Ken McClure - Dust to dust

After a tour of the hospital and its facilities, during which Motram decided that this was what all hospitals would be like if the world were perfect, he met the donor in a consulting room where, instead of a desk between them, there was a coffee table with a cafetiere containing the best coffee he’d tasted in ages sitting on it.

The young man facing him, dressed in jeans and a denim jacket, appeared fit and healthy. He was clean-shaven and had fair, close-cropped hair which was fashionably slightly longer on the top than at the sides. He smiled but appeared slightly nervous when he got up to shake hands. After some small talk about traffic and the weather, Motram told him what samples he would like to take and why. ‘Nothing to it really. Anything you’d like to ask?’

‘Sir Laurence told me this would be an absolutely straightforward procedure. Is that right?’

‘Absolutely right,’ said Motram. ‘Walk in the park.’

The young man smiled at the expression but didn’t seem entirely convinced. ‘I had an older cousin, see, who donated a kidney to his brother…’

‘It’s nothing like that,’ Motram interrupted. ‘Organ transplant is a major undertaking, a completely different kettle of fish. You’ll just be donating some of your bone marrow. It’ll be replaced in no time at all. No scars, no after-effects, no nothing: it’s very like donating blood really.’

‘Thanks, doc,’ said the young man, visible relaxing. ‘That’s more or less what Sir Laurence said, but it sounded better coming from you.’

‘Good. Let’s go through to the lab and I’ll see about getting these samples from you.’

Cassie Motram handed her husband a large malt whisky when he came in and watched the look of appreciation appear on his face as he settled down in a chair and kicked off his shoes. ‘How did it go?’ she asked.

‘I could tell you but I’d have to kill you.’ Motram took another sip.

‘Do you want any dinner or not?’

‘Ah, my Achilles heel.’ Motram grinned. ‘They’ve got a leukaemia patient who needs a bone marrow transplant, a Saudi billionaire by the sound of it. They’ve found a donor for him and want me to check out his suitability.’

‘Is that all?’ Cassie sounded disappointed. ‘Do we know anything about this Saudi billionaire?’

Motram shook his head. ‘Nothing at all apart from the fact that he’s to be referred to as Patient X, although I suspect Prince X might be a better bet judging by the money the foundation have been throwing around. Probably goes to sleep to the sound of oil slurping into barrels.’

‘Will you have to go back to London?’

‘I don’t think so. I set up some basic tests in the hospital lab — their technicians can send the data to me when they have the results — and the more complicated things I’ll do in the lab up here on the samples I brought back with me. When I’ve collated everything, I’ll phone in all the results along with my conclusions and that’ll be an end to it. Money for old rope.’

‘So, it’ll be back to Black Death now?’

‘You bet,’ said Motram with a grin.

The sun shone brightly as John Motram drove north into the Scottish Borders: it matched his sunny mood. He liked the rolling hills and valleys of the border country, which always seemed so calm and peaceful despite their bloody history of almost continual conflict between England and Scotland down through the centuries. He slowed as he crossed the River Tweed, perhaps one of the most famous salmon rivers in the world, and enjoyed the sight of the sun playing on its rippled surface for a few moments before driving on.

The first thing he saw in the abbey car park was a commercial vehicle with Maxton Geo-Survey written in red along its white side. A cartoon of a drilling rig at one end emphasised the point. Two men in company overalls were standing beside the vehicle; they were talking to a man in a suit who was carrying a clipboard.

‘Alan Blackstone, Historic Scotland,’ said Clipboard Man as Motram parked his car beside them and got out.

‘You chaps are on the ball,’ said Motram, stretching his limbs after the long drive and then looking at his watch. It was five to nine.

‘It’s never a problem to get up and out on a day like this,’ said Blackstone, glancing up at the sky. This brought smiles of agreement from the two Maxton men, who introduced themselves as Les Smith and Tony Fielding.

‘Tell you what,’ said Motram, looking over his shoulder at the Dryburgh Abbey Hotel, which stood adjacent to the abbey, ‘why don’t we get ourselves some coffee and have a talk about what we’re going to do?’

When the coffee arrived, Motram spread a modern-day plan of the abbey ruins out on the table and told the others about his findings. ‘I think the chamber lies under the ground approximately here,’ he said, tracing a rectangle with the end of his pen out from the east wall of the abbey, using the three windows of the chapter house as a starting point. ‘I don’t know just how far out it stretches, but hopefully that’s something you chaps can determine?’

‘We certainly can,’ Fielding assured him.

‘Depending on what you guys come up with, we can perhaps discuss with Alan here whether or not an excavation might be in order and whether we approach from the east end or try to come in from the side if the end should prove too near the trees.’ Motram looked to the man from Historic Scotland.

‘Sounds good,’ said Blackstone. ‘It’s a big plus having the chamber outside the perimeter of the abbey. That being the case, there shouldn’t be any objection from us, providing, of course, it doesn’t turn out to be a very short chamber, very close to the back wall of the chapter house; we couldn’t risk having the foundations undermined.’

‘I hadn’t even considered that,’ Motram confessed. ‘It shouldn’t be that short if it’s holding sixteen bodies, but I suppose there’s only one way to find out…’

Fielding and Smith unloaded their equipment and Motram and Blackstone followed along behind as the electric-powered transporter vehicle — a sort of motorised trolley — moved everything along parallel to the north wall of the abbey before turning south and parking outside the windows of the chapter house. ‘About here?’ Fielding asked.

Motram nodded, emphasising with his right hand where he thought the hidden chamber might be. ‘Assuming the entry to it was from here,’ he indicated a point on the abbey wall directly below the chapter house windows, ‘and there were, say, ten steps down to it to give some ceiling height, I reckon about ten to fifteen feet below where we’re standing now.’

Smith and Fielding started up their machine and began a slow sweep of the ground. Motram watched their every move with bated breath while Blackstone turned away to examine the condition of the stone along the base of the chapter house wall.

Fielding removed his earphones and pointed to something on a graphic readout to his colleague before turning to Motram and saying. ‘You’re right. There’s no doubt about it… there’s a hollow space down there.’

‘Brilliant! Can you tell how far out it stretches?’ Motram asked, knowing that a great deal was riding on the answer to his question.

The machine resumed its sweep, stopping when Fielding and Smith were about ten metres east of the abbey wall. ‘This seems to be the end of it here,’ said Fielding.

‘Great,’ said Motram, relieved that the possibility of the chamber’s turning out to be a sort of cupboard in the wall that went down rather than out had been removed. He walked over to join the two men and noted that the nearest tree was only about two metres away. He turned to Blackstone. ‘Too close for an end approach, do you think?’