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child’s
effort at modeling a human body in clay than the real thing.
    Alasdair emitted a long sigh. Jean didn’t
breathe at all. The chill that oozed down her back had nothing to
do with temperature. Mortal clay, she thought. Feet of clay.
Although the miasma emanating from the hole wasn’t that of clay.
Mildew, mold, muck . . .
    That’s why Maggie had cancelled the press
conference at the last minute. That’s why she’d waited until the
tide ebbed and sealed off the island before presenting the genuine,
non-stage-managed reveal.
    The arch of the skull resembled an obscene
egg. The eye sockets, filled with mud, stared sightlessly upward.
The jaw gaped open, revealing brown teeth and two gold fillings
that glinted in the light.
    Not medieval, then.
    The arms were folded across the waist, the
arm bones sinking into the body cavity, a few finger bones
scattered alongside the arches of the hips. Worms. Rats, maybe. Or
no more than gravity.
    The feet were still encased in rubber
Wellington boots, one turned upright, the other slumping to the
side.
    Mid to late twentieth century.
    Somewhere water dripped. A sheep bawled. The
accumulated steam of four breaths formed wraiths in the air. The
body did not breathe, the eyes did not blink, the jaw did not move.
No invisible tongue gave voice to—what? Fear? Surprise? Had the
vacant eyes seen death coming, or had they been closed suddenly,
without warning?
    Had they closed at all, Jean wondered, or had
he—she—been dumped into the tomb with eyes still open, watching as
the stone slab closed off the ceiling, the light from the window,
the birds flying freely beyond?
    Someone had to say it. She obliged, her voice
seeming shrill in the deadened air. “Do you have any idea who it
is?”
    The light-beam steadied. Maggie slumped back
on her haunches. When she spoke her words were directed to the
ravaged face in the tomb. “I think it may be my father.”
     
     

Chapter Five
     
     
    Jean glanced so quickly back through the
door, toward the cemetery and Wat Lauder’s grave, her neck cricked.
“Say what?”
    “ It’s a long story. One I’ve always
thought was nothing but . . .” Maggie’s voice ran down and
dissipated into the gathering darkness.
    Gossip? Hearsay? Myth?
    Tara’s crossed arms tightened. Her
boots were now turned pigeon-toed. It’s not
my fault .
    Crawford leaned forward, his hatchet nose
pointed downward.
    Alasdair stared at him, blue eyes gleaming in
the light. Jean knew only too well the strength of that stare, like
a laser burning a hole not in your retina but in your awareness.
Sure enough, the constable looked around, cleared his throat, and
said, “Time I was ringing Berwick and asking for back-up.”
    “ I’m thinking that’s the best plan,
aye,” Alasdair told him.
    Crawford pulled a phone from his pocket and
headed for the door. By the time he disappeared into the main
sanctuary, he was speaking, his voice oddly deep for one coming
from such a stork-like neck. “. . . Farnaby Island . . .
unexplained death . . . no, no, not recent . . . coroner, inquest .
. .”
    Alasdair took the flashlight from Maggie’s
hand and gave it to Jean, then pulled the woman to her feet. She
didn’t seem to notice but kept staring into the grave.
    “ Did you break the slab covering the
tomb?” Jean asked. Not that the condition of the slab mattered now,
but Maggie’s face was ashen, glistening with cold sweat—she looked
as though she was about to faint and topple into the grave
alongside its inhabitant. Inhabitants, plural.
    “ It was cracked. It’s been cracked long
as I can remember. My mum tried to mend it with a dab of concrete,
but that had broken away. When I pried up the one end, it broke. I
took photos, measurements beforehand. I don’t have the resources of
a well-funded expedition—no laser scans, no fiber-optic cameras for
the grave itself.”
    “ Is there an inscription on the
stone?”
    Now Alasdair went down on one knee, shining
the