ACV's 1 Operation Black Gold (30 page)

‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK.’  I removed my towel, folded it neatly, and hung it on the back of the locker door.  Now it was her turn to flush red.  That would teach the bitch to speak huskily to me I smirked to myself.  She’d turned away but I noticed she was still watching me on the dead TV screen.

I got dressed quickly and ran over to the cookhouse, grabbed a couple of chops, one for Boy one for myself.  I put his on a piece of paper in the back of the old Frontera sport I’d bought and had completely renovated in a week, with a fair bit of bribery.  I hate driving and vehicles in general, but as a boy, I had had a ride in one of these.  I had been impressed then and was even more so now.

Sam climbed in to.  ‘Could you take me home first I need to get changed?’

‘Aye, OK is there something wrong with your throat today?’

‘It just feels a little tickly.  Oh boy what are you doing?’  Boy had decided to kill the chop before he ate it.  She reached over to put the chop back on the paper and I almost crashed coming out the gate as her breast brushed against my arm.

When we arrived at HQ Scotland, she directed me over to her quarters.  ‘Just stop here; you’re not going to drive away are you?’

I’ll admit the idea was tempting.  ‘No.’

‘Come on Boy.’  She held the door open for him.  He jumped down and made a beeline for a block.  It was obvious he had been here before.  I wasn’t alone for long.  A long legged blonde came out the same door and walked up to the window.

‘Hello, you must be Jim?’

‘Aye, that’s right.’

‘I’m Amanda, Sam’s roommate; she said you were waiting for her.’

This was a very sexually aware young woman and I found myself on familiar ground.  Conversation flowed smoothly and she quickly recognised a kindred spirit.  My old glasses, having been replaced by the new army contact lenses, boosted my confidence tenfold and I found myself drawing her in. 

The banging of a door momentarily broke the spell.

‘Are you going out with Samantha?’  She took my no as a good sign.  ‘She’s very nice, Samantha, if you know what I mean?’

‘I know what you mean,’ I assured her.  I was rewarded with a bright smile.

She’s my best friend even if she is a little eccentric.  Have you seen that big cat she’s dragging around with her, well she talks to it like it understands every word she says, weird huh?’

‘Very,’ I agreed.  Given another ten minutes and a little prising, I probably would have had the knickers off her in the back of the motor but Samantha returned and spoiled the moment.  She didn’t look very happy to see Amanda. 

‘Hi, Sammy, you’re looking sweet as usual.’

She had changed into a long dark skirt, ankle boots, a tight fitting sweater and black jacket.  Sam flushed, ‘Aren’t you late for work Amanda?’  Something passed between them.

‘You’re right; I better go and leave you to your shopping trip.  I’ll maybe see you later Jim.’  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise as she ran a finger over my forearm.

They climbed in.  ‘Have a nice chat?’

‘Very pleasant.’

‘Oh!’  We drove in silence for a while.  ‘Talk about anything interesting?’

‘Just you.’

‘Nothing nice I hope?’

‘Ah, ah naughty.’  I received an uncomfortable smile, so I decided to put her out of her misery.  ‘She thinks you’re a little eccentric, talking to the cat like he was a real person.’

‘Meow,’ called Boy on cue, which he normally did when the word cat was mentioned.

‘Aye, that’s what I thought,’ I told him.

She burst out laughing and the atmosphere lightened greatly.  ‘You can’t help it he’s just so smart.’

‘Dinna look at me, I dinna talk to him like that.’

The ‘Rowel’ came nicely on cue.

‘Oh for god’s sake how many times have I got to tell you,’ I pulled over and let him out.  He dashed under a bush and started scrapping away.

‘You’re both mad,’ she laughed.

‘Och I canna help it,’ I shrugged.

She insisted on taking a detour.  I thought for a while that she wanted to nip under a bush too but no, she led us down an old track and it came out on the banks of an estuary.

‘I’ve a friend who works here, she’s an archaeologist and they’re working on an old Roman garrison.’  My interest levels soared immediately. 

We left the motor and she carefully picked her way around the site, I followed.

‘Hello Chris.’

‘Hi Sam, where have you been?’  A dirty grinning face popped up out of a hole.  The grin quickly failed when he saw me tagging along.

‘I’ve been very busy lately, found anything new?’

‘Heaps of stuff, but this room were excavating now is the weirdest.  Look what we found this morning.’ He held up a banana shaped porcelain bowl.  I recognised it immediately.  ‘We also found a big silver phallus buried in the wall.’

‘Yuck!’

‘It’s a cracker.  So what do you think this is Sam?’

‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged, ‘a gravy boat.’

We both burst out laughing.  He looked at me.  ‘It’s a lady’s piss pot.’  I supplied.

‘Aye that’s right.’  The first glint of respect appeared in his eyes.  He went on to tell us the story of a strange female skeleton they’d found upon a bed of ashes, with the piss pot buried beneath.  He also went on to describe the site and finds across the rest of the site.  He came back to the trench he was working in.  We think it might have been the bedchamber of the garrison commanders’ concubine or maybe part of the barracks brothel.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Why?’ 

I whirled to find myself staring into the loveliest pair of green eyes.  The slim athletic figure was framed by long auburn hair.  ‘Hi Sam.’

‘Sylvia.’

They pecked cheeks.  ‘Who’s your new friend?’

‘This is Jim, we work together.’

She offered a long slim hand.  ‘Nice to meet you.’

I took it.  ‘A pleasure.’

‘Now the pleasantries are over, why do you doubt our theory?’

I couldn’t stop myself from grinning.  ‘Elementary my dear lady!  For a start, that’s a very elegant piss pot.  By the design I would say the far end was meant to hold a long handle.’

She picked the item up and inspected it.  ‘Yes I see where you’re coming from, rather than squat on it or hold it herself it could be held from behind by a slave.’

‘Aye that’s right.’

‘What else?’

‘The silver phallus, your colleague here told us it was hidden in the wall almost undamaged by the fire that ravaged the place.’

‘So?’

‘For a start it’s silver.’

‘It could have been an expensive present.’

‘Then why hide it in a wall.  If it had belonged to a concubine or prostitute, it would have been used as a love toy and been nearer to hand.  More likely, the secret toy of a pampered rich woman banished to the ends of the empire with her husband as some form of punishment.  It wasn’t uncommon for the rich women of those times to have a mould made of their favourite male prostitute’s member and have it cast in silver to take with them on long journeys –or to their summer villas.’

‘You’re quite the little analyst.’

‘It’s something Jim’s quite good at,’ squeaked Sam.

‘Oh really?’  Her head came up and those lovely green eyes held a clear challenge.  ‘Maybe you’d like to have a go at our prize mystery then?’

‘You realise I’m not even a gifted amateur in this field, I can only tell you what I see.’  I really wanted to scream yes, yes, yes but I didn’t want to give the impression I was something I wasn’t.

She made a decision.  ‘OK, let’s see what you can see.’  We tagged on behind.

‘You realise this was a fort?’  Asked Chris.

‘Aye, ye did say that.’

‘So why was there a rich woman staying here?’  He dropped his poser with a grin.

‘Maybe her new home hadn’t been built yet.’

‘Oh!’

‘Then again maybe it had and they were pulled in for their own safety, they didn’t actually conquer Scotland remember.  The natives might have been a bit restless.’

‘Aye right, then again maybe a big army from the North descended on them.’  He bounced the ball back.  I returned it once more.  By the time we reached the small marquee they worked from there was the kindling of a friendship.

She took us to a map of the site.  ‘This is what we’ve got so far.  A semi-permanent fort half stone half wood.  There doesn’t seem to be anything underneath it and nothing built on top, it’s totally original.  It was destroyed by fire.’

‘So it was attacked then?’  I mused.

‘There is some evidence to support that theory, a few arrowheads found amongst the ashes but that’s it, nowhere near as many as you’d expect to find.’

‘Probably a night or a dawn attack then.  Send in their best men to take out the sentries and open the gates, when it was over a few fires.  Oh sorry.’  I’d gotten a bit carried away.

She moved over to a computer.  ‘Anyway we’ve only found one body and there’s no sign of any graves in the area; which there should have been if there had been a big battle.  As for the one we found, it was female, look.’ 

What was left of a badly charred skeleton appeared on the screen.  She spun it round.  ‘It was digitally recorded.  I knew the technique she was talking about.  A digital camera had been set up and photos taken as the skeleton was uncovered, then processed to give a 3D image in depth.  I could see the mystery before me.  It looked like her legs had been cut off at the hips and placed above her head.

‘Weird’.  The brain was in overdrive screaming through scenarios. 

It was Chris who gave me the final clue.  ‘The only clothing that was left were her sandal straps.  They were still attached to her legs.’

Sylvia pointed them out on the screen.  ‘They were made from a very low quality leather.  Hardly what you’d expect to find on a rich woman,’ she added.

There was a spark.  ‘Low quality leather, green leather?’

‘Well almost.’

I spun the skeleton side on and found what I was looking for; the spine was raised above the level of the head slightly.  ‘Is there nothing left of her hands or wrists?’

‘Nothing.’  Sylvia confirmed.

‘But her arms were raised above her head?’

‘Yes.’

The picture in my mind formed and jelled.  I stood back grim faced.  ‘What is it Jim?’  Samantha asked, analysing the signs.

‘It isn’t me you need for this Sylvia; it’s a criminal scientist or a forensic expert.  The woman was bound with her hands and feet above her head and then raped to death or raped then burned to death.’

‘What!’ she seemed shocked.

‘Look.’  I pointed out my evidence and to my surprise; she seemed to take it seriously.  At length she took a light pen and reconstructed the skeleton under my direction.  Finally, she fleshed it up.  Both she and Chris were stunned by the results.  I thought Sam was going to be sick.

‘There’s only one thing missing now.’  I headed outside and walked around analysing the terrain, eventually I ended up standing on it.  The fort had been built on a terrace.  As the estuary had silted up and the channels moved there had been a few more terraces deposited.  I was looking too far a field at first.  It wasn’t until I looked at my feet for inspiration that I realised what I was looking at.

I stood back and tripped over a peg.  ‘What’s this thing for?

Chris bent down and straightened it.  ‘Geophysics marker.’

I looked left and right along the ledge of the terrace the fort was built on, at a glance, it looked like a surge of water had slapped up against it and broke away the edge.  They hadn’t dragged the bodies far.  ‘Is this as far as you took the geophysics?’

‘Up to here yes, you can’t see geophysics in fresh air.’

‘Did you try a metal detector for the bit you missed?’

‘No what for?’

I jumped down and gestured along the length of the terrace.  ‘This was once the bank of a river.  If you look at the rest of the terraces and farther up this one, you’ll see evidence of where it under cut the bank but not here, do you see it?’  They joined me and agreed.  ‘I think they’ve dragged the bodies out of the fort laid them under the old bank and dropped the overhang onto them right along this stretch of the terrace.  If they’d looked stunned before their expressions were now novel but they caught up fast.

‘Chris!’  Sylvia almost whispered with anticipation.