The Sleepers of Erin Read online

  A voice whispered, ‘Would that be yourself, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Eh?’ I froze. The darkness thickened above the wall. Somebody’s head. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Shush your noise, man. Is it yourself?’

  Gerald. It was Gerald. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Have you got a ladder? Grab my arm—’

  ‘No, Lovejoy. Wait. It’s the planting of some old trinkets they’ll be doing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ How the hell did he know that?

  ‘At Kilfinney?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sure, I knew it when I saw you wandering among those auld ruins.’

  ‘You were there?’ I’d have strangled the clown if I could have reached him. ‘Then why the hell didn’t you help when they nabbed me?’

  ‘Ah, it’s a terrible impatience you have on you, Lovejoy. Where’s your interest in the scheme of your fellow men—?’

  ‘Stuff that, you frigging lunatic.’ My throat was raw from whispering. ‘I’m imprisoned here. I want out. If you’re not going to help, then shift, you berk.’

  ‘What are the trinkets, Lovejoy? Those gold crusts the men were baking this morning?’

  Oh hell. If he had seen the kiln fired on the gold torcs, he too must have seen me and Lena doing our stuff. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you play along with them. I’ve a plan.’

  I hesitated fatally. ‘You have? And leave us in the clear?’

  He grew lyrical. ‘As innocent as the snowflakes that, born in the high clouds of winter, descend to bless the earth with sweetness—’

  I cursed him. ‘What about me, though, you nerk? They want me to do the plant early tomorrow. Heindrick’ll do the discovery bit.’

  ‘Ah, there’s a terrible temper you have, Lovejoy! But it’s a grand scheme, right enough. Do it, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Just as they say?’

  ‘That’s the thing.’

  ‘But what about me being frigging safe?’ I demanded. ‘Ah, you mustn’t let little things worry you, Lovejoy. I’ll be there to see fair play, or Sinead’ll give me a thick ear.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘On me auld mother’s blessed—’

  ‘Shut it. Is Shinny still here? They told me you’d gone to Dublin.’

  ‘Sure where else would she be? Now you go back, Lovejoy, and leave it all to me.’ The darkness where his head had been thinned.

  ‘Gerald?’ No answer, only that scraping. The swine had some sort of ladder there all the bloody time. He could have got me out. ‘Gerald!’

  The gravel scuffed on the drive near the house balustrade. That would be Lena. I reached over, grabbed my jacket and made it to the summerhouse steps just as she flitted along the path.

  Kurt would be warming up his cine-cameras now. I wondered which was my best side on infrared.

  Chapter 22

  The lough made a soughing noise before dawn. Earlier, it had rained for a couple of hours, coming on while Lena and I, erm, met as planned.

  That night we all must have had only about three hours’ sleep, and while it was still dark were on the road in an ordinary rather oldish dark blue saloon. A nice careful touch that, including the fishing gear ostentatiously loaded up for us on the roof rack. Me, Kurak who drove, and Kurt full of himself as always. He was all tweeds and raglan, the country gentleman out for early fishing. There are people who really love the desolate country dawn bit.

  ‘Where are the real anglers?’

  Heindrick smiled at my question as we parked away from the vacant parking space and got out. ‘Ah, we’ll be spared those, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Back in East Anglia there’d be a hundred fishermen here at this hour.’ I’d been hoping to find enough innocent bystanders to mask Gerald’s presence. As dawn lightened the lake sky it became obvious there was no witness, no help, and no bloody Gerald either.

  ‘Light, Kurak.’

  Kurt hooded the torch glass and flashed twice across the lough, twice again in the direction of the castle ruins.

  ‘That for Jason?’ I asked.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘We burying the sleepers in the castle ruins?’

  Kurt waggled a finger. ‘Curiosity killed the cat, Lovejoy.’ He was holding this case, heavier than lead.

  Depressed at all this military-style organization, I plodded after Kurt as he led the way to the right, Joe following, still doing his phoney Slav act.

  A horse neighed once, the noise coming from near the crannog. Something clopped nearer, up ahead. There were other people in the countryside, all of them hostile. I dwelled on Gerald and Shinny with bitterness. Nobody lets you down quite as ruinously as friends, do they? Friends are famous for desertion and betrayal.

  ‘Ready, sor?’

  One minute there had been the grey-green dawn, then suddenly there was this quiet bloke standing close by the wedge-shaped grave.

  ‘This it?’ I asked. They ignored me.

  ‘Yes. Ready.’

  ‘You’ll come then, and mind your feet.’

  And he took us away from the lough, away from the grave, over to our right about a hundred uneven paces. We were at the turf digging.

  ‘All’s clear, sor.’

  ‘Very well.’ Heindrick dismissed the guide with courtesy. He nodded and faded into the hillside. The three of us were left alone.

  ‘What happens now?’

  I didn’t much care for what little I could see of the turf digging. Narrow slabs of the stuff were slanted in rows, forming a barrier. Standing in the excavated hollow we could not be seen from the road. Even the hillside did not overlook us. A darker patch was evident on the side nearest the Bronze Age wedge grave. And it dawned on me.

  ‘I got it.’

  ‘Spread the leather, Kurak.’

  ‘Eees, m’sieu.’

  Kurak unfolded a large chamois leather from its plastic bag. Heindrick began lifting the torcs in their individual chamois pouches from the case. Each was bagged in stapled plastic. He began counting them out on the spread.

  I said, ‘If you can’t dig down or sideways into an archaeological site, you dig upwards. Am I right? You tunnel from below, starting some distance away. And plant the sleepers through a tube, a drillhole.’

  Heindrick finished it for me. ‘Plugging the drillhole, of course.’

  ‘Having sucked the traces of drilling.’

  ‘Vibration restores the dust to its even, pristine condition, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Who does that?’

  ‘Eeesa mee.’ Kurak had uncovered a small boxed machine looking for all the world like a hurdy-gurdy without its support stick. It seemed handle-cranked and had a leather strap.

  The sky was beginning to pale quite clearly now. Spatters of rain tapped us. The wind had shifted to the south. The dark oval in our hollow was now more distinct, about four feet across.

  ‘That the tunnel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it that wide all the way?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Trust the malicious sod to be smiling.

  ‘Got a diagram?’

  ‘As far as we’ve been able to visualize the burial chamber.’ Kurt brought out a paper and pencil torch. ‘Done for us by a research archaeologist, for a fee.’

  ‘Is he in on it?’

  ‘There’s that curiosity again, Lovejoy,’ he reproved, indicating the diagram. ‘The tunnel runs at the left side of the grave chamber’s narrowest part. You will deposit the genuine torc in the far right-hand recess.’

  ‘My arms aren’t that long.’

  ‘You’re provided with an extending arm. Kurak will carry that. The other torcs you will place beneath the adjacent compartment.’

  ‘One more thing.’

  ‘No, Lovejoy.’ The swine patted my arm sympathetically. ‘Just go.’

  I needed to know. ‘Who goes first?’

  ‘You, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Having Kurak between me and the exit? No, thanks.’

  ‘Lovejoy.’ Rain speckled Kurt’s spectacles. He s
poke with infinite patience. ‘If this is done exactly to my order, we succeed. You get the price as we agreed, a torc. Plus other benefits. You come on the payroll, exactly like Kurak. This scam will make a fortune, for you and the rest. You join the wealthiest antique ring in the history of mankind. Or you proceed no further. Which?’

  Good old Gerald, with his promise of help. Well, there were enough ancient graves about for people not to notice one extra.

  Swallowing, I shelled my jacket, took the torch and stooped into the entrance. ‘Let’s go.’ Kurak kept his hand partly raised in a chopping position. That was in case I made to flash the light anywhere else except into the tunnel.

  From the level, the tunnel descended pretty sharply – too sharply for my liking, considering we were a million frigging miles from the grave. The aroma had a thick, curiously bittersweet character which made my throat clog up for a few moments. A tube ran along the trodden peaty floor, of the kind you use for garden hoses. Kurak gave me a push. I plopped on to all fours and began to crawl as the tunnel narrowed into a cloying wetness.

  ‘I’m going, I’m going for Chrissakes!’

  ‘Eeesa time-a du goow, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Shut your stupid teeth, Joe,’ I grumbled. The tunnel’s closeness was bringing the sweat out on me. ‘What’s that hissing?’

  ‘Air. There’s a battery pump back in the turf diggings.’ Kurak was Joe Bassington again, his corny accent gone.

  ‘Here, Joe. Do they know who you are?’

  ‘Sure.’ But from the way he said it, I began to wonder. Maybe Lena had procured his services by feeding him the same sort of promises she’d given me. Women are famous for that. It couldn’t be that the duckegg actually believed Lena and he were somehow to take over from Heindrick. Nobody could be that thick, not even a bloke crazed by Lena. I crawled on.

  The tunnel narrowed further. I tried working out the incline as we moved deeper underground. Why the hell do they never teach you anything useful at school? Teachers are idle swine. Maybe one in thirty or so? That meant a depth of say ten feet after crawling a hundred yards. In the damp brown-black pungency the torchlight showed walls of rock and practically solid peat. Remarkable how hard the rotten stuff was, compressed into a fibrous woody texture. And wet, wet.

  Carrying a torch when plodding on your hands and knees is difficult. You need a hand to hold the thing, yet you need that hand for your fourth corner, so to speak. Alternating on my wrist and knuckles I moved lopsidedly on. I could hear Joe pushing the gear ahead of himself, the box and that tube thing slithering on the tunnel floor.

  By counting the number of moves I’d made since I crouched on hands and knees I reckoned we’d gone about fifty yards, counting one foot per movement. That was the point the tunnel suddenly compressed us further. To advance it meant a belly-crawl, elbows on the floor and wriggling like soldiers under fire. Grumbling at Joe – more of a whine now than a mutter – I led on, down into stickiness and mud, the roof such as it was showing more rock than peat. The hosepipe was still there, snaking ahead into the narrow black hole.

  What I didn’t care for was the sloppy dampness of the tunnel floor. As it narrowed it got wetter. I hesitated and pressed my weight on the torch rim. A moment later the bloody mark filled up with water. We were reaching the level of the lough. For an instant I panicked, moaning and quickly backing until my feet clonked on Joe.

  ‘What is it for Chrissakes?’

  ‘We’re getting below water-level, Joe.’

  ‘I’m not enjoying this either, Lovejoy. Get going. We’re practically there.’

  ‘Frigging hell. Can’t we just leave them here and . . . and . . .’

  ‘. . . And be buried in some bog?’ He laughed, actually snorted a laugh, the nerk.

  Ten paces further the tunnel angled up and to the right. At the dip it was about quarter filled with a stinking puddle of muddy soil. Everything Heindrick had given us was sealed, but I wasn’t inclined to take chances and made Joe check the seals on every item after we’d sploshed through the dip. Only having one torch was a nuisance. Joe wanted me to pass it back for him to inspect the plastic wrappings, but I wasn’t having any of that caper. The torch was mine and I was sticking to it, so I shone the light back between my legs until he said the covers were all still intact and we could go on.

  It was no more than eight or nine yards, that short ascent. So steep was it that I actually slithered and had to pull along with a handhold. Then the tunnel stopped, and there I was mystified, staring at the end of a hole and wondering what to do.

  ‘Above your nut, moron.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It’s obliquely angled, a four-inch stone plug.’

  ‘I know, I know! Stands to reason it must be there.’ I made to undo it but Joe’s hand grabbed my leg.

  ‘No! No! Turn off the air pipe first!’

  ‘You stupid berk! We’ll suffocate!’

  ‘Not for a few minutes.’

  ‘Why? Why?’ I wasn’t really panicking, but breath’s important stuff.

  ‘They might count the bacteria and fungi in the grave dust and on the remains. They circulate in the air. They’re different species in the outside air than inside an old grave.’

  ‘Who’s going to think of that, you silly bugger?’

  ‘Professionals,’ he answered, cold. ‘Switch that air pipe off.’

  ‘So help me, Joe,’ I swore, and turned the hose’s end round. The hissing ceased. Straight away I felt myself gasping for breath even though I knew how daft I was being.

  ‘Get on with it, Lovejoy, or we’ll be here all day.’ That did it.

  The plug was supported by a latch like an old wooden gateway, except this latch was steel and slotted into sockets which were set in stone to either side. The space was about three feet by three. I lodged the torch against the wall. Joe had to rest his elbows just below me, his legs projecting down into the sloping tunnel, so merely passing the tube forwards was a feat of skill. From it I took the expanding finger – only a crisscross of wood with a scissor grip at one end, and rubber tips at the other. Close the scissor grip and the crisscross extends, carrying whatever you’ve placed in its rubber-tipped ‘fingers’.

  ‘Hey, Joe. I’ll have to do it blind.’

  ‘ ’Course you will, stupid. Have a shufti first, work out the length.’

  Sensible. I began to realize how useful it was having a bloke as skilled as the Sleeper Man along.

  ‘How?’

  ‘From here to where you drop the sleeper’s about nine feet. The finger’s capable of twenty. So make a mark on the ratchet in that proportion. The angles are constant throughout, right?’

  ‘Right,’ I said blankly, thinking, Eh? In the end he did that while I unlatched the plug. I shone the torch, a good krypton beam.

  The inside of any burial chamber’s only pleasant in a museum. Seeing inside one for the first time since the Old People closed it is a frightener, really unnerving. We were near the apex of the triangular cavity. From there the ceiling – stone slabs laid crossways – widened. I could just see the edges of two of the compartments. These are kinds of booths which occupy the walls of the grave. The Old Peoples’ mortal remains went in these recessed galleries until the place was sealed for ever. And ever. I found myself shaking.

  ‘Lovejoy!’ God knows why we were both whispering. There was no chance of being overheard even if we yelled our heads off.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mind that plug! On to the chamois.’

  Reverently I laid the stone plug on the spread leather, taking care not to rub the grave dust from its oval top surface, and whispered for Joe to pass up the sleepers. The fifth torc which he handed me from the case was the genuine one. It broke my heart to unwrap it and grasp it about its midriff by the expander. Joe tried to see my every movement but it was just not possible in such a confined space, in Indian file at that.

  ‘Don’t let it touch anything, Lovejoy.’

  ‘You can trust me,’ I said. Once
I let myself think of Heindrick’s threats I’d be finished, so I pretended confidence. I’ve always been good at lying, especially to myself.

  It was surprisingly easy. I had to guess of course at the finish, as the luscious gold torc crept slowly out from the plughole and vanished from that eerie shadowy scene into the space of the grave. I hadn’t allowed for the weight of the thing – you try holding a gold weight on the end of a nine-foot length with your fingers and you’ll see how hard being a crook actually can be. Worse, I hadn’t calculated for the extender’s curve under the torc’s weight. After cursing and struggling I thought what the hell and let the torc go. We heard a soft thud and Joe muttered an oath, but I was more concerned with bringing the extender back without reaming out the whole grave’s interior. I told him it didn’t matter, that I’d stuck it in the space Heindrick wanted.

  After that the others were simple. I had a rest between each, exercising my hands to make sure I could do the others properly but it was only for show so Joe would bring back a good report to our master. It took longer to replace the plug than it had removing the wretched thing.

  ‘That it?’ I was close to panic and wanting to get out, but he insisted on passing me the mechanical vibrator on its flexible shaft. We had an ugly moment with Joe telling me it was absolutely safe and just to press the tapered end against the stone plug, and me whining for gawd’s sake he’d electrocute both of us. In the end it functioned perfectly, juddering against the stone in a busy way until Joe reckoned the vibrations should have settled the grave’s dust over any trace of our penetration.

  ‘That’s all, Lovejoy.’

  Give Joe his due, he was a real pro. Though there we were underground and in the clear now our job was done, he would not budge until every piece of plastic, every trace of our presence, was carefully bagged in plastic – he’d even brought a pocket stapler to seal the bloody things. I was frantic to get out, whisper-yelling what if the frigging dip filled up with water and suchlike hysteria, all to no avail. He showed what a true pro he really was, calm and businesslike.

  There was room for me to turn and crawl out head first. But he couldn’t pass me, being simply stuck like a worm in its burrow. With a nod, he took hold of the tube in one hand, grabbed the case strap in his teeth, and began slithering backwards down the tunnel. Every yard he had to pause, pull down his jacket which kept rucking up his chest and impeding his elbow thrusts, but he kept calm and eeled along towards safety. I had a vested interest in his progress, but didn’t feel like making humorous comments about the mess I was in.