whether they are in coffins or not. Well, in this skeleton, there are traces of lead all over him. But there is no lead in this cave where we found him, the soil samples show none. Do you see? He must have been buried somewhere else before. Someone took precautions to make sure the skeleton was not discovered. This is no ordinary murder or burial. They buried him, then later moved him to an older gravesite.’
‘Burying a body and then moving it is not necessarily a crime.’
‘It’s a probable crime, no?’
‘Not if we find a reason.’
‘All right. Look. Use that pen and move it along the bone. That way you can see the twist in the bone clearly. It’s not as straight as it should be. There’s also transverse cracking, but we’ll leave that for now, just more proof.’
‘Of what?’
‘Twisting happens to bones that get burned when they are “green,” that is, flesh-covered. An old body whose flesh withered away with time and then was burned later on—that’s the pattern with most of the Bandarawela skeletons. This one was barely dead, Sarath, when they tried to burn him. Or worse, they tried to burn him alive.’
She had to wait a long time for him to say something. In the freshly painted room at the rest house, the four cafeteria tables each held a skeleton. They had labelled the bodies TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SAILOR. The one she was talking about was Sailor. They faced each other across the table.
‘Can you imagine how many bodies must be buried all over the island?’ he finally asked. He was not denying anything she had said.
‘This is a murder victim, Sarath.’
‘A murder . . . Do you mean any murder . . . or do you mean a political murder?’
‘It was found within a sacred historical site. A site constantly under government or police supervision.’
‘Right.’
‘And this is a recent skeleton,’ she said firmly. ‘It was buried no more than four to six years ago. What’s it doing here?’
‘There are thousands of twentieth-century bodies, Anil. Can you imagine how many murders—’
‘But we can prove this, don’t you see? This is an opportunity, it’s traceable. We found him in a place that only a government official could get into.’
He was tapping his pen on the wooden arm of the chair as she talked.
‘We can do palynology tests to identify the type of pollen that fused to the bone, on those parts of him that were not burned. Only the arms and some ribs were burned. Do you have a copy of Wodehouse’s Pollen Grains?’
‘In my office,’ he said quietly. ‘We need to test for soil extracts.’
‘Can you find a forensic geologist?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No one else.’
They had been whispering in the dark for almost half an hour since she had walked from the skeleton at the fourth table and given Sarath’s shoulder a little tug, saying, ‘I have to show you something.’ ‘What?’ ‘This thing. Listen. . . .’
They covered Sailor and taped the plastic. ‘Let’s lock up,’ he said. ‘I promised to take you to that temple. In an hour it’s the best time to see it. We’ll catch the dusk drummer.’
Anil didn’t like the abrupt switch to something aesthetic. ‘You think it’s safe?’
‘What do you want to do? Take it wherever you go? Don’t worry about anything. These will be fine here.’
‘It’s . . .’
‘Leave it.’
She thought she’d say it right out. At once. ‘I don’t really know, you see, which side you are on—if I can trust you.’
He began to speak, stopped, then spoke slowly. ‘What would I do?’
‘You could make him disappear.’
He moved out of his stillness and walked to the wall and turned on three lights. ‘Why, Anil?’
‘You have a relative in the government, don’t you?’
‘I do have one, yes. I hardly ever see him. Perhaps he can help us.’
‘Perhaps. Why did you turn on the light?’
‘I need to find my pen. What—did you think it was a signal to someone?’
‘I don’t know where you stand. I know . . . I know you feel the purpose of truth is more complicated, that it’s sometimes more dangerous here if you tell the truth.’
‘Everyone’s scared, Anil. It’s a national disease.’
‘There are so many bodies in the ground now, that’s what you said . . . murdered, anonymous. I mean, people don’t even know if they are two hundred years old or two weeks old, they’ve all been through fire. Some people let their ghosts die, some don’t. Sarath, we can do something. .