Ken McClure - Dust to dust

‘Well?’ asked Blackstone.

Motram, still carrying the torch in one hand, started to move slowly up the steep slope without answering. Blackstone exchanged a puzzled glance with the others and leaned forward to ask, ‘Everything okay, John?’

Motram looked up at him, eyes burning like coals. Without warning, he swung the heavy torch into his face.

Blackstone’s left cheekbone shattered and he screamed out in pain as he fell over, grabbing at Fielding in an attempt to stop himself slipping into the trench. Smith tried to help Fielding who was in danger of being pulled in too but unwittingly came within reach of Motram, who swung the torch again, this time connecting with the back of Smith’s head. All three men tumbled into the trench behind Motram, Blackstone desperately trying to shield his shattered face and Fielding half somersaulting over him before the deadweight of Smith landed on top of him.

Motram continued his slow, ponderous journey up the slope and started out across the grass towards the digger. He climbed on board and punched the start button, mumbling to himself as he struggled with the unfamiliar gears.

Smith was unconscious and Blackstone barely knew what was going on around him because of the excruciating pain in his face, but Fielding was all too aware of the little yellow digger beginning to trundle towards them and the pair of murderous eyes looking directly at him. ‘What the fuck are you doing, man?’ he cried out in panic. He knew he had to get out of the trench but it was taking him an eternity to free himself from the weight of Smith on top of him. He felt as if he were caught in a living nightmare.

The digger had almost reached him by the time he had managed to free his legs and swing one up over the lip of the trench. Motram saw his intention and responded by steering the digger to that side and lowering the bucket sharply.

Fielding fell back into the trench, crying out in pain and clutching his injured knee. He could only watch as Motram managed to reverse after several abortive tussles with the digger’s control levers. It was clear that he intended to drive the digger down the slope and over the bodies of the three men lying there, perhaps to continue straight on through the wall of the burial chamber.

To Fielding’s relief, Motram misjudged the alignment of the digger’s tracks as it lurched forward after an uncertain change of gear. He missed the narrow entrance to the trench so that the left track stayed above ground while the other started down the slope. The angle of tilt was too great for the digger and it toppled over to the night, coming to rest against the lip of the trench and throwing Motram out onto the grass, where he lay holding his throat and seemingly fighting for breath before rolling over and lying still.

The digger’s engine died, restoring peace to the abbey and its surroundings, making everything that had gone before seem quite surreal to Fielding, who stared at Motram’s motionless body, willing it not to recover, before looking briefly up at the sky. ‘Mad bastard,’ he mumbled, searching through his pockets for his mobile phone.

‘He did what?’ exclaimed Cassie Motram when the police told her what had happened.

‘He appeared to take leave of his senses, doctor. Ran amok, according to the others; almost killed one of them and severely injured the other two.’

‘But this is my husband you’re talking about,’ protested Cassie. ‘He’s an academic, for God’s sake. He’s the kindest, most gentle man on earth. He goes to enormous lengths to avoid killing spiders. There just has to be some awful mistake.’

The senior of the two policemen sent to break the news gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I’m afraid the medics have had to restrain him and place him in an isolation facility at the hospital,’ he said. ‘They say they haven’t ruled out some kind of… reaction to what was in the tomb.’

‘Reaction? What d’you mean? What kind of reaction?’

The policeman looked helpless. ‘The doctors say they can’t rule out some kind of poisoning or infection…’

Cassie sank into a chair, holding her head in her hands, unwilling at first to even consider what she was being told. ‘Let me get this straight,’ she said slowly, trying to adopt a rational approach when she really just wanted to scream. ‘You are telling me that John entered the chamber sane but came out mad?’

‘That’s pretty much what we’ve been told, doctor.’

Cassie shook her head as if trying to clear it. ‘I have to go to him,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Borders General Hospital, you say?’

‘Yes, doctor. Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.’

Bad news became tabloid news the following morning. The redtops had a field day. The Black Death, the opening up of a centuries-old tomb and the resulting insanity of the principal investigator was the stuff of editors’ dreams. It didn’t take them long to invent an accompanying curse that had come down through the years, which enabled them to draw parallels with the families of those who’d incurred the supposed wrath of the pharaohs when the pyramids were opened up in Egypt.

‘Girls,’ complained Peter. ‘Why do they always have to take so long?’

Dr Steven Dunbar smiled at his young nephew’s impatience. They were standing outside the changing rooms at Dumfries swimming pool waiting for Steven’s daughter Jenny and his niece Mary to emerge. ‘It’s just the way things are, Peter. One of the things in life we blokes have to accept.’ Seeing that Peter remained unconvinced, he added, ‘The pizza will taste all the better when we finally get there.’

Steven, a medical investigator with the Sci-Med Inspectorate, based at the Home Office in London, had been on leave for the past month. He had escaped to Scotland for some respite after a particularly tough assignment, which had threatened his life and exhausted him both physically and mentally. He lived in London but his daughter Jenny stayed up here in the village of Glenvane with Steven’s sister-in-law Sue and her solicitor husband, Peter, along with their own two children, Peter and Mary — an arrangement that had been in place since the death of Steven’s wife Lisa from a brain tumour. Jenny had been a baby at the time so she had never known anything else.

In the normal course of events, Steven would spend every second weekend in Scotland, but the hell of his last assignment had meant not seeing Jenny for over six weeks so he was trying to make amends. A favourite outing for the children was always to the swimming pool in Dumfries, followed by pizza and as much ice cream as they could eat. Tradition had it that he would receive a mock telling-off from Sue when they got home but, for the children, this was part of the enjoyment.

‘At last,’ exclaimed Peter as the girls emerged. ‘What do you do in there?’

‘We have lots of hair to dry,’ said Mary. ‘You don’t.’

‘Talking to do, more like,’ grumbled Peter.

‘Are we going for pizza and ice cream, Daddy?’ asked Jenny.

‘You bet.’

‘Even if it makes Aunty Sue angry?’ she asked, suppressing a shared giggle with Mary.

‘I’ll fix things with Aunty Sue,’ Steven assured her.

They emerged into the sunshine and took hands as they crossed the main road at the traffic lights to walk on the broad pavement by the River Nith.

‘Can we go out on the bridge for a moment, Daddy?’ asked Jenny as they were about to pass an old stone bridge crossing the river.

‘Oh, yeah, let’s,’ said Peter, starting to look around for pebbles.

‘Me too,’ said Mary.

Jenny was content to hold her father’s hand as they stepped out onto the bridge. ‘I like this bridge. It’s very old, isn’t it?’ she said, running the flat of her hand along the stones.