good ship Kangaroo. Could be sooner than you think.’ He raised his voice and sang:

I’ll bring you tortoises from Tenerife

And toys from Timbuktu,

A China rat and a Bengal cat

And a Bombay cockatoo…

‘Yes, Terry.’ I stood up. ‘I’d better get back to the cemetery. Take care now.’

I got into my 4x4 and checked my mobile phone for messages. Two texts. One from Dominic Usher, saying OK. The other was from my fiancé, Finian Shaw, to say he had some news. Finian was the creator of Brookfield, a showpiece garden of international repute that he had developed from scratch on the family farm.

I rang him. ‘You were looking for me,’ I said when he answered. ‘I’m at St Loman’s, so I had the phone turned off.’

‘Why are you at the hospital? Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine, my love.’ I told him about the accidental spill and what I’d found in the coffin.

‘Yuck. But did you have to put yourself at risk like that? I’ll bet not many of your colleagues would consider scraping up liquefied human tissue as part and parcel of archaeology.’

‘I know lots who would. It’s not all roses in your business either, is it? How many gardeners do you know who would turn up their noses at a supply of horse manure if it landed on their doorsteps?’

Finian sighed audibly. ‘Clearly, I’m not going to win this one. Now, can I tell you the news?’

‘Yes, of course. I should have asked you straight away.’

‘It’s even more gruesome than your experience, if that’s possible. While my father was out for a walk a couple of hours ago, he came across a woman’s body in the stream.’

‘Oh, my God – how awful! Poor woman. And what a terrible thing for Arthur. How is he?’

‘Well, you know the old man. Not much fazes him. I think I’m more put out about it. The fact that it was found on our property, too.’

‘Where was it?’

‘Near the footbridge. It had probably floated downstream and got caught at the bend there.’

‘Any idea who she is?’

‘No. According to the Gardaí, there are no reports of any missing persons in the area. But it’s early days. In fact, they’ve only just confirmed that it was actually a woman’s body.’

‘Why? Was she badly decomposed?’

‘Hmm…that’s only part of the problem. But you’ll be able to find out why they were unsure. Your pal Malcolm Sherry is on the way to do a post-mortem.’

State pathologist Malcolm Sherry wasn’t exactly my ‘pal’, but we were acquainted. I reckoned that Finian was just hoping to keep his father in the loop, since he was the one who had found the body. Even so, it was unlikely Malcolm would share much information with me – nor did I particularly want it.

‘Well and good, if I bump into him. I’ll see you later, Finian.’

‘There are lots of visitors here today, but no VIPs expected tonight, thank God. Drinks at seven suit you?’

‘Can’t wait. Dining al fresco again, are we?’ I laughed. Finian and I had eaten out in the garden for the past three evenings, with all the food prepared by him.

‘I’m spoiling you. One of these days you’ll have to cook something.’

‘When the weather changes. I promise.’

‘When hell freezes over, more likely.’

I had several reasons now to telephone Dominic Usher. ‘Sorry if I held you up,’ I said when he answered with his pedantic, each-syllable-emphasised version of his name. ‘First of all, I’m not going to make it there before lunchtime. So can we arrange the handover for, say, three o’clock?’

No response. Come on, Dom-in-ic, don’t make it difficult.

‘All right. I’ll still be here,’ he said in a slightly pained tone.

‘Second, there’s been a spill at the site. We found a lead coffin from which some fluid escaped. One of my guys got splashed, but most of it soaked into the ground. We’re putting up signs and crash barriers. Samples are being sent to the Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases, and the digger – his name is Terry Johnston – is being checked out at St Loman’s. I’d suggest placing the immediate area around the spill off limits until the results come back.’

Usher grunted under the impact of an unexpected problem.

I drove back to the cemetery with my head full of speculation about the lead coffins. The Maudlins, as it was commonly called, had originally been a burial ground for lepers. The Magdalene hospital, or lazar house, associated with it was situated on the outskirts of the town – standard practice in the Middle Ages. We had proven beyond doubt during the excavation that lepers, though few in number, had indeed been buried in the graveyard – the way in which the disease eats away bone is unmistakeable. But we had also shown that in the mid-fourteenth century the place had been used as a plague-pit, the corpses buried there in the space of a year by far outnumbering the lepers laid to rest in the previous hundred.

But neither leprosy nor plague victims had been buried in coffins of any kind, let alone expensive lead ones. So who were the inhabitants of these caskets? When had they been interred in the vault, and why?

I could rule out the period in which most of the lepers had died. Lead-lined coffins only started coming into use among the wealthy in Ireland in the mid-to-late 1300s, a time when leprosy seemed to have been extinguished by the plague – a side effect of little consolation to the people of the time. But coffins made of lead need to be ordered, constructed and delivered; a suitable location has to be set aside to accommodate them – not the kind of activity that took place when the Black Death was raging. In Castleboyne in 1348, the lucky ones got wrapped in a sheet.

Burial in a church, near the high altar or elsewhere, was the preserve of the pious and the powerful. It was called burial ad sanctos – meaning near whatever saints’ or martyrs’ relics the church had been able to acquire. But the chapel of the lazar house was the least prestigious among the many places of worship in medieval Castleboyne. And yet two people – possibly a man and wife, judging by the relative sizes of the containers – had contrived to be buried in lead-lined coffins in a tiny vault there. It smacked of delusions of grandeur.

Chapter Four

When I arrived at the Maudlins I saw that, while crash barriers had been put in a circle around the area of the spill and the collapsed vault, there were still no warning signs visible. But I was more concerned when I saw that the second coffin was still on the grass where it had been lying when I left. For some reason there was a blue tarpaulin draped over the upper section of it.

Gayle ran across the largely filled-in site to meet me at the gates. ‘We’re still waiting…on the signs,’ she gulped.

‘Hey – take it easy. There’s only so much you can do.’ I gave her time to catch her breath. ‘But why have you left the other coffin there?’ I pointed up to the slope.

‘Like I said when I rang you this morning. You have to see for yourself.’

I was finding all this intrigue irritating. ‘Can’t you just tell me what it is I have to see?’

‘It’s hard to describe,’ she replied, as we headed towards the coffin.

‘We’re not wearing any protective gear,’ I said.

Gayle shook her head. ‘There’s no need. That’s what I was trying to explain when the accident happened. Trust me.’ She skipped ahead and reached the coffin before me. ‘Voilà!’ she exclaimed, whisking the tarp away like a magician.

The lid had been rolled back just enough to reveal a woman’s face, pale but rosy-cheeked. Her sky-blue eyes were wide open and staring at me. I knew that the poison in lead could arrest decay in corpses, but this one seemed to have come back to life.

And then I realised I was looking at a painted statue.

I shook my head in disbelief.

‘I know,’ said Gayle. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

I knelt down to examine the sculpture.

A gilt foliated crown and the refined flesh-tones of the oval face indicated nobility, a queen or a saint – in the context of where we’d found the statue, more than likely a religious figure. There was no veil under the crown, and her hair was straw-coloured. Her red lips were demurely closed but with a faint hint of a smile. Apart from a fine web of craquelure – hairline cracks in the varnish due to age – there was no flaking or chipping of the painted surface. Without touching the statue, I knew it was made of wood.

‘A polychrome wooden carving, no less,’ I announced, standing up. ‘And it seems to be in excellent condition. Almost life-size, too, looks like.’

‘A rare find, right?’ said Gayle proudly.

‘Sure is.’

‘Period?’

‘I couldn’t say until we get a better look at her.’

‘Obviously, being wood, it can be scientifically dated.’

‘In time, perhaps. But at this stage there can be no question of taking any kind of sample. Anyway, we’ll have much more fun estimating its age ourselves, don’t you think?’

‘You mean you will. Medieval wooden carvings aren’t my strong point.’

While they aren’t my speciality either, I studied the archaeology of art and architecture for my MA, and my PhD thesis was on the use of broken statuary as rubble-fill in buildings after the dissolution of the monasteries. You can imagine how I wow people at dinner parties with that one.

‘For a start, let’s get it out of the sun.’ But how to move it? ‘In fact, let’s remove it from the coffin entirely – it’s no longer airtight, nor moisture- and insect-proof, which I assume were factors in its preservation. We’ll have to try and replicate the environment it was in as best we can, for now.’

‘Cool, dark and dry, I imagine.’

‘Yes, that sounds right. We’ll take photographs as we go along, too. I assume you’ve taken some already.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Gayle took her digital camera out of a roomy back pocket in her jeans.

I walked around the coffin and looked at how it was made. It was basically a rectangular box, the sides set into a base that was folded up like pastry and soldered to the side panels. And the lid had been made in the same way. ‘How did you open the lid, by the way?’

‘The solder’s turned brittle. The top got a whack when the vault fell down, and some of the solder around it just kind of crumbled, so we were able to pull the lid this far up without much difficulty. I have to say I got a start when I saw what was underneath.’

I wasn’t sure where we were going to examine the statue once we freed it. The Portakabin we used to assemble and clean our skeletal finds – the ‘incident room’, as we called it – would be far too hot and bright; and anyway, as I looked around the site, I could see it had been dismantled.

‘I mean, what’s it doing in the graveyard in the first place? And in a coffin?’ Gayle was still excited and it made her voice shrill.

‘Beats me,’ I said. It also torpedoed my husband-and-wife scenario. ‘The question is, where can we put it for safe-keeping?’

‘The Heritage Centre?’

I thought about it for a few seconds. We had mounted a small exhibition in the Castleboyne Library and Heritage Centre earlier in the month. ‘Heritage Centre’ was something of a misnomer – it was really just one large room used for art exhibitions, talks and book launches. The Town Council was unlikely to object to providing the room for the temporary storage of the statue. It had, after all, been found on their property. Or had it? Not that it really mattered. The artefact was the property of the State, which would exercise its ownership through the National Museum.

‘Good suggestion,’ I said. ‘You’ll need a couple of strong guys to peel back the lid and get it out – assuming it’s entire. Protective clothing to be worn, including masks and heavy-duty gloves. Put plenty of bubble wrap around it for insulation and ask Peggy to organise transport to the Centre. I’ll sort that out with Dominic Usher in the meantime.’

Walking back to the car, I found myself dealing with an odd mix of excitement and worry. The find could be of great significance, but there was something extremely odd about its presence in a plague graveyard. The other interment was definitely a human body – why was the carving buried beside it?

I sat in the car and pondered it for a while, but to no avail. There were no precedents to go on. I decided to phone Finian. He had been a history teacher and was also a keen folklorist. He might have an angle.

‘I’m sure you immediately thought of Our Lady of Castleboyne,’ was his opening comment.

I hadn’t. But I knew what he was referring to: a miracle-working image of the Virgin that had been famous in the Middle Ages. There was a stained-glass window depicting it in St Patrick’s Catholic Church, where I sang in the choir.

‘But it was destroyed at the time of the Reformation, wasn’t it?’

‘According to the official reports. There’s also a story that it was hidden for another hundred years before being burned as firewood by Cromwellian troops stationed in the town.’

‘So, either way, this couldn’t be Our Lady of Castleboyne. In fact, I don’t know yet whether it’s even an image of the Virgin.’

‘Maybe it’s Lady Death.’

The fine hairs on the back of my neck tingled. Lady Death and the Maudlins graveyard: a ghost story that had come up in the research we carried out before the dig. I had paid little attention to it at the time. ‘Remind me of the details.’

‘Can we talk about it later, love? I’m up to my neck here right now.’ It was the start of the high season at Brookfield Garden.

‘Sure. And I’ll have had a proper look at the statue by then.’

Dominic Usher was leaning halfway out of the window of his second-floor office when I came in.

I sat in a chair in front of his desk and coughed politely. Usher folded himself back in and placed an indoor watering can on the floor.

‘Ah, Illaun. Just giving the flowers a good drink before the weekend.’ I couldn’t see the window-box outside, but the sweet scent of wallflowers came floating in.

Usher was in his early forties, with black hair that had receded in that unfortunate way that leaves behind a patchy, isolated tussock at the top of the forehead; his eyebrows, by contrast, were dense thickets. Another anomaly was that, while his lips were loose and pendulous, he hardly ever used them as an aid to speech, preferring to process a steady stream of words through them, as though he had a printer hidden in his mouth.

He sat down behind his desk and glanced back at the window. ‘You don’t see them as much nowadays. Wallflowers, I mean. I don’t suppose you’d find them at Brookfield Garden?’

The remark was evidence of a small-town mentality. The implication was that Finian was probably ‘getting above himself’ now that he had an international reputation.

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. The best way to deal with such jibes was to ignore them. ‘What have you done about the spillage?’

‘Yes, that spillage,’ he said with a certain amount of irritation. ‘I had to consult the Town Engineer and the Health Service. Fortunately, as it’s a good distance from any residential area and there’s no risk of further leakage, they don’t think there’s much to worry about.’

‘They’re probably right. But it might be wise to put someone on security duty there overnight.’

Usher looked at the clock on the wall behind me. ‘The best I can do at this stage is list it for our mobile security officer to check on his rounds. And I’ll alert the Gardaí to keep an eye out as well.’

‘We found something else in the vault. A wooden statue. It had been placed in a lead coffin.’

I knew by the way Usher looked at me that he was wondering if he should be worried about this further development.

‘I haven’t had a good look at the artefact yet, so I can’t tell you much about it,’ I continued. ‘I’ve arranged to have it taken to the Heritage Centre for safe-keeping, if that’s all right with you.’

Usher frowned. ‘I…I suppose so.’

‘The National Museum will take ownership of it, of course. But, as I haven’t notified them yet, that won’t happen until after the weekend. In the meantime, I think I should be the only one with a key to the Centre.’

‘It’s usually locked when there’s nothing on, even when the library is open.’

‘I know. But I’ll need to go in and out freely. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to place responsibility for its safety on the library staff.’

‘All right. I’ll let them know.’ He looked at the clock again. ‘We’d best get this signing off over with.’ He had the documents on his desk. My signature on one would release the excavated land for development by the Town Council. His signature on the other would confirm that the Council was now taking the site in charge.

‘There you go, Dominic. You can build your roundabout now,’ I said, sliding the release form over to him.

He picked it up, sat back and tapped it with his middle finger. Some point was about to be made. ‘Isn’t it great for you people, all the same?’ he said.

‘What do you mean, “you people”?’

‘I mean archaeologists. On the one hand you complain about development. On the other you milk it for all it’s worth.’

Usher might have had a chip on his shoulder about people he perceived to be getting above their station, but he wasn’t usually so downright rude. I couldn’t let it pass, and I was about to give him a sharp answer when the phone on his desk rang. As he lifted it to speak, he shifted aside a newspaper that was obscuring a diary he wanted to consult. I recognised the front page of the tabloid, Ireland Today, and realised it was about two weeks old. Now I knew what had provoked the Town Manager.

Following a public talk on the excavation I’d given in the Heritage Centre, a journalist with Ireland Today had written a piece saying that I had criticised ‘shortsighted’ Town Council officials for destroying the graveyard to make way for a roundabout, and that I was opposed to its plans to develop Castleboyne.

Usher put the phone down and made an entry in his diary.

‘Next time you want to take a swipe at me, Dominic,’ I said, ‘maybe you should check your facts first.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You just made a remark that I know damn well is based on a supposed quote from me in that paper. In an article by Darren Byrne.’

‘Are you denying you said it?’

‘Someone asked me how much more of Castleboyne I’d like to excavate. I said that excavation was a form of scientific destruction and that it wasn’t the only option open to archaeologists and developers. I added that I wouldn’t like to see Castleboyne dug up from end to end, even by archaeologists, if it meant the place was to be turned into yet another shopping mall. I didn’t object to the destruction of the graveyard, nor did I criticise any officials or use the term “shortsighted”. Byrne put that spin on it to make mischief. And it looks like he succeeded.’

‘It still sounds like you’re quite happy to bite the hand that feeds you.’

‘Sure, but I try not to draw blood. Because yes, I’m well aware that so-called “development” provides me with a living. But I don’t think that should prevent me speaking out against the erosion of the best features of my home town – the ones that gave it its unique character. I’m not against change per se – archaeologists, of all people, know that humans have always been altering the landscape. But what I do resent are the invitations on the auctioneers’ billboards to come and live in the historic town of Castleboyne with its medieval heritage – which is the very thing their housing developments are destroying. And with your Council’s approval.’

‘You have no idea what kind of pressure we’re under. We do our best, but it’s like pushing back the tide.’ Usher’s face darkened. ‘And some of these people will stop at nothing to get their way.’

Chapter Five

When I walked into the exhibition area, the statue was standing, facing me, on a low stage that was used for occasional readings and recitals. Gayle and one of the excavation team – Brian Morley, a lanky postgraduate student wearing rimless glasses and a crumpled green bucket hat – were both gazing up at the carving. It was painted and gilded, and I could see immediately that it was of considerable artistic merit. It was also unmistakeably a depiction of the Virgin and Child.

Mary’s mantle – to my surprise – was bright red, her belted gown entirely gold; the Infant wore a simple white tunic. Balancing the vibrant colours of the clothing were the subtle and lifelike skin tones, ranging from the healthy pink of the child’s face to the pale but rose-flushed complexion of the woman. Even more striking was her expression: I felt that her blue eyes were looking intently at me, while a smile seemed to be playing about her red lips. It was a little unsettling – as if we were both observing each other.

The statue, not including a circular plinth on which it rested, was about my height. She was standing in a swaying posture, her weight on her left leg, her right knee bent and making an impression through the material of her gown. This feminine pose was emphasised by the sweeping folds of her clothing and by the way her girdle, hanging down almost to the ground, followed the curving line of the drapery. One reason for the way she was standing was that she had the Infant Jesus – almost toddler-sized and also yellow-haired – propped on her left hip, with her left arm under his bottom as he suckled with one hand resting on her shoulder and the other cupped around the outside of her breast, his head inclined away from the viewer, his eyes fixed on his mother’s face. With the fingers of her right hand she was holding open the front of her gown to free her breast. The arch of the Infant’s back completed the convex curve of the carving on that side, and the tilt of his mother’s head counterbalanced it, forming the top of what was esssentially an S-shape, with a short top and an elongated lower section.

‘Aren’t the colours amazing?’ said Gayle to Brian as I came up behind them. She stood back a little and took a photograph. They were unaware that I was in the room.

‘A bit much for my taste,’ he replied. He took off his glasses and polished them with the end of his T-shirt, as though the colours were still swirling around in them.

A downlight in the ceiling above the statue had turned Mary’s gilded crown into a dazzling halo around her head. With the two observers looking up at her, it looked incongruously like a moment from a surreal fashion show, one with echoes of a scene from a Fellini film, the title of which I couldn’t remember just then.

‘Oh, no, it’s beautiful,’ said Gayle.

‘I agree with Gayle,’ I said.

‘Oh, hi, Illaun. We’ve only just brought it in,’ said Gayle.

‘We had to ask the driver to give us a hand,’ added Brian, putting his glasses back on. ‘It’s heavier than you’d think.’

I stepped up on the stage and walked around the sculpture. The back of it was fully carved, the mantle falling in folds, her unveiled hair with gilt highlights gathered into two thick plaits that hung down to below her waist, where both were extended by black-and-gold-patterned ribbons dangling almost to the hem of the mantle. Realistic strands of hair were visible in the interwoven braids – an effect achieved by scoring the layer of gesso in which the statue was coated before being painted.

Up close, the colours of her clothing were breathtaking, undimmed by a patina of any kind. The vivid, glossy red of the mantle was like nail varnish that had just been applied and might still be wet to the touch; the contrasts of light and shadow in the folds of her gilded gown made it look as if it were made of a mysterious metallic fabric. I began to notice smaller details: rows of small buttons on the undersides of her sleeves; red rosettes edged in black decorating her belt and girdle. There was so much to be taken in, but I would have to leave it for another time.

‘Too gaudy for you, Brian, eh?’ I said, stepping down to join the other two in front of the stage.

‘I’d prefer it plain. Let the material it’s made from speak for itself.’

‘And that’s your personal view?’

‘Sure.’

‘You won’t be insulted if I tell you that it’s been the standard view of sculpture for the past few hundred years.’

He shrugged. ‘Makes no difference. I still know what I like.’

‘Do you prefer black-and-white movies to technicolour ones?’

‘Er…no. But I don’t see the connection.’

‘Well, maybe it’s not the best comparison, but just imagine a world where films like Gone with the Windor Finding Nemo went out of favour for the very reason that they were made in colour. It wouldn’t make much sense, would it? After all, so much of the appeal of films like that is based on how they look, how colour is used to achieve a certain effect.’ I nodded towards the statue. ‘Polychrome carvings were the technicolour art form of their day. Do you get my point?’

‘Sort of. But what’s the big deal about painting a statue?’

‘Aha. You’re still thinking in terms of the statue having an existence prior to being painted, as though that was just a way of taking the bare look off it. But that’s not how the artisans of the time would have thought of it at all.’

Brian shrugged his shoulders. He still wasn’t greatly impressed.

‘So what you’re saying is that the painting was as important as the carving,’ said Gayle.

‘More so, even. But painting was only part of the process. This was an art form that’s virtually unknown today. You’d start with a piece of timber from which the heartwood had been removed to prevent warping or cracking as it dried out. Then you’d cover the wood in glue and dress it in a fabric like linen, to prevent cracking of the surface decoration. Next, you’d coat the fabric in layers of a plaster called gesso – you might score it, to create the illusion of a textile or, in this case, strands of her hair and that embroidered placket at the