only sound was the maundering of the sea which wafted softly across the dunes.
Gently turned to the gaping Nockolds:
‘You’re no stranger in these parts! Take a look at that clump of grass there — how long have you noticed it growing like that?’
But Nockolds had never noticed it, and he didn’t notice it now. To him it was just another clump, like a hundred million others.
‘Right — start digging underneath it.’
They shed their jackets with little enthusiasm. The heat coming out of that hollow had to be experienced to be believed. Gently, hands in pockets, stood over them in a slave-driving attitude. He could see, what he might have guessed, that digging out a marram clump was hell.
‘How far do you want to go down, sir?’
They were grunting at every spadeful and Nockolds, in a thick twill shirt, was already showing signs of distress. Mears was being braver about it: he had a sense of duty to support him. In putting the question to Gently he strove to keep a neutral tone.
‘Just keep going until I tell you.’
They fell to again with savage purpose. The marram clump was churned and scattered, its fibrous roots thrown up to the sun. Beneath it the sand was moist and darker, it clung to the spade and made neater digging; but it was firm and it was settled, it hadn’t been disturbed for years. Gently’s face grew steadily longer as he watched each successive spadeful.
‘Someone’s been here before, sir.’
Mears was the first to notice the signs: he leaned on his spade, the sweat pouring down him miserably.
‘There aren’t any layers, sir, like there is where it’s natural. The sand’s all mixed together… there’s been a hole here before.’
‘Before — but how long?’
Mears scratched his head expressively.
‘Ten years or fifty, you can’t say more than that.’ But now they worked with more intentness — it wasn’t a mare’s nest, after all. Someone had been that way ahead of them, however far ahead it had been. With a certain obstinate eagerness they delved on under the caning sun.
‘What’s that you’ve got your foot on?’
At a depth of five feet they found it. By then the heaps of sand had risen higher than their heads. The sand had started to come out grey, it had been grey for the last five minutes. Nockolds, stepping back for a stretch, had set his boot on something that crunched…
‘Bones!’
He shifted his footing in a hurry. Mears, too, shuffled aside with alacrity. Gently came skidding down the wall of the hollow, his sandals burying in chill, soft sand.
‘You come out — leave Mears to finish it.’
‘Blast, but I’d never have thought…’
‘Come on out! You’ve done your job.’
Shaking a little, the poacher climbed out of the excavation. During the rest of the proceedings he sat, looking sick, on one of the heaps. Gently, getting down on his knees, directed Mears’s operations. In the end they were both of them scooping away in the hole.
‘A bit small for a man is it?’
The skeleton lay strictly oriented. The hands, with the fingers entwined, had been placed correctly across the breast. A yellowish staining had occurred due to contact with the sand. There remained some traces of shoes, but the clothes had rotted away.
‘More like a woman… a boy, at least.’
In life, the skeleton’s owner had probably measured around five feet seven.
CHAPTER TEN
If it was any consolation to Gently, he had lost the reporters’ attention. To a man they had attached themselves to Dyson and his colleagues. Here was bigger and better news — a second body found at Hiverton: already one could see the headlines staring brashly from the morning editions. One could guess, too, the speculations. If two bodies, then why not three? Had they come to the end of it yet, or were there grim finds still to be made? THE VILLAGE OF DEATH — A REIGN OF TERROR! — it was working up to that. A little benevolence by the god of scribblers, and a whole clutch of bodies might invigorate the ‘story’.
Probably a dozen newshawks now swarmed in the little village. Dyson had brought in extra men to try to cope with the situation. Superintendent Stock had driven over in his highly polished Humber; he had conferred with Gently over lunch, but in effect there had been only one question:
‘Do you think there’s some connection?’
If only there’d been a convincing answer! And to his second query, ‘How did you find it?’, Gently had had nothing to say that wasn’t evasive. Esau he wanted entirely on his own — there was nothing to be gained from throwing him to the county police. The Sea-King would know nothing, say nothing, admit nothing. His assistance had been shadowy and he would certainly disclaim it.
So the super had gone away feeling dissatisfied with Gently; the fellow was holding out on him, it was plainer than a pikestaff. Dyson, too, had seemed resentful, though he was still reproachfully co-operative. During lunch he had twice phoned in to provide the latest progress reports.
‘It’s a woman, we’re sure of that, though we don’t know how she died. The bones seem to be intact and there aren’t any injuries to the skull. I’ve got a man taking samples of sand to see what we can recover… she’s been dead above twenty-five years: Simpson won’t go any closer than that.’
‘Has he any idea of her age?’
‘Between twenty-five and thirty-five. She was five seven and a half and her hair was darkish and worn short. She’d had some dental treatment, but we’ll be lucky to do anything with that… for the rest, we’re checking back on the H.Q. files of missing persons.’
The second call gave the result of this. It was altogether negative. On a check that went back to nineteen- twenty they had discovered nobody who fitted the facts.
‘We’re getting on to Norchester, Starmouth, and Lynton. If they can’t help us we’ll try Lewiston and Southshire.’
‘Have you been in touch with Records?’
‘Yes, we’re sending them the dental data. I suppose you’ve got nothing to add which might shed a little light?’
Gently’s mood ever since the discovery had been one of curious suspension. It seemed to have paralysed his interest in everything that had gone before. The change defied his present analysis. It presented itself in the form of an analogy. It was as though, until now, he had been walking in a certain landscape; and that suddenly the light had altered, and everything had altered with it. Altered, but was still the same! There lay the enigma that baulked his comprehension. The objects composing the landscape were each still in their place, but now, in this new light, they had secretly varied their significance.
And as suddenly he felt cut off by this novel shift of vision. He had moved into a different world from the one inhabited by Dyson and the lest. They were speaking a different tongue, there was a frontier drawn between them: he had strayed across into the picture and was as foreign as the rest of the components.
After the super had gone he phoned the Central Office, having to wait some minutes to get hold of Pagram. His associate sounded bored and he was drinking something while he talked.
‘Take advice from me, old man… the horse died years ago at this end. We’ve been flogging him like mad and he hasn’t twitched a muscle. I think you can take it for granted that Campion was outside Mixer’s rackets.’
‘Have you got on to any of her ex’s?’
‘Yes, we’ve managed to contact two. One of them is an architect by the name of Lacey. The other keeps a junk shop at the right end of Fulham Road. Podmore, he’s called, but no connection with the late chummy. Both of
