Ghosts and murders: discuss. Not an easy conversation opener over lunch.
Dylan takes a couple of gulps of his pint and then leans close to Tilda.
‘My uncle is pretty much the expert on local history around here, you know. I’ve never heard anyone ask him a question he couldn’t answer.’
‘Yes,’ she says, nodding and sipping cautiously at her shandy, ‘and he’s been really helpful already. It’s just that, well … I’m curious about the dig.’ She turns to look at Dylan, just quickly enough to catch him gazing at her hair. He meets her eye and then looks away, mumbling an apology into his beer. Standard embarrassed reaction. But then he raises his eyes again and regards her steadily, his face serious. He sighs, seemingly about to speak, but then does not. There are a few seconds, a fleeting moment, where he is awkward, having been found out, and his guard has dropped. The grin is gone. So is his habit of making light of everything, keeping things upbeat. Safe. She likes this version of him better. Out of habit, she continues talking to smooth over his discomfort, but, really, there is no need. An unspoken apology has been given and accepted. She understands that his interest is not voyeuristic, nor is it morbid curiosity, but it is something genuine. Sincere. ‘I’d like to know about the grave.’ She turns back to Lucas, who has missed what passed between her and Dylan entirely as he was busy texting. ‘Who do you think you’ve found?’ she asks him.
As he speaks, Lucas looks at her without faltering, yet his gaze does not connect. Rather his eyes move to take in all her features, all her strangeness, as if filing it away. ‘It would be easy to jump to conclusions, given the pointers we’ve found … Point is, I’ve learnt from the many digs I’ve been involved in, things are rarely as obvious as they seem. Human lives are complicated … and people sometimes, well, they go out of their way to hide things. Or at least, to make them less simple to discover.’
‘Perhaps the dead don’t want us digging up their secrets,’ Dylan suggests, wiping beer foam from his top lip.
Lucas gives him a hard stare. ‘Some people have a problem with disturbing a grave, however well-meant the investigation. If you are one of those, why did you agree to dive for us?’
Dylan shrugs. ‘Every man has his price. Isn’t that what they say?’
Tilda is unconvinced.
Lucas leans forward, elbows on the worn and polished wood of the table, concentrating on Tilda now, keen to share his theories regarding his discovery with her. ‘What we know for certain at this stage is that this is a double grave. There are two people buried here, both interred at the same time.’
‘Members of the same family?’ Tilda asks.
‘It’s possible, but … well, there are signs that suggest something rather different. You see, the bodies are lying not side by side, but one on top of the other. And only the lower one has a coffin. Which is unusual. As is the fact that there don’t appear to be any grave goods accompanying the upper body.’ Lucas waves his hands expressively as he talks, needing no prompting to explain further. ‘Given the date we believe the grave to have been dug, this is strange. Grave goods were things people put in with a deceased person that they believed they might need with them in the next life. Weapons, plates, jewels, things that would mark out their status, signs of wealth or standing in society as well.’
‘And your grave…’ Tilda corrects herself. ‘Sorry, the one you’ve found … there are none of these things in it?’
‘There may be some in the coffin below, we don’t know yet. But the body nearer the surface appears to have been buried without any possessions whatsoever.’
‘Perhaps they were very poor,’ Tilda suggests. ‘Maybe they didn’t have anything to take with them.’
‘It is possible, but unlikely. Most people would have had something. Or if they didn’t, relatives or community members would have provided at least the most basic items. It is odd to find a body with nothing at all. Unless…’
‘Ah, food!’ Dylan alerts them to the arrival of the meals. Tilda is torn between her desire to tuck into the first decent plate of food she has seen in a very long time, and her wish to know what it is that Lucas is hinting at. Muttering thanks to the young waiter, who blushes when she finds him gawking at her, she presses Lucas to finish his thought.
‘Unless?’
‘Unless the person we’ve found was executed. If the killing was a punishment, the carrying out of a sentence for some sort of crime, then the culprit would not have been allowed any grave goods. It would have been part of the punishment. An important part, as it condemned the executed person to struggle and hardship in the next life too.’