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were standing inside a chamber of some kind. It was roughly ten feet square, resembling an underground cell. But the walls were completely covered, every square inch of them, with symbols and hieroglyphics. Many were obscured by dirt and grime but they were there nonetheless, carved into the rocks and dirt. But it wasn’t the symbols which captured Kim’s attention. She swallowed hard, unable to remove her gaze from the sight before her.
    The entire room was littered with skulls.
    Hundreds of them.
    And from their size they obviously belonged to children.
    ‘So this is where they hid them,’ Cooper said, his thoughts travelling the same route as Kim’s. ‘The bodies in the tunnel, the heads in here.’
    ‘It doesn’t look like a burial chamber,’ Perry offered. ‘Besides, what is all this writing on the walls?’
    As well as the skulls, the chamber contained a number of swords and spears, a few pots and some other receptacles. But it was a pile of stone tablets which now attracted Kim’s attention.
    Lying amongst the other relics, each one was about six inches long, hewn from heavy rock and inscribed with a series of letters, many indistinguishable because of the dirt which caked them. There were a dozen of them.
    ‘This place obviously belonged to the áes dana , the wise men of the tribe,’ said Cooper. ‘Maybe we’ll find some answers here.’
    ‘These stone tablets,’ Kim said, ‘I’d like to take them back to the museum with me, see if I can decipher what’s written on them. I’ll get a box and load them up.’
    ‘Are you sure you feel OK, Kim?’ Perry wanted to know.
    She smiled, appreciating his concern.
    ‘I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘Maybe all this excitement is getting to me.’ She laughed humourlessly, rubbing a hand through her blonde hair.
    As she did, she noticed that her hand was shaking.
    ‘Charles, could you get someone to load up those tablets so I can get going?’ she asked.
    Cooper seemed not to hear her. He was gazing at the writing on the wall of the chamber.
    ‘Charles,’ Kim called again.
    He finally managed to tear his attention from what he was reading, but as he looked at her she saw that his face was pale.
    He looked vague for a moment, his thoughts elsewhere.
    ‘Charles, the stone tablets.’
    ‘I’ll see to it. You leave now,’ Cooper told her, a newly found urgency in his voice.
    Kim looked puzzled as, once more, he turned his back on her, his eyes scanning the ancient words before him.
    She shuddered involuntarily, feeling as if the horde of skulls were watching her with those gaping eye sockets. A wave of nausea, powerful and unexpected, hit her and she shot out a hand to support herself, her head spinning. She felt her legs weaken, and for a moment wondered if she was going to fall again. Perry put out a hand to steady her, feeling the perspiration that covered her skin. She closed her eyes tightly, fighting back the stomach contractions, gritting her teeth against this new onslaught.
    Kim sucked in several shallow breaths and the feeling began to pass. Perry released his supporting hand, alarmed by the ghostly pallor her skin had taken on, but she waved him away.
    ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Really.’
    Cooper looked on impassively as she turned and made her way back down the tunnel, the light from her torch gradually disappearing.
    As she reached the base of the rope ladder she paused again, listening.
    Like a long-forgotten memory dredged up from the back of her mind, she heard again that high pitched wail of agony gradually dying away until it sounded like soft, menacing laughter.

 
     
     
     
Sixteen
     
    There was little traffic on the road leading into Longfield. It was never a busy route, and at this early hour Kim found that she had the road virtually to herself. The clock on the dashboard showed 7:46 a.m.
    Rain, which had begun as drizzle, was now pelting down in large droplets which exploded with such force on the windscreen that the