7,19 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Hills & Barbrook
- Sprache: Englisch
Following the recent death of her husband, Clare Hills is listless and unsure of her place in the world. When her former university friend Dr David Barbrook asks her to help him sift through the effects of deceased archaeologist Gerald Hart, she sees this as a useful distraction from her grief. During her search, Clare stumbles across the unpublished journals detailing Gerald's most glittering dig. Hidden from view for decades and supposedly destroyed in an arson attack, she cannot believe her luck. Finding the Hungerbourne Barrows archive is every archaeologist's dream. Determined to document Gerald's career-defining find for the public, Clare and David delve into his meticulously kept records of the excavation. But the dream suddenly becomes a nightmare as the pair unearth a disturbing discovery, putting them at the centre of a murder inquiry and in the path of a dangerous killer determined to bury the truth for ever.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 452
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
Ähnliche
THE HIDDEN BONES
NICOLA FORD
For Manda
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
1972
It was a single glint of sunlight piercing the hanging mists of the October morning that caught his attention. The incessant rain of recent weeks had stopped, but the sodden chalky soil clung to his boots, making every step along the freshly cut furrows more difficult than the last.
He’d expected flint. It seemed to grow better than wheat up here. The Downs were littered with the shattered white fragments of ancient tools. When he held them he felt he might almost reach out and touch the people who’d built the turf-covered burial mounds that dominated the skyline in these parts.
He bent down to retrieve his find. Spitting on his fingers, he rubbed away the soil that smeared its surface. He stood motionless – it wasn’t flint. In his hand he cradled the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Not much bigger than a ten pence piece, an orange-red disc lay at its centre. The ruddy amber disc was encased within a circle of gold decorated with four delicately incised concentric grooves that ran right around its rim.
Running his fingertips over the still-glittering metal, he felt a pang of regret as they encountered a small tear where something sharp had ripped it. Four thousand years had passed since the disc had been laid to rest. And if it hadn’t been for the unforgiving efficiency of the plough, there it might have stayed for another four millennia.
He’d searched these fields a hundred times. Every new discovery collected and exchanged for the telling of a tale. But this one was different. This one was meant for him. He slipped his prize into the soft flannel of his shirt pocket and he turned for home.
As he neared the bottom of the field, he cast a sideways glance at the dark pool seeping from the belly of the chalk, its swelling waters seeking out their path towards the village in the valley bottom far below. The locals called it the Hungerbourne. But he knew it by an older name – the Woe Waters.
CHAPTER ONE
2013
There was a flutter of excitement in the pit of Clare Hills’ stomach when she stepped out of her coupé onto the gravel drive of Hungerbourne Manor. It had taken two deaths and nearly fifteen years, but she was finally going to get what she wanted. The day was shaping up to be everything she’d hoped for. The journey through the rolling chalk hills of the Marlborough Downs reminded her how much she loved this landscape. The pale blue sky was streaked with gauze-thin clouds and despite the gusting March wind she’d driven the thirty miles from Salisbury with the top down.
Until his death last year, the manor had belonged to archaeologist Gerald Hart. It had started life as an elegantly understated Palladian villa, but the addition of an unbecoming low-slung porch and bay windows by its Victorian owners set it at odds with the gentle folds of the upland valley it inhabited. Clare was only too aware that the house was somewhat less of an intruder than she was. David had avoided using the word ‘widow’, but she knew his invitation to help him salvage what he could from Gerald’s records was born out of pity rather than any genuine need for her assistance. The fact of Stephen, and now his death, hung between them like a freezing fog. But whatever David’s motives, she was glad to be here. For the first time in months she was looking forward to something.
There was no sign of his Land Rover. He’d never been known for his timekeeping and she was acutely aware that she’d never actually met the new owner of Hungerbourne Manor – Gerald’s nephew, Peter. She hoped this wasn’t going to prove awkward.
As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. David’s familiar baritone boomed out of an open sash window at the front of the house. ‘Front door is open. Let yourself in!’
The paint-flaked door juddered open to reveal a dark but lofty hallway. The air smelt stale and musty, and in places the fading wallpaper had peeled from the walls, revealing grey-blue patches of mildew. She found David kneeling on an old Turkish rug amid piles of papers and open filing cabinets in the oak-panelled study. He was wearing a pair of baggy brown cords and a dark blue rugby shirt with a small hole in one elbow. His six-feet frame now erred on the comfortable side of well-built, and the close-cropped sandy hair and neatly trimmed sideburns were tinged with grey. But he still looked reassuringly like the eager young doctoral student she’d known in her undergrad days.
David Barbrook wiped his palms down the front of his cords and knelt down. What the hell had he been thinking of? When Clare had contacted the university’s archaeology department, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to ask her down here. She needed a distraction from Stephen’s death and he needed another pair of hands. But, as the day drew closer, he’d become increasingly uncertain about the wisdom of the invitation.
When the hinges of the front door creaked their un-oiled warning, he grabbed a random sheaf of papers from the rug. The echo of footsteps on the tiled hall floor stopped and he looked up. The figure in the doorway was a million miles from the Oxfam-clad student he remembered: designer jeans, cashmere polo-neck, chestnut-brown hair cut short to frame her face. And so thin.
He threw his arms wide in a redundant gesture, indicating the sprawling array of books and papers that covered the floor. ‘Can you believe this? How can a man who hadn’t published a word in four decades have this much paperwork?’
A hint of amusement sparked in her hazel eyes. ‘Didn’t you say that was why Peter asked you here in the first place?’
He bent forward, pretending to examine a pile of papers. ‘Would’ve been a bloody sight easier if the cantankerous old sod had answered my letters.’
Clare gestured at him to lower his voice.
‘It’s alright, Peter’s not here. He had an appointment with a client.’
Without waiting for an invitation, she joined him on the rug and began tidying the documents that littered the floor into neat stacks. ‘What letters?’
‘I wrote to Gerald to ask if I could help him publish the Hungerbourne excavations.’
She looked at him from behind a stack of journals. ‘Write the report for him, you mean.’
He leant back on his heels and nodded. ‘If that’s what it took. British Heritage was going to fund it. Part of their Backlog Project. I just needed access.’
‘And Gerald wouldn’t play ball.’
He shook his head. ‘Peter did his best to persuade him. But the mardy old sod wouldn’t have it. And now it’s too late.’ He sighed, then blasted Clare square-on with what he hoped was one of his more disarming smiles. ‘This doesn’t need two of us. You OK with ladders?’
She nodded but said nothing. Was he imagining it or was there a hint of reluctance? ‘Good. Peter said the rest of Gerald’s papers are in the loft. Why don’t you take a look up there and I’ll crack on with this lot.’
Whatever she’d envisaged today would be like, this wasn’t it. Two flights of increasingly narrow stairs had led her up past the old servants’ quarters. And now she found herself clutching the sides of a rickety loft ladder and bracing herself for the short climb through the hatch set into the ceiling of the upper landing.
At the top, she felt for the light pull and tugged. A fluorescent strip light flickered on, revealing a room lined with wooden shelving that was crammed from floor to ceiling with boxes of every shape and size. Reassured by the sight of stout wooden floorboards, she clambered through the opening. She ran her hand over the lid of the nearest box, disturbing a thick layer of dust she knew her mother would consider unacceptable. But the intimation of age and the musty smell only served to induce a tingle of anticipation. There were no external clues to the contents of any of the boxes. She would just have to work her way through them one by one.
They were mostly crammed with offprints from academic journals and photocopies of old articles, randomly interspersed with the sort of old lampshades and discarded china that could be found in every attic in the country. After an hour searching she had nothing to show for her efforts except an aching neck. David definitely had the better end of the deal, sorting through Gerald’s study.
Straightening her spine, she brushed her hands down the front of her polo-neck in an effort to dislodge the dust that clung to the soft wool. Black hadn’t been the most practical choice. She adjusted the waistband of her jeans. She’d lost weight since Stephen’s death; maybe it was time to treat herself to some new clothes.
As she turned back towards the loft hatch, she caught sight of four large wooden packing crates wedged into the bottom run of shelves by the far wall. They weren’t at all like the collection of decaying cardboard boxes she’d been rummaging through. Dangling from the side of the nearest crate was a small length of twine, at the end of which hung a mildewed luggage label. In the shadows of the corner of the room, she screwed up her eyes, trying to make out what was written on it. Kneeling down beside the crate, she fumbled for the penlight on the key ring in her pocket. She peered at the small circle of light illuminating the faded ink, but it was too indistinct to read. She turned the label over. Clearly marked in capital letters were the words HUNGERBOURNE BARROWS.
She knelt, motionless, unable to believe what she saw. She could feel the pulse in the ends of her fingers and realised she’d been holding her breath. Hungerbourne had been Gerald’s most famous site; the most spectacular Bronze Age cemetery dug in modern times. But in September 1973, after just one season’s digging, he’d announced the dig was over.
She’d seen the beautifully crafted goldwork in the British Museum. But the rest of the archive had remained closed to public view. During the dig, Gerald had published a painfully brief magazine article with photographs of some of the more spectacular finds. And the archaeological world had held its breath waiting for the final report – the great man’s pronouncements on what he’d unearthed. But none came. And gradually the Hungerbourne excavation had been forgotten. Until last year, when, a few months before Gerald’s death, the nationals ran a story on the destruction of the finds and all of the records in a fire in the manor’s coach house.
So how could they be sitting here in front of her? Far from being reduced to a pile of ashes, they appeared to be untouched in their original crates. She knew she should tell David. But no one had seen this stuff for forty years. It wouldn’t hurt to keep it to herself for a few minutes more. Besides, David would think she was a complete pillock if she told him and it turned out to be nothing more than some reused packaging.
She stood up and leant over the first crate, scanning its contents with the small beam of light. It was full to the brim with crumpled newspaper. Rummaging through the crinkled pages, her hand came to rest on a rusty metal box. Its lid lifted easily, revealing an assortment of hardback notebooks, out of one of which poked the corner of a photo. She opened the book and withdrew the photograph, stepping back into the glare of the fluorescent light for a better view.
The black-and-white image showed a small group of people in front of a dilapidated wooden shed. Above the door, a hand-painted sign read ‘The Brew Crew’. The figures were arranged in two rows, the men standing at the back with the women sitting on wooden boxes at the front. They were all clutching tin mugs raised aloft in a gesture of salute. In the middle of the back row, a slim, dark-haired man of middle years grinned into the camera lens. He wore an open-necked shirt with its sleeves rolled up above the elbows and stood two or three inches taller than his colleagues: Gerald Hart. This must have been his dig team. They looked a happy bunch. But why wouldn’t they be? Fabulous finds, burials, gold – the Hungerbourne Barrows were every archaeologist’s dream.
Clare stood on the back doorstep of the manor, trying without success to remove the last vestiges of dust from her jumper. She’d left David in the study, trying to reach Peter on his mobile. Across the courtyard, the mouth of the coach house gaped open, the fire-blackened hinges where its double doors had once stood jutting out like the decaying pegs of some hideous hag.
Picking her way across the moss-covered sets, she stepped inside. At the centre of the smoke-scarred room rested the burnt and twisted wreck of an old Volvo, its once sturdy and dependable hulk reduced to a mass of blackened metal and contorted plastic.
She caught a sudden whiff of petrol. The sharp acrid smell, the warped metal struts – she stood transfixed, gripped by the sudden realisation that this was how the end had been for Stephen.
‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re playing at, but if you’re not out of there in ten seconds I’m calling the police.’ It was a male voice and its owner was clearly mad as hell.
She stood stock-still, unsure of what to do. As the stranger’s footsteps approached, she swung round to find herself standing on the foot of a tall, slim man, in his mid-fifties. Dressed in an open-necked blue-checked shirt and neatly pressed jeans, his distinguished angular features morphed from anger to bafflement in a split second.
‘What the … ?’
‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to … What I mean is …’ She could hear the words spilling from her lips like a guilty child, but appeared to be unable to control them. Eventually, she managed to pull herself together enough to say, ‘I’m here with David.’
He looked around at the innards of the gutted building. ‘Best we don’t hang around in here. I don’t know how safe it is.’
She nodded. Out in the courtyard, standing in front of a new BMW four-by-four that looked as if it had never ventured further off-road than its current location, she drank in a long draught of fresh Wiltshire air.
He bent his head towards her. ‘Sorry if I startled you.’ He made as if to extend his hand, but then seemed to think better of it, letting it drop by his side. ‘Peter Hart.’
In the daylight, she could see his eyes were a cool, deep blue, their colour accentuated by his well-cut coal-black hair. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. It was remarkable. The man standing in front of her was the living embodiment of the figure in the Brew Crew photograph.
She shook her head and pieced together a smile. ‘Clare Hills. And I’m the one who should be apologising. I just came out for a breath of air.’ She wasn’t sure how to explain what had drawn her into the burnt-out structure. ‘They said in the papers that’s where he kept it.’
He nodded. ‘I wanted him to pack it off to a museum, but he wouldn’t have it.’ He shrugged. ‘Uncle was something of a traditionalist when it came to security. One damned great padlock to which he held the only key. Add a couple of old jerry cans full of petrol and …’ He mimicked the rising flames with a gesture from his upturned hands.
She shivered and closed her eyes, concentrating hard on her breathing. When she opened them again, he was looking back towards the gutted building.
‘If Gerald hadn’t seen the flames he’d have lost more than a few old pots.’
He doesn’t know. David can’t have spoken to him yet.
He said, ‘The police thought it was someone local.’
‘It was started deliberately?’ She couldn’t disguise her shock.
He nodded. ‘When I heard someone poking about in there just now I thought they’d come back.’ He paused, before adding as if by way of explanation, ‘There was a lot of trouble over the visitor centre proposal. Some of the locals got the idea they could make a few quid by opening up the barrow cemetery as a tourist attraction. The village was split right down the middle. Half of them could see the pound signs lighting up in their eyes and the other half didn’t want anything that would spoil their rural idyll. But after the fire destroyed the archive there was nothing to put on show, so it all fizzled out.’
Clare couldn’t conceal her shock at the idea that a bunch of NIMBYs might have done this. ‘Someone could’ve been killed.’
‘I think they were.’
He beckoned her back towards the doorway of the coach house, pointing to the back wall. In the dim light, she hadn’t noticed it before; but, barely discernible beneath the soot-streaked filth, someone had scrawled in red spray paint, BEWARE THE WOE WATERS: BRINGERS OF DEATH.
For a moment, she struggled to make sense of it all. Then, with a horrifying clarity, she realised what he was trying to tell her. ‘You think whoever did this killed Gerald.’
‘As good as. This was only the tip of the iceberg. He had so many silent phone calls that he would unplug the phone when he was here on his own. It was a nightmare trying to get hold of him.’
‘Couldn’t the police do anything?’
‘They tried tracing the calls, but they were all from pay-as-you-go mobiles. Uncle worried himself sick about it. He never really recovered. In the end, his heart just gave out.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘Take a look!’ Muir stabbed his finger at the sheet of A4.
David glanced down at the paper lying on his head of department’s desk without speaking.
‘Well!’
‘Well what?’ To everyone except Muir himself and the vice-chancellor, the bald-headed Glaswegian was known as the Runt. He was renowned for both his complete disregard for anyone or anything other than his own future prospects and his apparent obliviousness to the universal detestation with which he was regarded by other members of the department. The VC had parachuted him into the chair of archaeology over the tops of the heads of several better qualified candidates – David included. But it wasn’t personal jealousy that was fuelling the Runt’s ire this morning. Today’s topic of conversation was David himself.
‘Don’t play games with me, Barbrook. You won’t like the consequences.’
‘Is that supposed to be a threat?’
‘I don’t need to make threats.’ He gesticulated at the sheet of paper that lay between them. ‘The figures speak for themselves.’
Muir seemed to have acquired his management style from old Jimmy Cagney films. It was all David could do to stifle his urge to laugh. Normally he wouldn’t even try, but something in the Runt’s demeanour this morning told him he’d be wise to suppress his natural inclinations. He picked up the paper and made a show of examining it. In reality, he was only too well aware of the contents of the departmental email. It demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had brought in significantly less research funding than any of his colleagues in the department.
‘Well! Don’t you have anything to say? You might be determined to spend your entire academic career in the gutter, but I’m damned if I’m going to let you drag the rest of us into it with you. I won’t have it.’
David replaced the email on the desk and settled himself into the sleek leather chair that Muir reserved for favoured guests. He could see that his choice of seat hadn’t improved the Scotsman’s humour. ‘Look, can we drop the amateur dramatics?’
‘How dare you—’
Before he could finish his sentence, David raised his hand. Starting from his chin and working its way upwards across his balding pate, Muir’s face flushed a vibrant shade of pink. For a moment, David thought the Scot was going to have some sort of seizure. ‘I could sit here and listen to you outlining my manifold failings, but frankly I’m tired of playing that scene. So why don’t I save us both the pain of enduring unnecessary time in one another’s presence. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my academic credentials; my submissions for the last research assessment exercise scored higher than anyone else in the department. I’m not some simple-minded dullard. I know the game has changed. Research scores are only a means to an end. We both know that the bottom line is cash.’
Muir made no effort to contain his sarcasm. ‘Well, glory be – he’s seen the light. Now what exactly do you propose to do about it?’
David was well aware that from the moment Muir had set foot in the department he’d viewed him as nothing more than an irritating tick whom he had every intention of crushing underfoot. But thus far he’d failed to do so. And David had every intention of ensuring he remained firmly embedded under the Runt’s skin.
His adversary leant back in his chair, arms folded, drumming the fingers of his left hand against his right forearm, anticipating victory. It was clear from the Scot’s face that he had absolutely no idea what was coming.
‘I have British Heritage project funding to the tune of half a million pounds.’
‘Pull the other one, Barbrook. You haven’t managed to pull together a viable funding application in the whole of the three years I’ve been here.’
‘Well, I have now.’
‘And exactly what is this fictional funding for?’
‘To analyse and publish the Hungerbourne archive.’
Muir’s mouth broke into a self-congratulatory smile. His target was within range. ‘You’re a fantasist, Barbrook. The Hungerbourne archive went up in smoke – in much the same way that I intend to see that your academic career does, unless you can provide me with some genuine evidence that you’re pulling your weight in my department.’
David reached into the bag that he had placed by his chair. He extracted its contents and slapped them down on Muir’s desk. Before the Runt had a chance to respond, David turned the hardback notebook through one hundred and eighty degrees so that the Scot could read the fading black ink on its tattered cover.
Muir glanced down. There was no mistaking the words on its label, but they clearly weren’t what he was expecting. Hungerbourne Barrow Cemetery Excavation Diary 1973. G. Hart.
Muir opened the book and began leafing through it. He looked up, his eyes boring into David’s. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘Hungerbourne Manor – along with …’
‘Why didn’t I know about this?’
Muir knew full well what the answer was. David didn’t dignify it with a response. If he’d told the Runt that he’d found the Hungerbourne archive, he would have insisted he head up the project himself.
David picked up the notebook and, placing it carefully back in his bag, turned to leave.
As he opened the door, Muir said, ‘Make no mistake, Barbrook. One more fuck-up, just one, and it will be the last thing you do in this department.’
David closed the door behind him without a backward glance.
CHAPTER THREE
‘God, that’s good.’ Clare watched David take a second large bite from his eclair and wash it down with a gulp of Darjeeling.
By the end of a week incarcerated in the archaeology department’s laying-out room, she’d had her fill of listing, counting and weighing artefacts from the Hungerbourne archive. So she’d been only too happy to accept David’s invitation to join him at the tea rooms next to St Thomas’ church.
She finished dividing her poppy-seed cake into bite-sized squares. ‘You always had a knack for knowing how to cheer me up.’
He licked the chocolate from the ends of his fingers and flushed. ‘There aren’t many situations that can’t be improved by a cuppa or a decent pint.’
She laid her knife down on the edge of her plate. ‘I do appreciate you letting me work on the Hungerbourne stuff, you know. It’s given me something to get my teeth into. There was so much to sort out right after the accident. But later …’
He stared down at the pristine white tablecloth, rubbing his fingertips distractedly over some imaginary speck on the linen. ‘You don’t need to explain.’
But she wanted him to understand. The first few weeks after her husband’s car crash had been hell, but she’d held it together. Stephen had been a successful solicitor and he’d ensured everything was taken care of even when it came to his own death, appointing a colleague from his practice as his executor. But that had seemed to make things worse. She’d spent all of her time consumed with worrying about the funeral arrangements, writing thank-you letters for the sympathy cards and then finally sorting through his possessions. It all seemed so pointless; everything done for show. She wasn’t allowed to do anything of substance that might make a difference.
Her words were spoken softly, but her tone was determined. ‘When I phoned the department, I had no idea you were working in Salisbury. I just needed to be somewhere familiar – to have something to focus on.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I suppose I hoped to be allowed to do a bit of pot washing or some finds drawing. I didn’t expect to be indulged like this.’
He snapped his head upwards. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if you weren’t up to it. You’re a bloody good archaeologist.’ His broad face eased into a smile. ‘When I used to take you for seminars, you knew as much as I did half the time.’
‘That was a long time ago.’
‘Doesn’t seem it.’ He swirled the dregs round in the bottom of his cup before repositioning it on its saucer. ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s in that archive or not?’
Clare brightened, grateful to be dragged back to the present. ‘Gerald seems to have run a pretty tight ship. His notebooks are in good shape, which should make it easier when you come to write up. You know the goldwork is in the British Museum.’ He nodded. ‘There’s a complete small finds catalogue cross-referenced to the site plans. So we’ll be able to work out where everything came from.’ She paused. ‘But what I’m really looking forward to is excavating the cremation in the Collared Urn.’
‘What?’
She’d known what it was as soon as she’d seen the pot’s heavy brown rim protruding out of the scrunched-up balls of time-cracked newspaper. What she hadn’t anticipated was what she’d find inside. ‘It’s still got the ashes in situ. I presume you’ll want to analyse it yourself.’
‘Not a chance. We need to get someone in – a specialist.’ He was staring out of the window towards the church.
‘Why do you think he left it like that? Do you suppose he wanted to leave something for posterity? … David!’
He was looking straight at her now. But he didn’t seem to have registered a word she’d said. ‘A human bone specialist. Someone with experience in prehistoric cremations. Lloyd or Granski, maybe.’
‘Fine.’ She couldn’t disguise her impatience. ‘But what do you think?’
‘About what?’
She’d forgotten he could be like this, entirely absorbed by the past. Sometimes he seemed to inhabit another world, a world that excluded everyone and everything around him. The world of the long dead.
She sighed. ‘Why do you think Gerald stopped?’
‘No idea.’
‘And why let everyone think it had all gone up in smoke like that?’
He shrugged.
‘His site diaries are so methodical. Everything recorded down to the last flint flake. But they just stop. No summary. No conclusions. It’s like he just gave up.’
David remained silent. She could see she wasn’t making any headway.
‘Then there’s this.’ She handed him a folded sheet of faded blue writing paper.
Painstakingly cut out from newsprint, the first two words were individually glued to the paper while the last two had been cut out in a block. The words BEWARE THE WOE WATERS obscured the Basildon Bond watermark.
‘Where did you find this?’
‘Stuffed into the back of one of Gerald’s site journals.’ She withdrew a small spiral-bound notepad from her bag. ‘He talks about it. “Arrived on-site to find a note addressed to me pushed under the door of the finds hut: more of the usual rubbish about the Woe Waters. Another amateurish effort by one of my more unstable fellow residents to make the Harts feel at home in Hungerbourne. I had hoped they might have come to terms with our presence by now.” Don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence?’
He passed the letter back to her. ‘Gerald was right. Best off ignoring rubbish like that. If I’d stopped work every time some nutter had spouted mumbo-jumbo about my sites, I’d never have dug anything.’
‘But it’s the same as the warning in the coach house.’
‘Probably some local with a grudge against the bloke in the big house. People have long memories in villages like Hungerbourne.’
‘Maybe.’ She wasn’t convinced, but she knew him well enough to know there was no point arguing. And he was obviously determined to change the subject.
‘I’ll put a funding bid in to British Heritage to get radio-carbon dates from the intact cremation. It’d look piss poor if they don’t stump up the cash on something as big as this.’ For a few seconds he sat motionless, before pushing his cup and saucer away from him. ‘What would you say if I asked you to work on the project?’
‘Isn’t that what I’m doing?’
‘Not voluntarily. I mean professionally – a paid post as project manager.’
‘What?’
‘I’d be the director, but I don’t have time to deal with the day-to-day stuff. The pay wouldn’t be great and it would depend on the BH funding being confirmed.’
She hadn’t expected this. She replenished her pot of Earl Grey with hot water, aware he was scrutinising her face intently.
‘Well?’
‘I’m not bothered about the money.’
‘I sense a “but” coming.’
‘I need to be sure you’re not doing this because you feel sorry for me.’
He placed his right hand over his heart and grinned. ‘Promise.’
‘I mean it, David.’
He leant forward. ‘Look, I couldn’t get anyone half as good as you for the money I’ll be paying. And’ – he hesitated – ‘we understand how one another work.’
‘OK, but if I’m working on this I need some background information.’
‘Like?’
‘What was Gerald really like?’
‘How the hell would I know?’
‘You’re mates with Peter.’
‘Belonging to the same rugby club doesn’t make us bosom buddies.’
‘Doesn’t he ever talk about his uncle?’
He rested his elbows on the table. ‘From what I can make out, he was very fond of him. A bit of a father figure after Peter’s old man did a bunk. But I gather he was pretty much a recluse in his later years.’
‘It’s difficult to picture him shutting himself away in that draughty old house. His site diaries are so full of life. His ideas and plans for the site. According to the early entries, when he started he intended to dig the whole barrow cemetery.’
David laughed. ‘You’ve got to admire his ambition.’
‘So why stop? He had so much talent.’
David made no reply, yet his expression articulated an accusation she understood but was determined to ignore.
‘Judging from the papers we found in the house, he didn’t lose interest in the subject.’
‘Some people choose to do other things with their life. You of all people should know that.’
She said nothing, her gaze fixed intently on the teapot in front of her.
It was David who spoke first. ‘Look, it’s the barrow cemetery we’re trying to piece together, not Gerald Hart’s life story.’
‘Oh, come on. Aren’t you even a tiny bit curious?’
‘Archaeologists normally wait until people have been dead for a few hundred years before they start poking round in their lives.’
They both laughed.
David leant back in his chair. ‘Now you’re signed up for the long haul, do you fancy a day out on expenses?’
She narrowed her eyes in mock suspicion. ‘Where to?’
‘The Big Smoke.’
She wrinkled her nose. She’d come here to try to get away from London and the memories it held.
‘Pity …’
‘Why? What did you have in mind?’ Licking her index finger, she dabbed it distractedly at the last few poppy seeds on her plate.
‘A visit to see Daniel Phelps.’
She stopped dabbing. ‘Who?’
‘Keeper of Prehistoric Antiquities at the British Museum. I’ve arranged to go through the finds they hold from the dig. And Daniel is expecting two of us.’
‘You’re very sure of yourself, Dr Barbrook.’
‘Well, do you fancy getting your hands on the Hungerbourne gold or not?’
David returned from his foray to the buffet car of the Salisbury to Waterloo service bearing two paper cups, an assortment of sachets and small plastic containers, and a bulging paper bag. All balanced precariously on an ill-designed cardboard tray. He handed Clare a cup.
She looked up from her newspaper. ‘Thanks. I didn’t have time for breakfast.’
‘God help us, woman, it’s nearly midday.’
She brushed his concern aside. ‘I had more important things on my mind.’
He emptied two of the sachets of sugar into his coffee, stirred, took a slurp of the hot tarmac-coloured liquid and grimaced. ‘Such as?’
She patted the laptop lying on the seat beside her. ‘Creating a database from Gerald’s finds records.’
She’d only seen a couple of pieces of the Hungerbourne goldwork before and then they’d been trapped inside a glass case. Now that she was actually going to get to handle it, she had every intention of making the most of her opportunity.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Always one step ahead of the class.’ He ripped open the paper bag in front of him, revealing a BLT sandwich. ‘You should still eat.’ He tore the sandwich in two and thrust half in her direction.
She shook her head. ‘I’ll stick to caffeine.’
He gestured at her copy of The Independent with an unopened sachet of sugar. ‘I can barely bring myself to read one of those things these days. Too much doom and gloom.’
‘I was reading Gerald’s obit. Written by a Margaret Bockford.’
He nodded. ‘Professor Margaret Bockford to mere mortals like you and I.’
‘Well, whoever she is, Peter’s not going to enjoy reading it.’
‘Why?’
She passed him the newspaper. As he rifled through his jacket pockets for his reading glasses, she turned her attention to her coffee, burning her lips in an attempt to take on-board caffeine as rapidly as possible. Before she’d managed to sip her way down more than an inch of the scalding liquid, David looked up at her.
‘She hasn’t held back, has she? “… an unforgivable lapse in academic standards from a man who should have known better … Generous, supportive and brilliant in his early years, the discovery of Hungerbourne should have been Hart’s finest hour. Instead it became the scene of his spectacular demise. From a starring role in academia, Hart rapidly and obstinately receded into the shadows of obscurity, taking the knowledge of the Hungerbourne excavation with him.”’
‘I don’t understand. If Gerald was such a model professional before Hungerbourne, why did he pack it all in without writing up the site?’
‘Maybe he enjoyed digging more than publishing. He wouldn’t be the first to be guilty of that.’
She didn’t reply. She didn’t like being flannelled.
He said, ‘By the look of some of the newspaper pieces I found in his filing cabinets, he became quite a celebrity when he started unearthing goldwork during the dig. One of the tabloids called him the Howard Carter of Wessex. Maybe …’ He leant across the table, hands raised in front of his face, snapping away with an imaginary camera. ‘… the media intrusion pushed him over the edge.’
A portly gentleman in a Savile Row suit sitting on the opposite side of the aisle raised a disdainful eyebrow and rustled his Telegraph.
Clare bent forward until she was almost nose to nose with David, barely able to contain her laughter. ‘Behave! You’re meant to be a respectable academic.’
‘Know where you’re going?’ The attendant in the British Museum held open one of two enormous double doors.
David nodded. They found themselves in a long tiled passageway that ran like an artery into the heart of the great building. Down either side of the corridor stretched a series of offices trapped behind plate-glass windows set into solid oak frames. Clare could almost taste the centuries of learning.
It took a sharp dig in the ribs from David to break her reverie. ‘It’s the door at the far end.’
Reaching the spot he’d pointed to, she paused to remove her overcoat, tugging at the elegantly cut black jacket beneath to ensure no wrinkles were present.
‘Ready?’
She nodded. David turned the worn brass knob, and the solid oak door swung open to reveal a slim man in his early sixties, with thinning grey hair and spectacles, sitting behind a desk on the far side of the room. The exact dimensions of the room were difficult to gauge. It was crammed with desks covered with dishevelled piles of journals and paperwork, its walls lined from floor to ceiling with books.
He rose to greet them, sticking out a hand, which David shook warmly. ‘Clare Hills. Dr Daniel Phelps.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Hills.’
Mrs Hills. The name crashed around in her brain. She found herself overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of emptiness. She was vaguely aware of Daniel gesturing at the seat opposite his own and sat down gratefully. She’d been so caught up in her rediscovery of the world of archaeology she’d almost managed to suppress the memory of Stephen. How could she allow herself to forget him? And so soon. She fought back a wave of nausea. Digging her fingernails hard into the palms of her hands, she forced herself to concentrate on what David was saying.
‘Thanks for seeing us at such short notice.’
There was the hint of an Ulster accent in Daniel’s reply. ‘Not at all. In museum terms, I’m a sort of descendant of your man Hart. He was Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities. So it’s always been a particular source of frustration holding the Hungerbourne gold, but having so little information about his excavation.’
‘Well, I hope we can change that for you.’ David smiled. ‘We’re intending to publish Hart’s work at Hungerbourne and to carry out an excavation of our own.’
She glanced sideways, not quite believing what she was hearing. Since when had he been planning a dig? He was smiling at her, his expression betraying his satisfaction at her reaction.
The study room was large, bright and entirely free from the books and clutter of Daniel’s office. Clare and David had both donned thin blue plastic gloves to protect the precious treasures that lay in a large foam-lined wooden drawer on the desk in front of them. Four small holes had been cut into the foam, in each of which rested an artefact. First David and then Clare examined each in turn.
The largest of the objects was a cone-shaped button measuring little more than four centimetres across. Fashioned from shale, it was entirely covered in gold that had been beaten to the thinness of tinfoil and decorated with four pairs of delicately incised lines. Alongside the button lay what looked like a miniature gold bangle with its out-turned terminals resembling a cow’s horns. Slightly smaller than a matchbox, a rectangular pendant sat next to the bangle, a criss-cross of narrow lines forming a chequerboard pattern incised into its gleaming golden surface. According to David, the whisper-thin metal enveloped a piece of human skull; the Bronze Age equivalent of a mourning brooch.
Her eyes were drawn to the smallest piece – a tiny imitation of a halberd. She knew full-sized halberds were capable of inflicting vicious wounds, with their dagger-like blade jutting out at right angles from one end of a long wooden pole. But this exquisite wonder was no bigger than a thimble, its handle crafted from lustrous red amber and wrapped around with four narrow bands of ribbed gold. Out of the thicker end projected the broken remnant of a tiny copper blade.
She opened her laptop and turned her attention to checking each item against the finds database she’d missed breakfast to create. All four pieces matched Gerald’s meticulous descriptions, but he’d also listed another that wasn’t present: a gold and amber artefact he referred to as a ‘sun disc’. She pointed out the omission to David.
‘Maybe it’s on display. You carry on here and I’ll have a word with Daniel.’
Clare set about measuring the dimensions of each object with a pair of grey plastic dial callipers, the soft clicking of keys signalling the entry of the information onto her computer.
David returned accompanied by Daniel, who placed a small opaque plastic box on the desk in front of her that looked as if it should contain his sandwiches. ‘I think this is what you’re after. It was under a different accession number because it was deposited separately from the rest of the Hungerbourne material.’
‘Isn’t that unusual, depositing two parts of the same archive separately?’ Clare asked.
‘Strictly speaking, it’s not part of the same archive. It came from the Hungerbourne barrow cemetery but it was found before the dig started,’ Daniel explained.
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Are you sure? In his site diaries Gerald describes it being found during the dig.’
‘Take a look.’ Daniel lifted the lid of the box to reveal a circular disc about three centimetres across, lying on a bed of acid-free tissue paper. At its centre was an orange-red amber disc encircled by thinly beaten gold, decorated in turn with four concentric circles traced into the glittering metal.
She lifted the disc gently out of its container, turning it round in her hand. Except for some pitting of the amber, the disc was perfect in every way. Taking the callipers, she measured its width and depth, and returned it to its box before beginning to click through the database on her laptop.
She frowned and looked up at the two men waiting expectantly beside her. ‘It can’t have been found before the dig started. It matches the description of the one found by Gerald during the excavation exactly.’
David leant over Clare’s shoulder, peering at the laptop screen, then turned to face her. ‘You’re certain there can’t have been an error transferring Gerald’s records to the computer?’
‘Positive. The gold was listed separately to everything else in the catalogue and the details in the database match everything else here.’
David turned to Daniel. ‘Can we be absolutely sure the accessions record for this piece is accurate? It definitely wasn’t part of the excavation archive?’
‘Mistakes do happen, especially with older items, but I’m certain about this one. We’ve still got the letter of gift that accompanied it when it was given to the museum.’
‘Could we take a look?’
‘I’ll dig it out for you.’
Sitting in the corner of the coffee bar opposite the gates of the British Museum, two sheets of paper lay on the table between Clare and David. The first, a photocopy of a handwritten letter dated 20th June 1973, detailed the gift to the museum of what its author, a Richard Jevons, called ‘the Jevons sun disc’. Jevons had apparently owned the field in Hungerbourne where the disc had been found in the autumn of 1972. He had decided, the letter went on, that the most suitable place to house the piece was in the nation’s most prestigious museum, ‘so that all might benefit from the gift of such a magnificent example of ancient craftsmanship’.
David skimmed the chocolate from the top of his cappuccino with his spoon. ‘Sounds a bit of a pompous old git.’
‘Generous, though.’ Clare sipped her coffee. But even the double shot of espresso failed to make her feel any better.
‘Anyone can make a mistake.’
She placed her cup forcefully but not quite accurately down on its saucer, causing a little of the hot liquid to spill onto the table. ‘I didn’t make a mistake. Gerald not only lists that sun disc in his finds catalogue, he describes it being found during the dig by some woman called Joyce Clifford.’
David picked up the second sheet, a copy of a typed inventory bearing Gerald’s signature. In the bottom right-hand corner, a British Museum date-stamp read 25th October 1973. It comprised a list of all the goldwork found during his excavations and subsequently handed over to the museum. David read through its contents for a third time before placing it purposefully back on the veneered tabletop that divided them.
He looked up at her. ‘Well, that’s not what it says here.’
She held his gaze, struggling to control the rising pitch of her voice. ‘I know.’
‘We’ll just have to check through the original catalogue again when we get back.’ He leant across the table, looking into her eyes, his tone softer now. ‘No one would blame you for making the odd error after what you’ve been through.’
Later, replaying the scene in her head, she would picture herself depositing the dregs of her hot coffee into his lap. But what she actually did was to ram her left arm into the right sleeve of her overcoat; then, abandoning the attempt, thrust her chair backwards, clattering it into an unsuspecting Italian student sitting at the table behind her.
David stood up. ‘Clare, I’m sorry.’
For several seconds, they stood looking at one another. Then he reached down to where her bag sat on the floor and handed it to her.
‘Thanks for the support!’
It wasn’t until she was picking her way alone through the deepening puddles in Great Russell Street that she finally lost the struggle against her tears.
CHAPTER FOUR
David edged his head round the door of the laying-out room. ‘Can I come in?’
Clare was sitting behind a Formica-topped desk, a hardback notebook open in front of her. Her expression wasn’t encouraging. He should have left it longer.
‘Only if you promise not to try the sympathy thing again.’
Her chastisement was an improvement on the studied silence of the last few days. He tilted his head towards her deferentially. ‘I promise to remain entirely unsympathetic in future.’
Her face softened into a smile as she beckoned him towards her.
He pointed in the direction of the notebook. ‘Any luck?’
‘If you mean have I found my mistake …’ He opened his mouth to speak, but seeing her raise her hand towards him immediately shut it again. ‘… the answer is no. My transcription from Gerald’s finds catalogue was spot on.’
He pulled up a chair alongside her. ‘So why don’t you look as smug as hell?’
She fixed him with a warning glare. ‘Don’t think I’m not tempted.’
He felt a sudden urge to laugh, but managed to suppress it.
Clare said, ‘If we can’t trust Gerald’s records, how can we make sense of the excavation?’
‘We don’t know all his records are unreliable.’
‘Don’t you see? Now we don’t know how much of his record-keeping we can trust. If he faked his excavation records, it would explain why he kept the archive under lock and key for so long.’
He sat with one arm folded across his chest, the other stroking his chin, considering the proposition. ‘Why go to the bother of faking them if he never intended them to become public knowledge?’ He leant back in his chair. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
They sat in silence. For the first time since Clare’s return to Wiltshire, he felt despondency creeping over him. Over the past few years he’d experienced a growing hopelessness every time he’d opened his inbox and tried to wade his way through the endless bureaucracy that the twenty-first century academic was forced to endure. They didn’t tell you about that on the Discovery Channel!
Finding the Hungerbourne archive had given him the kick up the backside he’d needed. He had the chance to get out and do some real archaeology – something that actually mattered. And having Clare back alongside him was more than he could have hoped for. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had fallen right into his lap and he wasn’t going to let anyone screw it up – not even Gerald bloody Hart and his sodding record-keeping.
‘Got it!’ Clare slammed the flats of her hands down on the desk. Picking up one of Gerald’s notebooks, she waved it in front of David’s face. ‘Other than these and Gerald’s magazine article, what have we got?’
‘Bugger all.’
She replaced the volume on top of the pile on the corner of the desk. ‘Not true. We’ve got Richard Jevons’ letter.’
‘How does that help?’
‘The letter says Jevons owned the field the sun disc was found in – and the disc came from the Hungerbourne barrow cemetery.’
David pulled himself upright in his seat. ‘So he owned the field where the dig took place.’
She nodded enthusiastically. ‘If we can track him down, we might just get to the bottom of this.’
‘If he’s still alive.’
The golden flecks in her hazel eyes sparkled with the same glimmer he remembered when he’d first seen her put trowel to soil as an undergrad. ‘Are you teaching this afternoon?’
‘No, thank God.’
‘Right.’ She grabbed her fleece from the peg on the back of the door and ushered him into the corridor.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m going to buy you a pub lunch in Hungerbourne. Let’s see if we can run Mr Jevons to ground.’
‘I don’t give much for our chances, but I always think better on a full stomach.’
Clare glanced down at his waistline. ‘That, Dr Barbrook, explains why you’ve done so well in academia.’
David luxuriated in the warmth of the spring sunshine as he sank into the leather passenger seat of Clare’s smart new coupé, an altogether welcome improvement on bumping along in his ancient Land Rover. As Clare manoeuvred the Mazda precisely round the sweeping bends, his gaze drifted to the River Avon meandering its way through the valley floor below. What wouldn’t he give to have seen the huge grey sarsen stones being transported along this river from the Marlborough Downs towards their final resting place at Stonehenge. Being an archaeologist, he reflected, was akin to having a mental illness, his head populated with long-dead voices and images.
Despite their avowed intent to track down Richard Jevons, neither of them was able to resist the draw of the small green footpath sign that pointed them towards the barrow cemetery as they entered the village of Hungerbourne. And now as they stood on top of the hill overlooking the burial ground, David imagined he could feel the presence of the people who’d inhabited the ancient landscape. Immediately below where they stood were the round barrows. Overlooking the modern village, all that remained to be seen above ground was one large round mound lying between two slightly less well-defined grassy hummocks, spaced at about fifty-metre intervals, tumbling down the side of the hill.
Clare was standing beside him, hands jammed into the pockets of her chunky fleece, which was zipped right up to her neck. It looked decidedly warmer than his old army jacket, though he would never have admitted as much.
She glanced sideways at him. ‘You’re very quiet.’
‘I was thinking.’
‘About Gerald’s excavation?’
He turned to give Clare his full attention. He shook his head. ‘About rivers. Watercourses were treated as special places in prehistory. Around here, a bourne is a name for a stream or small river.’
Clare looked puzzled. ‘But I’ve looked at the maps. There isn’t a watercourse anywhere near here.’
He rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Every few years a spring appears just over there.’ He pointed at a spot just upslope from the topmost barrow. ‘It flows right past our barrow cemetery and on through the bottom of the valley.’ He swept his arm downwards in a series of sinuous arcs, emulating the gentle folds of the hillside in front of them and finally coming to rest not far from the car park of the pub they were aiming for in the modern village. ‘It’s where the village gets its name.’
