An Advancement of Learning. Reginald Hill
the foreman stepped back.
‘He’ll never drag that thing out!’ said Henry, amazed. ‘It must weigh …’
The rest of his sentence was drowned as the arm went slack and the gaping grab crashed down with all the violence of its huge weight on to the concrete slab. The shining metal teeth dug gratingly into its sides as the driver manipulated the controls.
‘They can lift almost anything,’ said Landor, making it sound like a personal boast.
The arm began to pull up, the machine bucked forward slightly on its tracks and Halfdane began to have doubts.
Again it tried and again the same happened.
But the third time, just when it seemed the machine must capsize itself with its own strength, the concrete block stirred, the exquisitely mown turf, which ran up to the base as though the mower had gone right through it, began to buckle and tear, the great machine sat back triumphantly on its haunches and the solid cube began to slide slowly out like a cork. The rich dark earth clung tightly to its sides, and even more solidly to the bottom, it seemed, as the great block swung free in the air. It followed the same semi-circle as before, only this time earth fell to darken the white trail below.
Earth, and something more solid than earth.
‘Hold it, Joe!’ cried the foreman who was nearest. The machine halted, the concrete maintained its momentum and swung forward like a pendulum dislodging yet more of the substance that adhered to its base.
‘Oh, my God!’ said someone as the foreman stooped, then stood up gingerly with something long and thin in his hand.
It was a shin-bone.
He poked at the underside of the concrete with it. Something like a narrow grille fell down. It might have been part of a rib-cage, but no one watching was ready to believe it. He poked again, dislodging an even more solid something. The earth fell away as it hit the ground.
Now they were ready to believe it.
It was a skull, grinning empty-eyed at them. And most hideously there was a mop of dark red hair hanging rakishly down over where had been the left ear.
Jane Scotby’s hand went to her mouth, but only the dilating of her pupils showed she was not just stifling a little yawn; Marion Cargo was white as death, Henry Saltecombe gripped Halfdane’s shoulder with unconscious violence, while Ellie Soper seized his other hand so he could not move.
‘It’s Miss Girling!’ shrieked Miss Disney.
‘Yes, it is,’ she added in a matter-of-fact way as though someone had denied it. Then, unbelievably, she fainted into the reluctant arms of George Dunbar.
‘Clear a space,’ he shouted. ‘Hey, Fallowfield, give us a hand here.’
Fallowfield was the staff medical expert, having done two years of a medical degree course before abandoning it in favour of straight biology.
But when they looked for him now, he was nowhere to be found.
… they are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
Op. Cit.
‘This is what they spend my bloody taxes on, is it?’ said Detective-Superintendent Dalziel, peering out of the window of the principal’s study.
Sergeant Pascoe said nothing and kept his gaze fixed firmly on an area of neutral space midway between the balding, taurine figure at the window and the long, spare frame of Simeon Landor seated at his desk.
‘I sympathize,’ said Landor, smiling. ‘I feel much the same when I see the way you go about your work, Superintendent.’
‘Sorry?’ said Dalziel turning. ‘What’s that you said?’
He cupped a large hand to a proportionally large ear.
If the buggers get clever, he had once told Pascoe, pretend you can’t hear. Then pretend you can’t understand. Nothing’s funny if it’s repeated and explained.
Landor shook his head, still smiling.
‘Now, Superintendent,’ he said. ‘We want to help your enquiries in every possible way, of course. So just fire away with any questions you like.’
Oh God, groaned Pascoe. Honours even, so he extends the hand of friendship. Give the bull a scratch!
‘What was going on out there?’ asked Dalziel, pointing to the staff garden which the room overlooked. The mechanical digger had gone now but the deep furrows of its progress were still clearly visible. Over the cavity left by the removal of the concrete base a canvas shelter had been erected. Men were moving slowly, efficiently around, watched by a silent crowd of students on the edge.
‘We’re extending on all sides as you can see,’ said Landor. ‘A new biology lab is planned there, so naturally we had to move the statue.’
‘Who was out there watching?’
‘The principal was good enough to make out a list, sir,’ said Pascoe smartly in his best young executive manner, making a feint towards his brass-bound genuine-leather document case, an object of some derision from Dalziel when it first appeared.
‘Of course, it’s almost certainly incomplete,’ began Landor, but Dalziel waved aside his apologies along with Pascoe’s contribution and, by implication, any further interest in the list.
‘Why were they watching?’ he asked, scratching his inner left thigh voluptuously.
‘I’m sure I don’t know, Superintendent,’ laughed Landor, still pursuing his sweetness-and-light policy. ‘In most cases it would merely be the old hole-in-the-road syndrome …’
‘What?’
Landor was wise enough not to explain. Pascoe gave him a mental tick.
‘Was that all?’ asked Dalziel as if an explanation had been given.
‘Well, no. There were emotions other than mere curiosity on display, though I don’t see what they can have to do …’ He tailed off thoughtfully, then started again with renewed vigour.
‘Miss Cargo of our Art Department was there for a special reason. Concern, I suppose you’d call it. You see, she had designed the statue and was naturally concerned to see it suffered no damage.’
Pascoe was taking shorthand notes, a skill Dalziel mocked as feminine.
‘Then there were some older members of staff who were there to express their disapproval, I felt.’
‘Disapproval? Because their garden was being dug up?’
‘Partly that. But partly also because the statue was a memorial. They felt it smacked of sacrilege to pull it up.’
‘A memorial? Who to?’
In answer Landor picked up the bronze plaque from his desk and handed it over. Dalziel read it carefully with an expression of grotesque devoutness. Like a close-up in Songs of Praise on the telly, thought Pascoe.
‘Alison Girling,’ he said, enunciating each syllable with great care like a child reading.
‘My predecessor,’ explained Landor.
‘She wasn’t old,’ observed Dalziel. ‘What happened to her?’
‘A tragic accident,’ said Landor, doing with his voice what Dalziel had done with his face. ‘On holiday abroad at Christmas. She was a close friend of some of the senior staff here. They felt it deeply when the statue had to be moved.’
‘Who are they, Mr Landor?’ asked Dalziel. ‘And