In the US Bronze is on a countdown promotion starting Sunday 14th September at $0.99 for the eBook, rising to $1.99 on the 17th September before reverting to the full price of $2.99 on the 20th September. All promotions commence at 8:00 am PDT on the stated days.
Chapter 1
Dylan
Evans heaved the metal gate leading to the north field up as the first weak
rays of light washed over the field. The
border collie snaked past his legs and curved through the foot-wide gap as
Dylan trudged through the churned mud spanning both sides of the gate, running
off into the field towards the cluster of sheep in the far corner, just visible
in the emerging light.
Sinking
below his ankles in mud, his wellington boots pulling against him with every
step, Dylan folded the gate back on itself, momentarily noting that the dog had
veered away from the group of sheep now becoming clearer as the sun rose
fractionally and the clouds began to break up. Wading back to his quad bike he kicked excess
mud off each boot by using the right-hand front tyre and mounted the seat,
giving the idling engine a blip and pushing the bike into gear. The dog had abandoned the sheep and was now
in front of Dylan, barking and pulling its head to the left before running back
into the middle of the field. Dylan
followed the dog’s track and saw a low mound and a bright cylindrical line
almost horizontal to the mound glinting in the morning rays. Revving, he drove
over to the mound.
Parking
short of the barking dog, Dylan dismounted and instinctively pulled his mobile
phone out of his pocket. Edging closer
he made out the prone form of a man in combat clothing lying face down in the
field, a metal detector lying across his back and an entrenching tool buried
deep into his skull. The field around
the man’s head was deep red with what Dylan assumed to be congealed blood and
as he squatted alongside, he could tell the man’s head had been nearly cleaved
in two. Dylan had despatched enough
vermin in his time to know the man was dead so backing away and calling the
collie to him he dialled 999.
*
The
police constables that pitched up first called Dylan over to the body. He’d called his brother who was heading over
to help sort the sheep out and had started moving them around the field so that
they wouldn’t impede the vehicles and personnel he expected to descend over the
morning.
‘I’ve
got tasks with the sheep that won’t wait,’ he said to the puzzled constable,
explaining he’d arranged cover so he could ‘assist them in in their enquiries’,
having watched enough police dramas on TV to know that he wasn’t likely to be
doing much farming for the rest of the morning. He confirmed he hadn’t touched the body or
anything around it, mentioned the dog had probably got very close but didn’t
think anything had been moved since he’d discovered the body and confirmed that
the police constables were the first people to turn up in the field since he’d
made the call.
‘Have
you told anyone else?’ asked one of the constables.
‘Sure,
my brother. Like I said, he’s coming over to take over the morning tasks. He’s probably told his wife. If the village doesn’t know by now, the jungle
telegraph has failed,’ shrugged Dylan. Looking up he saw another police vehicle, a
transit van, attempting to enter the gate. ‘I’d tell them to park up on the
lane,’ he suggested, pointing to the narrow road running along the periphery
the gate joined. ‘Unless you’ve got some
load spreading material you’ll sink the van up to its axles,’ he offered. ‘Quad bike’s one thing,’ he added. The two policemen nodded – their trousers were
covered in mud to just below their knees – and one of them peeled off to the
van, holding his hand up to stop him attempting to move further forward while
the second stood resolutely between Dylan and the body.
People
started appearing along the fence line as the van was unloaded and more police
deployed around the body, pushing stakes into the ground and wrapping ‘police –
do not enter’ tape around it. Dylan
recognised all of the voyeurs; the couple from the next farm, the retired major
from the village probably out for a morning stroll, the vicar. He noticed a policewoman started to make her
way around the thinly strung-out group, presumably confirming who they were and
why they were there.
Within
half an hour a detective from north Wales Constabulary arrived, introduced
himself as Detective Inspector Mark Starling. Like his colleagues his trousers were caked in
mud and his shoes were unrecognisable. Looking down at his feet he turned to a
constable struggling to unpack a blue forensic tent from its transit packaging.
‘Has
anyone looked for footprints leading to or from the gate, or on the lane
outside?’ he asked, realising inside that between the quad bike and half of the
active constables on duty in Flintshire that morning it was probably way too
late to establish a secure crime scene. He held a hand up to Dylan to stay where he
was, once they had been introduced, and took a careful walk around the body
before returning.
‘Do
you know the victim?’ he asked, flicking his head towards the body, presumably
to eliminate doubt. Dylan shook his
head; the face was hanging off and covered in congealed blood but was otherwise
recognisable. It wasn’t anyone he was
familiar with.
‘No,
never seen him. We get the odd metal
detecting club search our fields through the year,’ he said, failing to point
out he thought they were all odd, ‘but I don’t think we’ve ever granted
permission for this field, not while I’ve been in charge, and not this guy,’ he
said, looking back at the cleaved head. ‘Christ, that must have taken some force,’ he
commented.
Starling
couldn’t disagree, he would wait for the forensic examination before drawing
too many conclusions, but it looked violent all right.
‘What
about the coins?’ he asked. Dylan
furrowed his brow.
‘What
coins?’ he asked back, turning his head to one side as he looked at the body
again.
‘The
old coins – I think they’re coins – scattered around the body,’ replied
Starling. Dylan shrugged, replied he’d
not got too close, hadn’t noticed the coins but mentioned that given the light
levels when he’d pitched up it wasn’t unusual. The handful of coins were now reflecting the
sunshine that had broken through the clouds and were more obvious.
Starling
nodded, asked a couple of more questions about what Dylan had and hadn’t
touched, then they agreed on a time for Dylan to present himself at the station
for a detailed statement.
‘If
you’re ok, we’ll take fingerprints for elimination purposes while you’re
there,’ he added. Dylan shuffled
nervously, this sounded serious.
‘I
didn’t touch the body, anything. I just
called you and stood with the body until your guys pitched up,’ he argued.
‘And
we don’t know if there are any fingerprints to compare yours to – but if there
are any, then yours shouldn’t be among them if what you’ve said is accurate. It’s just being thorough,’ replied Starling.
As
the quad bike carefully rolled away to the gate, Steve Loham pitched up. Small, wearing the black fedora he wore all
year round and carrying a fishing case filled with the necessary appliances he
needed to carry out an on-site medical examination of a deceased person, he
passed his fedora to Starling without saying a word and approached the body
carefully, putting his bag on the ground lightly, extracting a pair of surgical
gloves from a compartment. Pulling the
gloves on, stretching the wrist band beyond the point they needed to sit on
before letting them snap into place, he poked carefully around the body without
moving anything. Returning to his bag he
pulled a disposable examination suit out and stepped into it. Finally, he slipped on a surgical mask before
returning to the body with a liver thermometer.
Kneeling carefully, Loham slipped his hand around the face, feeling the
jagged bone gently. Within a few minutes
he was back standing next to Starling.
‘Been
dead about twelve hours, give or take given it was a warm night last night,’ he
said. ‘The shovel splitting his head
nearly in half didn’t help, but I suspect he was dead before he hit the ground,
and the shovel was used to make a statement. Might have been to make absolutely sure, but I
think strangulation was likely to have been the primary cause of death.’ Loham handed Starling a wallet. ‘Robbery
doesn’t seem to be motive,’ he added. Starling
pointed to the coins distributed around the body, as much to confirm he’d come
to the conclusion about robbery independently. He opened the wallet, found it contained
several bank cards, fifteen pounds in cash and a driver’s license.
‘Gerard
Vanes, apparently,’ he said, reading from the license, ‘local, from down the
road. Apparently, the farmer didn’t
recognise him but judging by the way he’s kitted out I’m guessing he’s an
established detectorist, and they’ve been here pursuing their hobby in the past
according to the farmer, so I’m going to have to do some digging,’ he added,
noting the irony. ‘Strangulation by hand
or ligature?’ he asked, almost as an aside, a passing thought. Loham shrugged as he peeled the examination
suit off and pushed it into a clinical waste bag he’d retrieved from his
fishing case.
‘Not
obviously manual strangulation – no thumb bruising – and no obvious ligature
marks. There’s a broad bruise running
around the windpipe and the neck might be broken. You may be looking at a military killer here,
someone trained to kill from behind with their hands. I’ll know more when I cut him up,’ he said,
retrieving his fedora.
*
Dylan
sat cupping his hand around the cardboard cup, his arms lying across the
melamine surface of the interview room table. He’d noted the table was screwed to the floor,
as was the steel-framed chair he was sat at. He didn’t visit Mold often, never to the
police station, and found the room and the building sterile and quiet. The DI he’d met at the field had let him in to
the station, escorted him to the room, advised him to stay where he was and to
not move unless the fire alarm went off. After a few minutes he brought Dylan the cup
of foul-tasting coffee while he ‘checked some things’. Ten minutes later the coffee was still rank,
the silence was killing him and the anticipation mounting. The door opened and DI Starling entered with a
mug of tea, a brown manila folder and a case for his glasses, all of which he
carefully placed on the table opposite Dylan along with a pen and a pad.
‘Coffee
OK?’ he asked, taking a sip from his mug. Dylan’s face was probably sufficient to answer
him, but Dylan decided to be polite.
‘It’s
OK,’ he lied, knowing straight away that the policeman would have spotted the
body language didn’t align. Starling didn’t indicate anything, just picked up
his pen.
‘OK,
right, this is just an informal chat and to be absolutely clear you are here
voluntarily to help us build a picture of what happened this morning from when
you discovered the body and up until you left the field,’ said Starling. ‘I’m also going to ask you some questions
about how you spent the previous evening and more general questions about how
detectorists are managed in and around your fields. As I mentioned earlier I’d like you to
provide fingerprints for elimination purposes, which we can do before you
leave,’ he added. Dylan recounted the
events of the morning from when he left the farm, picked up the quad bike and
found the body. He pointed out that he’d
been in bed early the night before with his wife and two children all in the
house and reconfirmed he didn’t know the victim and when told the name
confirmed it didn’t ring a bell.
‘Detectorists,’
Starling half said, half asked. ‘How do
you manage them?’ Dylan felt a little
uncomfortable on this one; clubs booked access to his fields, paid in cash,
nothing was recorded. It took a bit of
dragging out, but Starling had realised early on that it would almost certainly
be an off-the-books affair which might be of interest to HMRC if they were
really bored, but not of interest to him. What he really wanted to know was who did use
the fields, where and when. Dylan
provided as much details as he could, only knowing some of the people by first
name, some not even by that.
The
fingerprinting was quick but messy, the exit from the station rapid, the coffee
undrunk. Dylan really hoped this was the
end of his involvement.
*
The
‘coins’ found spread around the victim were now individually sealed in evidence
bags lain across Starling’s desk. Each
was a couple of inches across give or take, were metal, roughly round and had
ornate patterns on them. Starling
realised that they weren’t coins, or at least contemporary coins, and may even
be made from precious metals. The
individual items had been tested for fingerprints and several prints were being
processed through the system, but the results probably wouldn’t be known until
the next day. Prints had been lifted
from the detector found across Vanes’ body and an attempt to lift them from the
entrenching tool had brought minimal results due to smudging, possibly
deliberate. The ‘coins’ had been
weighed, measured to within a few millimetres and photographed against a rule
edge, with copies of the photographs appended to the electronic file that would
contain everything in the manila folder and then much more again as the
investigation proceeded.
The
post-mortem wasn’t due to be completed until near the end of the day, the crime
scene was being fingertip searched by the crime scene specialists. He’d established that the victim was in his
late forties, unmarried, and lived with a woman of Eastern European origin. He was known to the chairman of the local metal
detecting club but wasn’t a member, possibly carried out his hobby on his own
or was affiliated with another club further afield. He worked for the local college in as a
teaching assistant and was superficially neither popular nor unpopular. If he made any waves as he went through his
life, the ripples hadn’t reached Starling so far.
Starling
pulled the evidence bags towards him one more time, determined that he needed
some expert help and looked up the contact numbers for Chester Museum as a
starting point. Within half an hour he
was checking the bags out on the evidence register, initially to himself but
accepting that they might need to be registered to a bona-fide expert by the
end of the day. Collecting the evidence bags, his laptop and his car keys he
set off for the Roman city of Chester.
*
Sir
Roger Witham-Hart looked like his name and title suggested, every bit of the
establishment in a tweed three piece that must have been incredibly warm on a
summer day outside, let alone in a stuffy cramped office upstairs at the museum
away from the public area.
‘Call
me Roger,’ he said, indicating that he didn’t expect the formality of ‘Sir
Roger’ to be observed. ‘Good family
upbringing, excellent connections, convenient title to keep me in the
establishment orbit,’ he explained as he offered Starling a seat.
The
receptionist who had taken Starling’s call had searched the offices for someone
who was in and available when he’d called, and ‘Sir Roger’ had taken the
opportunity to do something different at the drop of a hat.
‘I’m
not officially part of the museum, I’m sort of attached as a visiting professor
of archaeology,’ he explained. My main employer is Oxford, who have
kindly allowed me to spend some time helping the museum here to catalogue some
of their artefacts – it’s a win-win situation as they get help with their
cataloguing and I get detailed access to artefacts that would sit unknown in
drawers for years to come,’ he added. Starling assessed the professor as
being mid-forties, greying with a lank, wavy fringe slung randomly over the top
of his scalp. He was tall, which intuitively Starling had expected for
irrational reasons, lean but with a muscularity he hadn’t expected from someone
involved in academia.
‘How
can I help?’ he asked. Starling pulled
out the evidence bags and piled all seven of them on the desk separating the
two men. Sir Roger looked interestingly
at the bags but didn’t attempt to pick any up.
Starling brought the professor up to speed.
‘Found
surrounding the body of a man this morning,’ he said. ‘No apparent attempt to take these from him,
no explanation as to why they were there,’ he added. Sir Roger pushed his hand out tentatively.
‘May
I?’ he asked. Starling nodded and added
that he’d prefer the items remained in the evidence bags at this stage.
‘Each
bag has a unique serial number and can’t be resealed. If and when we open the bags we have to record
when and by who and what happened to the items. Then they have to be returned to a new
evidence bag with a new serial number and that has to be accurately logged on
the evidence register,’ he said, waving his hand in the general direction of
his laptop. ‘If you do need to examine
them outside of the bag then I must ask you to wear surgical gloves,’ he added.
‘That’s
standard procedure for handling items of this age,’ said the professor, picking
up the nearest bag and scrutinising the content closely, holding the bag to his
eyes having removed his glasses. His
eyes virtually closed as he inspected the artefact and he studied it for a few
minutes, quietly turning it around as he peered.
‘It’s
old, probably Bronze Age, possibly bronze in the main but in this condition
difficult to determine for certain. A
sympathetic clean might make it more certain,’ he said laying it down and
picking up another evidence bag. Another
period of silent study, paused while Sir Roger searched in his desk drawer for
a jewellers’ loupe, finding it and gripping it in his eye.
Starling
alternated watching the expert turn the item around while flicking through his
mobile to follow developments as they were pinged to him. Sir Roger placed the second item carefully
down and lay his hands over it as he focussed at a point behind Starling.
‘Initial
evaluation is that it is later Bronze Age, and it carries markings I’ve only
ever seen from one region, the Balkans, which would suggest these items, if all
from the same source, are about three thousand years old, although could be
much older. And possibly very valuable,
both to archaeologists and to those who trade in these objects on the open and
black markets.
‘I’ve
seen similar items before, in literally another life, but I’m not a specialist
in this field. You probably should get
someone from the British Museum check them over – I can find you some contact
names that may be available – or,’ he said, looking out of the window briefly,
‘you might have a local expert on your doorstep,’ he said, looking back at
Starling. Starling raised his pen, ready
to take some notes before realising he wasn’t just going to get a name and an
address.
‘After
university, when I finished my PhD, I fulfilled my father’s wish to continue
the family legacy of joining the British army. A six-year short commission that was largely
undistinguished but found me for a year and a bit serving in the part of the
world where I think these items originated, albeit a lot earlier,’ he said.
‘The
Balkans? Were you in that conflict?’
asked Starling.
‘Towards
the end, when the peace-keeping swung into action. I commanded a troop that was tasked with
locating the mass graves and exhuming the bodies,’ he said, an uncontrolled
grimace passing his face. ‘The Serbs
didn’t make it easy; they hid the graves and booby-trapped them. And they booby-trapped the approaches to them,
so we had to tread carefully while watching our backs as not all the locals
were supportive of us,’ he said in an understated fashion.
‘I
had a guy seconded to us, one of your locals I seem to recall. He’d had a colourful military career, had been
accepted and then expelled by the Special Forces – I never found out why or for
what – and he had an incredible nose for booby-traps. I would happily walk in his footsteps any day
because he would carve out the safest route in any wooded area. He was a specialist in IEDs – Improvised
Explosive Devices – and used specialised metal detectors to forge a safe
passage for us.
‘He
also had an exemplary knowledge of the Bronze Age; I think he’d studied at a
university at some point and I always considered that he’d burned that career
in a similar way he’d clearly burned his SF career. He never discussed his past – he’s the kind
of chap who doesn’t. In the field I’d
always defer to him on any Bronze Age artefacts turned up during his work,
either discovered routinely or churned out of the ground after a controlled
explosion.
‘After
the Balkans he left the army and became a private contractor in IEDs. Last I heard, he’d relocated back to his home
county, Flintshire, worked up and down the UK helping to clear World War 2
ordnance from brownfield sites, and was often given mine clearing commissions
around the world He may or may not be home right now, but if he is,’ Sir
Roger said, flicking through a notebook for a hastily scribbled address
captured years earlier, ‘you might find him here If he’s away then I can
provide those contacts at the British Museum,’ he said. Starling copied
down the details and started to rise.
‘What’s
his name?’ he asked, gathering up the evidence bags and putting them in his
briefcase.
‘Bronze. That’s the only name anyone ever called him,’ said the
Professor.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the US Bronze is on a countdown promotion starting Sunday 14th September at $0.99 for the eBook, rising to $1.99 on the 17th September before reverting to the full price of $2.99 on the 20th September. All promotions commence at 8:00 am PDT on the stated days.
The second sample chapter of Bronze is published on my blog tomorrow.
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Follow me on Twitter: @RayASullivan
email me at raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com
Check out my comedic ramblings as Throngsman on www.newsbiscuit.com
