My Little Armalite (12 page)

—Christ, John, how the hell did you get your first gig, you lucky bastard? I mean, that's the one that matters, isn't it? God, I've been offering to review archaeological books for
The Paper
for bloody years. Just a chance to show what I can do, that's all I ask. Of course I can bloody do it, if they'll just give me a shot. Standing on my head! But they never even reply to my emails, the snotty-nosed metropolitan bastards.

—Oh well, you know, Brian.

—Aha! Ah! Ha! Yes, of course. I do know. Ha!

—Sorry, Brian?

—It's just because you're
in bloody London
now, right? Aha! See? Christ, I always knew the media were like that! Well sorry, John, but I have to say that it's bloody ridiculous. This country is so bloody London-centric.
Which, considering that London is completely bloody un-English these days is a bit bloody ironic. Ha! Shit, damn, I think I've burnt this bloody fennel. Hang on. Oh bugger! Sod and damnation. Ow! Well sod the fennel then! Bloody stupid stuff anyway. Hang on, just get a refill. Right. So, come on then, John, how did it happen? What, did you meet the literary editor of
The Paper
at some poncy cocktail do in Islington? Or did you buttonhole him at some reading in the British bloody Library? Or sidle up to him at the drinks reception after some British sodding Academy lecture?

—How? Well, um, how it happened was, let me try to remember, oh yes, I had an hour between tutorials so I just popped over to the BM, the British Museum, you know …

—I know what the bloody BM is, John!

—Of course you do. I have lunch there quite a lot, in the courtyard. Very relaxing. And well, yes, this woman was at the next table as I sat down, very, you know, Brian,
London
-looking. She was reading a German novel and I recognised the author's name, you see, so I smiled at her and said, —
Is the translation up to scratch?
and she looked up and said, —
God, how would anyone
know?
and laughed. You know, that sort of tinkly, posh laugh. So I said, —
Well actually, I'd know, you see
, and she said, —
Golly, would you really?
and it turned out she was one of the people on the books page of
The
Paper
, and then one thing led to another and …

I now realised that while telling this innocent little pack of white lies, I had actually slid my hand half-into my trousers. Hastily, baffled, I withdrew it.

—Bloody London, I knew it! Christ, John, that's so unfair. That just could never happen up here. It's structural bloody apartheid, that's what it is! You'll be on the bloody telly next, I suppose?

—Oh, I don't worry about that sort of thing, Brian. If it comes along, it comes, of course.

—Shit, I
knew
I should have applied for that sodding job at Goldsmiths! And I would have, if it wasn't for the bloody kids. Ungrateful little teenage sods, I immure myself in bloody Sheffield for their sakes and now they think I'm just a boring old nobody. Hold on, just another splash. Well maybe I
will
go for the next London job. Not that anyone'll give me a new job now, ever again.

—Mmm? Why not?

—Well, I was desperate last term, you see. I needed to get another article out before the next research-grants deadline, or I knew the bloody head of department wouldn't back me for a sabbatical, and I've
got
to get away from this awful bloody place for a bit or I'll hang myself. So one night when I'd had a few I dug out some old stuff from my PhD excavations in America. Stuff I'd never used. I polished it up for half an hour then emailed it just on the off chance and forgot about it. Next thing I bloody know it's there in the bloody
Archeological Review of America
, and I'm buggered.

—But that sounds like a premier refereed journal, Brian?

—It is. So everyone'll read it. So I'm finished.

—What, was your paper wrong?

—Wrong? Excuse me, John, my findings were rock-solid. My technique was downright classic. I presented incontrovertible archaeological evidence that the Apaches regularly massacred entire villages of Pueblo Indians, women and children and all, during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

—Ri-ght. So … ?

—Are you deaf, John? I said
the late twelfth and early
thirteenth centuries
.

—
Yes, I did hear, but I don't really get why …

—Centuries before Columbus!

—Well, yes, obviously, but …

—John, the Native Americans were all peaceful, wonderful guardians of nature, living in harmony with their environment and with one another in a highly sustainable fashion, before they were ruined by their first contact with nasty vicious capitalist imperialist white men.

—Were they?

—They bloody well were if you want a job in any proper archaeology department in Britain or America. The only place that would take me now would be some foul hole in Texas funded by the First Church of Aryan Creationists. God knows how I'm going to get back into everyone's good books. If only I could do a few reviews for
The Paper
, that would help so much!

—I could put a word in for you, if you'd like.

—Could you? Would you? Put a word in for me? At
The Paper
? Would you really?

—Well, I mean, Brian, now I'm here in London I can just pop along to
The Paper
any time, to have a chat, can't I?

—God, yes, of course. Well, John, hey, that'd be
so
good. Well, hey,
that
deserves a decent top-up! Just a sec. Oh, damn, better open another bottle. Don't stop, John, go on while I just …

—No worries, Brian. So, do you think that you
can
help me with this review?

—What? Oh, that, yes, of course, hey, no problem! Fire away, John!

—Thanks. So, Brian. Now, in this book, as I said, um, our hero finds this, this
cache of secrets
. The question is simply this: if he reburied it and the next week he dug it up again and
then
called the police, would
they be able to tell that he'd already dug it up once and reburied it?

—Yes.

—Sorry?

—Yes.

—They'd be able to tell?

—Yes.

—Oh. Oh, right. I thought, I mean, right. I see. Um, so, what, if it was only buried again for a few hours?

—I thought you said he buried it for a week?

—Well, yes, that's right. He does. I just, I was just wanting to, get my argument right. For the review. So, I mean, if the author
had
made his hero rebury it for just a couple of hours and then call the police that very same night … ?

—No difference at all.

—What? They'd
still
be able to tell?

—John, I can tell you if a Neolithic grave was broken into and then refilled on the same day three thousand years ago. I must say, I'm surprised at your lack of cross-faculty knowledge, John. Layers and levels. Strata and soil types. Basic to the whole of archaeology.

—Yes, yes of course. But look, I forgot to mention, though. This is really important. Actually, it's the central point. It's been, I mean, in the book, it's supposed to have been raining heavily while the suitcase was reburied. I was wondering, wouldn't that make it more difficult for the police to tell? Sort of, wash away the, the strata and the layers?

—John, just think about it, will you? The backfill within the pit has just been thoroughly disturbed and aerated. Well? Is it going to absorb the water the same rate as the soil in the surrounding undisturbed matrix of the strata? Will the walls of the pit be unchanged by having their surfaces exposed to air and water? Will
the backfill simply remesh with the undisturbed dug surfaces?

—Well, I suppose … , I said, and pulled the curtain aside so that I could look out into the dark garden. Was I hallucinating, or could I really see, even in the dark, even with my untrained eye, that the filled-in pit was a blacker black than the rest of the black? Was it not indeed holding the rain, growing waterlogged, like a fresh-dug grave?—Well, I suppose … , I repeated stupidly.

—Well, of course not, John.

—And, um, I mean, how long will it stay that obvious?

—To the trained eye? For, well, basically, for ever.

—Oh God. Ah, right but only to the
trained
eye, you say, Brian? I thought, I mean, the, um, the author appears to think, that the police might not notice. Being, you know, untrained.

—What, don't they bring in any forensic scientists? John? I thought you said there was a machine gun involved as well?

—Ah yes. That. Yes, there is.

Here is the news. An Armalite discovered in SE11. Pictures
from the scene. SWAT teams, men in haunting white cover-alls, road blocks, vans, armed cops
.

—
In the real world they'd certainly bring in forensic scientists, John. I think your German writer is being pretty sloppy.

—No, no, they do bring in forensic scientists. Of course they do. In the book.

—Well then. Simple, John. Any half-decent forensic scientist would know straight away that this box of secrets or whatever it is had been very recently dug up and put back.

—Right. So, Brian, in other words, let me just get
this straight. If I, I mean he, the hero of this book, dug it up, then buried it again, then dug it up again, it wouldn't make, I mean, have made, any difference if it was that night, next day or in, say, a week. Whatever he did, the police
wouldn't
believe he'd only just found it?

—Not unless they were utterly incompetent.

—So basically, he was buggered the moment he dug it up and then reburied it?

—I'd have thought so. Does he get away with it, in this book of yours? Surely not?

—What? Well, yes, as matter of fact, Brian. He, yes, actually, he gets away with it. They believe him. They just take the machine gun away. The secret papers and the machine gun that isn't really important, I mean, after the ordinary sort of questions, obviously. And, well, then everything gets back to normal. It's quite a happy ending, really.

—Hmm. Well, literature's not my thing, John, never saw the point of it much, there are enough real mysteries out there without drama queens making up bloody silly stories, but I must say that this sounds like a particularly pointless one.

—Well, yes, the story's arc is perhaps a little weak. And I shall say so in my review. I just needed to find out if it's, you know,
technically
wrong as well. Which I gather it is.

—Absolutely. A load of rubbish! Your author simply hasn't done his research. And you can quote me on that. In fact, you bloody better had, John, ha ha!

—Ha ha. Well, thanks, Brian.

—You will mention me to your contact as well, won't you, when you have lunch with her again?

—Sorry? Oh yes, yes of course.

—I could review archaeology, history, anthropology,
anything like that really. I mean, I'm obviously fully qualified to do it, for God's sake, I just need the break. I can talk to a camera as I walk about without falling over things. I've been practising in the departmental technicians' lab, after work. I can even do it
with
a glass of wine in my hand, just like that cook off the telly, oh you know who I mean, John. Surprisingly difficult, actually, but I've cracked it now. And I've got this really wonderful idea for a telly series on archaeology. I mean just because I wasn't the supporting actor on some stupid comedy series twenty years ago doesn't mean I can't talk about archaeology on TV, does it? Just because I haven't got some kind of
trademark hair
or a bloody silly
regional accent
? I could
do
it, John. I could knock them dead. I just need to meet the right person, just to get that break! If I could only get about a bit more, see the right people, you know. Well, you
do
know, obviously. Look, I'm coming to a conference in London early next year, perhaps I could give you a call, we could have a drink, try to arrange a meeting with someone down there?

—Yes. Right. Bye, Brian.

I killed my phone.

Oh well then.

I sat there, dumb, unthinking. Obviously, I had to call the police eventually; but now I could obviously never call the police. It was already too late.

Mr Goode, as you know, our forensic teams tell us that according to the evidence of the soil matrix, there is no doubt, I repeat no doubt, that ‘a substantial period of time' must have elapsed between you finding the Armalite and you calling the police. Now, can you take us through your actions, and indeed your thoughts, during this substantial period of time, please?

You found the gun. When, exactly? You did not immediately call the police. Why, exactly? You partially reburied the gun. For what purpose, exactly? You had a visitor. Who, exactly? You went to the pub. To do what, exactly? It seems that you normally hardly ever go to pubs, do you, Mr Goode? But tonight you did. You claim that you watched half an England match. But it seems that you normally care very little for the fortunes of the England football team, do you, Mr Goode? Yet tonight you claim that you went to cheer them on. Except that then you left the pub, halfway through the game, with England winning against France. Hardly
the behaviour of a real England fan, ladies and gentlemen of the jury!

You then made a call to a number in Dublin. The number of an Irishman whom we know to have been an active member of the Troops Out Movement. After which there was a further delay and a further phone call to an archaeologist, an expert on burial and concealment, before you finally informed the police that you had found a highly dangerous weapon which, I put it to you, you had immediately known to be such.

Or should I say, before you decided to inform the police? Because, clearly, that's what it was, a conscious decision, and one which took you some time, wasn't it, Mr Goode? Not the simple, instinctive reaction of a normal, law-abiding man. A dec-is-ion. And it wasn't an easy one, was it? Well, it took you almost three hours! Which clearly implies that during these three hours there was another, alternative course in your mind as well, doesn't it, Mr Goode?