Chapter 3
Over the next ten days the site is gradually widened and explored as more is found; the team working slowly, removing layers of earth, examining everything with care. Cataloguing, photographing, measuring. Francis has been joined by Simon, one of his PhD students, and a couple of local volunteers.
The bones on the trestle table in the chapel have been joined by the bones of one leg and part of the foot, the pelvis, more finger and wrist bones, six ribs, and selection of vertebrae from the spine of a middle aged male. There is nothing to suggest that they come from more than one body, and as they are found Francis places them on the table, adding to what is already there. More bones are being found every day, but scattered over an area of several metres, all at roughly the same depth, a bit below the level a plough would reach. It is clear they have been disturbed at some point in their history, probably by animals, perhaps centuries ago. Tests have suggested that the man died in about 1550, Tudor times. And with the bones are found more metal artefacts that are lying around the body. The chain has been fully unearthed and is intact and made of silver plate, a chain of office that would have been worn by a nobleman, or perhaps someone from the Church. With it is a small dagger, a crucifix and a few coins.
And then after two weeks of digging, a few metres away from where the skull was found, they find a large metal candlestick, the sort that you would have found on an altar and of a style that matches the age of the skeleton.
Francis spends the afternoon cleaning up the candlestick, carefully removing years of earth, grime, and discolouration sticking to it, and finally bringing it back to a shine. It is beautiful, bronze, about 60 centimetres long, not particularly ornate, but heavy. He lifts it in front of him, holding it with two hands and sets it down onto the table. He looks at it carefully for some time, takes a few pictures, and adds some notes to his laptop in front of him. Next he picks up the skull and looks into its eye-sockets, tracing his finger over the edges. He turns the skull over and looks carefully at the damage on the back. It is cracked and caved in. The breaks, although old, look clean, there is no sign that any bone regrew over the broken edges. The force of the blow needed to damage the skull would certainly have been enough to kill a man and it looks pretty likely that this was the cause of death. Francis places it back on the table and compares the damage with the candlestick beside it. It is impossible to tell whether candlestick caused the injury, but it is a possibility.
Francis replaces the skull and brings up on his laptop an enlarged 3D hologram of the damage to the skull. For a few minutes he examines it in careful detail, rotating it on his screen, noting down some measurements. He hears a sound behind him, and turns to see who is there – but there is no one else in the vestry. He turns back to his laptop, and as he does he can clearly hear someone, some people, in the chapel behind him. He hears a soft cough, the rustle of clothing as people sit down.
He stands, pauses for a few seconds, adjusts his vestments, and turns to walk through from the vestry to the chapel. He is wearing a heavy chain around his neck and is carrying a staff. He turns towards the altar, where two tall candlesticks hold lighted candles. He bows to it, and leans the staff against the altar before turning to look at the main body of the chapel. There are about a dozen people sitting waiting for him, heads bowed. In the front pew is clearly a family group, two adults in their mid 30s in formal Tudor dress, and with them three children aged between about 8 and 12 years old. Behind the other congregants are older perhaps household retainers, a nanny, perhaps grandparents.
It doesn’t feel like a dream, it is too real, too clear. He can feel the solid wood of the rail above the two steps that lead down to the congregation. He can smell the burning candles, can feel their warmth. He can feel the weight of the chain around his neck. There is a consistent timeline, none of the jumping about that you get in a dream. With part of his mind in the 21st Century watching what is going on with bemusement, the 16th Century Francis conducts a short Protestant-style service; a couple of prayers, a reading from the bible, a recited psalm. He blesses his congregation and they bow their heads, shuffling for a few seconds before rising to leave the chapel.
The woman in the front row come up to him with her daughter, addresses him as Francis and starts talking about the arrangements for a visit they are having from relatives a few days later. While the 16th Century Francis caries on the conversation before nodding to the woman and then returning to the vestry to change out of his robes, the 21st Century Francis is watching, as if within the scene but not wholly part of it. His gaze is distracted by the young girl who is looking curiously up at him. She walks up and touches his robe, as if to check that it is real, and smiles at him before being swept up by her mother and taken out of the chapel.
Francis snuffs out the cancels on the altar, picks up his staff, and returns to the vestry.
Later, minutes, or perhaps some hours later, he wakes to find himself lying on the stone floor of the vestry. He shivers, and then slowly stands up, moving away from the man on the table, looking about. There is no sound, just the lingering smell of burning candles. He feels nauseous, his head thumping. He reaches for the wall to steady himself. He needs to get out of here and he picks up his bag and leaves the vestry, locking the door carefully behind him before heading over to the cafe for coffee and something to eat. The scene in the chapel is sharp in his mind, and when he shuts his eyes he can see the faces, smell the candles, the perfume of the ladies in the congregation, touch the folds of the robes he was wearing. He can think of nothing to explain it. But as the sugar in the cake he is eating starts to spread through his body he starts to feel more normal. He must have just fallen asleep; but what a strange dream.
The next morning Simon the phD student is sitting at a makeshift desk in the corner of the chapel next to the vestry typing up some notes when Francis arrives. He calls out a greeting and goes through into the vestry. He looks at the bones laid out on the table. Without thinking he starts to straighten them on the table, and as he does so he pauses, frowning and he looks carefully at the arrangement of bones.
‘Simon, have you got a minute?’
‘Sure.’ He stops typing and comes into the small room. ‘What is it?’
‘Have you moved anything in here?’
‘No, nothing. What do you mean?’
‘Has anyone else been in?’
‘I don’t know. I doubt it. I’m sure there are other keys, perhaps someone from the Estate office? Why?’
‘Someone has moved the bones, they are not as I had left them.’
Simon looks down at the bones on the table. More have been added in the last couple of days, and although one of the legs is still missing there is now three-quarters of a full skeleton. He can see that the hands have been moved since he saw them yesterday; the finger bones are in slightly different positions, and one has moved from one side of the body to the other. The position now looks more likely to be the correct position for the fingers, although the bones are slightly damaged and it is not clear exactly where they all fit.
‘Yeah, I can see. Who would have done that?’
Francis shakes his head. ‘Don’t know. I locked up last night at about 8.00, after the office would have been closed. I don’t know who has keys or why they would come in here. Someone has corrected my positioning of the fingers. Strange. Still, it doesn’t particularly matter. I don’t think anything is missing. The local press are coming in later this morning, so I was going to tidy up a bit and arrange the other things that we have found on one of the pews in case they want to take pictures.’
Francis looks round at the shelf. The candlestick and the silver chain are the only things with any real value – they should be moved to somewhere safe if people are going to have access to the chapel. He will speak to Felicity after the journos have finished prying.
Simon has gone back to his laptop, and he looks up a moment later.
‘News from Canterbury. You’ll like this.’
Francis walks over. ‘Yeah?’
‘We’ve got the funding for a reconstruction – the skull. They’ll want a contribution from the Castle – you’d better speak to Felicity – but just a few hundred quid, a token really. Someone can look at it next week.’
‘That’s great,’ Francis smiles. ‘Felicity will be pleased. She’s talking now about making a special exhibition when we finish here. It’ll be her centrepiece if we can show what he looked like. Do they say who is doing it?’
‘Dr Jenner. Rebecca Jenner. Do you know her?’
Francis pauses. ‘I don’t think so, although I have heard the name. I may have met her at some drinks do. She mainly does police work I think.’
Simon is looking at his laptop.
‘These have all been copied to you, you’ll need to have a look, there are several emails…’ he pauses, still looking at his laptop. ‘They aren’t going to come here, and assuming that we can’t really do a cast of it here, they’ve asked us to package the skull up and send it by courier. They’ll do a cast themselves to work on and send it back. But I’m going back to Canterbury on Friday, I can take it down with me.’
‘Sounds good. I’ll call the office when I get a minute.’ Francis looks at his watch. ‘We’d better have a check at the site, see whether they have found anything else, then I need to catch up with Felicity.’
‘OK. I’ll come with you.’