An Air That Kills Read Free Page A

road.
    â€˜Watch it,’ Evans said softly. ‘Just watch it.’ He turned to the others. ‘Right – we’ll start by clearing the rubbish out. Frank, you’d better fetch a barrow. Get another shovel, too. We’ll make a start in here.’
    Frank walked off the way they had come. Charlie flicked his cigarette away and followed the other two men through a low doorway into a small, stone-walled building which had lost its roof. A rat darted between his legs. He swore at it. The floor was visible at the end near the door, but a heap of rubbish had been thrown against the wall at the rear.
    â€˜We’ll clear the bigger stuff first,’ Evans said. ‘Just pile it outside for now.’
    He picked up a pair of rusting jerry cans and lumbered into the yard with them. Charlie and the fourth man, Emrys Hughes, dragged a balk of timber from the pile and pulled it across the floor. Frank returned with the wheelbarrow, which they loaded with bricks and stones. Charlie worked mechanically, and also as slowly as he dared.
    Slowly the pile of rubble diminished. After thirty minutes’ work, they were almost down to floor level. Charlie tried to drive his shovel under a block of unsquared stone about the size of a car’s wheel. The stone was slightly higher than the level of the floor and about four feet away from the rear wall of the building. It was pinning down one end of a sheet of rusting corrugated iron which extended back under what was left of the rubble.
    The angle was wrong and Charlie couldn’t get any leverage on the stone. He brought the shovel closer to the vertical and dug down with all his strength. The end of the sheet of corrugated iron disintegrated under the pressure. The blade of the shovel disappeared and he lurched forward.
    â€˜There’s a hole in the floor, look,’ Charlie said. ‘The stream?’
    Evans left the wheelbarrow by the doorway. The hole was no more than a crack. He squatted and tried to peer around the stone and the shovel.
    â€˜Damned if I know. Help me move it.’
    He and Charlie rocked the stone to and for until they could ease it away from the shovel and back on to the nearest flagstone. Together they dragged out the sheet of corrugated iron which was still covered with bricks, smaller stones and earth. The sheet was larger than Charlie had expected: it stretched almost as far as the walls on either side of the building – about eight feet – and back to the rear wall. With the help of the others, they manoeuvred it into the yard.
    Charlie went back inside. Evans was already there, staring at the place where the corrugated iron had been. There were no flagstones below: instead there was a shallow depression lined with earth, shards of china and clay, old bricks and fragments of timber. The hole was the full width of the building and it went back to the rear wall; it reminded Charlie of a large, half-filled grave. A pair of eyes gleamed at them from the darkest corner and then vanished. Evans picked up a half-brick and threw it where the eyes had been.
    â€˜What the hell was this place?’ Charlie asked.
    Evans ignored the question. Using the shovel, he scraped earth away from the edge of the last row of flagstones. Butting against the flagstones were the remains of wooden posts.
    â€˜You’ve found a shithouse, boy.’ Evans glanced up at Charlie. ‘That’s an old earth closet, look, or maybe there was once a cesspool under all that. Those posts would have supported the seats. This was probably a two-seater. There’ll be a chamber underneath us, but it’ll be full of rubbish.’ He stooped and picked up a scrap of china. He brushed the dirt away: two flowers, one red and one green, appeared against a delicate grey background. He sucked his teeth. ‘That’s been there for a while. Bit of an old teacup, that is. What they call Lowestoft ware.’
    â€˜How do you