11 – DIGGING FOR CLUES
A couple of days later, Max, Spock and I wander across Cherry Hill to where the huge mound has been cordoned off. Great piles of earth dug up from trenches dot the excavation site. People in dirty jeans are scurrying around looking busy while the usual dog-walkers look on curiously.
Someone directs me in the vague direction of Ross and I find him mulling over a dirty piece of pottery with someone.
'Noa!' he exclaims when he sees me. 'I was wondering if you would join us.'
'No time like the present,' I say with a shrug. I can't quite meet his eye.
'Ha ha. We deal mostly in the past here though. Are you ready for some digging?'
You have no idea, I want to tell him. 'Sure.'
'Great. Louise can take you to get kitted out with some tools, then you can come join me at Trench 3 over there.'
Louise, tousled blonde hair tied back with a handkerchief frowns at Spock. 'What about the dog? We can't have dogs on the dig.'
'Spock is a champion digger,' I tell her defensively.
'Louise is right, I'm afraid,' says Ross. 'We can't have him digging up and damaging artefacts. Will he be all right tied up under a tree?'
I look at Spock, who is wagging his tail and straining against his collar to join in with the excavating. 'I suppose he'll have to be.' I feel guilty for bringing him out here now. I stupidly thought it would be a nice little adventure for him.
'I'll keep him company,' says Max and I send him a grateful smile. I know he and Spock don't like each other very much.
Hot and dusty with no shade from the glaring sun, and sharp stones cutting into my knees, I chip away at Trench 3's wall. Ross is a few feet away, diligently chiselling away at his patch.
'Boy, would Grant have loved to see this day,' he says.
'It's only because of him that we're here,' I say.
'Very true. I bet he's here with us right now. In spirit, I mean.'
'Just me, sunshine, just me,' says Max, sitting on the side of the trench and swinging his booted legs back and forth.
'You must miss him.' I watch discreetly for his reaction, wondering if he really is a con artist.
'Every day,' he says, biting his lip. 'He was by no means perfect, but he was my best friend.'
Max snorts. 'Some best friend you were.'
'He obviously thought the same about you to come back especially to give you that message,' I say.
Ross shakes his head and pauses in his digging, but doesn't appear guilty or uneasy by my comment. 'Poor guy, I just wish I knew what the problem had been. If he was feeling down, why hadn't he come to me? I just can't bear to think of him struggling so much that he felt he had to take his own life. Instead, I was off partying in Malaga.'
'You weren't here when he died?' I exclaim.
'No.' Ross looks surprised by my outburst. 'I was in Spain looking at an eleventh century Moorish fort… and having a holiday.'
'Is that an alibi I perceive?' says Max, raising an eyebrow.
I want to knock my head against the hard earth of the trench wall in frustration. I have failed to establish one of the first things of investigating a case. I was so caught up in finding a motive for Ross to kill Grant that I forgot to check his alibi. But, my defence system kicks, Grant was poisoned. Couldn't he have given him some slow-working poison then gone to Spain?
'How long were you away for?' I ask.
'Ten days. I was supposed to be gone three weeks, but I came home as soon as I heard.'
Even with slow-working poison, I'd say Ross's alibi is strong. In a way, I'm relieved. It means he has no sins to absolve – at least no murderous sins, I still haven't cleared him of fraud in his dealings with Arts of the Ancient. But who else would want Grant dead? I rule out Jules. She had problems with her brother, sure, but they were twins. Twins don't kill each other, not literally. If Ross was Grant's best friend, perhaps he is the best person to know if someone had a grudge against him.
'Are you certain he killed himself?' I ask, casually turning back to my work.
'Well… sure.' Ross is taken aback at my suggestion. Uncertain, even. 'I mean that's what they said. I had my doubts, of course, but the police would know, wouldn't they? They found a note. Why? Don't you think so?'
I chew my lower lip. I can't bring myself to tell him the truth. Who knows what can of worms that will open up? 'I don't know,' I mumble. 'He just didn't seem the suicidal type.'
'I know what you mean,' agrees Ross. 'But wouldn't he have told you if he'd been murdered or not?'
'Not necessarily. There's only so much they're permitted to say. And yours was the message he chose.'
Ross sits back on his haunches and wipes his brow in resignation, leaving a dirty mark across his forehead. 'Then I guess he must have committed suicide. The Calix Puritatis is important, sure, but getting back at your killer would top the list, don't you think?'
'Yeah.' Unless, of course, finding the Calix Puritatis is a way of getting back at his killer. Had he been in competition with another archaeologist? Before I can pursue this line of thought, my chisel hits metal. I use a brush to clean it. I can't help it, but my heart starts to pound and my hand trembles. Could I really have found the legendary chalice?
'You got something?' Ross says, leaning over. 'Let's have a look.'
Max also comes over to look and his nearness brings a welcome coolness to the trench. Using a pick, Ross eases the metal free from the hard-packed earth. It's small, diamond-shaped and flat. My heart plummets.
Ross beams at me. 'Well done. You've just found yourself an arrowhead.'
'An arrowhead?'
'Yup. Could be stone age, bronze age, or Roman.'
Even though it isn't the Calix Puritatis I can't stop the bubbles of wonder and excitement that rise up in me. 'Seriously?'
'This one's Roman, I'd say,' says Ross, looking incredibly calm. 'See, it's made of iron. Earlier arrowheads tended to be bone or stone or even quartz.' He grins at my gobsmacked expression. 'You can keep this if you like, your first find.'
'Are you sure?' I ask. 'Won't a museum want it?'
Ross laughs. 'Arrowheads are kinda common. Doesn't make it any less special though,' he adds quickly. 'Just think about how your arrowhead came to be here. Think about the person it belonged to, maybe a soldier, an archer. Looks at the marks on the sides, probably made by a blacksmith in his forge.'
I turn the tiny piece of iron in my fingers, catching the sun, noticing the tiny tool marks from when it was manufactured. I wonder who the person was who owned it – the archer. Did he have a family? A sense of humour? Silly phobias? Holding this common link, he ceases to be an obscure statistic from history and suddenly becomes a person, with a personality with motive and cause. For a moment, I forget about the true reason I'm here. I know I get to see really old people who come from different eras to pass on messages, but this is different. Here, I'm holding something tangible, something that someone else would have held two thousand years ago.
We've just stopped for a break when a familiar figure appears above us, blocking out the sun.
'Professor Melnik!' Ross cries in delight and vaults out of the trench to greet him. 'How marvellous to see you.'
'Hello, dear boy – oh, and Miss Drury,' he says, catching sight of me.
'Hello, Professor Melnik,' I say with a wan smile, letting him know that I know he isn't pleased to see me.
'I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you're here, really,' he says, recovering his composure. 'I must say, you are a very dedicated student.'
'You two know each other?' asks Ross.
'Yes, I filled in some details for Noa's school project. How's that going?'
'School project?' Ross looks confused.
'Yes, school project,' I say, giving him a meaningful look. 'On Scrydan and the Calix Puritatis. It's going well, thanks.'
Ross quickly catches on and nods emphatically. 'Of course.'
'And how is the dig progressing?' asks Professor Melnik. 'I confess to being surprised that you were excavating here again. Have you found new evidence?'
'Well…' Ross begins reluctantly.
I look at him, horrified that he's going to tell Melnik about Grant and Scrydan's visits and catch his eye.
'We found a text… um, in the archives,' Ross says, 'supposedly written by Scrydan.' He gives me a look, like he's asking permission to tell the professor the riddle.
I look at Professor Melnik. Ross has certainly got his attention. And maybe it's not such a bad thing. Maybe he could shed some light on the riddle.
'Don't tell him, Noa,' says Max through gritted teeth. 'I don't trust him one bit.'
Before I can intervene though, Ross is already telling him.
'No!' exclaims Max, clutching his curls.
Professor Melnik takes a moment to translate the riddle in his mind. 'The location of the Calix Puritatis? You found the Scrolls of Scrydan?' His voice rises with excitement.
'It's not a hundred percent that Scrydan really said that, so probably not,' I butt in.
Ross looks confused, but plays along. 'Er, yeah. Nothing's confirmed. Um…'
'But you must be fairly certain to start a new dig? Where is it? Where is the text?' the professor urges.
'I… er, don't have it here.' Ross really needs to practice his lying skills.
'What do you mean you don't have it here? Where is it?' Professor Melnik is beginning to sound desperate.
'It's destroyed,' I say. 'At least the original is, when they were making room for more archives. A whole lot of stuff had to be shredded. It was just scribbled on a piece of writing pad.' There, Ross could learn a trick or two from me.
'So, how do you know it relates to the Calix Puritatis?' Professor Melnik asks. 'How do you know Scrydan was the original scribe?'
He's got me there, but luckily Ross is on the case. 'We don't. It's all speculation, really. It was amongst a load of files on the cathedral. So we just figure it was related.'
Professor Melnik looks less than convinced. '"Polaris pivots the track to divination; And transcends the spirit of man; Thou sup'st the wine of infinity; Before lips of humility gain salvation…" Yes, I can see why…' Slowly he nods, then looks at his watch. 'I must dash. I only stopped by to see how you were getting on, Ross. Um… best of luck. I must be off now. Good-goodbye, Nola.' He leaves as quickly as he arrived, looking a little shaken.
'Noa, thank you very much,' I correct him but he's out of earshot. 'Bye, Professor Melnik.'
'Why didn't you want me to tell him?' Ross asks, once he's gone.
'Gut instinct,' I reply, climbing out of the trench to watch Professor Melnik hurrying away. 'I don't trust him.'
'You sound like Grant,' Ross laughs. 'He didn't think much of him either, especially not after the professor wrote that paper rejecting Grant's theories on medieval Britain and caused our patrons to pull their funding.'
Could it have been a deeper dislike though, I wonder? Something more personal? 'Did you know Professor Melnik and Phoebe Fitzpatrick were romantically involved?'
Ross looks shocked. 'What?'
'Yeah, exactly. There's a lot more that he's not letting on about.'
Break over, we all get back to work in Trench 3. As the midday sun beats down sweat trickles down my temples and soaks my hair. My eyes sting from the dust and blisters are developing on my palms. I don't feel great and I daren't look at my reflection. Puffing out my cheeks I stop for a moment just to ease the ache in my back. I feel a cool relief on my brow and look up to see Max leaning over the trench and putting his hand on my forehead.
'Be still my beating heart,' he says dramatically, putting a fist to his chest.
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. I must look a sight.
'What sort of stuff did Arts of the Ancient do?' I ask Ross.
'Anything and everything,' he puffs. He also looks pretty mucky, but somehow it suits him. He certainly has more stamina than me and he keeps on chipping away. 'When we could get funding we'd do bigger digs, but most of the time it was finding bits and pieces like your arrowhead and selling them.'
'Did you deal in art? Like paintings and stuff?'
'Oh that, yeah.' Ross doesn't flinch. 'To begin with. Not that I had anything to do with it. I couldn't tell a da Vinci from a van Gogh. That was more Jules's domain. We stopped that side of things when she left.'
'Ross, can you have a look at this.' We're interrupted by Louise, her hair looking dirtier and more tousled than this morning.
Max pouts at me. 'Well, that rules him out of scamming Mrs Grosvenor-Hughes then.'
Which leaves only Jules and Grant, and Jules was the painting expert.
'It must be ten years since Jules left,' says Ross resuming his work. He shakes his head and chuckles. 'Gosh, how time flies when you're having fun. How things change.'
I glance across at Max to see if he's clocked the same thing I have.
'Ten years?' he says in surprise. 'So, if Mrs Grosvenor-Hughes had her painting authenticated only six years ago, and Ross knows nothing about paintings that means Grant was the rotten egg at Arts of the Ancient.'
I gulp.
'Why do you ask?' Ross pauses to wipe a dirty glove across his brow and look my way.
I shrug and fiddle with the cap on my water bottle. 'No reason. Just curious.'
But perhaps Ross has got to know me better. He's not fooled. 'Like the same curious you were for your school project?'
I give him an apologetic look. 'I couldn't tell Professor Melnik the truth, could I?'
'But it's not just Scrydan you've been asking about,' Ross counters. 'Why all the questions about Arts of the Ancient?'
'I was curious about Grant, that's all. Why he committed suicide.' I turn back to my patch of trench and hope it will end the conversation, but Ross's not to be dissuaded.
'But you don't even think he committed suicide, do you?' he says. 'Why are you asking all these questions? How do you know Phoebe Fitzpatrick and Professor Melnik were seeing each other?' His eyes narrow at me as he gets into his stride. 'What are you even doing here today? You're not that interested in archaeology, are you?'
'He's got you there,' Max drawls unhelpfully.
'I just have an inquisitive mind,' I say.
Ross crosses his arms and gives me a heavy-lidded stare. 'Yeah,' he scoffs, 'I think we've established that already.'
'I think we should probably leave now, Noa,' Max says. 'Your next homework assignment is to find about a bit more about Grant Fitzpatrick himself.'
I think he's probably right.
Copyright © H.R. Aidan, 2017
