Whispers in the Graveyard. Theresa Breslin
that’s apparent.’ The professor takes a small eyeglass from his pocket. He indicates the west wall. ‘Some of those pieces of masonry are Pictish symbol stones which have been broken up and used as coping. It’s unbelievable how some local authorities allow a national heritage to be destroyed.’
‘Exactly so,’ said the other man pompously. ‘We won’t be allowing that to happen here. That’s why we’ve called you in for expert opinion. The council is building a new bridge across the river and we have to change the road alignment and divert the course of the water. All of the graves will have to be relocated. At first we thought we’d just collect all the headstones together and pile them up somewhere.’ He waved his arm around vaguely.
‘Did you?’ asked the professor quietly.
‘But of course this council likes to do things properly,’ the official went on hurriedly. ‘We recognise the historic value of these . . . er . . . things. So if you can undertake the special study required as soon as possible, and advise us of the best ways to preserve our cultural heritage, we’ll get on with moving the bodies.’
The two men are moving along the path as they speak. The professor stops at the cairn and, picking up one or two of the stones, he examines them carefully with his magnifier.
‘How long do you think it will take you?’ asks the official.
‘A few weeks anyway,’ says the professor slowly. He keeps one of the stones in his hand as he walks all the way round the monument.
‘Good. Good. That’s what we envisaged. We’ll start clearing the vegetation immediately and then we can start work on the exhumations.’
‘Mr Frame,’ says Professor Miller, ‘have you had a good look at this particular memorial?’
‘Not especially, no.’
‘Then I suggest you do. I’m afraid you may have a serious problem to contend with.’ Professor Miller replaces the stone in its original position. ‘Have you heard the expression “Cholera Ground” used in connection with old burial places?’ he asks.
‘Cholera Ground?’ Mr Frame laughs. ‘Cholera is a foreign disease. You don’t get cholera in Scotland.’
‘Not any more perhaps,’ says the professor, ‘because now we have a clean water supply. But in the early part of the nineteenth century it killed thousands of people. However the “Cholera Ground” in churchyards wasn’t used exclusively for victims of that disease. It was known as such because that was the most common disease from which people died. In actual fact it was a general name given to a special area set aside in kirkyards for the victims of any epidemic. Due to the lack of medical facilities, when pestilence struck, whole communities could be wiped out in a matter of days. Most corpses were laid to rest uncoffined. There wasn’t the money or indeed the time to do anything else. And these areas were known as the “Cholera Ground”.’
The professor breathes on his eyeglass, then polishes it carefully.
‘Many parishes held annual inspections of the turf over the ground used to ensure it remained undisturbed,’ he went on. ‘They feared the virus would escape. Sometimes they used a cairn of stones as a memorial, hoping to seal the ground and prevent further outbreaks.’
‘That’s very interesting, but as you said, cholera was caught by drinking bad water. It’s not infectious,’ said Mr Frame.
‘Cholera isn’t, that’s true,’ replied the professor. ‘But there was another far more deadly epidemic in Scotland. This pestilence visited the country until the late 1880s. A highly contagious virus in which the infection is carried on the skin in tiny pustules or blisters which form into scabs. The virus can survive in these dried-up scabs for many years.’
He puts his eyeglass back in his jacket pocket and then points to the large cairn of stones directly in front of them.
‘I suggest that you check the burial records for this kirkyard. When you do, I think you’ll find that lying under that mound is a mass grave for the victims of smallpox.’
‘What?’ Mr Frame steps back sharply. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘I’m very serious,’ says Professor Miller, ‘and in the light of what else I’ve noticed here, I would advise you to take extreme caution before you begin uncovering any graves.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’ The council official’s head jerks as he looks quickly around him.
‘There are rules and regulations covering interments, and I think that they have not been adhered to in this burial ground. For example, graves or lairs had to be at least one and a half feet from a wall. Look,’ the professor indicates a row of headstones, ‘those are clearly not.’ He kicks his foot gently against the long side of a mounded oblong of grass.
‘Coffins are also supposed to be three or four feet down from the surface. I don’t think these are.’
‘Why aren’t they?’ Mr Frame’s voice is worried. ‘Surely there were inspectors to ensure things were done properly?’
The professor shrugs. ‘Not always. This appears to have been a smaller church group, away from the main town. They probably did everything themselves, from laying out bodies to digging the actual grave.’
He walks further along the wall to where the earth was bare. ‘What is also worrying me is this part here. You say the cemetery was closed due to overcrowding?’
Mr Frame nods.
‘Well,’ says Professor Miller, ‘if they weren’t observing the Home Office rules for spacing out coffins, it may be that, in the attempt to bury relatives beside each other, they were doing something which I’ve come across in other small country kirkyards.’
‘Which is?’
‘Breaking up older buried coffins and tipping the contents into the opened trench to make more room. See this bluish-black colour of the earth all around here? That denotes the presence of decaying corpses.’
Mr Frame takes a handkerchief from his pocket and covers his mouth. ‘I suppose if we consult the Record of Burials, it would tell us what they’ve actually done.’
The professor laughs. ‘I doubt if they’ve kept an accurate note. Our ancestors weren’t as bureaucracy-ridden as we’ve become.’
‘You said “our ancestors”,’ Mr Frame enquires. ‘Do you have relatives here?’
‘Yes, from a long long time ago,’ says the professor. ‘It’s one of the reasons I accepted this commission. My wife and daughter always wanted to visit Scotland.’
They are approaching my end of the kirkyard. I breathe quiet and shallow among the stones.
‘Sorbus aucuparia.’ The professor reaches out to touch a leaf of my tree and then withdraws his hand.
‘Mountain ash,’ says Mr Frame.
Professor Miller puts his head on one side. ‘Do you notice it is the only living thing at this end?’
‘Plenty of dead, though,’ jokes Mr Frame.
‘Actually no . . .’ The professor is thoughtful. ‘Not even the dead rest here.’
He frowns and turns slowly to face the sun. ‘At first I thought it was to do with the custom of burying people on an east–west line. Scotland used to be a very God-fearing country, so in many cases the headstone was placed at the west end of the plot.’ He gives a small smile. ‘It was