At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(15)

“Then why no name?”

“It’s a mystery. Anyway . . .” He returned the figure to the box, replaced the lid, and put the box on the floor near his desk. “We have work to do.”

When he turned back to Diana, he was surprised to see an expression of unease on her face. It surely mirrored his own. Something about the figure was unsettling.

He pretended otherwise. “What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She shook herself and turned brisk. “Very well, then. Let’s get to it.” She opened one of the books Evan had handed down and stared at the pictures. “One common theory is that bog bodies were placed in the bog as human sacrifices.”

Evan joined her at the table. “Indeed. Others theorize that they were victims of crime, with the killer attempting to hide the dastardly deed in a bog.”

“Also,” she said as she tapped a photo of an eerily lifelike corpse, “they might have been perpetrators of crime rather than victims.”

“Or merely lost.”

She snorted. “Too much ritual around the ancient bodies for that. Someone wanders into the bog, gets lost, and has half their head shaven and ends up with a rope around their neck?”

“The work of modern farm equipment, in the case of the shaving,” Evan pointed out. “And a badly botched attempt at rescue, in the case of the rope.”

“You know how ridiculous that sounds.”

“We have to look at all angles, consider all evidence. Or else we aren’t scientists and we’re of no use to the police. But”—he held up a hand, and she closed her mouth—“I agree. Unlikely. And clearly impossible with our current case.”

Diana returned to the book. “So why the elaborate presentation of the body, then?”

“That is the question of the hour. I need a list of all the bog bodies uncovered to date. Or at least the most famous ones.” He considered the Anglo-Saxon runes. “Focus on England.”

“Your wish is my command,” Diana said, thumbing through Bog Bodies Uncovered. She stopped at the color plates halfway through. “Look at Lindow Man. We have everything you’ve mentioned, except the shaved head, which seems to be present in other bog bodies, just not Lindow. We certainly have multiple causes of death.”

He leaned around her to see. “Our victim was found curled on his side.”

“Bingo!” Diana said, pointing. “And he’s from Cheshire. That’s in—”

“Northern England.” He pulled a stool out from under the table and perched on it. “Very good. Perhaps later today, you’d be kind enough to make me a map of all the English locales.”

“Sounds like minion work.”

“And you’re a wonderful minion. We also have runes.”

She set the book down. “Glad you decided to mention that.”

“You young ones are always in a rush.”

He moved a teacup over and opened his journal on top of a shorter stack. Together, they studied the sketches he’d made of James Talfour’s runic halo.

“None of the bog bodies in the book have halos,” Diana said. “Or runic inscriptions. The two elements don’t fit together.”

“That’s only because we’re not yet inside the killer’s mind.”

Evan grabbed a foolscap notepad and pen from the desk and copied down the runes without drawing in the wooden slats. When he finished, they had eighteen lines of runes.





Diana surveyed his work. “Pretty much Greek to me. Actually, not. I know Greek.”

“By the time we’re done, you’ll also know runes.”

She beamed at him as if he’d just offered her a prettily wrapped package. “Every line of runes has one rune that is set apart from the others.”

“I’ve had time to think about that.”

She picked up a pencil and tapped it on the page. “And?”

“It could be a numbering system.”

“But why would he number the slats?”

“Think about it,” Evan said. “He had to have prepared them in advance. If we assume the sequence of the lines is important, and I believe it likely, then numbering the slats would ensure that he placed them in the proper order when he arranged them around the body.”

“If that’s the case, why not just use Arabic numerals like the rest of us? One, two, three, and so on.”

“It would mess with the whole Viking aura, don’t you think?”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “I suppose it would.” She leaned over his journal. “Sometimes the numbers are at the beginning of the line, and sometimes they’re at the end. That seems an odd choice by which to indicate sequence.”

“I have a theory about that, too. But we’ll come back to it.”

“Fine.” She huffed. “And the rest of the runes? What about them?”

“I suspect they have some significance.”

She twirled a strand of hair like a bored coed. “Gee, Professor. You think?”

“Sarcasm is a fool’s wit and far beneath you. Anyway, I haven’t had time to interpret them.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

She tapped her foot. “What are you waiting for? Doesn’t this seem like the most important thing? Start transliterating.”