Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

‘Good lad.’ The driver was wearing a chunky Shetland knit. His long hair was twisted into two plaits fastened with mismatched elastic bands. ‘There’s a place down here I can turn.’

Murray thought he could smell the faint taint of marijuana beneath the pine car-freshener scent he always associated with long journeys and travel sickness. He said, ‘This is good of you.’

The stranger reversed the Land-Rover into the entrance of a field then looked at Murray.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

Murray stared at his face. Some memory stirred, and then slithered from his reach.

‘Maybe it’s the beard?’

‘You’re pretty beardy yourself.’ The man laughed. ‘I probably wouldn’t have clocked you if Mrs Dunn hadn’t mentioned you were on the island. She likes her academics, does our landlady.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Jem Edwards. You used to go out with Angela Whatsit, didn’t you? I was in her year. We went for a drink a few times.’

‘God, yes. You were there the night we went to see The Fall.’

‘That was a good gig.’

The driver held out a hand and Murray shook it. Jem looked older and broader, but he remembered him now. He’s been one of Angela’s archaeology crew. Good-natured, hard-drinking, tendency to dress like a Viking. Murray could have hugged him.

‘Didn’t you used to play the bagpipes?’

‘Still do. But not so often at parties these days.’ Jem turned the jeep. ‘So where are we headed? Tell me you’ve found a wee shebeen full of beautiful women, good whisky and fearless fiddle-players.’

Murray laughed and realised that the archaeologist’s hearty normality might have the power to edge him into hysteria.

‘Sadly not. Do you know the crossroads on the marsh above the limekilns?’

‘I know the limekilns — they’re where our new dig’s planned — but as for the rest, you’ll have to be my guide. What are you doing here, anyway? You’re a historian, aren’t you?’

‘English lit.’ Murray wiped a patch of condensation from the windscreen. ‘If you go straight on for now, you’ll see a turning on the left, just after the church.’ He sank back in his seat and began to tell Jem an edited version of his quest.

They saw no other traffic on the road, but the archaeologist kept his speed low, sailing smoothly over hills and round bends. They passed a cluster of cottages here and there showing a lit window. Then they were into the dark countryside, the full beam of their headlights unveiling drenched hedgerows and waving trees that looked like they might swoop down and snatch the car up into their branches. Something that might have been a weasel or a stoat dashed across their path and into the undergrowth. The solid bulk of St Mungo’s Church appeared on their left. The headlights glanced into the graveyard, bending across the crooked headstones and slumbering tombs. Jem slowed the car.

‘Left here?’

‘Yes, the road deteriorates now.’

‘No problem, we’re in a tank.’ Jem turned the wheels onto the roughcast path and their conversation back to Murray’s quest. ‘So this woman Christie could be key?’

‘She was intimate with Archie at the most interesting period of his life.’

‘It must be amazing to be able to speak to someone who actually knew the person you’re researching.’

‘I guess that’s never going to happen to you?’

‘Not unless someone invents time travel. It’d end in disaster, anyway. We’d be hailed as gods, given the best of everything for six months then sacrificed to the harvest.’

They had left the church behind now and were climbing towards higher ground. Murray’s phone beeped, letting him know he had voicemail.

Jem said, ‘You should check that.’

Murray took it from his pocket. The stern female robot that guarded the exchange told him he had three new messages. He pressed 1 to listen and his brother’s voice was suddenly in his ear, Murray I . . He pressed 7 and deleted without listening. The next message was also from Jack. Murray, you fuckwit . . He scrapped that as well, though he guessed his brother meant the insult to be an endearment. The final message was from Rab Purvis.

Murray, I’ll keep it brief. I had a drink with Phyllida McWilliams in Fowlers. Apparently she used to be bosom buddies with Professor James’s daughter Helen in the old days. She says the reason Fergus was in James’s bad books was simple. He got Helen up the duff then did a runner. Not the done thing back then. Poor girl had to get scraped out. According to Phyl, Helen always claimed he forced her, but Phyl was never a hundred per cent convinced. She says Fergus was a charmer, and she would have given him one for free — you know our Phyl. All in all, it sounds like the James family have good reason to bear Fergus a grudge, so maybe you should take what they say with a fistful of salt. Do me a favour and delete this message, and Phyl says don’t let on it was. .

The tone sounded, cutting off Rab’s last words. Murray thought back to the telephone call from the broch and something James had said: ‘Some people never essentially change. In my opinion, Fergus Baine is one of them. Think of how he is now and that will tell you pretty much how he was back when Lunan and he were friends — and they were friends. .’

James had been right. The two men had been friends. But James was also wrong. Fergus had surely changed. The reckless hippy who had spiked Mrs Dunn’s tea had been replaced by an urbane professor. Then Murray thought of Rachel, the blankness in her face as she’d fucked her way through a host of strangers, and wondered if James had been right after all, and Fergus Baine the same man he was on the night Archie sailed out to meet his death.

Jem said, ‘Everything okay?’

‘Yes, fine.’ Murray saw his own face reflected in the rain-washed windscreen and realised he was scowling. He worked his mouth into a smile. ‘Are you digging for anything in particular?’

The archaeologist’s teeth shone whitely.

‘Ideally a dead body or two.’

‘Sounds gruesome.’

‘Our lot are just resurrection men at heart. There’s a good chance that there was an ancient settlement on the site of the lime-workers’ village. Officially we’re looking for confirmation that the settlement was there, but where there’s folk there’s usually bodies buried somewhere about. The peaty ground round there’s perfect for preserving flesh .’ He gave the last word a ghoulish tinge. ‘They were big into sacrifice, our ancestors. I’m hoping for a martyred bog man. Or a bog lady, I’m not particular.’

Murray recited, ‘Your brain’s exposed / and darkening combs / your muscles’ webbing / and all your numbered bones.’ He pulled himself up and said, ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed you come across a murder or a graveyard.’

The wipers swept swiftly to and fro, but the rain was winning the war, water streaming across the glass, warping their view. The crossroads came on them suddenly, its white sign worn free of destinations by long exposure to the elements. Jem hit the brakes. Murray was thrown forwards and felt the seatbelt tighten around him.

‘Sorry about that.’ The archaeologist’s laugh was embarrassed. ‘That seemed to appear from nowhere.’ He wiped the windscreen with his hand and peered at the blank sign. ‘Which way now?’

Murray thought for a moment, reconstructing the direction of his journey with Christie.

‘Left.’

‘Sure?’

He hesitated for the smallest beat.

‘Yes.’

Jem turned the wheel.

‘Sinister it is then. Christ, I can hardly see where I’m going.’

‘Rotten conditions for your dig.’

Jem lowered his voice to a comic baritone and sang, ‘Mud, mud, glorious mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. It’ll be like the Somme out there.’