There’s nothing but warmth in the way he says it – he’s not annoyed or anything, not taking offence.

  ‘Fergus Strachan,’ he says. ‘Flat 3/1.’

  It’s their local. Of course. He lives in her tenement – the upstairs flat. She’s only been here a few weeks and she’s not one for getting to know the neighbours. What’s the point, when every few months she moves on?

  ‘Georgie,’ says Georgie.

  ‘Aye.’ His smile expands into a laugh though she’s not sure what’s funny – he just seems to have cheerfulness bursting out of him.

  She wipes her hands down her trousers once she’s finished the large order and the till has clicked back in place. He’s the only one left standing at the bar now.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Oh no, you’re okay – I’ve got a drink already. I was just…sorry, just thought I’d say hello. I recognised you, see…’

  ‘I guess I stand out.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  But he’s taken it differently to how she meant it; she can see that from the admiration in his eyes. He’s turned her accusation into a compliment.

  ‘Well, you know who I am now, but,’ he says.

  ‘But what?’

  His laugh again – she smiles this time, can’t really help it.

  ‘If you ever need a pint of milk.’

  The pub, their local, she’s on till 3 a.m. at the weekends – late licence, they call it – and midnight during the weeks and he starts popping in often, Fergus Strachan from flat 3/1. Or maybe he always did. People seem to recognise him when he walks in; there’s always someone offering him a pint. He’s one of those people who naturally has friends everywhere he goes and so Georgie doesn’t know why she thinks he’s coming in to see her in particular, but she does. She doesn’t do a thing to encourage him – she doesn’t even want to make friends – and he never makes a move, never once asks her out or anything like that, but there’s the way he beams at her every time he sees her, like seeing her is just about the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

  Fergus Strachan from flat 3/1. He never questions the fact that she wants to be left alone, most of the time – she appreciates that. If they meet on the stairs as she’s on her way out and she isn’t up for talking he seems to sense it, offers a nod and a smile and leaves her in peace when she doesn’t want to talk. Sometimes he’s out there cleaning the stairs for the whole tenement, every week he does it, and the fact that it’s always him and no one else starts to bother her. Is he too kind, that man, too willing to do the jobs no one else will do? Is there something innocent about him that’s verging on the naive? But here he is in the pub again, surrounded by friends and beaming at her and she starts to smile back, because it’s infectious, his way of being in the world.

  She hears the clattering of the mop in the bucket and knows he’s doing it again, washing the stairs on Sunday with no one out there helping him.

  But she can do something about that.

  He looks up, startled, as she opens the door.

  ‘I thought you could do with a hand,’ she says, almost apologetically.

  His smile, his big face, that ginger hair, more auburn in this light.

  ‘I’ve only got the one mop,’ he says.

  ‘Pass it to me then.’

  So he does, and she starts on the next step down from where he’d finished.

  ‘You can go, if you like,’ she says, conscious of him watching her. ‘I’ll just get this finished and—’

  ‘I was enjoying the company,’ he says. ‘I miss a bit of company, on Sundays.’

  They’re looking at each other now, across the wet step between them, and Georgie thinks that maybe he is someone she might be able to talk to. That maybe she might be able to tell him – not now, but one day – about what happened to her and to her brother but for now she doesn’t feel like talking, not to anyone. Though she does understand what he means about company on a Sunday.

  ‘Happy to be of use,’ she says.

  ‘Aye, me too,’ he says, ‘me too.’

  And when she gets to the first-floor landing, he takes another turn with the mop.

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF HOPE, A LITTLE LATER ON

  Fergus’s eyes fall on the coastline, searching out towards the horizon. Behind him, the silence is heavy with anticipation as the archaeologists – the professionals – carefully excavate the remains within the motte.

  He’d always wanted to live by the sea. That’s one of the reasons he and Georgie moved here – the peace, the quiet, the sea, the sky. When they’d met in Glasgow, it felt like they both wanted exactly the same kind of life. Trying to reach her these days is like trying to cross a stream on a narrow tree branch; he can’t balance the right way. Did she even like the flowers? When was the last time they spoke in person – that night, when she stroked his hair? It feels too distant and makes his stomach churn. Looking up, he sees another one of those huge birds overhead. He’s been seeing them since the spring. Maybe they’re sea eagles, that’d be a thing. They’ve not had sea eagles round here for a century or more. Imagine if they were nesting on the coast, starting a family.

  He’d have texted Georgie about it, if he thought there was any chance of a reply. She never seems to reply to his texts these days though so he’s starting to wonder if he should stop sending them. She’s busy, she’s got a lot on her mind. Awful things. He knows that. So maybe, if he goes quiet, she’ll make an effort to get in touch with him when she’s ready. It’s a new approach, at least, and he has to try something.

  He follows the bird’s flight as it circles overhead before vanishing in the distance, and where his eyes come to rest, the sky is meeting the sea in a shimmering haze of green that obscures the horizon. It must be more than a cairn, this building. It was important to people, profoundly so. He can sense it. Maybe it was the ancient centre of the village; maybe it was some kind of spiritual resting place. It’s going to be okay, he tells himself. We’re going to be okay.

  I’m going to be okay.

  ‘It’s a barrow,’ Professor McLeod says. People keep appearing behind him today, without him hearing their approach. ‘It probably grassed over naturally in time, though it might have been briefly used as a motte in the Middle Ages.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Often the structures built on top of mottes were wooden, the tower fortifications and so on, so nothing remains of them now.’

  ‘But what makes you think it’s just a barrow?’

  ‘Well, clearly it’s a mass grave. There’s no other monument. Preliminary interpretation, I’d say the bodies were dumped here, seven of them at least. Then soil and rocks were just heaped on top.’

  ‘No, they…no, this is a sacred place, I’m sure.’

  ‘I seriously doubt it. There are no ceremonial objects—’

  ‘But the cauldron, the figurine?’

  ‘The figurine was found too high to be part of this site. I suspect someone placed it there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone buried it there recently, is my guess. One of your local crackpots.’

  ‘And the cauldron?’

  ‘Could have been useless when they threw it in. It was certainly lying on top of the bodies, rather than buried meaningfully alongside them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’re disappointed,’ she says, and the way she smiles at him makes him feel like a child. ‘Don’t worry, amateurs always like to imagine something rather more glamorous than the reality. That’s why the professionals have to take over.’

  Natalie Prowle is standing right there. She heard it too. Fergus glances over at her, waiting for her to blame him for wasting her time. She doesn’t though. In fact, she looks as angry about what Professor McLeod just said as Fergus is. Then she gives him the slightest of nods and he feels inexplicably better. Professor McLeod wouldn’t even be here if he hadn’t called her; this place should be protected for the villagers, not pulled apart by strangers and removed bone by bone. He wishes he hadn’t even found that iron figurine, or wishes he’d kept it, returned it to the ground.

  Natalie is sitting beside him now, and he feels a warmth from her even though she’s not saying a word.

  ‘I did some research about iron figurines,’ he says eventually. ‘There have been others found around the country, stylistically similar. They’re Celtic. The same age as the bodies they found in the peat at Lindow Moss… The ones that were killed ceremonially. That’s why I thought…’

  ‘You mean the bog bodies?’

  He nods. He’s keeping his voice low, though he couldn’t explain why.

  ‘There have been similar finds across Europe too. Similar figurines buried with bodies, as though they were some kind of sacrifice. Nobody knows what for though.’

  ‘For the good of the community.’

  ‘Well, yes, maybe. Though I wouldn’t have phrased it quite like that myself.’ He gives her a smile. ‘It’s called the threefold death. They can see it on Lindow Man because he was so well preserved. He’d had his throat slit, there was a noose around his neck, and he was drowned.’

  ‘Blood, air and water,’ Natalie says.

  ‘You’ve heard of it?’

  She doesn’t reply to that.

  ‘There was no sign of a struggle, on Lindow Man’s body, and he seemed wealthy and strong. They think he might have been a chief, sacrificing himself when he lost a battle or a harvest or—’

  He’s not sure why he says it, but somehow he feels like he can trust her, and he wants her to know she can trust him too.

  ‘But actually they think the iron figurine must have been buried recently. It was too high in the ground to have been part of this find, with these bodies. Someone…’

  ‘Someone buried it,’ she says quietly.

  ‘As an offering maybe,’ he says. ‘As a way of asking for help?’

  She puts her hand on his arm and his breath catches in his throat.

  ‘Help comes from unexpected places, sometimes,’ she says.

  He swallows; he’s not even sure if his voice is going to work any more. But then Professor MacLeod is striding towards them in the no-nonsense way she has.

  ‘Are you not bored of watching us work yet?’ she says. ‘We’ll be publishing our findings, it’s not like we’ll be keeping any secrets.’

  ‘But surely it could have been a…a sacrifice?’ Fergus says.

  She laughs, head full back, and he cringes. ‘Call it what you like, but every skull has been smashed in, and the teeth shattered, so I’m calling it a mass killing.’

  ‘So…’ The words stick uncomfortably in his throat. ‘They were…they were murdered?’

  Like the child in the field, like Georgie’s case.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ Professor MacLeod says. ‘Or the last.’ At this she cheerfully wipes her hands down her trousers, pulls on her work gloves and strides back over to the bones her students are still painstakingly excavating.

  Fergus looks up to the sky, but there’s no sign of the sea eagle any more.

  The exhaustion hits him deep between the eyes.

  ‘Are you okay, Fergus?’

  Natalie’s face is all concern.

  ‘Yes, yes thank you, I’m fine, I… I just didn’t get enough sleep.’

  ‘Problems at home?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like…’

  God, he misses Georgie. He had tried to reach out to her, before dawn. He’d just got back from night shift and she was there in bed, eyes closed; he’d thought she was sleeping. He was so careful to undress silently, to climb into bed without disturbing her at all, to reach a gentle arm around her. The speed with which she’d pulled away had winded him.

  ‘I’m on night shift, so…’

  ‘I understand,’ Natalie says. Her hand, briefly on his shoulder, then away again. ‘I’m here, if you want to talk about it.’

  ‘That’s kind but honestly, there’s nothing… I’m just…’

  He shakes his head, eyes out to the horizon. The haze has dispersed. The bird is gone.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘It’s okay, Fergus. I’ll still be here when you’re ready.’

  TOO MANY QUESTIONS

  ‘Right,’ Georgie says, standing in Trish and Simon’s office where they’ve gathered, the three of them plus DS Frazer. He came in with Simon so she’s letting him stay – his eyes on their case could be helpful, just so long as she keeps any local eyes away from his. He’s interviewing the villagers, of course, so they’ll know someone is looking into Wyndham Manor, but she has this feeling that if he does find any information it won’t be coming from any of them. ‘Our case: there was a toddler, so far unidentified, buried on the Barr farm forty years ago. We have lots of questions and no answers, and I want that to be the other way around.’

  The whiteboard is covered with pictures, arrows, and very few names. The only one looking in any way central to what’s been going on is Ricky Barr.

  ‘What we know about the skeleton so far: we’ve dated the burial to between 1978 and 1982, due to the type of nappy. It’s a partial skeleton, only about half of the bones have been recovered, but given that it was buried fairly near the surface on a working farm forty years ago, that’s not hugely surprising. We’ve got a partial skull, and some teeth. We’re placing the child’s age at eighteen to twenty-four months.’

  She feels a shudder along her arms, a scratching, tries to shake it away. It was there in the night too, when Fergus reached for her, even as she instinctively recoiled from any touch. He’d woken her up when he got in, clattering around downstairs then clambering into bed beside her when surely, surely, he could sleep down in the spare room if he must take on night shifts even though he knows how busy she is. That would be more use right now than the sickly smell of pollen hanging in the heat of her home, pulling her back—

  ‘Ruling out any connection to Betty Marshall’s claim to have witnessed someone being killed unlawfully,’ Frazer says, filling in her silence.

  ‘Precisely.’ Georgie blinks, swallows. She needs to stop letting her mind fall back there, to the thick smell of pollen in that suffocating humidity, to the dust that caked her knees after she’d fallen outside the chapel. ‘So’ – she clears her throat – ‘as a separate case, we have your witness claiming she saw a girl of seventeen or eighteen being attacked by a group, in the 1960s.’

  ‘Abigail Moss,’ Frazer says.

  The name tugs at Georgie’s mind and she frowns, wipes her hand across her forehead. The weight of this heat, the way it’s clawing at her.

  ‘There’s no record of her in police files,’ she says. ‘But you’re going to continue with your interviews, see if anyone remembers the name, the family – anything.’

  Frazer nods.

  ‘Si?’ Georgie says.

  ‘We also have a dead horse,’ he begins, standing up to take over. ‘Viciously killed, probably also by a group. It would have taken some strength and, since ketamine’s been found in her blood, one of the group at least must have had access to restricted drugs. Now, while I was interviewing Aaron and Lee Prowle I found a glass vial in their caravan – and Cal has just confirmed that the liquid inside was indeed veterinary grade ketamine. They are claiming it was in the caravan when they moved in. Are they lying? Could it be Ricky’s?’

  ‘Or both?’ says Trish. ‘They all blame each other, so no one can be convicted.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘But why kill a horse?’ says Frazer.

  Simon pauses. ‘Well, so far no one has claimed ownership of her. Could be they don’t want the police involved in their business? Could have been some kind of threat or warning perhaps, to the horse’s owner? But then the dead birds placed around the scene give the impression of some kind of ritual… A lot of folk round here see feathers as a way of warding off evil – you’ll have seen them in the windows?’

  Si glances at Frazer, but Georgie keeps her eyes on Trish.

  ‘The blood all belonged to the horse, according to Cal, so we’ve no reason to suspect any human was hurt,’ Georgie says. ‘But I want to know who did this and why. Until we get forensic from the rope, our focus is finding out who owned that horse.’

  Trish clears her throat.

  ‘Now, back to the human remains. I want someone looking into every missing child report in the area in the 1970s and 1980s. I want a list of everyone living on that farm, the full family tree of the Barrs – and find out when they bought it as well, and who from. It was several generations back, and I want a list of exactly who might have had access to that land. How did anyone bury a body there, unseen?’

  ‘Yes,’ Trish says, standing now too. ‘Exactly.’

  Suddenly everyone in the room is standing up.

  ‘Trish, you’re on research – the Barr family tree and any reports of missing children. I want to ID that body.’

  Trish sits back down and immediately starts typing. At least she’s keen. Georgie knew she’d want to be the one on Ricky Barr; she’s probably halfway there already.

  ‘Si, for heaven’s sake, we need to know who owned that horse. And see what Andy has to say as well, will you? We need to know of any change in his dad’s behaviour. Any subjects he’s learnt to avoid… Once we know all we can, we bring in Ricky for interview.’

  Frazer clears his throat.

  ‘You two get to work,’ she says. ‘Frazer, with me.’

  She stands and he follows her out of the room, into her office.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  Georgie hesitates, glances out of the window. All winter there’d been flocks of seagulls pressing their way in from the coast, screeching outside, relentlessly pecking at the tarmac of the car park. The heat has banished them now though. There’s not a bird in sight.

  ‘I want complete separation. You’re not working with us on our cold case – it’s unrelated. But you are in charge of your own investigation.’

  ‘Thank you, Ma’am.’

  ‘Ask whatever questions you need, but you’re on your own. No Trish, no Simon. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

 

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