Part 1
“Davie . . .”
He heard the supervisor’s roars, closer now.
The driver pretended to be oblivious to the commotion that was rapidly drawing near his open side-window. It was one small victory he was allowed in the game of life: to be able to play dumb and irritate the boss. He was never normally in a position to put one over on his supervisor, but he pretended to be ignorant; after all, that’s what was thought of him.
“What’s that . . . ? Slow down, is it?” Davie felt a glow in his cheeks as he slammed the gears again and forced the dozer blade deeper into the rubbish tip. What would he want, anyway? A few more hours out of him moving this muck; a weekend shift at time and a half when it should be double time. No chance.
“Keep up, mate,” he rasped beneath his breath. Still, he didn’t seem to be giving up. Davie saw his supervisor haring over the mounds of trash, sending the scavenging gulls back to the sky to circle and squawk.
Up and down the terrain he went, in and out of the garbage gulches. He wasn’t normally so committed. A niggle started in Davie’s conscience. He allowed himself another gasp on the cigarette; the grey-white ash had formed itself into a slender poker point and threatened to fall on his lap at any moment.
He squinted to the left, towards the high-revving quad bike. He was still there, still moving, still at speed. “What’s he up to?”
As the bulldozer’s blade cut through a fresh stack of high-piled black refuse sacks, splitting them open and spilling the contents, a flurry of brown rats ran for cover. Davie watched the rats. He knew they were smart creatures and held a grudging respect for them, even if they did churn his guts. The sight of them running from the bulldozer always made him leap in his seat, try to catch a glimpse of a long tail being caught in the caterpillar tracks: he’d never seen a single one caught yet.
As he raised himself, his gaze was drawn to the horizon. He kept a hand on the wheel as he eased the earth mover down the gears. The noise from the gulls and the quad bike, the revving of the engine and the crunching of the gears all faded into oblivion as he stared through a gap in the fly-splattered windscreen.
“What the hell is that?”
In the midst of the collected detritus of Ayrshire’s homes sat an unfamiliar object. Davie craned his neck and thinned his eyes to better discern the sight before him.
“Wha—?”
The sudden high-pitched din of the quad bike revving to a halt at his side broke the spell, but only for a moment.
“Davie . . . get out the way!”
He heard the call, but didn’t register any interest.
“Davie . . .”
He sensed movement beside him, his supervisor gesticulating with his arms wide in the fly-thick air.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, flagging his boss aside.
Workplace rules were abandoned in times like this: those rare occasions when the outside world stepped inside and levelled everyone to the same status. This moment was far more important than any bawling his boss was capable of delivering. Davie wasn’t sure what it was that he was seeing – the shape was too indistinct – but he knew this much: it wasn’t something you should see on a council rubbish tip.
“Davie, Jesus Christ . . .”
He let the bulldozer roll a few yards, clearing the now established route through the wasteland, towards the shape. It seemed to be a collection of familiar objects, but none in the right order. There was a central pole, like a flagpole or a spike in the earth, but there was something attached, tethered.
“Stop!”
He rolled the bulldozer further forward. It was a tangle, like a tangle of limbs – arms and legs – was it a scarecrow? Had someone dumped a tailor’s dummy?
“Davie, please!”
He depressed the brake and stilled the engine. The sun was high in the noon sky, a rare wide blue offering that filled the line of rooftops and stopped just shy of a shimmering yellow band of sunlight. Davie cupped his hand above his brows and stared front. No, it wasn’t a dummy.
“Christ above . . .”
At his side, Davie suddenly felt a whoosh of air as the cab door was swung open and his supervisor jerked a hand towards the dash to grab the keys from the ignition.
“What in the name of God are you playing at, Davie?”
The driver turned to face his interrogator; his lips parted and the lower of the two suddenly became heavy.
“Is that . . . ?”
“‘Yes, it’s a body!”
“A what?!”
His supervisor’s eyes widened; the red shine of exertion showed in their corners.
“A body! A man’s body. . .”
Davie’s words faltered now. “On the tip?”
“Yes, yes. . .”
He hung out of the cab and pointed with both his arms in the direction of the corpse, pale white against the bright blue of the sky.
“It’s a dead man. Can’t you see someone’s put a bloody great spike through him?’
Artefacts of the Dead by Tony Black, £7.99 paperback, Black & White Publishing.