for the course when calling Mackay. He had retired from the SAS, but the background chatter on his line made you think of wind in a high desert and an old truck’s engine being nurtured with an oil can to keep the mobile phone’s batteries charged. Perhaps the regiment gave them a filter to put on their phone when they retired, just so they would be forever reminded of the good old days.
‘Mac, here’s a bizarre one for you.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Did you ever come across talk of an experiment that had the military dropping dead bodies from planes at low altitudes to assess if there was a possibility that live soldiers would be able to handle the jump?’
He was silent.
‘Mac?’
‘Sorry, Glyn, I can’t say.’
Can’t or won’t? I had learned over the years not to press him on these things. ‘Okay, let’s try another tack. Hypothetically, could such a thing ever have happened in this country?’
‘What have you found?’
‘A body on a remote hillside. It looks like there’s been identity erasure.’
‘It’s not the military. All detritus would have been cleared up. Mislaid body parts are not good PR.’
‘Thanks, Mac.’ I closed the phone down. The elimination of an admittedly weirdo theory was, I suppose, progress of sorts.
I took off up the by-way. It was potholed, with grass growing up the middle, but it didn’t look too badly rutted. I drove very slowly, ready to make my retreat at the first sign of loss of traction, or drumbeats on the sump. I didn’t want to find myself explaining this distraction to Jack Galbraith.
I didn’t see the camp until I crested a rise. The dig, I assumed, was under the canvas enclosure that looked a bit like a bird-watching hide rigged up against a heather-topped earth bank. The camp comprised a rickety caravan, a few small tents and an old long-wheelbase Land Rover station wagon with QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST
Tessa came out from under the tarpaulin at the sound of my approach. She was wearing a sweatshirt, and dungarees with earth-stained knees, and her hair was pulled back with a red, knotted bandana. She had a tiny gardening fork in her hand, and dirt on her forearms where the sleeves were rolled up. She pushed her hair back with her wrist and a smear of dirt appeared on her forehead. She looked great.
But I was not exactly getting a great big warm smile of welcome.
And, lurching like I was, in my very ordinary car, on a terrain that was better suited to pack mules, it was going to be hard to casually announce that I was just passing and had decided to call in to say hello.
I caught sight of Jeff as I got out of the car. He was approaching from the campsite with a tray loaded with assorted steaming mugs. He, for one, was making himself useful. ‘Hi,’ he shouted over, ‘you should have told me you were coming, I would have driven you up the short way.’
‘Thanks, but it’s part of a circuit I’m doing. Trying to get an overview.’
‘What can we do for you, Sergeant?’ Tessa asked.
‘So this is the dig?’ I retorted enthusiastically, hoping that the way into an archaeologist’s grace was through her work.
Jeff raised the tray. ‘I’ll just take these in for the crew,’ he announced, ducking under the enclosure like one of the family.
‘I would have thought that you would have been very occupied by now,’ she observed.
‘This is my occupation, Dr MacLean. Some people call it being nosy.’
She almost smiled properly.
I gestured towards the tarpaulin. ‘Has your man in there still got his head and his hands?’
This time the smile broke through. ‘Yes, why do you ask?’
‘I’m just chasing possibilities. That maybe you had a collection of headless and handless bodies here, and someone had lifted one and dumped it down there.’ I nodded towards the wind-farm site, which was just visible.
She shook her head. ‘Sorry, but we’ve only got one here, and he’s still intact. I’d invite you in to have a look, but we’re pretty crowded at the moment.’
‘That’s okay,’ I said, not too upset about being unable to share close quarters with the ancient dead. ‘Do you know what it is that you’ve got?’
‘He’s not an “it”, he’s our Redshanks,’ she corrected, mock-affronted.
‘Yes?’
She laughed. ‘It was a colloquial name that was given to highlanders. From their red legs under the kilt.’
I showed my surprise. ‘Your guy’s a Scottish highlander?’
‘We believe so. Some of the stuff we’re turning up has a definite Western Isles connection.’
‘He’s a long way from home.
She nodded. ‘And I think that he came an even longer way round. My theory is that he was one of the Gallowglass. Pure happenstance. But it turned out to be wonderful for us when someone found the remains of a brass boss from a Highland targe here.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘A targe is—’
‘A targe is a small shield,’ I interrupted, ‘I know that, it’s the Gallowthingy, that I don’t get.’
‘Gallowglass. They were mercenaries from the Western Isles of Scotland who hired themselves out into the service of Irish Chiefs. We think this one could possibly have been a McNeil from the Mull of Kintyre.’
I looked around. Scrub grass, gorse and patchy heather, everything bent over like supplicants by the prevailing wind. If anything, this place was even more desolate than the spot where we had found our body.
‘What would a Scottish warrior working for an Irish Chieftain be doing dying in a godforsaken spot like this in the middle of Wales?’
She grinned at me. ‘Good question.’
An idea drifted in. The timeline spanned six hundred years. But could there be a Celtic connection?
The big, dark Ford saloon, with new mud on the polished bodywork, was parked at the construction site when I got back. Jack Galbraith was here. I got out of my car, checked my reflection in the window for rectifiable flaws, prepared my psyche for tension, and started off up the hill to the small canvas pavilion that they had erected over the grave site.
‘Glyn …’
DCI Bryn Jones was leaning out of the door of one of the site huts, beckoning me over. I forgot to take a deep breath of good clean air before I entered. They were both heavy smokers. They had already created the effect of a full-blown chip-pan fire.
‘Preening yourself, Capaldi?’ Jack Galbraith asked with a sardonic grin. I glanced out the window. My car was in full view. He looked pointedly at his watch. ‘Is this dereliction of duty?’
‘I was here earlier, sir. I left the experts to it. I’ve been out getting the feel of the locality.’
He picked up a sheet of paper and flapped it in front of me. It had the effect of diverting the smoke from both their cigarettes into my face. ‘Inspector Morgan has been bitching about you.’
‘Inspector Morgan doesn’t think I should be here, sir.’
‘Inspector Morgan doesn’t like the competition? Wants all the prettiest sheep for himself, does he?’
I