Grave Consequences (5 page)

“Sounds heavenly,” I said. And it was. The water almost reached my chin and I steeped for what felt like hours, but when I checked my watch, it had only been about twenty minutes. Still, it was a luxury to me and I felt worlds better, despite my stomach. Odd, I thought. I have the constitution of a particularly tough rhino; it was unusual for me to feelill.

The bath restored me in great part, and then I called Brian to let him know I’d made it all right. He sensed something was up immediately, and I finally told him about the missing student and the modern burial. I couldn’t help saying that I was feeling a little haunted.

“It’s nothing to do with you,” he said immediately. “You’re only there to dig and buy books and visit your friends, not necessarily in that order.”

And with that, the subject changed, by mutual agreement, until we reluctantly said good-bye. When I finally found my way to the basement kitchen—painted a warm cream with green and orange accents—I discovered that Jane had kicked it up into high gear. A pot of tomato sauce was bubbling, filled with mushrooms, if the scent was any indication. Pasta was boiling on the tiny stove, and Jane was picking leaves off plants that grew in a row of pots near the basement window.

At first I was taken aback by that sight; her plants looked suspiciously like the illicit little set-up Kam and Brian had in their graduate school apartment, but then I realized that Jane was picking fresh basil. Next to a large terrarium tank with a light, she had an herb garden in the kitchen, all trained up and orderly.

“Anything I can help you with?” I asked.

“Yes, thanks. That chair at the table desperately needs to be held down, and that glass of wine needs to be emptied right away,” Jane said. “Apart from that, I’m pretty well set: I’ve got the bread heating, a salad and dressing all done, Hildegard’s fed—the tortoise is Greg’s, the stupid thing—and there’s a batch of little cheesy nibbles just ready…now.” The instant she said “now,” the oven timer chimed.

Jane continued as she pulled the tray from the oven; the most delicious smell of herbed cheese struck me. She nodded toward the tank. “When he told me he wanted a tortoise, I thought, great, a tortoise won’t be any work at all. The perfect pet for the busy couple. When I ever found out how temperamental they are and how much care they need—diet, temperature, this, that, and the other—well, they’re much more bother than a cat. And yet I’ve rather got attached to the bumpy little thing, I must say.”

I sat obediently at a large oak farmhouse table and took a sip of my wine, overwhelmed by Jane’s energy. She was already clean, somehow, and flushed with the steam of cooking food.

“Here, eat up while they’re hot.” She slid the hot canapés into a plate in front of me, then whirled back to the basil on the chopping board.

Greg came in and emptied his overstuffed pockets into a basket set on the counter for exactly that purpose. I was impressed by the range and amount of detritus that ended up in the basket.

“All right, Jane?” he said.

“Everything’s just about set,” she called over her shoulder as she chopped. “There’s a paper by your chair; we
didn’t have the hands to fetch one on the way, but I dashed across the street while Emma was having her bath.”

“Makes you dizzy to watch her, doesn’t it?” Greg asked me fondly.

“I feel like a princess,” I replied, “all looked after.”

“Greg, if you’ll grab those two bowls, I believe we are ready to begin.”

Greg set the food on the table and Jane finally sat down, and it was as if I had been holding my breath the entire time. Jane’s imitation of a whirlwind had exhausted me.

We dawdled over dinner, talking for a couple of hours; as curious as I was about the modern burial, I held off asking; Jane looked too relaxed to bring up work and, heaven knew, it would be there tomorrow. Even though we’d dined fairly early—just about six o’clock—I found myself almost sinking asleep into my plate by eight-thirty.

“Emma, don’t try to fight it,” Greg insisted. “We’ve all had one hell of a day and we’ll be the better for it if we make an early night of it. We’ll be down here for a while, but if you need anything, our room is on the second floor.”

“Yes, do go up. Sleep well, Emma,” Jane chimed in. She looked quite relaxed now, her knees drawn up, feet resting on another chair, cheeks flushed with food and wine.

“Thanks, I will. Dinner was wonderful, good night.”

I had intended to go straight up to my room, but as I passed the parlor, I noticed the bookcases and couldn’t resist a peek. You learn so much about people by their taste in books.

The wall by the door was covered in framed photos and bookcases. One bookshelf was for work, it seemed, full of titles by and about Chaucer, Christine de Pizan, and Hildegard of Bingen. There were some duplicates, probably where Jane and Greg’s collections overlapped. On the next I saw lots of Orwell, lots of Lawrence and Woolf, followed by a whole row of Wodehouse. Right, I thought, those first will be Jane’s and the next will be Greg’s. When I snuck a look at the flyleaf of
The Inimitable Jeeves
, however, I saw Jane’s
decisive signature as well. Maybe Greg’s were the collection of dog-eared Tom Clancys?

As I reached for the book, Greg came into the room. “Aha, I’ve caught you. Share Jane’s addiction for spy novels, do you?”

“Not really. These are all hers?”

“Yeah, my taste runs more to nonfiction, architecture, natural history, that sort of thing. Nothing so psychological or technological. They’re upstairs, if you’re interested.”

“Not really, I’m just being nosy. I was heading for the photos next.”

“Oh, well, by all means, let me guide you. Here’s a good one.”

Greg pointed to a photo of him and Jane, he in a suit, Jane formal in academic robes adorned with the braid and fur I’ve always envied my European counterparts as well as the usual velvet hood and tam. She was beaming brighter than a thousand suns and I thought it was nicely appropriate that a scholar of medieval archaeology should be garbed in robes that had their origin in the Middle Ages.

“She’d just got her PhD. We went to the Lake District for a week after that, and spent most of the time hiking, drinking, or in bed.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was good. I finished the year after, and we went back to the same place, over here.” In this picture, the pair of them were grinning cheesily for the camera, small peaks in the distance behind them. “I didn’t go to the ceremony.”

“Oh?”

“Well, honestly, I wasn’t bothered. Some old man in muttering Latin over me wasn’t going to turn me into an archaeologist, was he? Too much archaic ritual, for my taste.”

“I suppose,” I said. I wouldn’t have missed my degree ceremony for the world.

He tapped the glass of the photo. “And besides, I would have felt ridiculous in the gown with all those bits of velvet
and tassels and such. Jane thought I ought to, since I’d worked so hard, but really, she was the one who straightened me out, set me down to proper work. I might not have finished if left to my own devices.”

I looked at him. “Did you really
want
to do the degree?”

Greg nodded soberly. “Yeah, I did, because I couldn’t do the sort of work I want without one. I just found it hard to settle down to it. You see, it was the writing. The analysis and the reading were fine, but then there was the writing.”

He shuddered. “Writing anything but a straight report gives me hives, and the thought of applying all that theory to my lovely, straightforward data stopped me cold. I found every excuse in the book to avoid it, but once Jane had finished, she took over. She did all the housework, looked after all the little things that can distract one. She taught me how to tackle the thesis so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed by the enormity of it. She must have read my thesis thirty times, and her comments made it better, every time. I couldn’t have done it without her.”

I was impressed by the frankness of his admission, even as he colored at it. “What’s this one? Who is this with you?” I could tell the picture had been taken a long time ago. Greg’s hair was much longer, and therefore much frizzier, so that he resembled a dandelion going to seed. He must have been wearing contact lenses then. The other man’s hair was dyed black and teased into New Wave tufts that must have required a fortune in styling gel to maintain. Both wore overlong black sweaters, narrowly cut trousers, and boots; both held half-empty beer glasses and wore the solemn smirks of new college students. Greg’s friend, however, knew just how much makeup would give the best effect without hiding any of his good looks.

“Ah, that’s Andrew Freeman and me.” Greg grinned. “University in the eighties, when we were both so much younger and so much prettier. Well, I was as yet unlined, at least; Andrew’s still pretty enough to suit his purposes.”

“Works it, does he?” I asked, even though I knew the an
swer. The picture said it all; all that effort put into one’s appearance told the story.

“Oh, women have always flocked to him and he’s never minded it in the least. Nothing ever sticks, however, but that’s just as well with him. His work comes first, always—Andrew’s rather monomanic when it comes to his bones—though he does like to keep his hand in with the odd fling, every now and then. Can’t blame him for it.”

I brought my nose to within an inch of the photo, trying to make something out. “That’s not eyeliner you’re wearing, is it? Greg, you little Goth, you!”

“Ah, yes, I must cringingly admit that I was, a bit.” Greg colored and shoved his glasses up his nose, but then considered the picture critically. “More of a Curehead, really, but we thought we were the coolest things going, all that bleak drama and all.” He shook his head, smiling at his younger image, then turned back to me, mock-serious. “Mind you,
Andrew
always bought his own eyeliner and you will notice he’s wearing nail varnish.
I
only ever borrowed Jane’s eyeliner for parties, but nothing for working days, and nothing on the nails, you’ll please notice.”

I laughed. “You and Jane were dating then?”

“We’d just started. She took that picture, actually. Andrew wasn’t thrilled about her joining us all the time, but eventually he came around, of course. Even flirted with her a bit, though of course Jane would have none of it. She tore him up one side and down the other. Later on, he apologized to me for being a bastard.” Greg shrugged and grinned. “I knew he was really just flirting with her to make me feel good—I didn’t date much, before Jane.”

I didn’t say anything. Plain, earnest, honest-looking Greg would have made the perfect foil for Andrew’s glamour; I wondered whether there was anything deeper than that to his affection for Greg. As for innocent flirtation with Jane, when I looked at the picture again, I realized that Andrew was every bit as engaged with the photographer as Greg was. It didn’t look the least bit innocent to me.

“Here’s a nice one, of me and Gran and Aunty Mads.” Greg pointed to another picture in a metallic gold frame, the surface glinting greenish with age. “That one’s Gran, the smaller one, that’s Auntie Mads Crawford. Well, I call her Auntie; she and Gran were great friends. They raised me after my parents died in a car crash.”

I saw another even younger version of Greg, this time with shorter hair and heavily rimmed glasses and a navy blue leisure suit, flanked by two older women. A tall, stout woman with gingery hair, which although pinned into a large bun was clearly every bit as wiry as Greg’s, was obviously his grandmother. The other woman was shorter, thinner, and thin-lipped, with lighter hair. Both women wore spring suits and hats that were dated, even for this photograph, with corsages and looks of well-satisfied pride. Young Greg, his head tilted down, smiled shyly for the camera.

Greg continued. “That was the day I left school. I thought they would bust, they were dead chuffed. Of course, they never said much about it to me—”

“But just look at them,” I said.

“Absolutely. They worked very hard, the two of them, to pay my fees. I had a small grant but it didn’t cover everything. I think back now to how hard that must have been for them, but they never said a word about it. They were tough old birds then, and Mads still is. I think it was the war, you know. They’d gone through so much then that I don’t believe they ever believed anything less would ever stop them after that—”

“Greg? Where’ve you got to?” Jane called from downstairs. “I need to ask you about Bonnie’s notes, and Emma needs to get to sleep.”

Greg and I exchanged a smile and said good night again. I went up and washed at the little sink in my room—complete with a towel, herbal soap, and a clean “toothmug,” as Jane had called it—and then fell gratefully into bed. I slept almost at once.

I don’t know how long it was later, but it was still dark
when I abruptly woke up. Still groggy and blaming my confused circadian mechanism, I was about to roll over and try to get back to sleep when I realized that I had woken up for a reason. My door was opening.

At first, I thought it must be the fault of the door itself—the house was old, and the door frame was probably out of plumb—but then I saw a form in the faint light of a streetlight shining through the hallway window. There was a man in the doorway.

Still uncertain that I wasn’t dreaming, I couldn’t find my voice for a second, but then I smelled the distinct sour smell of beery sweat and heard the man’s harsh breath.

“Who—?” I managed to gasp out, but that was all. I summoned my breath for a scream, but then the stranger surprised me by speaking himself.

“You stubborn little bitch,” he said in a low voice. “D’you have any idea what you’ve put me through?”

Shocked, I watched the stranger fumble for the light switch and then was blinded when the overhead light banished the darkness. When I was able to unscrew my eyes open, I realized that the stranger was in the same boat as I; he squinted back at me, disappointed and every bit as confused as I.

“Who the hell are you?” we demanded simultaneously.

I
GRABBED THE FLASHLIGHT FROM THE TOP OF MY
nightstand, grateful that I’d brought the big metallic one that weighed about five pounds instead of the tiny one I use for taking notes in dark auditoriums. Its heft comforted me a little, but I couldn’t decide what to do: I didn’t want to get out from under the covers, but neither did I want to stay there, vulnerable, in bed. Then I saw how the man was barely able to stand without weaving and decided that I was okay for the moment.

“You first,” I said, as assertively as I could. “Who are you? And I’d better like the answer, because I’m about two seconds away from screaming my head off.”

“Oh, Christ. You’re the…American, aren’t you? I’d completely forgotten you were…” He waved his hand and almost tipped over. “Look, my apologies…I’ll just be on my way—”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Look…I live here, all right, friend of Greg’s, so don’t get your knickers in a knot. Honest mistake. I’m Freeman, Andrew Freeman.”

“Bloody Andrew,” I thought, but I must have said it out loud, because he snorted.

“I see that you’ve had Jane’s opinion of me,” he said. “I trus…trust you’ll soon form your own.”

“Yeah, and you’re off to a roaring start,” I said. A thought came to me. “Who did you expect was going to be here? Obviously not me.”

“I thought you were…” His brow furrowed and he shook his head. “I don’t even remember what I was thinking. As you can see,”—here he paused and licked his lips, and his tone and attitude shifted away from sarcasm—“I am more than a little worse for the drink, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to bed. I do apologize, I can imagine how…startling this must be for you—”

“Startling’s one way to look at it—”

“I know, I know. I’m so sorry. Let me take myself away from here; I won’t trouble you further.”

Without another word, he turned, stumbled against the door frame again, righted himself, and left. The door was left ajar, and although I knew I was probably safe enough, it took me a moment to push the covers off, get up, and close the door. I heard a door down the hall shut loudly as well.

As I scuttled back toward my bed, I realized that my head was still aching. I stopped just long enough to dig out and swallow a couple of aspirin, then leapt back into bed, my heart racing. I was shaken from the encounter.

Good aggression, Em, I thought ruefully to myself. Nice authority, with the comforter pulled up around your chin and a flashlight in your hand.

Well, what was I supposed to do? Ask him to wait while I pulled on my pants? Go for the throat? He was a mess, he didn’t mean me any harm. It was just a stupid mistake.

But you didn’t know that, my prudent self answered back. You can’t rely on that.

I played the incident over and over in my head, left with an image of an ungainly man with brown hair and beard and a prominent nose, not dissimilar to the much younger pic
ture I’d seen of him downstairs. Because I instinctively didn’t believe his denials for one minute, I finally fell asleep wondering who the “stubborn little bitch” was.

It seemed like only a moment later that I heard a tapping on the door. I didn’t answer at first; then I heard Greg’s voice call out.

“Emma, time to get up. May I come in?”

What was it about this room? It seemed to be some kind of central thoroughfare.

“Uh, yeah, Greg.” I sat up and tried to tidy myself a little—wipe a bit of drool from my chin, the sleep from my eyes, and realized that my head was pounding as though an enthusiastic blacksmith had taken up residency in it. I found I was entertaining thoughts of strangling Greg for adding to it with his knocking. What the hell was wrong with me?

Greg entered, holding a mug, looking abominably cheery for the hour of the day. “Prerogative of the gentleman of the house to bring morning tea. Milk, no sugar okay?”

“Fine. Thank you very much,” I said, taking the mug from him. I took one sip and suddenly realized what was wrong. It was
tea
. It was very good tea, well-brewed and strong, with a nicely balanced flavor.

But I needed coffee.

I hadn’t had a cup in nearly twenty-four hours. Hence the headache, hence the nausea. Hence my evil inclinations.

I was going through withdrawal.

Tea, I recalled, had more caffeine than coffee, but it came out in far smaller amounts when brewed. Assuming that some was better than none, I gulped down the entire mug.

Greg watched in silence. “Come downstairs when you’ve had a chance to wake up a bit. We’ll have some breakfast and be off.”

“Sounds good,” I said, but my head was throbbing worse than ever.

“See you down there.”

“Thanks, Greg.”

I pulled on my digging clothes—jeans, layers of T-shirt, cotton workshirt, and sweater—and pulled on my boots. I realized that my hands were trembling and thought, if Jane’s drinking coffee, I’ll ask for some. Otherwise, there’s bound to be a Starbucks or something around here. I’m not going to make a nuisance of myself the first morning, I told myself firmly.

What if there’s no Starbucks?

Then I’ll buy a bag of coffee and suck the grounds, I replied, gritting my teeth. I’m not going to be sidelined by some silly addiction compounding the early hour. I went downstairs.

Jane was whizzing around making another heap of sandwiches and calling out reminders to Greg, who was staring at his tortoise, which was out for a walk on the floor and slowly heading, with its snaky head outstretched and on little clawed elephant feet, toward where he stood in a patch of warm sunlight. I successfully resisted the urge to trip Jane, but not by much.

“Morning, Emma!” she called briskly.

“Morning, Jane.”

“There’s toast and muesli and more tea on the table—you do eat breakfast?—and I’ve got lunch packed up for you already. We’ve got a lot of work today—”

I picked up a triangle of toast and stared at it blankly as Jane listed the day’s many goals. My eyes were almost watering with the pain in my head and I couldn’t help but tune Jane out—it was as much for her safety as it was for my sanity. Nibbling at the cold, dry toast, I realized that Jane’s speech was in fact a monologue. Greg was as silent as I. He had returned Hildegard to her tank, adjusted her lamp, and was now slowly feeding her. He picked up a kale leaf and arranged it at the other end of the terrarium, ostensibly to give Hildegard something to look forward to.

“—And Greg, will you leave that damned thing alone? I swear, you and Hildegard are two of a kind, poky and silent—”

The comment, which sounded like no more than an observation, caught me like a slap in the face. I noticed that Gregory slid a hurt glance toward his wife’s back. She hadn’t even looked up from the sandwich making.

“Jane, can I give you a hand with those?” I asked hurriedly.

“No, thanks, I’m all done,” she said, turning and smiling at me. Then she realized what I was trying to do. “Oh, Emma, don’t worry. It’s just my way in the morning; Greg knows the claws aren’t really out, don’t you, dear?”

“Yes, of course. Claws not out, noted.” He slid the top back over the terrarium and looked at me critically. “But I’m just wondering if our pet American isn’t actually desperate for a cup of coffee? You’re not one of those disgusting caffeine-crazed, can’t-find-the-floor-in-the-morning-without-a-cup fiends, are you, Emma?”

“Oh, yes, God, yes,” I said with relief. “I didn’t want to ask, but is there a coffee shop or something I could run to real quick, before we get started? I won’t take long, but it would be
really
good and I’m sure I’d be much more useful—”

My hosts exchanged a look and burst out laughing. I didn’t even care, so long as the hope of coffee loomed.

“She’s gibbering, Jane. I’ll take her down the cafe, get her a fix, and meet you over there, shall I?”

“Yes, good, go, don’t be late,” Jane said, but she’d already turned back to sorting out her notes for the day.

“See you, pet.”

She frowned at the notebooks, and when Greg went to buss her cheek, she made a vague kissing gesture about three inches off target, still engrossed in her paperwork.

Upstairs Gregory grabbed his green raincoat from a peg in the hall and led the way out onto the sunny high street. I followed, once again struck by the smell of exhaust that hadn’t journeyed through a catalytic converter. The sun was
still creeping up and the little town was waking up; a shopkeeper was setting out oranges in a bin, a newsstand vendor pored over a racing form, and a milk float whirred by, clinking empty bottles the only noise over the motor. Gregory walked along, waving to the folks who called good morning to him. He seemed to know everyone in town.

“Jane’s preoccupied today,” I ventured, hurrying to keep up.

“Jane’s been preoccupied since, oh—” he looked at his watch “—about 1987. Someday she’ll come back to us all.”

At that moment, we arrived at a little shop front with a flyblown sign that simply said “Sandwiches” stuck in the window. Although the sign was faded and dog-eared, and the plastic tables and chairs lined along one wall looked to be about 1960s vintage, the rest of the place was spotless. On the counter was a glass case containing a variety of sandwiches and buns and a basket of candy bars. Behind the counter, pouring tea into six white mugs, was a diminutive old woman, wearing a gauzy purple triangle of a scarf tied under her chin and an apron that buttoned up the front over a quilted jacket; it would have been much too warm for me in the steamy little cafe. I recalled the image I’d seen of her in the photo and decided she’d probably lost something of her height and a lot of her mass since that time; she probably felt the cold more keenly now.

I looked around the rest of the room and saw a couple of patrons glancing back at me with the silent, wary curiosity of habitués sensing some potential disruption to their routine. One or two called over to Greg, who, instead of taking a seat at the last empty table, snuck up behind the old lady and grabbed her in a bear hug from behind.

“Good morning, Auntie Mads!”

“Ooooh!” came the shrill cry. “Aren’t you awful, to give an old lady such a scare! And my poor heart being what it is!” She swatted at Greg, but smiled delightedly nonetheless. “What can I get for you, dear?”

“A coffee and a tea, please.”

“Just a minute, then.” She glanced over at me, then frowned. “Where’s that wife of yours, who’s too good to make my boy a cup of tea in the morning?”

Greg stopped smiling. “I won’t have you talking about Jane like that, I’ve told you—”

She demurred hurriedly. “All right, all right, but you can’t fault me for never thinking anyone would be good enough for my boy.”

He gestured to me. “Auntie Mads, this is my friend Emma Fielding. She’s helping us work on the abbey for a few weeks.”

I wasn’t there, for all she noticed me. “All that digging around in the nasty muck. Oh, I wish you’d leave off that, Gregory, and stick to teaching. It’s much nicer.”

Greg smiled again. “I
am
teaching, Auntie. I’m fine.”

“I know you’re fine, I just hate thinking of you with all them manky, dirty bones. Diseases, Gregory, there’s awful diseases—” She stopped abruptly. “But as long as you’re home again, I can stand anything.” She gave him another hug, then went over to her kettle and mugs.

“Where’d you go, Greg?” I asked, as he sat down.

He grinned. “I made the mistake of leaving for university for three years, fifteen years ago, and she’s never forgiven me for it. Fortunately for all concerned, I got the position at Marchester University after I finished my postgraduate degrees there—”

“Here’s your tea, and your coffee.” Auntie Mads had returned and set down mugs in front of us. She sighed tiredly, then thought of something. “Do you want me to fix you up a nice sandwich for your lunch?”

“No, thank you. Jane has me all taken care of.”

The old lady waved her hand dismissively and returned to the counter. I didn’t notice anything else after that, save for the mug in front of me. The coffee was only a shade or two darker than tan, not much darker than Greg’s tea, and there was a faint greenish sheen swirling around on the surface. I sipped; it was hot and scorched and bitter and very, very
strong. Coffee I would have avoided like a paper cut at home I now welcomed with surging relief. I felt the pain in my head recede at last.

“We should get going,” I said guiltily, when I’d finished gulping. “It’s almost quarter past.”

“Oh.” He glanced down at his watch. “We’ve got another forty-five minutes.”

“You don’t start until nine?” I was astonished. “But that’s…practically noon.”

“Are you complaining?”

“Oh, God, no. I’m not a morning person—”

“Really? I’d never have guessed. Still we should leave a bit early, to get you oriented. So you’ll have time for another cup or two, before we get going.”

He glanced over to the counter and frowned. “Aunty’s not looking on top form today, I’m worried she’s not been feeling well lately.”

I looked over and saw Aunty chewing out a couple of the other patrons for bolting their food; they looked amused and did their best to reassure her that they’d taken their time and chewed properly. She looked okay to me, but then I saw her sigh again heavily, and wondered if Greg wasn’t right.

On our way out, fifteen minutes later, Greg excused himself, pausing to speak with one of the men across the room. I decided to buy a candy bar, just in case my jet lag slowed me down later. Mads saw me pause in front of the small rack.

“So, you’re here to work with Greg. You going to be here all summer, then?”

Her voice was as thin as she was, not high-pitched but a little unsteady.

“No, just a couple of weeks. I’ve got research to do in London and so I’m combining it with a visit to Jane and Greg.”

“And you’re an archaeologist too?”

“That’s right.”

Mads rubbed a cloth over the cash register. “Are you married?”

Ah, that’s it; she’s worried I’m poaching on Greg. “Yes, I am. Brian’s at home.”

“What’s he think of you gallivanting all over the place?” She looked at me sharply.