A Book of Bones Read online

  Hood has come back to witness the investigation, he and his dog. He returned briefly to his home once the police had finished asking him questions. He did not enjoy the experience of being interrogated. He lives a solitary existence out here, except for the animals under his care. He has never married, has never even slept with a woman. He came close to doing both once, when he was a younger man, although he cannot say what caused him to retreat from her, except perhaps that he was not in love, and recognized the pain this absence would ultimately bring down upon both of them. He sees her sometimes, around the town. She has children and grandchildren now, but he has no regrets. There are times when he is lonely, but he believes this to be part of the order of things, because all men and women, married or otherwise, are sometimes lonely.

  He knows that the police must have found him odd. He was nervous, and out of practice at speaking with outsiders. He was concerned that they might suspect him of killing the woman, and he supposes they must have, at least at the start. Perhaps some of them still do. He has no alibi, unless the dog counts. But if he had killed the girl, he would not have left her remains wrapped in plastic on these moors, his moors, before inviting the police to inspect his handiwork. He would have buried her deep, or dropped her weighted body in one of the mires.

  He shivers, and feels a pang of revulsion at himself for even considering such an act. He is pragmatic about killing. He has shot foxes and vermin, slaughtered chickens and sheep, and even dispatched one of his own dogs when a ram broke its back, although he cried after, and was not shamed by it. But he prefers the vet to take care of his dogs when their time comes, soft bugger that he is.

  Now he stands by the Familist ruins, watching the police go about their business. They have already examined these surroundings: he can see the footprints left by them, both among the stones and up and down the rise on which the remnants stand. He hopes the police find the evidence they require to solve the crime, or enough to dismiss him from their inquiries. He wants no cloud of suspicion over his head.

  At this, he lifts his face to the sky, where the darkness to the northeast is already trailing tendrils of rain. It will be close, he thinks. If he were down among those men and women, he would advise them to work faster. He wonders if he should tell them anyway, but fears that it might only cause them to become more suspicious of him. If so, he should not be out here where they can see him, but he is genuinely curious. He has only ever encountered activity like this on the television, either as part of a news bulletin or in the course of a crime drama. He could probably have helped them, if they’d asked. After all, nobody knew these moors better than he.

  He thinks again about the dead woman, and the manner of her abandonment. It makes no sense to him, no sense at all.

  CHAPTER XIX

  A car was waiting at George Bush Intercontinental in Houston to whisk Parker to the federal courthouse on Rusk Street, where he thought the judge looked happier to see him than before, or at least slightly less unhappy. Either way, it counted as progress. In his absence—according to Tracey Ermenthal, who escorted him into the courtroom—his character had been dissected and weighed before being sewn back up again, having been deemed suitable for public display.

  “I think Ross may have said something that helped,” said Ermenthal. “Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all.”

  Parker didn’t contradict her, but settled instead for noncommittal.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  * * *

  THE MAN WHO CALLED himself José Hernández was dropped off at the Plaza de Benito Juárez in Nogales by a black 4WD bearing estadounidense plates. Hernández was the only Latino occupant, the others all being white males with weapons showing. Nobody paid them any attention, which is to say that everyone in the vicinity conspicuously avoided staring in their direction, even as the 4WD sped away and Hernández dropped his U.S. Border Patrol baseball cap in the nearest garbage can before attempting to lose himself in the bustle of the city.

  Within minutes, he was being followed.

  Within an hour, he was dead.

  CHAPTER XX

  Detective Inspector Nicola Priestman was the chief investigating officer on the Hexhamshire Moors case. She was forty-three years old, married with two kids, and resolutely practical in all matters. She read the occasional mystery novel, usually while lying by a pool in Italy for two weeks each summer with a glass of something cold and alcoholic beside her, and could occasionally be persuaded to join her husband in watching a crime show on TV at the weekend, but most of their depictions of police work were puzzling to her. She was not haunted by her cases, or driven to fight injustice by some inner torment or past trauma, and did not drink to excess. She got on well with most of her colleagues, the requisite sexists and boors apart—and anyway, such dregs of the male sex were not unique to law enforcement. Priestman had her eye on a promotion to deputy chief inspector, largely for the money. Only to her husband had she admitted her ambivalence about progressing further up the ranks. As a DI, she could still engage in hands-on investigation, even if her desire to do so made her untypical of her rank, which was viewed by many aspirants as a nice way to stay out of the rain. If she rose to DCI, she’d be supervising investigations, but mostly from behind a desk. Then again, it wasn’t as though anyone was offering her the job on a plate. It would be a year or two yet. She had time to think.

  Right now, though, she was thinking about the body on the moors, and Douglas Hood, who was watching the police from the ruins on the hill, his dog sitting at his feet.

  Derek Hynes, regarded by some in the force as Priestman’s pet detective sergeant, joined her. He was a large, untidy man with a large, tidy mind. He and Priestman had known each other for many years, and it always gave her pleasure and reassurance to have him by her side.

  “Still up there, I see,” said Hynes.

  “From what I hear,” said Priestman, “he has a proprietorial interest in these moors.”

  “He’s welcome to them.”

  “You’re not a fan of nature in its wilder state? I’m disappointed.”

  Hynes had been born and raised in Kenton, one of the rougher areas of Newcastle. He wasn’t a fan of the great outdoors. Even parks made him uncomfortable.

  “I slipped earlier and got shit on me trousers,” he said. “Sheep shit, I think. Can’t say for sure. I might have to ask forensics to check.”

  Hynes seemed about to say more on the subject, but was distracted by movement on the hill.

  “Hello,” he said, “looks like Heathcliff is coming our way.”

  Hood and his dog had left their post, and were walking in tandem toward the two officers. Both Priestman and Hynes had spoken with Hood earlier, and while they hadn’t entirely dismissed him as a suspect, neither really fancied him for the killing of the girl, and for much the same reason that Hood himself had come up with: Why murder someone, then wrap her in plastic and report the body?

  “Can we help you, Mr. Hood?” Priestman said, as the man came within earshot.

  He stopped when she spoke, and the dog instantly assumed a seated position. He had it well trained, she’d give him that. She had a dog at home, Spike, that seemed to take a perverse pleasure in doing the opposite of whatever it was told to do, and sat only when it was bored.

  Hood seemed to be considering the question. He looked at the dog, as though seeking advice or direction from it. When none came, he went with his own instinct.

  “No,” he said, “but perhaps I can help you.”

  “And how would that be?”

  Hood’s face assumed a look of profound sadness.

  “I think,” he said, “I might know where that young lass was killed.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  He sat in his apartment, a TV dinner fresh from the microwave slowly cooling before him—if “fresh” was the right word for a pre-prepared meal loaded with additives and recently irradiated; he didn’t believe it was, and these details were important. The apartment was very neat. It di
dn’t contain any books, newspapers, or magazines, and he didn’t consume any music or films in non-digital formats. It was surprising how much clutter objects added to a home—although, again, he wondered if “home” was the correct term for a series of interconnected boxes to which he had added little of his own personality in the three years he’d lived in them, beyond a series of perfectly preserved vintage Apple computers, arranged on glass shelves, that functioned as art pieces. He didn’t see any reason to invest in anything more lavish. The apartment had come pre-furnished, while the photographs and prints on the walls had seemed perfectly acceptable to him when he moved in, and continued to be so. He didn’t trust his own taste when it came to art—didn’t really have much taste at all, to be honest.

  Or hadn’t until recently, because he recognized that the windows at Fairford were art.

  The windows at Fairford were beautiful.

  He had never really understood what people meant when they referred to art as “speaking” to them. Oh, he gathered they were discussing some abstract process of connection, a stirring in response to a visual stimulus. He had just never experienced it for himself, or not until he visited St. Mary’s church at Fairford. Sellars had explained the history of its stained-glass windows to him. Sellars had told him of Heaven and Hell, and old gods.

  Sellars had told him about the Atlas.

  He shifted in his chair, causing his injured foot to slip from its cushion. He gasped. The real pain of the injury was mercifully dulled by the medication. He’d ditched the ibuprofen in favor of some prescription pills left over from a dental implant. Damn, though, that sudden movement had still smarted. He’d informed the doctor at the clinic that he’d taken a misstep, which was true, as far as it went. The doctor, some foreigner, didn’t bother exploring the details of the accident any further. It wasn’t as though it was a particularly interesting injury, but he also recognized that some aspect of his own character, or lack of one, dissuaded other men from engaging in lengthy conversations with him, professional discussions excepted. Males found him dull, and he cultivated that dullness. Oddly, he was better with women, although money might have played some part in his success with the opposite sex. But the more perceptive among both sexes (and their kind worried him, oh yes: you had to keep an eye out for those ones, and avoid them whenever you could) might also have felt a shiver of anxiety in his presence, like staring at the placid surface of a pond only to glimpse a creature old and ravenous briefly flick a fin in the shallows before returning to deeper waters.

  The girl had witnessed the revelation of that presence, at the end of her life.

  On the television screen, a reporter was speaking from the Hexhamshire Moors. Behind her, the white forms of the investigating officers moved against the horizon, like ghosts drifting across the land. A drone shot followed, giving a larger picture of the scene, with the tent at its center, although the drone didn’t hover directly above it, which was a shame. He supposed the police had given the news crews instructions to keep their distance, but he wished they hadn’t. He was curious to look on the faces of those who would soon be hunting for him. He was good with faces. If they came for him, it might be the difference between being caught and having time to run.

  Or would have been, had he not fractured his ankle out on those moors. Now he was more vulnerable, but not to an extent that concerned him. He was certain he’d left little evidence—although he wished the promised rain would come along and wash away anything that might help the police—and he was sure he hadn’t been seen by anyone. Such risk. Such excitement. He hadn’t felt his pulse race that way since—

  Well, since ever.

  At least he had someone with whom to discuss it, someone who understood the thrill: Sellars. He hoped Sellars wouldn’t be too angry with him because it hadn’t gone as planned, not by a long shot. But he’d managed to kill the girl, which had to count for something. She’d have been found eventually, so what did it matter? A week, a month, what was the difference? Only the death itself was important. But he really didn’t want Sellars to be upset, because he longed to do it again. He wanted to kill another one.

  He felt the urge to call Sellars and tell him why he’d had to leave the girl on the moors, but he had been warned against making contact unless it was absolutely necessary. Eventually, Sellars would get back in touch, and he could make his apologies. Maybe they could even compare notes, once he was able to get around a little better.

  For now, though, they needed the police to remain confused.

  Two killers, like two heads, were better than one.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Priestman and Hynes, accompanied by one uniformed officer, Oakenfold, and a crime scene investigator named Suzy Grant, tramped across the moors in the footsteps of Hood and his dog. Hood was setting a fast pace, and Hynes in particular was struggling. Priestman had the sense to exercise regularly. She swam, ran a bit, and brought her own mutt for long walks at weekends. Hynes resented walking farther than from the front of a building to the door of a car, and vice versa. He had also yet to encounter a situation that could not be improved by a cup of tea and a cigarette.

  “Tell me about these people,” Priestman asked Hood, as his dog darted off to send some birds skyward. She wasn’t from Northumbria. She’d been born and raised in Surrey, in the southeast, and had only traveled north for the first time to go to university. She’d liked it enough to stay, and marry a Geordie, but she wasn’t of this land, and would never be, not even if they buried her in it.

  “The Familists,” said Hood. “They were a sect—a cult, I suppose. Long time ago now. But they haven’t been forgotten, not around here. Theirs was a god of nature: leaves and branches. Thorns, too, I imagine. Kept themselves to themselves, except on Sundays, when they worshipped with the locals like good folk. You had to keep up appearances in those days, or questions would be asked. The authorities weren’t above a bit of torture, either, to keep people in line. After that, if you didn’t learn your lesson, they put you to the torch.”

  He took a breath, and frowned, perhaps surprised by his own loquacity.

  “This was during the Reformation?” said Priestman.

  “It was. Catholics didn’t give two figs if you went to church or not, long as you stuck to the rules. Didn’t even bother putting seats in chapels for the poor folk, the Catholics. Didn’t matter to the priests and bishops if the commoners were present or not. Probably didn’t matter to God, either, what with all He had to be getting along with. It was the Reformers who cracked the whip for Sunday worship. Never know what people might get up to otherwise.”

  “So the Familists did the clever thing and showed up like the rest?” said Priestman.

  “They did, until they didn’t have to pretend anymore. Then they sodded off to America in 1703, I think it was, and took their church with them. The Chapel of the Congregation of Adam Before Eve and Eve Before Adam, that was what they named it. All they left behind were rumors and ruins.”

  Priestman smiled, despite the circumstances. “Rumors and ruins”: it was a nice turn of phrase. Funny, but now that Hood had found his tongue he couldn’t seem to stop talking. She really thought he might be making up for lost time, like a man forced by exigency to eat a food he has previously considered disagreeable, only to discover that he has been mistaken in his assumptions, and so makes it a staple of his diet.

  And he was no fool, this man.

  “You mean rumors of killings?”

  Hood had referred to these earlier, when the police had first asked him about the nature of the old buildings, although he hadn’t elaborated.

  “That’s the story.”

  “Sacrificial killings?”

  “I don’t know about that. There was no evidence for it, only hearsay, but it was said that the Familists weren’t above murdering to protect themselves. They may have gone to church on Sundays, but they conducted their own worship in secret. The problem is that there are no secrets, not out here, doesn’t matter how fa
r into the moors you go to hide. Tales of hole-and-corner worship would have attracted attention: from the curious, from informers. I suppose some of them might have come out to snoop on the Familists. If they did, it’s likely they never found their way back again. Ended up drowned in mires, most of ’em.”

  “Most?”

  Hood’s expression changed. He seemed about to say something more, then reconsidered.

  “Most,” he echoed, and that was all.

  THE WELL

  THE HISTORY OF BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY is a curious one. It probably begins with the monks at Glastonbury Abbey who, upon uncovering some old bones while rebuilding their church after a fire, concluded, somewhat erroneously, that they had discovered the remains of King Arthur. They were followed—rather more successfully—over the centuries by men such as John Leland, the favored antiquary of Henry VIII, and William Camden, the author of the Britannica of 1586, and founder of the first society of British antiquaries in 1577. This institution became popular with lawyers, who used it as a front to debate the flaws of the legal system, until James I became aware of its potential for sedition and shut it down. It was long rumored that one Josias Quayle, a minor figure in legal circles of the time, was the man responsible for informing on the activities of his colleagues, although this has never been proved.

  After Camden came Robert Plot, the first Keeper of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum in the seventeenth century; John Aubrey, who credited druids with the creation of the kingdom’s stone circles; and, in the eighteenth century, William Stukeley, who pioneered the use of excavation to study ancient sites—which earned archaeologists the soubriquet “barrow diggers”—and was a founder of a new Society of Antiquaries in 1707. Finally, in the nineteenth century, figures such as John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer helped to place the study of the past on a more respectable and professional footing, leading to the establishment of the first chairs of archaeology in British universities.