Arcy-sur-Cure, where Neanderthal bones were found alongside tools and cultural signifiers and personal ornaments usually associated with their successors. That suggested trade and interaction between the two groups. The second evidence was genetic, from the FOXP2 gene, which should have produced far more mutations had it come from a common ancestor as distant as four hundred thousand years ago. Finally there was archaeological evidence from the Lagar Velho cave in Portugal, which contained the bones of a four-year-old child, the first complete Paleolithic skeleton ever unearthed in Iberia. Horst cited leading scientists who judged that the child’s anatomy could only have resulted from a mixed ancestry of Neanderthal and early modern human.
“But more evidence is required to turn this hypothesis into something closer to historical fact,” Horst said. “We may now have further important evidence of this kind from St. Denis.” Horst clicked his remote to display a photograph of the pit that Bruno recognized but this time with the covering flat stone removed from the three bodies. Suddenly revealed, the two adult skeletons lay side by side, each body bent in almost fetal position. They were tucked into one another like three spoons, Bruno thought. The largest adult, presumably the father, lay to the right, and then his mate and then the bones of the child.
“Preliminary anatomical studies,” Horst said, raising his voice above the gasps that came from the audience, “and now confirmed by leading scientists here in France, in Germany and in the United States, suggest that St. Denis may have preserved for us through the millennia something extraordinary. We may have here the first modern family, a Neanderthal male, his Cro-Magnon mate and their child.”
His words were drowned out by bursts of applause and cheers from the back of the hall, where Horst’s students gathered. As the implications of Horst’s remarks began to sink in, Bruno noticed Clothilde, seated to the side of the stage, rise to her feet and join the applause. Bruno rose from his chair, and with profound thoughts of the origins of mankind mixing with prosaic assessments of the impact on the local tourist trade, he began to clap his hands. Thunderous applause came from Jan, a Dane who had settled nearby and become the local blacksmith, his big hands and massive shoulders producing a level of volume that drove everyone else to their feet. Bruno felt rather than saw Pamela and Fabiola rise beside him, and then it seemed everyone in the hall was standing to applaud, their eyes shining and fixed on Horst who stood now silent before them, his gaze fixed on some distant place or time. The entire hall felt energized, as if all present were aware that they were sharing a historic moment.
“And to think I nearly didn’t come this evening,” Pamela was saying as the applause died away and people began to sit down again. “What a remarkable discovery.”
“It makes you wonder what else is lying out there under the earth, waiting to be found,” Bruno replied, musing on the irony of the new corpse at this ancient site. It made for a crowded grave.
“Spoken like a true policeman,” said Pamela, amusement in her voice.
“Perhaps, but I was thinking more of the price we might pay for ignorance if some things are never found. I was trying to remember what I was taught in school about the Neanderthals, savage brutes, speaking in grunts like apes. Did you have lessons like that?”
“I think we all did. But I also remember seeing a photo of a flint tool that was shaped like a perfect leaf in some textbook, and how it struck me as beautiful. I made a drawing of it and kept it in my purse for years. I think I still have it somewhere. For a while, I wanted to be an archaeologist, and I have that same feeling again now.”
She glanced at him, and their eyes met. Bruno felt a surge of affection for her, seeing suddenly in her enthusiasm the little girl who found beauty in a flint that had been shaped and made many millennia ago. He reached down and squeezed her hand as Horst spoke again.
“Let me end with a warning. These are preliminary and hesitant conclusions, or rather suggestions,” Horst said. “There is more research to be done, and however well we think we understand the differences in bone structure, we can still be mistaken in our identifications. And like all scientists, I am human and can be carried away by emotion, by the yearning to see something that may not truly be there. So I leave you with this image of a family, a long-dead man and woman and their child. We do not know how they died, or who buried them, or who made the ornaments of shells that we think we have found around the woman’s neck. We know only that at one time they lived, that perhaps they loved, and that some other humans cared enough about them to bury this family with respect and ritual. And that, if nothing else, connects us to them across the generations as human beings. I know that I speak for all my colleagues on this dig when I say that we all felt respect for these people, along with a deep gratitude for what they can tell us from this grave they have shared for so long.”
He bowed and walked off to the side of stage, where Clothilde embraced him before he was swallowed in a knot of journalists and students and flashes of cameras. Bruno could see Teddy’s head towering above the rest of the admirers. Jan, one of Horst’s closest friends, used his great strength to keep some space for him in the throng. Having seen Jan take on and defeat all comers at arm wrestling in the annual St. Denis fair, to raise money for the local infants’ school where his wife used to teach, Bruno was glad to be out of his reach. As the hall lights came back up, people began to rise from their seats and shuffle along their rows, some animated and talking among themselves about the lecture, others deep in private thought. From the far side of the hall his hunting partner Stephane, his head bowed as he listened to his daughter Dominique chattering into his ear, waved a salute. Bruno waved back, surprised to see the big farmer at such an event. Dominique must have brought him along, proud to show off the fruits of her time at the dig.
In the front row, the mayor, Gerard Mangin, was beaming in delight as he chatted with his counterpart from Les Eyzies, home to the museum. Bruno could imagine the mental calculations that the mayor would be making about tourism and tax revenues, the need for a parking lot and visitors’ center and the prospect of new jobs. Bruno had already checked the cadastre, the map that showed every property in the commune of St. Denis, and knew that the site of the dig was part of an abandoned farm on which no taxes had been paid for years, which meant that ownership had reverted to the commune.
“That’s the place where Bruno took me today,” he heard Annette telling Pamela and the baron. “The place where the much-newer body was found.” She turned to Bruno. “I wish you’d told me. We could at least have peeked in and had an advance look at the skeletons.”
“I had to trek out there to see the body and Bruno didn’t tell me either,” said Fabiola.
“I didn’t know myself,” Bruno protested. “Horst and Clothilde were very cagey about it when I looked into the pit this morning, and all I could see were bones. They dropped some hints that it was a big discovery, but that was all. I think they wanted to make an impact with the lecture.”
“They certainly achieved that,” said the baron. “You saw the TV camera?” He looked at his watch. “But it’s time for dinner. Bruno, you were making some arrangements?”
“I booked us a table at the Moulin,” Bruno said. “We have to stay in Les Eyzies because Horst and Clothilde will be joining us for coffee, after they go off for a celebration pizza with their students. And Horst asked us to save an extra seat for his friend Jan, that Danish guy who’s the blacksmith in St. Chamassy.”
“He’s sweet,” said Pamela, turning to Fabiola as they all waited in the crowd at the exit. “He made those candlesticks you admired, the ones in the dining room.”
“I’m so glad I came,” he heard Annette telling the others as they emerged into the expanse of the entrance hall with its timelines on the wall of the stages of human development from six hundred thousand years ago to the present.
“I wonder if Horst takes any volunteers on his digs,” Pamela said. “I’d love to be more involved in this, but I suppose he only wants archaeology students who have some training.”
“Well, you can ask Horst when he turns up after his pizza. You’ll never find him in a better mood.”
“I’m in a good mood too,” she said, turning her head to kiss his cheek and then nestling into his shoulder, their steps keeping time. “So I hope we don’t stay too long here tonight. I want to get you home.”
“It must be spring,” said Bruno, smiling.
“Play your cards right and you’ll think it’s Christmas,” she whispered, and then he felt her lips brush tantalizingly against his.
7
As the chestnut woods began to thin and the early morning sun suddenly appeared over the far slope, Pamela
