Catching Phantoms

Chapter 2

2

Before they left the farm Ray took his binoculars from the Volvo and they studied the area Jack had indicated. Beyond the farm the land rose steeply to the east in a long grassy slope, topped by the raised outline of a bronze age tumulus, and further south, the earthworks of an Iron Age enclosure, shown as Ludd's Castle on Ray's map. Half way up the slope the hillside levelled off into a flat shelf.

"That flat area must be the site of the dig," Ray said.

Martin nodded. "That's logical. Burials need flat ground."

"What do you make of Jack's tale?" Ray asked.

Martin shrugged. "Hard to say. He seemed sincere, but so do all tellers of tall tales. What do you think?"

"Don't know yet. Let's take a look."

They drove up the lane that led from the farm to the wood and parked fifty metres from where two uniformed constables were closing the access with cones and police tape. The fire was out and the fire brigade were damping down. A burned-out car lay on its roof among the charred trunks of the larches. A SOC officer from a private firm was examining the lane at the point at which the vehicle had plunged into the woodland. The detectives greeted the officer, who introduced himself as Al.

"Looks like an accident to me," Al said. "Is it supposed to be a crime scene?"

"That's what we need to find out," Ray replied. "Shall we look at the bodies?"

The three men picked their way through the wood to where the two bodies lay ten metres apart, face down among the fire-blackened trees. What clothing they could see was scorched, but not as badly burned as they’d expected. Al took photographs.

"What's your best guess for cause of death?" Ray asked Al.

"I've seen much worse," he said, "with victims that managed to recover. But there may be some damage to internal organs. It depends how close they were to the hottest part of the fire. Heart failure's another possibility. We'll have to wait for the post mortem."

"Our witness seemed to suggest they were disoriented and didn't know which way to run once they escaped from the car," Ray commented.

"That's normal," Al replied. "If you're on fire, which they might have been, you're in a state of panic and you don't behave logically. Can we turn them over?"

They turned the bodies and stood back in surprise.

"Well now, this is interesting," Al said. "The burns are much worse. Not incineration exactly, but serious damage. I'm not surprised they didn't manage to escape from the trees. They might have gone blind and their lungs probably gave out."

Ray noticed Martin was hanging on, his face drained, his eyes staring. He realised his colleague had never seen anything quite as horrific in his five years with the force. He steered him gently away, leaving Al to take more photos.

"Tea break when you're ready," Ray suggested. "Join us in the Volvo."

"Nice one!" Al grinned.

They left the wood and looked at the tyre marks in the loose surface of the lane. Martin seemed to be recovering himself.

"Why, I wonder, did those guys drive off the lane on a rain-free moonlit night?" Ray asked.

"They could have been trying to avoid something," Martin suggested, "like deer running across maybe?"

"That's possible. But they were travelling at a fair speed." Ray pointed to the tyre marks in the gravel. "See the length of the skid. Why such a rush?"

"They must have been disturbed by someone," Martin replied without hesitation.

"They surely must," Ray said. "Perhaps the excavation site can tell us more."

Al joined them and they sat in the Volvo drinking from Ray's flask of tea. No one spoke much, each man immersed in his private thoughts.

"I still can't see any evidence for a crime being committed," Al said at last. "I don't know why I'm here. Just my bad luck for being on the graveyard shift, I suppose."

"We haven't finished yet, Al," Ray said. "Those dead guys might not have been locals. We have to find out, if we can, what they were getting up to out here at three in the morning."

"We've something else to look at?" Al asked in surprise.

"An archaeological dig," Martin said. "Just up the hill here. Are you into archaeology?"

"Not in the least," Al replied. "I'm a total dunce when it comes to history."

"That makes at least two of us," Martin said with a quick glance at Ray.

"Count me in as well," Ray said. "Romans and Normans and the battle of Trafalgar and that's about my lot."

Although Martin smiled at Ray's self-deprecating comment he didn’t for one moment believe him. His senior colleague was far too well informed to dismiss his erudition so lightly. It was a ploy, Martin felt, to enable Ray to ask him leading questions, when all the time the man knew most of the answers. Ray would call it ‘training to think like a detective’.

They drove up the hillside track, parked and walked slowly along the bottom edge of the cleared excavation area. Half a dozen random holes had been dug in the exposed surface, their contents heaped at the edge of the site. Two spades, two small trowels and two metal detectors lay scattered and abandoned.

"There's our crime scene," Ray said. "Whatever happened up here led to the situation we've just been looking at in the wood. First thoughts please."

"Seems like they left in a hell of a hurry," Al said. "A surprise interruption and panic.""Could have been someone they knew," Martin put in. "Rival detectorists. They probably keep tabs on each other all the time."

"You're not thinking," Ray said. "Why would rival detectorists leave the loot behind, when that's what they'd be after themselves?"

Martin looked vexed with himself for being shown up in front of Al. "So it must have been someone else. Not a detectorist."

"But who?" Ray asked.

"People from Pen Crags maybe," Martin replied.

"Why do you think that?"

"It's their burial ground. Jack Boothroyd pretty much admitted that."

Good reply, Ray thought. Martin had got himself together. "You could be right. But how did they know those guys were up here?"

"A tip off," Martin suggested.

Ray thought a moment. "Possibly. But someone in Pen Crags would have had to be very well connected to all the wrong people."

"It could have been in the specialist mags, archaeology journals and the like. News of the dig could have been out there," Martin persisted. "This place would be a target for thieves. In that context, a three a.m. patrol from Pen Crags seems like a strong possibility."

"Very well thought through, Martin." Ray beamed. "But if Pen Crags people are so committed to guarding their dead, how come this burial ground has ended up in Stone Clough parish?"

No one had answers to that. Ray gazed thoughtfully at the site as Al began taking photographs of the grave goods.

"See what you can find out," Ray said encouragingly to Martin. "I just need to get a feel for the place." He strode off without another word.

Martin studied the surface of the excavation site, taking care not to move carelessly and obliterate any evidence. He was still disturbed by the harrowing images of the two dead men, but he had to switch that off. He must apply himself one hundred per cent and not miss the obvious. He couldn't look like an i***t twice in one morning.

Ray scrutinised the cleared ground from the car park area, then from the hill above and finally from the edge of the oak wood to the north. It was an interesting place, carefully chosen centuries ago by folk in a close-knit community. Folk who thought of their dead as simply shifting into another world that was as close to the living as a tree to its fallen autumn leaves. But there were no remains of shrines or other monuments anywhere to be seen. If it had been a Christian site there would have been a church. Had there been a pagan temple here built of wood, he wondered? Had the Christians destroyed it?

The longer he studied the hillside and the view – the oak wood, the hilltop ringfort and tumulus, Jack's farm eight hundred metres away, the distant fields and wild moorland escarpments – the more he felt the hours were shaping themselves into one of those extraordinary days. The feeling crept over him like an emotional ambush and refused to give him up. He'd had a few of those days before; days that were turning points in his life.

Jack Boothroyd's comment, about the victims running back in, bothered him profoundly. It made no sense. Even if, as Al had suggested, the men were in a state of confused panic they would surely run away from the flames, not towards them. The state of the two bodies suggested to Ray that a conscious choice may have been made – to run into certain danger away from something else. Who or what was it, Ray wondered, that had scared them so much?

He returned to Martin. Al was taking photographs at the northern edge of the site and out of hearing.

"You know, Martin, burial sites throughout history were always specially chosen. No matter how far back you go, it's always the case. These are someone's ancestors lying here, who brought their people through all kinds of crises. The place they were buried – this hillside – must have had special significance. It must be connected to Pen Crags village. And maybe to Ludd's Castle."

"What are you getting at?" Martin sounded impatient.

Ray knew his theorising irritated his colleague. But you couldn't always have everything in black and white.

"I'm trying to empathise. To build up my understanding of this place. To let intuitions come through. I've a feeling things are going to get complicated."

"I don't see how this so-called understanding is going to help us figure out who chased those detectorists away," Martin said with an air of exasperation. "But then I'm merely a rationalist. However, the rationalist has found a bit of hard evidence." He pointed to part of the cleared area close to the most southerly of the detectorists' dug holes. "Two sets of footprints running like hell. Look at the length of the strides!"

"You're right," Ray agreed. "Those guys began their flight from here. What scared them happened here. Will you ask Al to photograph the prints?"

"They disappear once they reach the long grass," Martin said. "But we can assume those guys ran straight back to their vehicle and drove away fast."

"They must have been in a right state to leave everything behind." Ray said thoughtfully. "Not even to take the gold torque."

"Which is that?" Martin asked.

Ray pointed the item out among Al's bagged-up grave goods.

"I thought you didn't know about history?" Martin said accusingly.

"I don't," Ray replied. "I'm learning."

"Maybe the Pen Crags people threatened those detectorist guys at gunpoint?" Martin conjectured.

"Maybe. But it'll be tough to prove unless we find spent ammo. Have you looked?"

"Everywhere. You?"

"Of course. But the gunpoint idea is possible."

Ray was startled by a sudden movement on the hillside above the excavation site. A mat of the previous year's dead bracken lifted up like a large garage door, as if an invisible presence had raised it from the earth. Then it was slammed back down with a stupendous WHACK! For a few moments, the air seemed to crackle with a fierce charge of energy. Ray felt the skin on his neck prickle.

"Did you see that?" he exclaimed.

"What?" Martin looked mystified.

Ray gestured towards the hillside, then realised Martin was still preoccupied with the footprints. Al was equally oblivious, plodding up the hillside to the north for a panoramic longshot. Ray stared at the hill slope on the far side of the cleared ground. The bracken was still, as if nothing had happened. The air was normal again. It hadn't been a dust devil, he'd seen plenty of them. Had it been some kind of warning?

Something had scared the two metal detectorists and, Ray realised, whatever it was it might not have been human. He knew there were some very spooky tales attached to the area, particularly to Ludd's Castle. But he didn't mention anything to Martin.

"I think that's pretty much it for now," he said. "But I've a feeling we'll be back here before long."

"Well, we've got a crime scene," Martin commented as the three men returned to the Volvo with the bagged-up evidence. "But we haven't much of a picture."

"It'll take shape," Ray replied. "These things can grow, even if, at the beginning, you've only got confusion. These cases do develop legs that you can follow into surprising places. You just have to stay open to everything."

In the basement of the large house they called Low Rowan Hall, which stood to the northern end of Pen Crags village, a tall figure in a dark hooded jacket stood deep in meditation. He rested his hands on an ancient altar stone, which was supported by four stone pillars in the darkest unlit corner of the room.

The basement was illuminated by tallow lamps, placed in niches along the walls. Most of the lamps were unlit, which gave the space the appearance of a cave. The figure at the altar stood motionless, as if he was part of the darkness itself.

Owain could sense the energy rising as he consciously drew it up from the earth into the stones of the ancient altar. He could feel it filling him and his power growing, giving him the strength of many men, enabling him to keep his nerve through the trials to come and to facilitate his inner journeying.

The first moves had been made. He would need to hone every aspect of his hard-won skills to keep control of what had begun. He would need presence of mind and unshakeable resolve. The ancestors would guide him to the limits of their awareness, but he must be sure not to claim any achievement as his own.

He removed his hands from the altar. His body and mind were prepared. Feeling almost weightless and filled with a clear sense of his mission he silently crossed the room and left the basement. The flames of the nearest tallow lamps flickered and danced, catching the drift from the charged air above the altar.