Afterwards, Peterson and I walked slowly around the gallery together.
‘I think we’ve done everything we can, don’t you?’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Yes, I think so.’
‘As I always say – whatever the task you’re about to undertake, you should never neglect the basics. Doesn’t matter what you call it – staff work, advance planning, spadework, foreplay – a little effort at the beginning always pays dividends in the end.’
‘Does Helen know you refer to your romantic interludes as spadework?’
He looked over his shoulder. ‘You’re not going to tell her, are you?’
‘Depends whether you make my silence worthwhile.’
His smile faded. ‘If we get this wrong – if we’re all banged up, then it won’t matter anyway.’
I stood still. ‘Tim, we’re not going to get away with this.’
‘I know. Max, have you thought of persuading Dr Bairstow just to ask Thirsk to give it up?’
‘To give up Arthur’s sword just because a couple of historians with over-active imaginations say so? You think they’d do that?’
He sighed. ‘No, you’re right.’
‘And as soon as we ask, we’ve tipped our hand. They’d never even let us on campus after that.’
‘Just a minute.’ He stopped, pulled me down and we sat on the stairs – often a traditional historian debating position. ‘Why do we do this?’
‘You mean all this?’ I gestured at the activity in the Hall below.
‘Yes, but specifically, why do we unearth artefacts? Why do we dig them up? Don’t you ever think we should just leave well alone?’
I nodded. He had a point. I’ve sometimes thought this myself. It happens with mummies. They’re removed from their final resting place and displayed in a public museum, or shut up alone in dusty storerooms. Does the fact that they were buried thousands of years ago make it right? When you think of all the love and reverence with which Egyptian mummies and their possessions were carefully buried. Images of loved ones, favourite pets, texts for future guidance, everything carefully placed to ensure their safe entrance into the next world – and then along we come. Well, not necessarily us, but someone. I’m not very religious, but other people are. I often wonder if we’ve screwed someone’s chances of an afterlife by disturbing what was supposed to be their final resting place and scattering their personal treasures as if their former owner has no more use for them. How many souls have been condemned to a kind of limbo, spending eternity in the cold and dark, and all because we took away the treasured possessions with which they had so carefully provided themselves?
I shook myself mentally. There would be plenty of time to debate the moral position with myself when I languished in a prison cell.
We settled on the next Friday. Not a lot happens at St Mary’s on a Friday. We had no trainees so there were no exams to set up. The afternoon would be devoted to the weekly Friday afternoon confrontation between the Security and Technical Sections on the battlefield – sorry, football field – followed by a lengthy session in Sick Bay for their wounds to be treated, followed by an even lengthier session in the bar while inquests were held and everyone blamed everyone else. We’d have a long day, but it was possible we’d be back before anyone noticed we were missing. Well, before everyone else was missed. I had the misfortune to be married.
There’s a downside to being married. Actually, there are several but they mainly involve who ate the last biscuit, who left his boots just where anyone could fall over them if she wasn’t looking where she was going, and inappropriate places to put ice-cold feet just as someone’s dropping off to sleep.
The really big downside to marriage concerns the inexplicable need of half a married couple to know, at all times, exactly where the other one is. I mean – what’s that all about?
I had two choices. I could lie or I could tell the truth.
I don’t like lying to Leon – I could if I wanted to, he would believe anything I said, and that’s why I don’t lie to him. I just told him I was going to Thirsk – God knows he’d find out soon enough anyway. He nodded absently, and continued staring at his data stack. I stared at his bent head for a few minutes, wondering if this was the last time I’d ever see him as a free woman – me, I mean, not him – and took myself off for an early night.
Chapter Nine
I don’t want anyone to think we just breezed through this with no thought of the implications. We all knew what we were doing and what would happen to us, and we went ahead and did it anyway.