Crimson Shore

33

Constance’s first indication that Pendergast had returned from his memory crossing was the movement of his limbs on the shingle beach. Then his eyes opened. Despite the length of time he had lain motionless, more still than any sleeper, those eyes retained the bright glitter of the most intense concentration.

“What time is it, Constance?” he asked.

“Half past four.”

He got up, brushed the traces of sand from his coat, and picked up the satchel and metal detector. He spent a moment looking around, as if getting his bearings. And then, motioning her to follow him, he began walking inland from the shingle beach, northwestward, tangential to the line of the Skullcrusher Rocks that lay to their right. He moved with quick, purposeful strides. She noticed that he no longer bothered checking the map or GPS.

Together, they continued to a spot where the beach ended at a rise of land covered with grass and the occasional scrub pine. They climbed to the top, where Pendergast paused to look around. Beyond lay a field of dunes, anchored with grass and low bushes, forming a series of broad, sandy hollows, perhaps fifty feet across. In a moment he descended into the closest hollow. At its bottom, he set down the satchel.

“What are we doing here?” Constance asked.

“If someone on the shore wanted to bury something, this would be the place to do it.” Reaching into the satchel, he pulled out a slender, telescoped rod of flexible steel, which he opened to its full, six-foot extent. He began probing the sand at the bottom of the hollow, sinking the steel rod down at various points as he moved in a steady pattern from one side of the depression to the other. After a few minutes, something stopped the probe. Pendergast knelt and probed in a tighter pattern, sinking the steel tip into the sand in half a dozen locations. Then, rising once again, he took from the satchel a small, collapsible shovel.

“I assume, with all this activity, that your memory crossing was successful,” she said dryly.

“We shall know in a moment.”

Sinking the shovel into the spot of his most recent probe, he began to dig, placing the sand carefully to one side as he did so. He continued digging, making a hole approximately five feet in diameter, to a uniform depth of two feet. Once this circular pit was complete, he began to dig deeper. The sand was damp and loose, making for easy digging. A few moments later, the blade of the shovel hit something with a dull clang.

Quickly, Pendergast put the shovel aside and knelt within the hole. Using his fingers, he swept away the sand, exposing some rusted pieces of metal.

“Iron hull fasteners,” he explained.

“From the Pembroke Castle?”

“I’m afraid so.” He glanced around. “The site seems obvious in retrospect, doesn’t it?”

“How did those fasteners get back here in the dunes? Did the sea wash them in?”

“No. The wreckage of the ship was deliberately carried back here and buried. At least, all that washed in. The turn of the tide would have eventually taken what didn’t wash up here out to sea.”

He dug some more, pulling pieces of iron from the sand, shaking them clean, and placing them to one side. The shovel revealed more pieces of metal, which he also placed aside, some still attached to rotting pieces of wood that had once been hull planking. And then, as the shovel bit deeper into the moist sand, it hit something else: something that made a very different, hollow sound.

Pendergast knelt again. Constance joined him. Together, they carefully brushed away the sand from the point of impact. Slowly, a skull was revealed: small, pale brown. One temple was caved in.

“Good God,” Constance murmured.

“Not more than a year old,” Pendergast said. His tone was cold, remote.

Together, they continued sweeping away the sand with the flats of their palms. More small bones were revealed: ribs, hips, long bones. Crowded alongside, additional skulls came to light: some small, some adult. All showed signs of blunt trauma.

“We must leave everything in place,” Pendergast said. “This is a crime scene.”

Constance nodded. Now the bones became so numerous that they formed an almost solid layer embedded in the damp sand. Evidently the people had been killed and buried first, with the ship’s wreckage dumped on top. Pendergast took out a small whisk from the bag and swept the sand away, exposing additional bones. The little ones had evidently been piled helter-skelter on top of one another, seemingly tossed in heaps, while the adults were laid in parallel.

Finally it was too much. Constance stood up and, without a word to Pendergast, walked out and climbed to the top of the hollow, where, breathing deeply, she looked eastward over the cold, unfeeling, alien ocean.