Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (55 page)

“So what are the chances of recovering any DNA? Can you determine if she is Celtic?”

“Any testing must be nondestructive and can’t destroy the integrity of the skull,” he added. “This skeleton will be the centerpiece of an important exhibit.”

Bryan Sykes raised both eyebrows. “I can’t give you a definite answer. But there is a method I’ve used successfully on even older bones—twelve thousand-year-old bones. And it won’t be visible ... I can extract it from one of the teeth with a high-powered drill. My own laboratory is in a filtered-air clean room which eliminates any possible contamination. The mitochondrial DNA signature—if the DNA is still there—will tell me what clan this lady descended from and where, and if she can be traced to one of the Celtic DNA groups.

Aubrey felt relieved that his biggest question would soon be answered.
You just have to go to the right person,
he thought, pleased with himself. He would have to leave the skull here, but Bryan Sykes ran a high-security lab, and it would be safe. Aubrey glanced at his watch—almost 6:00 pm. And it looked like the weather was blowing up a storm.

He was tired, and wouldn’t risk the drive home in the dark. But spending the night in Oxford might not be so bad. He remembered an excellent restaurant nearby that was famous for its roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Good English food. Things were looking up, and he felt like celebrating. Perhaps a nice bottle of
Pol Roger
champagne—Winston’s favorite—and another cigar.

“Do you like champagne, Bryan?” he asked, with an expectant note in his voice and a twinkle in his eye.

MICK ASTON’S PUB

Dorchester

July 1, 2006

The sign outside the pub banged in the wind. It said Mick’s, painted in bright red with Old English letters, outlined in gold. A royal English lion, rearing on its back legs, stood to the right of the name. Mick had the sign repainted every two or three years—a matter of pride and allegiance to the queen. At heart a royalist, he had no desire to do away with the monarchy; it was a part of his heritage and England, as much as the Druids, the green vales, Stonehenge, or old drover paths on the ridgeways.

The cool, wet June, with its Druid burials and disastrous explosions, had melted away into the beginnings of a sultry July. The hottest day on record said the BBC weather man, and more to come. Now, one of those quick summer storms was blowing through the Dorset countryside. The sign made another loud clatter.

Mick wiped his hands on his long white apron and walked outside to make sure it wasn’t coming loose again. It had fallen in a storm two years ago and nearly scared old Lem Potter to death, just missing his head as he came out the door. He swore it was an omen and ever after came in the back door off the alley, not wanting to tempt the fates again after such a close call. But Lem didn’t quit stopping by every night for his pint or two after work. For that’s what Mick’s was: a working man’s pub.

Squeezed between a hardware store and the King Henry VIII Cleaners, Mick’s was in a narrow-fronted, whitewashed stucco house with dark wood trim. It looked like it was built in Elizabethan times, and it was. The pub had been there since 1560, when the only thing that went by the front door was horses and the few inhabitants of the tiny hamlet. In that long-ago time, it was a staging inn with stables in the back. The market town of Dorchester slowly grew up around it, squeezing into the stables, building up against the back and sides, until the only thing left was a shadow of the inn’s former, much larger self.

It was living history, a relic from times past, and Mick knew as much of its history as could be known and more—it was in his bones. His family had been farmers and horse traders back then, but some of his kin always had a hand in running first the inn, and then the pub.

The sign was safe. Mick gave a satisfied nod and a glance at the windy, gray sky. It would rain soon. He walked back into the dark warmth of the pub and took his place behind the bar. He had a certain spot where he stood behind the heavy, polished walnut bar, just like his regulars had their certain tables and sat nowhere else. Mick’s spot was a little to the left of the old cash register and gave him a clear line of sight to the narrow stairs leading to the upstairs private area, the door to the loo, and a peek in the snug—a room for smoking and serious drinking—where the parish priest had his evening whisky and the local constable his beer.

Mick was never too obvious, but at any given moment he could tell who was having a secret rendezvous upstairs, how many people were in the snug, or what was happening in the main room. It was his business, and his customers knew he was in charge at all times. A tightly run pub, all the regulars felt safe here, free to drink the pint, throw the dart, and not think about the outside world. At Mick’s they were protected and hidden. It was not easy to see in the two small, curtained windows in the front; his regulars didn’t want to see out, either. And whatever Mick heard or saw never left the pub.

And a barkeep sees strange things, he thought, not for the first time. He watched Ian slink in, eyeballs all bloodshot and a strange look on his face. Conan Ryan came in shortly after, and they sat together in one of the dark corner booths in the main room of the pub. An unlikely pair.

Conan nodded at Mick and then sat down with an exaggerated, casual motion. Ian had insisted they meet and refused to talk by phone. What couldn’t wait until tomorrow? Ever since the cave-in at the site, Ian had been acting strangely. Conan had caught him following him several times and sneaking around the secure room.

He signaled Mick for two beers and settled back in the booth. The atmosphere was anything but relaxed. Somehow, this was not about just having a drink together.

Ian’s fingers were jittery and constantly moving. He twisted in his seat like some hyperactive child looking around the room, and every time he made eye contact with Conan, he quickly glanced away. There were beads of perspiration on his face. He beckoned to Conan and leaned forward.

“I saw what you took from the dig. I know there are things missing.” Ian’s voice was low, almost a whisper. “I can keep quiet, but you’ll have to pay me.”

Conan almost choked on his beer. Ian was trying to blackmail him! He had been afraid of something like this after Ian saw him taking some things out of the dig, and followed him to his car. Maybe he could bluff his way out.

“I don’t know what you thought you saw, Ian, but let’s talk this over. If you’re short of money, maybe I can help you out with a few pounds”

Ian’s face turned red. His voice went from the whispered threat to almost a shout.

“A few pounds! It’ll take a lot more than that. What you did is against the law; it’s a government dig. You can’t take anything. You can go to jail.”

Conan looked up and saw Mick watching them with an ominous look. Mick started toward their booth.

“Listen I need more than a few pounds, closer to ten or twenty thousand. You’ll come up with it or I’ll tell what I know,” Ian raised his voice several notches.

“There’s no need to shout,” Conan said. That was a ridiculous amount. But there was no reasoning with Ian—he could see that now. Ian’s eyes were blurry and bloodshot. Alcohol or drugs? Maybe both. Conan shook his head and looked up just as Ian stood and took a wild swing at him. This has to stop, he quickly thought. Conan reached over and slugged him, a neat upper jab to the jaw, knocking him back onto his seat. When Ian stood up he had a busted lip and blood ran down his chin. He wiped it with one of Mick’s good white napkins and stomped off into the snug.

Well, that was different, Mick thought as he picked up the bloody napkin and cleaned up the table. Conan had paid the bill and left without a word. The strangeness of the evening didn’t stop there; someone Mick had never seen before, a thin, slimy sort of guy wearing dark, aviator sunglasses came looking for Ian, and went back into the snug. When they went into the loo together, Mick glowered. He had a sign posted on the door to the men’s room –
One at a Time
. Mick had had trouble with drunk couples using it as a room for making out and who knew what else. Not in his pub!

He banged on the door. The toilet flushed three times before the door opened. The air was thick with smoke, even though the small window was cracked.

“Sorry,” Ian mumbled. “We just wanted to have a private talk.”

Flimsy excuse. Mick knew marijuana smoke when he smelled it. He felt a pang in his heart as he remembered Jemmy casually smoking a joint in his bedroom. It had been almost a month, and Jemmy still teetered on the brink of death. He was never far from Mick’s mind and still no hope.

Later that night, when Mick took the trash out to the bin in the alley, he found a syringe under the bathroom window, and that was an altogether different matter. Smoking a little grass was one thing, but a syringe meant someone was using the hard stuff in his pub. Probably Ian. He’d been acting really strange lately.

Mick wasn’t going to stand for that. He would have to speak discretely to Harry Watkins, the local constable, who slipped into the pub on a regular basis for his usual pint of Doom Bar bitter. And make sure it’s the bitter, Harry always warned Mick. None of that light stuff. Mick thought he probably needed it with his job, dealing with the lawless kind and no pistol either, just a wooden nightstick on his belt. Mick knew he would stay drunk all the time if he had to do Harry’s job.

But the real problem now was it meant he was telling on one of his customers. Privacy at Mick’s was sacred, and everybody trusted him to keep silent about what they did there. If they needed to talk, Mick was always there and never violated any confidences—even the drunken, unwisely confided ones.

But this was serious. He squirmed at the thought. Mick didn’t like to break his own rules. The ones you made for yourself were important. They were your own personal code and sacred, like the laws of the Druid brotherhood. He glanced at the clock on the wall and kept an eye out for Harry. It was about time for him to swing by.

Mick was in a corner, and there was only one way out.

FORDE ABBEY

July 1, 2006