Time Enough To Die (18 page)

No. He pulled her to her feet and steered her through what seemed to be a crowd gathered at the door. “All right then, you stupid cows,” he said with a laugh, “you've put the wind up her, thank you very much."

A hulking, smelly man Ashley assumed was Bob said, “Tough luck, boyo."

"They didn't mean anything,” Nick told Ashley as she tumbled into the car.

No, they probably didn't.
Still it was easier to blow off her own compadres than someone else's. She focused on her hands clasped in her lap and didn't look up until they were in open country, passing black and white houses and black and white cows muted to shades of gray by gathering cloud and evening both.

Nick didn't seem to be gnashing his teeth in frustration, but the pit of Ashley's stomach ached. Well, there was always next time, when maybe she could get something going with him in private, not in public. Assuming she wanted to get something going with him. Funny how things weren't working out according to her script.

"Tell me about the dig,” he said.

She told him about the dig, sketched the personalities involved, and finished with an account of Matilda's close encounter with a bus.

"That was on the Thursday?” His dark eyes sparked.

"Watch the road!” Ashley yelped as another car whisked by them.

He turned back to the road. “The brakes on the bus packed up, I reckon. Simple as that."

They closed on a green car ahead of them, which was slowing for a traffic light at the outskirts of the town. Both cars stopped. Nick claimed Ashley's thigh again. Ashley suddenly realized that the car ahead of them was Gareth's. From the angle of his head she guessed the reporter was looking at the light, not into his rear view mirror. Even so, she ducked.

"Is that someone from the dig?” Nick asked.

"Yes. It's Gareth March, a reporter who's writing us up."

Nick sneered, “Yeh, March, the toffee-nosed git. Showed up at the camp yesterday on a horse, for God's sake, and handed us a right bit of flannel. Don't trust him, he's probably a pig in disguise."

"No, no, no,” Ashley protested. “I've overheard him talking to Matilda."

The light changed. Gareth drove straight on ahead, unaware anyone was sneering at him. Nick turned left and dropped Ashley off in the car park by the town center. “Friday, then, for certain? If I can get away before then I'll—well, I can hardly walk into the hotel and ask Clapper for you, can I? I'll be in touch, eh?"

"Yes, of course.” Ashley met his parting kiss hesitantly—there were people around—and waved goodbye to the Fiesta's dwindling taillights.

The breeze was chill, and again her skin broke out in gooseflesh. The greasy newspapers Nick had dumped earlier that day shifted back and forth across the pitted asphalt, in the twilight looking like the pale ghosts of dreams past. She gathered them up, thrust them into a rubbish bin, and walked briskly into the town square. She couldn't go back to the hotel, not yet. Matilda, Dr. Sweeney, Gareth—they'd notice Nick's fingerprints on her. Then she'd feel guilty. She didn't want to feel guilty. She sat down on a bench, looked up at the church steeple, and started shooting the rapids of her thoughts.

The remaining daylight leaked away behind the clouds. The lights of the town seemed feeble against the gloom. A siren sounded, not too far away. Several shadowy figures trooped through the square exchanging laughs and taunts. The familiar voices hauled Ashley out of her meditation. She stood up.

"Yo, Ashley,” Bryan called. “What're you doing out here?"

"Watching the sunset.” And starving to death, she realized. Food was sublimated sex, after all. She fell into step with the others. “How was the hang-gliding?"

"Great!” replied Courtney. “We found a youth hostel in Castleton...."

They emerged from the alley beside the church. Below them lay the hotel, its windows glinting in the pulsing blue lights of several police cars. Flashlights swooped like demented fireflies over the dark mound of Cornovium. Clumps of human figures stood on the sidewalk and in the gardens of the cottages. Voices rose and fell in a staccato rhythm. Every nerve ending in Ashley's body blazed. What the ... ?

"Mein Gott, was ist das?"
exclaimed Manfred.

In one jostling mass the students raced down the hill and collided with the crowd before the door of the hotel.

The lights were so bright Ashley was blinded. It took her a moment to recognize the hands that grasped her arms and spun her around as Matilda's. “Ashley, where have you been?"

"Out—what's wrong?"

Matilda inhaled, nostrils flaring, then glanced from Ashley to Bryan and let her go. “Howard and Caterina were working on the inscription. They didn't come in when it started to get dark, so Gareth went to look for them. Someone hit Caterina over the head and pushed Howard down into the Miller ravine. She's unconscious, he's bruised and dazed."

The screech of an ambulance siren sliced the night. Matilda watched the vehicle turn onto the road and gather speed. Even after its lights winked out the sound of its siren lingered mournfully on the wind.

Ashley's mind stammered. The faces around her—Matilda, Courtney, Bryan, Manfred—smeared into leering masks of light and shadow. She turned toward the hotel. Gareth, Clapper, Watkins, and two more policemen stood in close conference right in front of the door. Jason stood between the two cops, looking belligerently from side to side. “Yeah, I came back early, I was tired, the hostel in Keswick was full—so I had a fight with Caterina, so what?"

The policemen answered his question by hustling him over to a patrol car and pushing him inside.

"I don't think so,” Matilda said to Watkins. “Even though the inscription Caterina was working on has been uprooted and tossed around..."

Gareth interrupted. “We saw Jason kicking at it."

"...and this piece of it was lying by the gate,” Matilda went on. She held up a bit of stone, the incised letters dark with dirt.

"Good show,” said Watkins, “to find that little bit in the dark."

"I don't follow,” Clapper said. “You think it was them vandals and thieves again? I saw that Nick whatisit, the traveler layabout, driving by just at dusk tonight—slowed down, he did, and gave the professor and the Eyetie girl a good hard look."

No,
Ashley said to herself. He'd dropped her off, that's all. Even though driving by here on his way back to the camp would have taken him out of his way.

"What would thieves want with an old inscription?” asked Watkins.

"It's what they thought was beneath the inscription,” Matilda answered. “See, the inscribed word is
'spolia'.
Spoils, booty. Treasure. How many times has Caterina said something about treasure the last few days? She always meant it figuratively, but not everyone would know that."

"Yesterday,” said Ashley, and stopped, surprised at the sound of her own voice.

The others turned toward her. “Yes?” Matilda said

"Caterina, Dr. Sweeney, and Mr. Reynolds were talking about the column of Trajan in Rome. She said it's carved with reliefs showing the Romans carrying home the booty, the treasure, they picked up in Judaea."

"The bit you see reproduced most frequently,” said Matilda, “shows a Roman soldier brandishing the menorah from Solomon's temple, a treasure indeed. Very good, Ashley. That's helpful."

Gareth frowned. “You mean whoever coshed Sweeney and the girl thought there was treasure buried beneath the inscription?"

"There's some sort of Jewish temple in Manchester, right enough,” Clapper offered. “I never heard of any of them candlesticks around here. We're mostly C. of E., those that go to church at all."

"I suppose,” Watkins said firmly, “that the thieves thought there might be more of them Roman-British statues or whatnot."

"Or some kind of booty, at any rate.” Matilda brushed her hair back from her forehead. The harsh light, Ashley thought, made the older woman's face look pale and seamed. “We can speculate about this later on. Right now I need to follow that ambulance, make sure Howard and Caterina are all right. Constable, please make sure someone is keeping an eye on the fort the rest of the night. Mr. Clapper, please ask around here, I'm sure Jason's movements can be accounted for."

"Here, here, what's going on, my horses aren't half cut up.... “Reynolds came pushing his way through the crowd.

Gareth and Watkins exchanged a significant glance. “Mr. Reynolds,” the constable said affably, “could we have a bit of a natter?"

"See you later,” Matilda said to Gareth. And to Ashley, “Don't worry, they'll be all right."

Ashley murmured something appropriate, turned away from the lights that were ruthlessly exposing all her romantic fantasies, and followed the other students into the hotel.

By the time Matilda returned to the parking lot of the Green Dragon it was past midnight. Corcester had rolled up its sidewalks. The only human shape visible was the one leaning on the gate to the fort, spotlighted by the tiny spark of a cigarette. That the figure dared to light a cigarette reassured Matilda it was one of the constables from Manchester who'd been temporarily assigned to Watkins's beat.

She turned off her lights and her engine and exhaled through pursed lips. She could hardly fault the paramedics for taking Howard and Caterina to Manchester—head injuries could be tricky. But she had negotiated the route back to Corcester with her heart in her throat, expecting a bus to dive at her from the gloom. Here she was, though, safely back at the scene of the crime.

The front door of the hotel was locked. Matilda rang the bell, waited, rang it again. After several minutes Clapper came lumbering forth, swathed in a terry cloth robe. “How are they, Dr. Gray?"

"They'll be all right,” she replied. “Caterina has a mild concussion, but she's awake and isn't too confused. Howard is scratched and bruised, with a bump on his head and a wrenched knee. Neither one of them has any idea who attacked them."

"Twere the travelers,” Clapper muttered darkly, and locked the door.

Maybe so,
Matilda thought as she toiled up the stairs. She opened the door of her room. Gareth lay on the bed, a book open on his chest and his head lolling to the side. Other books were scattered around him. Matilda shut the door behind her with an emphatic click.

Gareth sat up abruptly. “Oh, there you are. Sorry, I had Clapper let me in."

"So we can have yet another conference? Gareth, we have to stop meeting like this."

He wasn't amused. He was angry, she sensed, more at himself for not preventing the attack than at the person who'd actually done it. She understood that. If she'd so much as looked out the window she might have seen the assailant stalking his victims. But no, she'd been sitting with the dig computer, working her way through the dull but necessary details of the week's work.

"There're some sandwiches for you on the table,” Gareth told her. “I knew tea would get cold and lemonade warm, so I laid in a bottle of beer."

"My hero!” She plopped down in the chair, untied her walking shoes, and peeled her socks from her aching feet. “There. I spent a couple of hours too many pacing the floor at the hospital."

The sandwiches were the usual tomato and cheese, and tasted like ambrosia. Between bites Matilda gave Gareth the medical report, concluding, “As far as I could make out between Caterina's accent and her addled condition, it was getting so dark she could hardly see the inscription when she heard Sweeney cry out. She looked for him. He was nowhere in sight. She called for him, took a few steps one way or the other, and then nothing. She doesn't remember hearing any footsteps or feeling the blow. She's still a bit shocky, not quite focused yet."

"Someone pushed Sweeney and then coshed Caterina,” Gareth translated.

"Howard says he was standing there looking over the countryside, chewing his cud, I suppose, and he felt a tremendous shove from behind. I can sympathize with that.” Matilda made a face. “He was dazed and didn't hear Caterina calling him. Or criminals stomping around, for that matter. He's not dazed now. He's reeking of offended dignity."

"It doesn't sound like the yobbo meant to kill, though either the fall or the blow could have done."

"I'm afraid so. Howard's sure it was Reynolds. He said the man was listening avidly while they were discussing the word ‘spolia’ Saturday night."

"He always has an ear in.” Gareth nodded. “Sweeney's trap turned the trick, then?"

Matilda took a deep swig of the beer. Its astringent taste matched her mood. “No. He caught himself and an innocent student. There's no proof it was Reynolds who attacked them. The man isn't stupid. Why would he make a move under circumstances that would point directly to him? Why not let us uncover some kind of treasure and then steal it?"

"Reynolds has neck for two,” Gareth asserted. “I reckon he intended Jason to take the blame—he heard the lad's row with Caterina."

"What did Jason tell Watkins?"

"He watched a football game on the telly in the sitting room and then chatted up one of the local girls in the bar. He'd put away several pints, no doubt of that, and the girl vouched for him."

"What about Reynolds's alibi?"

"He hasn't one. He said he was at home all evening. When Watkins sent a W.P.C. to interview Della, though, she couldn't knock her up."

"The policewoman knocked on the door of the house but Della didn't answer.” Matilda translated.

"That's what I said. The W.P.C. fetched Watkins and Reynolds, who opened the door. Della was asleep. Out cold. When they finally woke her she said she'd gone to bed about five-thirty with a headache. There was a bottle of pain tablets by the bed, as well as a half-empty glass of gin."

Matilda frowned. “She shouldn't mix pain pills and alcohol. She could find herself taking a slow ferry across the Styx."

"Excuse me?” asked Gareth.

"She could die. Greek mythology. Sorry, I'll stick to Celtic.” Matilda put down the empty bottle and the napkin and contorted her knees into the chair, trying to reach and rub her feet.

Gareth turned a wry smile toward the books lying on the bed next to him. “There's a good bit of Celtic mythology in these books of Dr. Sweeney's.
The Roman Conquest of Britain, Letters from Roman Britain, Everyday Life in Pagan Britain.
The one with the letters mentions Corcester—Suetonius dedicated a temple here, to the victory over Boudicca, just before he went home to Rome."