Through a Glass Darkly
Extracts
from the Diary of James Elliott
Monday
3rd January 2005
-----------------------
Myra Patel took
me to the meeting of a slightly down-at-heal archaeological society that she
wants me to help out with their computer records. Incredibly
bad speaker. Afterwards the secretary introduced Mahmoud Ali of the
Iraqi Ministry of Culture. His main interest in this regard was trying to trace
a large artefact stolen from a museum in Baghdad. It is the major part of the Umayyad Font.
This 'font' was a large slab of marble weighing around 150kg, with an
inscription around the edge and a depression in the middle. It was long ago
broken into two unequal pieces. The smaller part was found by Lord Ravensworth,
about eighty years ago. The larger was only found comparatively recently and
was in Baghdad until stolen.
Mahmoud assumes
that the thieves will attempt to obtain the smaller fragment too, as the whole
artefact will be far more valuable than the individual pieces. He is
commissioning a party to go to Yorkshire to investigate, and hopefully observe
something about the people who have the larger fragment. My local knowledge
means I am invited to join. They are only offering £500 per person for the
whole exercise. However I have promised to visit Mum and Dad anyway. If the
bunch of misfits they are sending is going to trampling around my parents' home
village, I am better off there to keep an eye on them.
Myra is okay of course, albeit since her
experiences in Iraq a little unpredictable. There is also an
archaeologist called Dr. Belinda Durham, who seems sensible. Dr. Elisa Jamieson
MD shouldn't be too bad, but seems a bit odd. Apparently she was caught up in
that terrorist attack in the underground, and my guess is that she has PTSS.
Adam Walters is a hippy, and 'faith healer' who has recently been
in prison over the death of a patient. Finally there is Bernard Connelly. Myra says he thinks he is Indiana Jones. That
is he steals valuable artefacts for sale on the black market.
After the
meeting I did a little Internet research. I found out damn all about the
Umayyad Font. I did chance upon a picture of Mahmoud. He was the '8 of clubs'
in the USA's notorious Iraqi pack of cards! His real
name is Mahmoud Hussein, Saddam's 2nd cousin, and allegedly involved in WMD
programs. His early disappearance from the list suggests that he was in USA hands quite early. His appearance in London suggests that he is now working for US or UK intelligence or both.
The more I know
about this affair, the less and less I like it. However I think I may be better
off in the tent pissing out.
Tuesday
4th January 2005
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All of us,
except Connelly, travelled up by train together and hired a Range-Rover in Darlington. A bit pointless as I very much doubt we
will go anywhere off road. We drove to Ravensworth. There was time to say hello
to Mum before Connelly, who took an earlier train and the bus, finally turned
up. Prat! Over lunch we discussed how to approach
Lord Ravensworth about his collection. Myra phoned and was invited up more or less
immediately. Dr Durham drove her up. Meanwhile the rest of us scouted around to
see if any other strangers are in the vicinity.
Myra and Durham returned to say there is no problem
accessing the catalogue of the collection, but it will be about a full day's
work. The actual collection is in storage in York. Apparently the collection was catalogued
by a man called Baxter, who was dismissed over an alleged theft. I asked Mum if
she knew about him. Apparently he recently hanged himself on Gallows Hill, and
was only buried last week. This is a bit of a blow as we were hoping to talk to
him. The rest of the party seem to take a morbid and unhealthy interest in the
sordid details of his death and the local superstitions about the location.
Connelly got drunk and made an exhibition of himself.
Finally Myra and I set out to walk home. We are
sleeping chez parents, the other four at the pub. We had just got across the
road when Myra had a fit of the screaming abdabs over something she imagined she had seen in the
graveyard. I got her back to the pub and into the care of Dr. Jamieson and then
checked out the graveyard. There was nothing there, except that it looks like
someone had tried to vandalise a grave. The tombstone is new and is Baxter's. I
photographed the damage.
I reckoned I
needed to drive Myra home now, so I went and fetched Mum's car
and a torch. I inspected the damage to the grave properly. I can only guess
that Myra saw the vandals at it. We drove home, and
I phoned the police about the vandalism.
Wednesday
5th January 2005
--------------------------
We started with
a visit to Baxter's house. The neighbour recognised me and was very helpful.
The really important point was that Baxter's effects had all been taken away to
be auctioned off. Accordingly the ladies headed off to the Hall to study the
collection catalogue, and the men to Richmond to inspect the stuff up for auction.
At the auction
house, we soon found the 50kg of marble we were looking for. There was also
some other weird stuff in the collection. Baxter had clearly been some sort of
occult nutter, and judging from their reaction to the
stuff he had so are at least some of my partners in this venture. I noticed a
pair of home-made binoculars (yes, really), an eye mask made of bone and little
whistle. There were also a lot of books.
We consulted
with our patron and were authorised to pay up to £2000 for the piece of the 'font'.
Judging from the amount he is paying to send us here, he must reckon the whole
thing is worth at least £100,000. Either it will go for under £50 as a bit of
rock, or someone with the same opinion as Mahmoud will outbid us.
The auction is
tomorrow. Dr. Durham reckons the job is done and is going home. I agree, just I
am home.
Thursday
6th January 2005
-------------------------
The auction:
Myra (I would have hoped she had more sense)
bought the whistle and a book described as an 'Uncommon Prayer Book'. At least
she only wasted about a tenner. Connelly bought the
binoculars, the mask and tried but failed to get Baxter's journal. That went to
a local antiquarian book seller. Connelly had been delegated to bid on the
stone. However, after failing to get the journal, he rushed out. I had to bid
on the stone, and a power-dressing young lady outbid us. On leaving she was
heard to be arranging collection tomorrow.
Myra and Connelly collected their purchases and
we headed for home. Connelly then asked if we could explore Gallows Hill. A
more pointless activity is hard to imagine, but I had decided that Connelly
needs humouring to some degree. I insisted that we stop chez parents so I could
get old clothes, hiking boots and a torch.
I navigated and
I agreed to Connelly driving – mistake! We got to the track and even with four
wheel drive Connelly very nearly crashed. The rest of us got out, but Connelly
insisted on, entirely pointlessly, driving up to the top. It wasn't possible to
turn round, so it merely necessitated reversing back the whole way.
The track ends
some way short to the summit, so we had to walk the rest. I had the only torch
so I led the way. At the top we found the foundation stones for the old gallows
and very near a tree branch with rope marks of the recent hanging. I examined
the tree. If Baxter had hung himself he would have had to climb the tree, which
suggests he must have been pretty fit for his age. There was some speculation
as to whether it was in fact suicide. Then Connelly had truly impressive attack
of screaming abdabs and ran off. Myra started walking in a small circle
chanting. Dr. Jamieson started assaulting her. I am not quite sure what Walters
was up to, but generally it was a mad-house. A couple of minutes later they all
seemed to have decided they had to go, immediately. Fortunately Connelly had
left the keys in the car, so with Walters leading the way with my torch, I was
able to very carefully reverse down the hill. On the way, both Jamieson and
Walters had panic attacks. Jamieson was shouting that I needed to go faster,
when it was absolutely the last thing I should do. No thanks to my hysterical
passengers, I got to the bottom without incident. Bloody townies! When I saw
the 'Blair Witch Project' I thought it wholly implausible that anyone could be
freaked out by something as benign, banal and boring as mixed woodland.
Apparently this medieval paranoia is alive and well and living in London.
I had expected
that I would to have take the rest of them to the village and come back to look
for Connelly. However we found Connelly at the bottom. He had managed to injure
the front of his abdomen quite badly. He seemed to think some
"creature" had done this. Bollocks! In his blind panic he ran into
something. That he managed to find something that sharp in the wood was
surprising, but there may some abandoned agricultural machinery around. Anyway
Dr. Jamieson had calmed down enough to work out it was a hospital job. (I don't
think it actually needed any medical expertise to work this out.) We drove to
the Memorial Hospital, and Connelly was admitted. Jamieson
decided to stay over night in the hospital. The remaining three of us drove
back to Ravensworth.
Friday
7th January 2005
-----------------------
Unfortunately
the hospital thought Connelly fit enough to be discharged. We all drove over to
Darlington to pick up Connelly & Jamieson. We
then spent the rest of the day watching the auction house, front and back, for
the collection. Finally the van turned up. Around this point Walters wandered
off and got into a car with some other people and drove off. There were four
men of Middle Eastern appearance with the van. We tried to phone Mahmoud, but
found that ALL of our mobiles were down. Someone must have a jammer.
As we were
intending to follow the van, we really, really did not want to be noticed by
the men in the van. However Connelly went out of his way to draw attention to
himself. In fact he annoyed one of the men so much that he got thumped.
Finally
the van with the stone left and we followed. I managed to tail them okay. We
had been expecting them to head off to somewhere like London. Instead they turned off towards
Ravensworth. On the way, Connelly was playing with the binoculars and started
babbling about the ancient history of Gallows Hill, claiming it had be
important for 100,000 years! Dr. Jamieson decided that there was a car without
lights following us, but given that she thought we were being followed by
eldritch horrors last night, this was probably her over-heated imagination. To
my surprise, the van turned onto the track to towards Gallows Hill. Turning in
after them would have been too obvious so I drove past and turned in a farm
drive further on. I said I was going home to phone in (as the mobiles were
still out). All of the rest decided to stay. I was definitely glad to be shot
of Connelly and Jamieson, but I was a bit worried about leaving Myra.