Ken McClure - Dust to dust

‘They can’t be too few on the ground,’ murmured Fielding.

‘Good day, gentlemen.’

‘Oh, I don’t believe it,’ Cassie exclaimed sympathetically when she heard what had happened. ‘What will you do now?’

‘We just have to wait for a decision.’

‘But surely they couldn’t stop it altogether?’

Motram shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

‘At least you won’t have this sort of thing to deal with when you become a celebrity nail technician.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Motram. ‘Mind you, nail scissors can be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands…’

Two days later Motram got the call he had been waiting for. The excavation and opening of the burial chamber could go ahead subject to the meeting of certain conditions. Health and Safety wanted to inspect the equipment and protective clothing the men would be using when recovering samples from the chamber. They also wanted a Public Health doctor to interview the four of them on site before the chamber was opened and administer any protective injections he thought necessary.

‘Probably anti-tetanus,’ said Cassie when she heard. ‘I could give you that.’

‘You’d probably also have to give me a certificate signed by two independent witnesses and a justice of the peace,’ growled Motram. ‘Best let them do it.’

‘They’re only doing their job,’ Cassie said soothingly. The look she got in return suggested she might be on her own in holding that view. ‘Be positive. You are going to get in to your chamber.’ She hugged Motram and persisted in looking at him until he gave in and smiled.

‘You’re right.’

With all the formalities finally out of the way, health checks over and injections administered, Motram and the others were left on their own to open up the chamber. Motram watched the official vehicles depart and then joined the others in a slow walk over to the site. ‘Quite a day,’ said Blackstone.

Motram nodded. ‘Days like these don’t come along too often in science,’ he said. ‘Research can be a bit of a plod when things aren’t going well but when a moment like this pops up… by God, it’s worth waiting for.’

‘I only hope it lives up to expectations,’ said Blackstone.

Motram paused to look at the abbey in its beautiful setting, parts of its ruined walls as old as the secret he was about to unlock, and felt the excitement of anticipation rise inside him. He put on his white cover-all suit while Smith and Fielding prepared their tools for the breach of the chamber wall. They had already erected a sealable plastic entrance ‘vestibule’ over the area they would open up. They would chisel out the mortar and make sure the stones were loose enough to be moved easily before retreating to allow Motram to enter on his own.

Blackstone chose to pace slowly up and down, leaving Motram alone with his thoughts. John sat on the grass, listening to the sound of chisels on stone and watching the crouched shapes of Smith and Fielding through the plastic screen. The noise stopped and the world seemed deathly quiet for a moment before the pair emerged. Fielding lowered his mask and said simply, ‘All yours, doc.’

‘Good luck,’ said Blackstone.

Motram accepted the stone chisel handed to him by Smith as he passed by — just in case he needed it — and entered the plastic ‘vestibule’, closing the entrance flap behind him. He knelt down and tested the stones by rocking a couple before pulling out the first without any trouble. The gap grew as the stones piled up in neat rows on either side of him, but he resisted the temptation to stop and shine his torch in through the hole until the gap was big enough for him to enter. He took a slight pause to get his breath back, reminding himself in the process that he needed to take more exercise, then crawled head first into the chamber and got slowly to his feet.

In what little light was coming through the breach in the wall behind him, Motram could see that there were stone benches lined up along both sides of the tomb. It had been sheer good fortune that Smith and Fielding had picked a spot between two of these benches. He clicked on his torch but, strangely, the world remained black. The walls of the chamber were black, the benches were black and the bodies lying on them appeared to be black — or at least what they were wrapped in was black.

It was impossible not to draw parallels with the mummified occupants of the Egyptian pyramids, but in this case nothing had been left to accompany the departed on their journey to the afterlife, no colourful ceramics, no gold, no wine jars, just the blackened shapes of corpses that had lain undisturbed for seven centuries.

The first hurdle had been cleared. The bodies had been found, but the big question remained to be answered. The sixteen occupants of the benches looked like human bodies but until he had penetrated the outer wrapping he wouldn’t know for sure how successful the Le Clerks had been with their preservation methods and how well the bodies had survived their long wait. Everything now depended on that. He shone the torch beam down into the bag he had brought with him and took out a bubble-wrap roll containing a number of surgical instruments. Spreading it on the ground, he selected a scalpel and a pair of latex gloves. The big moment had arrived.

Motram knew immediately that something was wrong when he gently placed a hand on the torso of his chosen body. He could tell at once that it lacked substance. He had only sought to steady himself with his left hand while he inserted the tip of the scalpel into the wrapping material in the neck area, but now he felt forced to investigate and apply more pressure with the flat of that hand. It didn’t take much before what little resistance there was gave way and his hand went clean through the corpse-shaped wrapping, leaving only a gaping hole and a cloud of dust which swirled mockingly across the beam of the torch he’d temporarily propped up on a neighbouring bench. Dust and dry, brittle bones was all that was left of the bodies after seven hundred years in their underground lair. Nothing of substance had survived.

Motram pulled the mask from his face and felt a wave of disappointment sweep over him. He supposed that this had always been the most probable outcome after such a long time, but he had failed to take the likelihood on board to any significant degree. Foolishly, he had allowed himself to believe that the preservation of the bodies was a realistic possibility and he had been seduced by the idea of going down in history as the man who solved the riddle of Black Death. He was now paying the price in crushing disappointment.

His spirits were so low that he actually felt physically weak and had to support himself on one of the stone benches while he tried to summon up the energy to leave and face the others outside with the news of failure. But, as the minutes passed, he didn’t recover: instead, he started to feel worse. Disappointment was becoming anger and anger was threatening to become rage. The lines between one emotion and another were becoming blurred. Sweat broke out on his brow and he started to feel very ill indeed…

Blackstone looked at his watch and asked, ‘Do you think he’s all right?’

‘Let’s not grudge him his moment of glory,’ said Fielding with a smile. ‘This is probably the pinnacle of his whole career.’

‘I’m still looking forward to seeing what’s in there myself if he’ll let me,’ said Smith. ‘It’s dead exciting.’

‘Here he comes,’ said Fielding as he caught sight of movement behind the plastic. The three men moved towards the sloping trench, anxious to hear what Motram had to say. When he saw that the scientist seemed to be having difficulty, Fielding moved in to help him with the plastic door flap.