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Infinite Monkeys at Lulu
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
I wanted to write a book about hidden treasure, seekers and finders, but to widen the range from long-odds dreams of Masonic or Egyptian gold and all that fairly improbable nonsense to more realistic adventures - those of archaeologists, wide games, easter-egg hunts and such like. I also (more fool me) wanted to avoid images of torture, violence, sex and greed, and settle for a gentler mode of story, involving people that a reader might actually identify with in reality, rather than fantasy.
I wanted to write a book about hidden treasure, seekers and finders, but to widen the range from long-odds dreams of Masonic or Egyptian gold and all that fairly improbable nonsense to more realistic adventures - those of archaeologists, wide games, easter-egg hunts and such like. I also (more fool me) wanted to avoid images of torture, violence, sex and greed, and settle for a gentler mode of story, involving people that a reader might actually identify with in reality, rather than fantasy. Having chosen that general theme I devised several groups of seekers whose paths would cross, and possibly confuse or muddy the trails they each were following, from school-children on a simple quest, and archaeological workers on a mundane dig, to amateur treasure hunters, and serious competitors on the trail of a valuable prize. I left hints at something deeper perhaps underlying all this, too, something that could possibly be expanded, but I wanted to keep it away from ‘lottery wins’ and freak events, and in the realm of simple discoveries with the satisfaction of cracking a puzzle, rather than vast financial gain. I understand that such a straightforward story might need to be pumped up for any kind of wider audience in need of an adrenaline rush, but I decided to attempt such simplicity (possibly the biggest challenge) based in events people can truly imagine taking part in, for my own amusement. Oh, and apart from avoiding cliff-hangers and conflict, I also wanted something like a happy ending, too. Doomed, really, in a world where people seem to prefer angst, distress, jeopardy, and failure! Hey ho. It seemed worth a try to write something gently life-enhancing, and vaguely intriguing and suggestive.
Excerpt
The pickaxe made an eerie and muted ‘pop’ as it went through the skull. “Oh God,” thought Dog, the eternal atheist, “what have I done now?” His brain raced. Could he cover it up, move on, and no-one would ever know? Or maybe the next person to find it would get the blame. Could he really have just done what he thought he had done? Did it matter? He took a deep breath, carefully put down the pickaxe, with the smooth, efficiently shaped wooden handle which, up until now, he had felt so proficient at using. He had always enjoyed the swing, letting the weight of the head do the work, the controlled aim. And now he had put it straight through someone’s skull. Of course, they didn’t care (unless he was feeling superstitious, and a wave of doubt had certainly flooded through his system, however briefly). They were long gone. “What’s up, Dog?” shouted his foreman, aware that he had stopped working. “Uh, nothing.” “Why did you stop?” “I thought I hit something...” “And did you?” “I don’t know for sure...” The truth was he didn’t know for sure, he just had a horrible feeling. He bent down, and brushed some of the dirt aside with his fingers. The shattered fragments lay both on the surface, and crushed inside the brain cavity, but it certainly did look like someone’s head. “I think it’s a skull!” he said. Heads turned. Other workers on the site, busy (until then) with something boring, liked the sound of this. “OK, OK, everyone,” shouted Brian, “get on with your own jobs for a bit”. He looked pleased. “Hang on, Dog,” he said, “don’t do anything else until I get there.” He had been on the far side of the site, somewhere in a series of trenches cut deep into the ground, square cut and vertical faces, carefully made – pegged out with strings, and accurately measured to form a grid. “Just don’t move anything.” Dog stood, leaning on his pickaxe, half proud at finding something, rather sheepish at having broken it. Brian eased himself up from the position he had found himself in, cautiously stepped across a worked area, climbed up to the surface level (without damaging the vertical face of the trench) and walked a labyrinthine dance along the ‘safe’ areas between the worked areas. He was a slightly daunting figure as he approached. Tall, bearded, with a scruffy country style hat, a professional looking all-weather jacket, odd tweedy trousers with leather patches at the knee, an intense gleam in the eye (behind the glasses held together with a sticking plaster), and big (but light) boots. In his hand he carried the archaeologist’s badge of office, the diamond-shaped trowel, with the ground down edge, from hours of carefully scraping a level surface down, centimetre by centimetre. Not some tinny plaster trowel which would bend or break in a minute of serious scraping – but the real deal. New boys like Dog had learned enough (from jeering laughter, if nothing else) to not buy some cheap and nasty trowel. They had all invested hard-earned cash in a decent tool that could last them for years. Even so, the years of service could almost be measured by the angle of wear on that trowel. No quick way to get that honed curve, that bevelled edge, as elegant (in its way) as the stone axe that it might even uncover and discover on a suitable site. This wasn’t a Stone Age site, though, or Iron Age, not even Saxon. As far as they knew, the building and surrounding area that they were excavating was from something like the 12th Century, and (as far as they knew) probably a Templar Farm. So they had found plenty of chicken bones, and bones from mammals of the farm, mostly in waste pits - and of course they had spent days carefully cleaning dirt off stone foundations, to reveal how the walls fitted together – but nothing really spectacular had occurred for days. It could get really monotonous, and that’s when a good foreman came into his own. He might buy the first round in the evening, at The Saracen’s Head, down in the village, he might suggest a bonfire, and get everyone to bake potatoes and have a sing-song. Creating a team out of a motley crew was never easy, and some people didn’t have the knack. Brian was good at it. So although Dog felt slightly apprehensive about smashing vital clues, trashing the evidence, and perhaps having done something really clumsy, he waited calmly. Brian strolled up. He looked down. He waved Dog back a step, and eased himself gently onto the work surface. Lowering himself to his leather-patched knees, he delicately manoeuvred the trowel over the surface that Dog had disturbed. “Oh yes,” he said without turning his head, “it’s human, all right. Well done!” Dog relaxed about an inch – he stammered, “uh, sorry I broke it, but I didn’t see it until too late!” “Oh don’t worry about that,” said Brian kindly, “it often happens. Of course, it’s nice if we get a whole skull, but as they tend to stick up higher than the other bones, they often get it in the neck,” he chuckled, and Dog joined him nervously. “The interesting bit,” he continued, “is whether the whole body is still there, or if,” (he chuckled) “ it’s just a skull, which is much more sinister!” As he was talking he was gently working around the entrance wound, and carefully lifting skull fragments aside. “We are going to need a tray for the bits, we need the camera, we will have to slow down now and put the picks and shovels away, and work this area with trowels, very gently. By the end we will be down to penknives and camel hair brushes. Oh, and we should let Phil know – he’ll be pleased!” This brusque approach reassured Dog that his accidentally putting a pick through someone’s skull was not going to lose him his job. It appeared it might even get him a medal (even though he been allocated that area to clear). There seemed a curious relationship between luck, chance, fate and destiny in digging holes in the ground, looking for the past. “OK guys and gals,” shouted Brian, “Take Five!” The other workers, whose concentration on their own tasks had lapsed anyway, quietly put down tools (shoving treasured trowels in back pockets) climbed out of the work spaces, and began to wander towards Dog’s patch. “It was horrible,” he began, “there I was hacking away at the earth when suddenly I heard this odd noise, like a pop, and the earth gave in too easily, and I found my pick embedded in someone’s skull! It was a bit spooky. Thank God I’m an atheist,” he said, using one of his mum’s favourite jokes. “I know how you feel,” said Ian, “disturbing the dead after centuries of rest, and all that.” One of the crew, sheepishly Christian, hurriedly crossed themselves. “I know,” said Dog, “I felt like quickly covering it up, and leaving it in peace, for a minute there.” “Still, touch wood,” he said, rapping his knuckles on his own skull, “it’s not bad luck.” The group looked up towards the site hut, where they could see Brian and Phil deep in conversation. Brian looked their way, and waved them over. They wove their way in single file through the maze of string-lined safe paths between the cleaned and cleared areas. “Well done, Dog, “ said Phil, “ I know it’s a bit of a shock the first time that happens to you, but it gives us something to work with, and it’s the kind of stuff the local papers love.” He grinned. “They don’t find walls, and mason tool marks, and building layouts that interesting. They always ask if we have found anything valuable, or any bodies. Things and people, that’s all they want to hear about. They really don’t care too much about ‘how people lived’ or ‘what can we learn from the past’.” “You guys,” he waved a vague hand at the crew, including the women, “take an early lunch while we work on a strategy” and then, putting his arm around Dog’s shoulder he steered him towards his own caravan, parked beside the site hut. Looking over his shoulder, he nodded to Brian to follow. The three of them, fairly muddy and scruffy, waterproofs rustling, squeezed in around the caravan fold-down table. “Well, I think this calls for a celebration,” said Phil, reaching behind himself to retrieve a bottle. Brian lunged to his feet, wobbling the whole caravan, lurched to the sink, and returned with an odd assortment of glasses, muddy hands and all. “I think you’ll like this,” said Phil, “it’s kind of an odd liqueur my wife found, but it suits the moment.” He poured a glinting golden nectar out, first into the small cut glass whiskey glass, then into the straight sided tumbler, and finally (not too much!) into the half pint glass from the pub. He handed Dog the cut glass, indicated the tumbler to Brian, and took the half-pint handle for himself. “Sláinte!” “Mud in yer eye!” “Cheers!” They all sipped, beamed, held their glasses up to let the sun shine through the amber liquid, and then sipped again. “So,” said Phil, “I guess you’d like to clean it up, and look for the rest of the skeleton yourself?” “Well, y-yes,” stammered Dog, who had assumed the job would be taken away from him, and handled by someone more expert (or senior to him, anyway). “This is your first dead body, right?” “Yes.” “Well, I’ll put Graciela on with you, as she has a steady hand, a delicate touch and the patience that women seem to excel at – and she’s done it before,” he said, with what seemed like a leer. Brian and Phil exchanged glances and chuckled. Dog felt too grateful to think about it too much, although the idea of spending the day head to head with Graciela seemed pretty OK to him. Up till now he had only stood in a crowded and muddy site hut, hugging a mug of steaming tea, and wondering what she looked like under all that all-weather gear. They had hardly exchanged more than a few words, before going off to opposite ends of the site. Of course, they had also nodded to each other in the food queue (when lunch got brought to the site) and he had once been squeezed into a pub pew right next to her, but surrounded by men with pints, singing loud choruses of vaguely lewd folk songs, which didn’t seem to upset her at all (although she didn’t join in), in fact, they had seemed to amuse her. “One tip,” said Phil, when Brian went off to rearrange the crew, shaking and tipping the caravan as he climbed out. “When you get to the smaller bones, which may be in position, or may have got displaced – you can work out what they are, where they fit, how many you are looking for, etc, by feeling your own skeleton. You don’t have to know that much physiology, we have pictures, and we have experts who will do the jigsaw puzzle later, but while you are working, take your time, and feel your own bones as you go. And if some of them get awkward, feel Graciela’s bones, or get her to feel yours...” Again, he seemed to leer at Dog. “It works,” he said, “honestly.” And he downed his drink, and closed the meeting by standing up. “Oh,” he said, turning back like Columbo, “I forgot. You’re not religious or anything are you?” “Not at all,” said Dog. “OK, because some people worry about disturbing the dead, and spirits, and all that. After all, we don’t yet know if it’s really old. It could be some murder victim from a decade ago...” Dog felt a slight chill. Somehow, skeletons from a thousand years ago didn’t seem too sinister, but someone who might have died in his lifetime was something else. Phil looked at him shrewdly. “Don’t worry! It’s very unlikely. I just wasn’t expecting a burial so close to the buildings. It might even predate them. Who knows? First of all, let’s find out if the rest of the body is there. Secondly, see if any other clues come with it, like jewellery. And thirdly, by the time we get to the hips, we might be able to figure out if it is a man or a woman. Women’s pelvic girdles are different, so you might find that Graciela comes in handy at that point.” Dog began to feel uneasy. He never had felt comfortable with male banter, especially about women, and even more about women he felt attracted to – who he almost immediately put on a pedestal, and out of reach. He gulped. As he climbed out of the caravan he saw Graciela walking towards him, smiling, obviously pleased to get given the interesting job, and he noticed Phil slide around the caravan, pulling out his mobile phone. Here, no evil In the snug at The Freemasons’ Arms a small gathering had formed around Philip Forth. They had got used to a daily update of the ‘goings-on’ in the park. Although an outsider to the village, he had endeared himself to many, and charmed most, with his open manner and colourful stories. His ability to flatter women while making outrageously sexist comments didn’t go unnoticed, either. To balance that, he was often accompanied by his rather posh and sexy wife, with the county hair, silk scarves, husky voice and knowing manner. They made quite a double act. With only two pubs left in the village to choose from, most of the crew from the archaeological dig went to The Saracen’s Head – which had real ale, welcomed tired and muddy workers, and even had a skittle alley at the back where people could smoke a discreet spliff (with the door to the garden open). The Freemasons was a bit more up-market, and had evolved something more like a wine-bar and restaurant feeling in The Lounge, but they also maintained a slightly twee Public Bar (with horse brasses, and such) for the locals who didn’t hold with that modern city stuff. The Snug was a third space, hidden out the back, with a genuinely old feel to it. When you entered you had to go around a black oak draught screen, either to the left or the right, and found yourself in a small room with red tiles on the floor, a Welsh Dresser with old pewter mugs and dishes, and a huge walk-in fire place. The screen that prevented direct entry was also the back of a curving bench, in front of which was a very ancient looking and sturdy table. The bench faced into the walk-in fireplace, with a wrought iron brazier in the centre. Small gatherings would simply sit and stare into the flames, but the arrival of a few others could be handled by the use of some stools that drew up to the table – although much less comfortable, with your back to the fire. Of course, prime spot in the winter was on the little ledge around the far side of the fire, within the chimney breast. You could even smoke in there, in spite of the new laws. With a vast funnel of warm air going up (and if you looked up you could see the stars) it seemed ludicrous, even in these conservative times, to try to enforce that rule in that one particular spot. It didn’t look as though this room had changed much for hundreds of years, and on some winter evenings, with candles and fire lit, the room became a perfect place for talk of skeletons and treasure and the like. But this was summer, and in early evening the sunlight still streamed through the leaded windows of ancient glass, with the whorls in the centre of the small panes - like the bottom of a bottle - throwing odd glints and ripples across the faces gathered around the table. Phil had a couple of the locals enthralled with the day’s find. “A body, you say?” “Yes, although we don’t yet know how old the person was, or what sex they were, and all that. It’ll take a few days of careful work.” “And were they buried with any belongings?” “Jewellery, you mean?” “Well, tools of the trade, clothing, pets, whatever…” Phil knew they meant jewellery. “Not as far as we can tell, but we have only cleared the skeleton down to the neck so far…” He pulled out his camera, and displayed a small but crisp image of a skull, and neck bones, cleanly lying on the surface of reddish brown earth, with the vertebra slowly disappearing beneath a rougher turned area. “It looks as though you broke it,” said one wag. “Well, yes, that often happens when working quickly,” said Phil, “if we had more funding then we could move much slower, and more carefully.” There was a little uneasy shuffling among the suits around him – a fairly respectable bunch, several of whom sat on committees that controlled local monies for community projects. He always got in little digs if he could. Actually, Phil had little to complain about. The ancient gentleman’s hobby of archaeology, balanced by some unscrupulous grave-robbing, had given way to a more scientific approach for a while, and in the middle of the twentieth century had drawn fairly respectable amounts of money into the field to allow people to take their time in opening up sites to investigation. This was a luxurious time, with the end of Empire, and the beginning of modern social history. It didn’t take long for the money to begin to dry up, so that archaeologists became involved in the more hectic practice of ‘rescue archaeology’ – working just ahead of motorway development, or the growth of new housing estates, to attempt to retrieve or at least record any artefacts or other information before the bulldozers eliminated all trace, for ever. Exciting though it could be, at times, it had also felt quite demoralizing. You’d have to find something really important and valuable to actually delay or divert the juggernauts. In one sense, such work was simply clearing the way for contractors, so that they wouldn’t be delayed if they accidentally exposed such things as bones (which could hold up days of work, while forensic teams decided whether it was murder, an old plague pit, or something more interesting). If they came across that sort of thing, and could get away with it, ‘They’ would almost certainly hide any evidence, even bribing the bulldozer drivers and any other witnesses. At the same time, there was always the chance of coming across a hoard of coins (everyone’s dream, since the fairy tales of childhood). So, for Phil to be funded to take a little time to clear up and identify the ruins in the village’s parkland was quite a pleasure for him. Of course, his funders hoped for something that might encourage tourism, or get them in the news. Local councillors love a chance to get on television. So everyone was quite excited that finally something more than bricks, and discoloured earth (interesting though ovens were), had turned up. “Do you think this is a Templar?” asked Fiona Webster, the archivist from the local Library and Museum. She had various theories of her own, from looking at the Tithe maps of the area, and her reading of various ancient documents stored safely in her care. She didn’t entirely trust this uppish young man, nor did she find him quite as charming as many others appeared to. “Well,” said Phil cautiously, “we know that this was some kind of Templar farm, but a lot of people would have worked here, and there is no evidence of a decent burial. In fact, I don’t know, yet, if it comes from the same period as the main building. It seems surprising that it is so close to the place. It could be far older than the building, and was simply never disturbed by them building their foundations. They could have been walking around over this grave, and never known. Or they might have exposed some others, and missed this one.” “And how do you find out?” “One step at a time. First we expose the whole skeleton, and look for clues in the position of the body, the condition of the teeth, and all that. Then we can carbon date some of the bone, and do other tests, which might give us more clue. I mean,” he added mischievously, “it could still be someone murdered not so long ago.” Another flutter of jittery excitement around the table. “You are joking, surely?” “Not necessarily. We can’t rule anything out immediately. We have to take a systematic approach.” Phil picked up his manly pint, sipped at it, and leaned back – revelling in the role of great detective, and finding himself the centre of attention. “I have had a call from the local television station,” he offered. “How did they hear about it?” “Oh,” Phil waved his hand vaguely, “I did let the local paper know, who are coming around tomorrow, and I guess they passed it on.” He sat for a moment, the king of the table, able to hand out the opportunity to be interviewed on television as a perk to those in his favour. He drained his beer with satisfaction, knowing that someone would now leap to offer him another, and they did. “Same again?” came from the magistrate, an eminence more used to being served than having to go to the bar, but now full of boyish enthusiasm and energy. He skedaddled off, leaving the others to enviously wait their opportunity in another round. “So how do you protect it, while it’s still in the ground?” “That’s a good question. It can begin to dry out once exposed, and the condition could deteriorate, although this one seems in good nick. We do put a sheet of polythene over it, against rain and stuff disturbing the site, and, of course,” he winked, “we need a night watchman to make sure the magick crew don’t come to steal a skull cup, or a thigh-bone for a flute.” “You’re joking!” “No, no, I assure you, we have to consider that possibility, especially once the television people have exposed us to the world. There are plenty of sinister groups out there, still. And then again, we have the pagans who would never dream of stealing anything, but are very upset that we disturbed someone’s final resting place. They could end up marching around the site with placards about giving it a decent re-burial”. He smirked, secure in his previous knowledge of such situations, confronted by people for whom it was all a complete novelty. It was obvious they were even more excited about their association with it, and the fact that they were part of the in-crowd, gathered, around this ancient table, in the snug of The Freemasons’ Arms. See? No Evil The new art teacher had really enthused the kids in the village school, and had gained the trust of the head teacher, as well as the parents, so her projects got more and more ambitious as she tried to draw in and integrate the other teachers, the other subjects, and get the children both active and interactive. Enthusiasm seems infectious. The children had already done worthy but dull projects about the history of the local area, and the flora and fauna (with the biology teacher) but they didn’t really identify with a sleepy village. Left to their own devices they were playing computer games, and using social networking sites, and although those two activities had more or less remained divided by the sexes (most but not all boys wanting to drive fast and shoot things in a virtual world, and many girls wanting to chat and flirt) the two had begun to merge with the development of pervasive games. The idea of life as a game is not exactly new, and some of the most successful people in the world seem to adopt such a light approach to what they do (from gamblers to artists, travellers to politicians). That the virtual world of games, and even totally immersive environments like Second Life, should then begin to emerge into the real world was not a development many people foresaw. Authority figures have never much liked rapid communications between the people they rule – it’s too easy to arrange a demonstration, or offer counter-propaganda to the official party line. Controlling news stations, newspapers and even posters on walls has always felt important to prevent too much discontent brewing. The whole rave culture had become a game of hide-and-seek between police and dancers – how do you let the ‘good guys’ know the date and time of the event, without alerting the ‘bad guys’? But with the playful approach, flashmobs could suddenly turn up in a town square, have a pillow fight, and then melt back into the crowd mysteriously. As these seemed like harmless fun, kind of group art works, it was hard to object. Bemused bystanders had no idea if they were witnessing some art piece, an event organised by the Council, a random act of madness, etc. And, of course, dressing-up and role playing are as old as the hills. So for the art teacher to conspire with the other teachers in constructing an elaborate treasure trail, turning their village into something that fans of Disneyland, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings might enjoy, seemed like a great idea. She had a few friends from college, whose faces were not known here, and who liked playing, too. She could draw them in to play various characters who might deliver clues of some kind, if you could find them, and ask them the right question. She got out her mobile phone, and started going through her address book. “Hello, this is Sarah. Yes, hi hello, how are you doing, long time no see and all that. Listen, I am working on a project in the village where I work now. Yes, yes – I got the job as an art teacher. Yeah, it’s really fun, I can almost do what I like. Anyway – I want to do a wide-area game with the kids, and I’ll need a few unknown faces to play characters. Do you still do theatre? How about George and John and Lucy, do you have a contact for them? On Facebook, oh, OK. So anyway, it’s just a tentative plan right now, but you’d be interested, right? Great. I’ll talk to you later. Where? Oh, right, I am in the middle of England, in Rawchester. No, not Rochester. No, I know it’s weird, it’s not very big – I’ll send you a Googlemap ref, OK. OK, Be Seeing You!” She smiled to herself, and began plotting with a notebook. Now let’s see – there’s the Twelfth Century church, of course, which fits in with the Da Vinci Code stuff, and Templars and all that . That’s good! Then there are the ruins in the park – aren’t they doing something up there right now? Must check it out. There’s the slightly odd Celtic Cross thing in the village square. Ooh, ooh, what about those people who dress up as medieval folks and do village fetes, and fights, and all that. I wonder if they cost money? We’ll need a map, I think, gotta check with the library, maybe they have a nice old one we can copy. And of course, we’ll need a bunch of clues….but most important we need a prize! Would that be a thing to keep, or some knowledge to find out? I guess kids finally like prizes, but we don’t really have a budget. Maybe a touch of celebrity – their name in the paper, that sort of thing. Her mind was buzzing. “Excuse me, Miss…” a voice interrupted her day-dreaming. “Yes, Peter, what is it?” “Someone just said they have found a dead body up in the park!” “I think they may be teasing you, Peter.” “No Miss, honest, those people digging in the ruins found it!” Oh, excellent. That would fit in just great. “Well, OK, Peter, I’ll see if I can arrange for us to go up there and visit, leave it with me. Don’t just go wandering up annoying them, though.” “No, Miss. Thanks, Miss.” The small boy in the grey school blazer, with the crest and the school motto “I hear, I see, I learn” on the top pocket, turned away and trotted off, no doubt to tell his friends. The rather worn version of that enigmatic crest could still be seen carved over the front door to the school, with the original Latin motto just visible. “Audio, Video, Disco”. They had translated it into English in The Sixties, for the school uniforms, when it had begun to make people snigger in disrespect. She smiled to herself again. Hmm. Some sort of Dog Latin clues? How accurate did the history need to be? Talk to the history teacher? The archivist down at the library? Gotta keep it fun, though. Disco – Learning by Discovery…hmmm.
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