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Clare Hills, archaeologist and sometime sleuth, is struggling to finance her recently established university research institute along with her long-time friend, Dr David Barbrook. When Professor Margaret Bockford finds the Hart Unit commercial work with a housing developer on a site in the Cotswolds, the pair are hardly in a position to refuse. There is just one slight catch: the previous site director, Beth Kinsella, was found hanged in a copse on-site, surrounded by mutilated wildlife. Despite initial misgivings, Clare leads a team to continue work on the dig, but with rumours about Beth's mental state and her claims that the site was historically significant refusing to be laid to rest, and lingering disquiet between local residents and the developers, progress is impeded at every turn. When one of the workers finds something unsettling, Clare suspects there may be more to Beth's claims than first thought. But can she uncover the truth before it is hidden for ever?
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Seitenzahl: 432
NICOLA FORD
For the Crickley diggers
The strengthening breeze rippled the newly green foliage of the ancient giants. His breath was coming in gasps as he made his way towards the stand of beeches that crowned the hilltop. He was out of nick, that was for sure.
It was unseasonably warm for the May Day Beltane ceremony. Beneath the full-length white tunic that he’d fashioned from an old cotton sheet, his leather biker’s trousers chafed against his skin. He hadn’t had time to change. They’d been expecting him and he couldn’t afford to be late for the ceremony. Behind him he could hear the murmuring of the small, ramshackle assortment of middle-aged men and women who had followed him from the pub car park in the village far below. He halted, glad of the chance to catch his breath. Then, he raised the gnarled yew branch high above his head and the crowd behind him fell silent.
‘Great goddess of the sacred grove, accept our libation.’
He lowered the staff and rammed it into the ground, then turning, beckoned a short woman sporting a faded denim jacket and Indian cotton print dress forward. She approached him carrying a small wooden bowl outstretched in her cupped hands.
As he took the bowl from her, the sticky amber liquid within swished against its roughly hewn surface, releasing the scent of honey into the warm May air. Three times he circled the staff before turning to face the trees. Then, raising the vessel skyward, he tipped it forwards, sending the contents splattering onto the ground in front of him. The crowd erupted into a spontaneous cheer.
Holding his hand aloft to silence them he began to move – this time alone – in the direction of the wood. As he strode uphill towards the small clearing at the centre of the copse he could hear the clamour of shouts accompanied by the insistent beat of a bodhrán, skin stretched tightly across its large wooden frame, rising to a crescendo on the hillside below. Brushing past ribbons and strips of coloured cloth tied to the overhanging branches, the spaces between the great, smooth trunks grew wider. Light filtered through the gently swaying leaves and branches in a hypnotic dance of light and shade.
The intensity of the sunlight cascading through the gap in the woodland canopy as he stepped into the clearing was overwhelming. His vision dazzled, he cast his eyes to the ground. When he raised them again he struggled to comprehend the scene in front of him.
Dark shadows crossed the few remaining leaves from the previous autumn’s leaf fall in a confusion of oscillating stripes. He squinted, straining to focus. All around him, swinging from the limbs of the trees that fringed the clearing, were an assortment of crudely carved wooden figures. As his vision grew accustomed to the light he could see that they’d been smeared with a viscous brown liquid. And, hanging between them, he could now make out other figures too. Figures that had until recently lived, and walked, and breathed just as he did now. And whose time had been deliberately cut short. He was surrounded by a macabre menagerie of creatures: crows, magpies, rabbits, even a fox. All dangling from lengths of orange baler twine, congealed blood matting their fur and covering their feathers.
He felt suddenly light-headed. He closed his eyes and hungrily gulped in air. All at once the memory of the sweet, floral aroma of the mead that had filled his nostrils was replaced by the overpowering stench of death. In front of him, in the centre of the clearing, lay the body of a hare, head tipped back. Its throat ripped open. Its blood splattered across the centre of the glade.
A sudden gust of wind caused the grotesque statuary hanging round the fringes of the clearing to jerk violently from side to side like dancing marionettes. One shadow longer than the rest swung pendulum-like, its inky presence casting a shiver-inducing chill across him.
He moved forward, blinking, struggling to cope with the fluctuating light. He was close enough now to see a bluebottle crawl across the head of the figure, moving from the corner of the lipstick-covered cherry-red of her mouth, across the bridge of her aquiline ash-grey nose and finally alighting on her open eyeball. He took in the dark hair falling almost to her waist, and the familiar form of her tall, slim figure. From somewhere a memory surfaced of those lips moulded seductively around a cigarette. He turned aside, retched and threw up.
‘I think I’ve solved our little problem.’ Despite herself Clare couldn’t prevent a smile spreading across her lips as she put the phone down.
David looked up from his seat on the other side of Clare’s desk and snorted. ‘I’d hardly call being forced to close the unit a little problem.’
‘Do you want to know what the solution is or not?’
He gestured towards her impatiently.
‘I asked Margaret to put some feelers out. See if she had any contacts who knew if there was any work going.’
David looked at her disapprovingly. Professor, now Dame, Margaret Bockford had been a supporter of the Hart Archaeological Research Institute since its foundation. Her support had even survived the university marketing department’s decision to give them a trading name of the Hart Unit. In Margaret’s view a lamentable development, and one that had proved to be a source of endless mirth among their colleagues. But Clare knew David resented having to ask anyone, and especially Margaret who’d already done so much to help them, for assistance.
‘You can pull all the faces you like, but you’ve seen the figures. We’re in no position to be precious about this. Anyway, there’s no point in having friends in high places if they can’t do you the odd favour.’
David raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘OK. What did Margaret have to say for herself?’
‘She’s found us a job.’
‘What sort of job?’
‘Fieldwork. An evaluation ahead of a housing development.’
He straightened up in his chair. ‘Really? I haven’t heard of anything going round here.’
‘It’s not round here.’
‘Where, then?’
‘The Cotswolds.’
‘Where exactly in the Cotswolds?’
Clare hesitated. She knew he wasn’t going to like her reply. ‘Bailsgrove.’
‘Bailsgrove! You’re not serious?’
‘What’s wrong with Bailsgrove?’
‘Don’t give me that. You know as well as I do. Bailsgrove was Beth Kinsella’s dig.’
‘And?’ She looked at him defiantly, struggling to keep an even tone to her voice. If truth be told she was no keener on this than he was, but if they had to close the unit she’d be out of a job. It was alright for David, he was safe as houses in his lecturing job with the university. But if the unit shut she had nowhere to go.
‘And Beth Kinsella was found dangling dead as a dodo amid a collection of assorted rotting bunny carcasses on that site.’
‘Since when did you believe everything you read in the papers? Anyway, we can’t afford to be picky.’
‘Picky! Christ, Clare. The place will be crawling with police. I’d have thought you’d have had enough of that after Hungerbourne. Besides which, Beth Kinsella was a famous nutter. What sort of a state do you think her records will be in? It’ll be a nightmare.’
‘Did you know her?’
‘I knew of her – that was enough.’
‘Well, maybe you should suspend your judgement until you see the site records.’ Clare picked up a sheet of paper from her desk and turned it round so that David could read the figures. She jabbed a finger at the bottom line. ‘In any case we don’t have a choice.’
He looked down at the page of A4 and exhaled deeply, then mumbled into his chest. ‘It’ll cost a fortune in fuel.’
‘If we turn this job down that will be the least of our worries.’
‘To a quiet night in.’ David raised his glass, then leant forward and kissed Sally, who was curled up beside him on his living room sofa.
‘Amen to that!’
‘What shifts are you on next week?’
‘God knows. Makes no difference. Until the chief’s back from his heart attack – if he comes back – I’m on twenty-four-hour call. So right now I don’t even want to think about work. How about you – anything exciting happening in Ivory Towers?’
David took a large glug of his Syrah. ‘Looks like we may have avoided bankruptcy, if you can call that exciting.’
‘You’re joking. The university can’t be broke, surely. Not unless someone’s been fiddling the books.’
Sally looked genuinely shocked. Even after all this time, David thought, she still suffered from a rose-tinted vision of academia. He shook his head. ‘Not the university. The Hart Unit.’
Sally made no attempt to suppress a smile. ‘So Clare’s not such a whizz with the finances after all.’
He wished just for once she would at least try to disguise her resentment towards Clare. But he knew that the state of undeclared warfare that existed between the two women wasn’t going to end any time soon. He’d learnt to operate on what his grandmother would have called the ‘least said soonest mended’ principle where the two of them were concerned.
He took another slurp of his Syrah to prevent him from saying something he might regret before he replied, ‘She can’t magic work out of thin air. The housing game’s flatlining.’
‘What’s that got to do with your lot? I thought you were a research institute.’
‘Most of our work is commercial. It comes from the construction industry. That’s what finances the research.’
‘So, what are you planning to do about it?’
‘Margaret’s found us a job up in the Cotswolds.’ He had no intention of telling her about Clare’s involvement. That would only aggravate the situation.
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Bailsgrove.’
‘You’re kidding? The Bailsgrove. Where that weirdo hung herself.’
David placed his glass on the coffee table. ‘Beth Kinsella was a well-respected archaeologist.’
‘That’s not what the papers said.’
‘I’d have thought you of all people wouldn’t believe everything you read in the red tops.’
‘Oh, come on, David. Sometimes the facts speak for themselves. She was found strung up alongside a bunch of wooden carvings smeared with rabbit blood.’
‘Hare blood,’ he corrected her.
‘Whatever. It really doesn’t matter. It’ll be Hungerbourne all over again.’
‘Well, that didn’t turn out entirely badly now, did it.’ He smiled and leant forward in an attempt to kiss her.
She pulled away from him. Evidently she wasn’t going to be distracted so easily. ‘That’s not the point. What the hell were you thinking of?’
That was a question he’d asked himself, though he had absolutely no intention of admitting it to Sally. He stared down into the inky-red dregs in the bottom of his glass. ‘We didn’t have a choice. It was Bailsgrove or bust.’
Putting down her glass, Sally clasped her hands behind the back of his neck. ‘Is the unit really that broke?’ He nodded. ‘Look, I know a few people from my time in the Gloucestershire force. I could ask around, see what the lie of the land is after the suicide. What was the woman’s name again?’
‘Kinsella – Dr Beth Kinsella. It’s sweet of you, Sal, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. We’ve already said we’ll do it.’
‘Well, at least you’d know what you’re in for. And it might help cut through some of the red tape.’
David leant forward and gave her a long, lingering kiss. ‘Don’t ever let me forget. You’re an absolute treasure.’
‘Coming from an archaeologist I suppose I should take that as a compliment.’
Clare sat alone in the spare room of her Salisbury flat surrounded by cardboard boxes. It had been more than two years now since Stephen’s death and still she found herself enmeshed in what was left of his life.
She’d forced herself to go through all of his personal effects within the first few months after he’d died. There was no denying it had been tough. There were so many memories of their life together. But that’s exactly why she’d known she had to get on with it there and then. If she’d left them she knew she’d never be able to bring herself to do it. And there was another reason too. She’d had to sell their house.
Downsizing was a bit of an understatement for the scale of change her life had been subjected to following her husband’s death. He’d left her everything. But it had become increasingly clear as time had moved on that everything amounted to almost nothing. The biggest shock came when she’d discovered that Stephen had remortgaged the house without so much as mentioning it to her. Their home, her home. It was in his name so legally he’d had every right to do what he liked with it. But when she’d found out she couldn’t help feeling betrayed.
In life he’d provided for her every whim, at least in material terms: a substantial detached house in the home counties, exotic foreign holidays, the best restaurants. But in return she’d given up everything. Including, she now realised, the person that she might have been.
Once her initial anger had subsided she’d come to the realisation that she couldn’t put all of the blame on him. When she’d met him, at the May Ball in her second year at university, he’d swept her off her feet. He was stylish, confident and best of all devoted to her. And she’d all too willingly abandoned any dreams she might have had of pursuing a fledgling career in archaeology in order to become his wife.
Their marriage had seemed to her, at least at the time, a happy one. So nothing could have prepared her for the tsunami of emotions that she’d been subjected to when she’d discovered that he’d invested all of their capital – and more – into a property finance scheme in the US that had turned out not to be worth the paper it was written on.
The final straw was being forced to sell her sports car. She’d loved her little Mazda MX5. But it wasn’t a very practical mode of transport for an archaeologist and once the precarious state in which Stephen had left their finances became clear she hadn’t really had much choice in the matter. And as it turned out she’d rather taken to her little blue Fiesta.
The one untouched part of Stephen’s life that she hadn’t managed to work her way through was the hotch potch of paperwork and personal memorabilia from his study. In life it had been his space – his retreat – and in death she found his presence there just too overwhelming.
His colleague James had offered to give her a hand. But he’d done so much to help already, she hadn’t felt she could impose any further. And, besides, so much of it was personal stuff she wasn’t sure she was willing to let anyone else trawl through it, however good a friend he may have been to Stephen. But it must have been obvious to James that despite her protestations she was finding the idea of going through it all too much to bear because he’d suggested just binning the lot.
Eventually she’d acquiesced, but despite it all she couldn’t bring herself to do it. By which point she’d run out of time, and when the removals company had arrived she’d just had them box it up. And here it had remained, dumped in a corner of the spare room of her flat where, aside from its accusing presence when her mum or Jo came to stay, she’d been able to ignore it. At least until now.
Clare closed the lid of the box she’d been going through and made her way into the kitchen. She’d had enough for one night. And she had more pressing concerns on her mind at the moment.
Making her way to the fridge, she extracted a half-full bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and poured herself a glass, then set about preparing her supper – a bagged salad accompanied by the finest oven-ready cannelloni the Waitrose reduced shelf had to offer.
Padding back into the living room, she flipped open her laptop and flicked through her emails. Within a couple of minutes she’d found what she was looking for. She clicked the link and it took her thorough to the property web pages. There it was – her house – or at least that’s what she was intending it should be. It wasn’t anything fancy – a three-bedroom ex-local authority semi. What Stephen would have made of it, heaven only knows. But it had good-sized rooms, a lovely big back garden and best of all it was in her beloved Marlborough Downs.
Despite the traumas she’d undergone while she was digging at Hungerbourne, her time there had reminded her how much she loved the softly undulating hills and wide open skies of the Downs. It was where she’d rediscovered her passion for the past, and where too she’d taken the first steps towards rebuilding her life and embarking on a career in archaeology.
She’d put an offer in on the house a few weeks ago. With the capital she’d scraped together from selling her few remaining assets and her salary from the Hart Unit, she’d worked out that she should just about be able to afford it. She might have to rent a room out but if that’s what it took then so be it.
She looked around her at the familiar walls of her rented flat. It had served her well over the last couple of years. And she’d done her best to make it feel welcoming, but somehow it had never really felt like home. She was ready to move on now. Buying her own place felt like a statement of intent. It would be the first home she’d ever bought and paid for herself. She’d gone straight from her mum’s council house in Chelmsford to university and then to life with Stephen. But this one would be different; she was finally going to have a home of her own. And finally, too, she felt as if she was in charge of her own destiny – shaping her own life, rather than letting others shape it for her.
But she’d made the offer on the house before she’d discovered quite what a precarious financial situation the Hart Unit was in. If the institute folded, she’d be out of a job and she could kiss goodbye to her dreams of a new home and the next steps in her new life. The vendors had been prevaricating for weeks. It was clear that they wanted more money than she could feasibly offer, but she’d left the offer on the table and it would seem they hadn’t had as much interest as they’d hoped. As she’d pointed out to them, the whole place needed gutting. They’d inherited it from their elderly mother, and it was patently obvious that there’d been little or no work done to it since she’d moved in – which, judging from the swirling carpets and avocado bathroom suite, had been some time in the 1970s.
Then finally this morning she’d had a call from the estate agent. The vendors had accepted her offer. So all she needed to do now was to keep the Hart Unit afloat. And she was determined to do just that – whatever it took.
A deep, musty smell like rotting leaves pervaded the atmosphere in the Portakabin. It had been locked and off limits for over a month. Clare had finally managed to persuade the hire company to hand over the keys, but only on condition that they took over the contract at what seemed to her an exorbitant price. And that certainly wasn’t going to help the unit’s precarious financial position. But the truth was they were between a rock and a hard place.
She ran her hand across the torn fabric on the back of the swivel chair.
David said, ‘Go on, try it for size.’
Clare shook her head. The chair had belonged to Beth Kinsella.
‘Surely you’re not worried about directing the fieldwork on your own, are you? I’d have taken it on myself if I had the time. But the Runt has been piling on my teaching commitments this year. You’re perfectly capable and, besides, you’ll have Jo with you a lot of the time. And you know you can always call on Margaret if you need advice.’
Clare knew that the Runt, aka Professor Donald Muir, head of the archaeology department at the University of Salisbury, had, as usual, been doing his very best to make David’s life as much of a misery as possible. And she had no desire to add to his woes.
David was right, of course. With Californian human bone specialist Jo Granski at her side, she’d not only be working with one of the best in the business but a friend she’d grown to know and trust over the last couple of years. Jo and Margaret between them had seen her through some tough times since they’d first met at Hungerbourne. But somehow despite all that, now that she was actually here, she really wasn’t sure she was comfortable with taking the Bailsgrove job on.
‘It’s not that.’
David looked exasperated. ‘Well, what then?’
She hesitated. ‘This is going to sound daft. But it feels like I’m standing in a dead woman’s shoes.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You were the one that insisted we take this job. If you were going to get the collywobbles about it, you should have done it before we signed the contract with the developer.’
She didn’t need any reminding of the fact. It had seemed the right thing to do at the time. The only thing. And logically she knew that neither she nor the Hart Unit had any choice. But right now, standing here in Beth’s site office just a few yards from where her body was found, she wasn’t so sure. David, on the other hand, no longer seemed to have any doubts about their decision. But then he wasn’t the one who’d actually have to be on-site every day.
Clare raised her hand in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Just ignore me, David. Like you say, it’s probably just nerves. I’ll be fine.’
He plucked a black plastic seed tray from the wooden shelving at the rear of the Portakabin and started rummaging distractedly through an assortment of pottery fragments, before returning them to the place where he’d found them. ‘At least we could get in. I was half afraid the police were going to have it all taped off as some sort of crime scene.’
‘Mark was very helpful.’
‘Mark?’
‘DCI Stone.’
David smiled knowingly.
She flashed a warning look at him. ‘Don’t start.’ David didn’t have the least interest in her love life. It was a distraction tactic and she knew it. Well, two could play at that game.
‘Any luck contacting Beth’s excavation team? We’ll need to go through all of her records with someone who’s worked on the site. We need to be sure everything is here.’
He shook his head. ‘I thought I’d leave that to you – you’re going to be the one that has to work with them. Maybe you could have a word with Mark to see if he’s got any of their contact details.’
‘OK. We need to get a move on. I’ve already had the developer on the phone asking when we’re going to be through.’
‘Paul Marshall.’
Clare nodded.
‘What’s he like?’
‘Judging by the monotonous regularity of the voicemail messages he’s left, impatient.’
‘That doesn’t bode well,’ David said sombrely.
‘I know it’s not ideal. But you can’t blame him. This business with Beth has put him weeks behind schedule. And the way things are at the moment that could be enough to put a developer out of business. He must be pretty desperate. After all, who’s going to want to buy a house built on a site that’s been splashed all over the red tops as the scene of some bizarre suicide?’
‘Well, if he’s that desperate for work we’re his best bet of recovering his investment. So he’ll have to cut us a bit of slack.’
Clare raised her finger to her lips. ‘Ssh!’
A low humming sound drifted through the open door.
‘What?’
The hum grew louder, rising and falling with a rhythmic insistence. David made his way to the doorway. Clare followed, standing on tiptoe so that she could peer over his shoulder. The noise was coming from a spot about a hundred metres uphill from where their newly acquired office was located. A broadly built man with greying tufts of unruly hair protruding from beneath a battered blue baseball cap was standing with his back to them, facing the stand of beech trees at the top of the hill. Above his head he twirled a length of rope on the end of which was a flat slat of wood about a foot long from which the whirring sound appeared to be emanating.
Clare whispered to David, ‘What the …?’
David gave her one of his self-satisfied smiles. ‘It’s a bullroarer. Indigenous Australians and some Melanesian peoples use them in their ceremonies.’
Clare dug David in the ribs.
‘Ow! What was that for?’
Trying to keep an even tone, she whispered, ‘I know what it is. But why is there a man in a white sheet waving one about on our site?’
David coughed and flushed uncomfortably. ‘Dunno. Let’s ask him, shall we?’
Clare caught him by the arm as he was about to step down from the Portakabin. ‘We can’t just walk up and demand to know what he’s doing.’
David turned and looked up at her. ‘Why the bloody hell not? It’s our excavation. We’ve got every right to know what he’s up to.’
‘What if he’s performing a ceremony or something. It just seems’ – she struggled to find the right word – ‘rude.’
But it was too late; David was already marching upslope towards the man. Halfway up the hill he turned and beckoned for her to follow him. ‘Don’t be soft. Get up here!’
Hearing David’s words, the figure in the white sheet turned to face them, bringing the bullroarer slowly to rest in a series of low arcs.
Lowering her head to avoid the possibility of having to meet the stranger’s eyes, Clare muttered, ‘Give me strength!’ and trotted uphill to join David. She caught up with him just as he reached the stranger.
David said, ‘Afternoon.’
The man looked the pair of them up and down. Then in a deep baritone said, ‘Blessed be!’
For once David seemed lost for words. Clare smiled, stepped forward and offered her hand. ‘Hello.’
The stranger, whose hands were fully laden with the bullroarer, lifted it towards her in an apologetic gesture and, inclining his head to one side, gave a slight bow. ‘Greetings, my lady.’
David stood beside her, immobile. His broad, fixed smile was quite evidently, to Clare at least, a mask adopted to stop him from laughing. She shot him a warning glance, willing him to succeed.
For some inexplicable reason she found herself offering a small bow in return. ‘I’m Clare.’
She dug David in the ribs with her elbow.
‘Dr David Barbrook.’ She glared at him. ‘David.’
The stranger, whom Clare now noticed was sporting black leather biker’s trousers beneath his knee-length white tunic, smiled. ‘Wayne Crabbs. But most folks call me Crabby.’ He nodded in the direction of the open Portakabin door. ‘Surprised they’ve still got you lot raking over Beth’s ashes. From what I heard I thought the coppers had long since made their minds up about what happened.’
David hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. ‘No, I’m not that sort of doctor. We’re archaeologists. We’re here to take over the excavation.’
Crabby narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re going to be carrying on with the dig?’
David was unable to suppress the note of suspicion in his voice. ‘That’s right.’
‘You wanna go careful, then.’
Clare glanced nervously at David.
Crabby nodded in the direction of the copse at the top of the hill. ‘It’s none too healthy round ’ere for the likes of you.’
Recognising the familiar signs of rising tension in David, Clare decided to step in before he said something he, or at least she, might regret. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough if you hang around.’
David took a step towards Crabby. ‘Is that meant to be some sort of a threat?’
The older man swung the bullroarer in an arc and for a moment Clare thought that he was going to take a swipe at David with it. But instead he deposited it with pinpoint accuracy in a heap a few feet from where they stood. He stepped towards David, placed his hands on David’s upper arms and smiled. ‘Friend, it’s half a lifetime since I threatened a man.’ He looked sideways and winked at Clare. ‘And I’m not sure I was too convincing even back then.’
David stiffened, and Crabby removed his hands and took a step back.
For a moment the two men just looked.
It was Clare that broke the silence. ‘You knew Beth.’
Crabby nodded. ‘As well as anyone round here. Better than most.’
Clare asked, ‘Didn’t she mix much with the locals?’
‘More a case of most of ’em didn’t want to mix with her.’
David seemed to perk up at this information. ‘Oh, why was that?’
Crabby sniffed. ‘That’s obvious, ain’t it?’
David looked perplexed. ‘Not to me, it’s not.’
‘It’s the houses. They don’t want ’em.’
‘Who don’t?’ Clare said.
‘That lot.’ He pointed in the direction of the village that lay far below them at the foot of the hill.
‘Why not?’
‘Not posh enough for ’em. Bunch of snobs the lot of ’em. It’s alright for them to live in their fancy mansions. But woe betide any of us who’ve got the nerve to want to live where we was born. Time was the kids round here could move into one of the cottages or get a job on the land and a tied house that went with it. Not these days – they’re all holiday cottages or second homes for city types.’
David said, ‘And some of the city types object to the houses.’
‘What planet do you people live on? Course they do.’
Clare’s heart sank. She’d been worried enough already about stepping into Beth’s shoes. But now it looked as if those shoes were none too comfortable. She was already beginning to regret persuading David to take this job and they hadn’t even stuck a trowel in the ground yet.
As site offices went, this one was a bloody mess. Clare stood alone in the Portakabin surveying her new domain. Aside from her and David, the only people who’d been in here in the last month were the police. And either Beth Kinsella was the crazy woman that David seemed to think she was or the Gloucestershire police were less than particular about the state in which they left their crime scenes. Open box files containing the completed context sheets that would tell them what every layer, pit and post hole on the site were lay strewn across the trestle tables that served as desks. And a seemingly random assortment of seed trays and plastic boxes that had been pressed into service to dry the finds on were teetering at unlikely angles on the wooden shelving that lined the walls. It looked as if the place had been burgled.
If this was Beth Kinsella’s idea of how to run a dig, they were going to have an even more difficult job on their hands than she’d thought. And to cap it all she didn’t even have any staff yet to help her sort it out. They’d picked up the job so fast there hadn’t been time to recruit anyone, and given the reason Beth’s dig had come to such an abrupt halt, Clare suspected it wasn’t going to be easy to pull a team together.
She puffed out her cheeks. One thing at a time, Clare. Before she could even begin to contemplate trying to hire anyone she needed to get the site office into some sort of order. Then she might have a better idea of what the real size of the task was. Focusing her attention first on the thick layer of dried mud that carpeted the floor, she searched in vain for a broom. In the end she found a brush and hand shovel in the back of the tool shed, and a floor cloth and bucket from beneath the sink of the euphemistically named ‘comfort unit’. But it took her the best part of an hour – and the application of a not insignificant amount of elbow grease to remove the worst of the muck from the tattered lino. She’d spent the rest of the morning rehousing the record sheets into their respective box files and ring binders, then bagging up all the bits of bone, pot and metalwork and filing them neatly into several trays that now lay on the desk in front of her.
Feeling distinctly pleased with her efforts she settled down to reward herself with lunch in the shape of a somewhat unappetising egg and tomato sandwich purchased from a petrol station on the interminable journey to site from her flat in Salisbury. She’d just taken her first bite when she heard a car pull up outside. Reluctantly shoving her sandwich back into its packet, she stood up. But before she could get as far as the door it flew open, clattering back against the flimsy Portakabin wall. A burly, ruddy-cheeked man in his mid-fifties thrust himself into the Portakabin.
‘Can I help you?’
‘You can if you’re able to tell me where I’ll find Clare Hills.’
She had no idea who he was, but she’d already decided she wasn’t warming to him. ‘You’re speaking to her.’
He looked her up and down, as if weighing up a slightly unsatisfactory purchase. ‘You! Christ, are your lot all cut from the same cloth?’
Clare could feel her face flush. ‘Look, I’m not sure who you are, but maybe you should start by telling me what business you’ve got charging in here like this.’
‘I’m the bloke who’s paying your wages, love.’
‘You’re Paul Marshall?’ She’d thought the voice sounded familiar and now she knew why.
‘That’s right. And this is my development. So I’d like to know why exactly you’re sitting on your arse doing sweet Fanny Adams when you should be out there digging.’
‘I appreciate your desire to get on with the job, Mr Marshall, but we’ve only just taken possession of the Portakabins.’
‘Not my problem, love. You’re being paid to do a job. Time is money. Sodding archaeologists have already cost me a bloody fortune, and I’ve had police and journos crawling all over this place because of that mad cow.’ He waved his hands vaguely in the direction of the copse.
Clare was so stunned that for a moment she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. ‘You mean Dr Kinsella.’
‘That’s right. Mad as a box of sodding frogs. Trying to convince anyone that would listen that this place was some sort of bloody temple or some such. Bailsgrove a temple! Load of total bollocks. That never bothers the press, though, does it?’
‘Well, I grant you Dr Kinsella’s investigations were at an early stage, but we really don’t know what we might find here as yet.’
He took a step closer to her and Clare instinctively took a step back. ‘Listen, don’t go getting any bloody ideas. That mad bitch topping herself has put this development back months. I’m paying you to be in and out of here like that’ – he clicked his fingers – ‘and you’d best make sure you are or you won’t get a penny out of me, not a sodding penny.’
Clare’s every impulse was to tell him to take his job and shove it, but she was only too well aware that the contract with Marshall Construction was the only thing that gave the unit half a chance of staying afloat. She took in a deep breath before replying, ‘I do understand your concerns, Mr Marshall. The institute is always very mindful of the need for efficiency on commercial developments.’
‘Glad to hear it. But talk is cheap. I can’t see anyone out there with buckets and spades. Doesn’t look much like you’re doing anything about it to me.’
‘Well, no. Because of the urgency of getting things rolling here, we wanted to get access to site as soon as we could, but that’s meant we haven’t had time to pull our additional team members together yet. We’d like to keep as many of the team as local as possible.’ Marshall glowered at her. ‘It will save time in the long run.’
For the first time Marshall’s face softened into something approaching a smile. ‘Well, maybe that’s something I can help you with. Anything to get you off your arses.’ He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out his mobile. ‘Neil Fuller – he was the Kinsella woman’s assistant. As far as I could make out he seemed reasonably sane for one of your lot. This is his number.’
Clare plugged his details into her own phone.
Marshall turned as if to go, then hesitated for a moment. ‘And remember what I said. I expect to see progress here. A nice quiet site, no press and no police. You lot give me any trouble and I can easy enough find another unit who will do what’s needed.’
David slathered his poppadom in lime pickle and smiled. ‘This was a good idea, Sal.’
‘Well, neither of us has time to cook. And we’ve both got to eat. This place is only ten minutes’ drive from the station, and I figured a quick Indian before I need to get back to work was the only way we were going to get to see one another.’
David’s disappointment was obvious. ‘Really, have you got to go back in tonight?’
Sally gave him a look. ‘Don’t start. You know that with Morgan still off I’m stretched.’
David knew only too well what Sally’s boss being off meant. DCI Morgan had been off sick for the last two months. And he’d barely seen her since. David felt for the bloke; he was only in his early fifties and he’d had a heart attack. Opinion seemed to be that it was the stress of the job that had triggered it. And that was what worried him. Sal might be young and considerably fitter than Morgan, but if she had to carry on doing her job and his for much longer she was going to end up in the same boat as her boss.
‘You can’t keep doing two jobs, Sal. How much longer is this going to go on for?’
She scowled at him. ‘For as long as it takes.’
‘You’re going to make yourself ill at this rate. You’ve got to say something. Can’t you speak to someone about it?’
Sally laid her spoon down and stared at him. ‘Really? That might be the way it works with your lot, but it’s not in my world. Do you really want me to commit career suicide?’
‘You know that’s not what I meant.’ He leant towards her, placing his hand on hers. ‘It’s just that I can see how tired you look.’ As soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. Sally glared at him. She withdrew her hand and took a sip of her lassi. ‘Well, if you can’t ask anyone, is there any word on whether Morgan’s coming back or not?’
She took another sip of her lassi before answering. ‘Nope. From the little they said when it happened I’d say it’s not when but if.’
David knew when he was on a hiding to nothing. ‘Tell you what, next time you get a free evening I’ll cook for you. Three courses, all your favourites.’
Sally pushed the last remaining sherd of poppadom around her plate. ‘I won’t be much fun. I’ll probably just want to sleep.’
‘Well, first you can eat and then you can sleep. Absolutely no fun required.’
Finally, she looked up at him and smiled. ‘OK. You’ve got a deal. Mind you, I can’t promise when it’ll be.’ David reached out and touched her arm. This time Sally reciprocated and placed her hand on his. ‘Thank you.’
By the time David was digging into his lamb bhuna, Sally seemed to have regained a little of her old energy.
She dabbed her lips with her napkin. ‘Oh, I meant to say, I had a word with an old mate of mine from the Gloucestershire force about that Beth Kinsella business.’
David looked up. ‘What did they say?’
‘By the sound of it, for once things were pretty much like they said in the papers. The Kinsella woman seems to have been having a bit of a rough time of it. Lost her job. Split up with her boyfriend. Then when she began work at Bailsgrove she started making all sorts of claims about the place having been some sort of ancient temple. By all accounts the developer paying her wages didn’t take too kindly to the interest that drummed up in the papers.’
‘Paul Marshall.’
Sally nodded. ‘That’s right. He threatened not to pay her if she went to the media again. But by the sound of it he needn’t have worried. By then they’d lost interest anyway because everybody else they spoke to seems to have reckoned there was nothing there to find. So he calmed down a bit. Next thing you know a bunch of crystal danglers find her hanging from a tree in the woods above the site. There were all sorts of wooden carvings smeared with animal blood strung up from the branches. And there was this dead hare with its guts splattered all round the place. Mark said it was really spooky stuff.’
David said, ‘Mark …?’
‘Sorry, Mark Stone, he’s a DCI up there. I met him when I was doing my probation. He’s a bit of a high-flyer. He’s alright, though. Not one of the corporate bullshit brigade.’
David just nodded. There was no need to mention she wasn’t the only woman he’d spoken to recently who apparently had a high opinion of DCI Stone. It seemed his life was destined to be full of unfortunate coincidences.
Sally said, ‘He’s a pretty solid sort of bloke. But it really seemed to have shaken him. He said that the hare was right in front of Beth. Its head had been smashed in and there was a length of baler twine round its neck. It had been garrotted and then its throat had been cut. It was total overkill. She must have completely lost it before she killed herself.’
‘Not much doubt that it was suicide, then?’
She shook her head. ‘Mark reckons not, but the coroner recorded a narrative verdict at the inquest.’
‘What does that mean?’
He must have looked as concerned as he felt about the thought that the coroner hadn’t entirely agreed with the fabulous DCI Stone’s opinion because Sally smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry. You haven’t got another Hungerbourne on your hands. The coroner can only return a verdict of suicide if it’s proven beyond reasonable doubt.’
‘And he didn’t think this was?’ David took a swig of his beer.
‘No, but only because she hadn’t left any sort of note or message. These days people will often text someone or post something on social media.’
David nearly spat out his beer. ‘You’re joking?’
Sally shook her head. ‘Happens all the time. But not with Beth. And the coroner said there was no evidence that she’d been depressed or worried.’
‘But surely anyone would have been depressed if they’d lost their job, broken up with their partner and been threatened by their new boss.’
Sally raised an eyebrow. ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you, but the coroner didn’t agree. He said he thought it was probably suicide, but as there was no note and no one who gave evidence noticed she’d been a bit low he couldn’t be sure beyond reasonable doubt.’
David wiped his plate with the last piece of his naan. ‘If you ask me, that says more about the people she had around her. No wonder she wanted to end it all.’
‘He didn’t sound keen, but at least he agreed to come and talk to me about it.’ Clare couldn’t hide her disappointment. She’d been counting on Neil Fuller to help her pick up where Beth had left off. Things would be twice as difficult without him. But Jo had somehow managed to wangle her way out of her commitments at the university for a few days, and Clare was glad of it. Even the most insurmountable problems always seemed more manageable when Jo was around.
Jo said, ‘Is this Fuller guy nuts?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘With every unit in the country – correction, Europe – letting people go, where’s he gonna find another offer like this?’
‘I know, but the whole Beth thing must have been a bit traumatic for him. He sounded pretty shaken up by it.’
‘Was he there when they found her?’
Clare shook her head. ‘On-site, but according to Neil it was Crabby who actually found her.’
Jo looked at her quizzically. ‘Crabby?’
‘The local Druid. It was May Day; he’d gone up to the copse with a group of pagans to perform some sort of Beltane ceremony. But Neil said that he was the one who’d called the ambulance – Crabby was in too much shock.’
Jo made her way to the window and, prising open the Venetian blinds with her thumb and forefinger, peered out at the rain lashing the hillside. ‘I guess it must have been pretty grim.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought that sort of thing would have bothered you.’
‘Well, that’s where you’d be wrong. I’m strictly a long-dead kind of gal. I only like them when they’re bones, desiccated, mummified or frozen.’ Jo leant forward across the desk towards Clare. ‘In fact, so long as you swear not to tell David, I’ll tell you something.’
Clare laughed. ‘Deal.’
‘I pass out if I see real, fresh blood.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘Nope.’
‘But how have you managed all these years?’
‘For one thing, unlike some folks, I avoid chasing around after headcases with guns.’
Clare’s recollection of her encounter with the wrong end of a loaded shotgun was only too fresh in her memory. Her work with the Hart Unit had been a godsend since her husband Stephen’s death in a car crash, but it had certainly had its hairier moments. It had taken several months after the incident at Hungerbourne before she’d been able to sleep through the night without being woken by the image of David’s apparently lifeless body being dumped inside the tea hut.
Jo swung round. ‘Are you OK?’ She knelt down in front of Clare. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’
Clare waved away her concern. ‘Ignore me. I’m just being a wuss.’
‘Are you still getting flashbacks?’
‘No, not really. Not any more. It’s just that I can’t seem to shake the idea that this is Beth’s office.’
‘Jeez, next you’re gonna be telling me you think this place is haunted.’
Clare remained silent.
But Jo couldn’t suppress a snort of laughter. ‘No. Really? You think this Portakabin has Beth’s restless spirit roaming around it? And I always had you down as a cool-headed, rational kind of gal.’
‘For your information, I don’t actually believe in ghosts, but I still don’t feel comfortable working a stone’s throw from where Beth’s body was found.’
‘I get that. From the way she was found she must have been kind of troubled. But if we’re going to make this work we’ve just got to treat it like any other dig. What happened here was real sad. Worse than sad. Beth must have been desperate to take her own life. But it’s our job to pick up the pieces and make sure the job she started here gets finished.’
‘You mean we should think of this as some kind of tribute to her.’
‘I guess, if that’s the way you want to look at it. But either way there’s a site here that deserves to be given our full attention and we’re kind of running behind schedule.’
Clare nodded, gesticulating towards the trays full of small plastic bags and mud-smeared ring binders. ‘And our best hope of getting to grips with this lot is if I can somehow persuade Neil Fuller that it’s in his best interests to come and work for us.’
‘Honestly, David, it will be cheaper. If Jo and I have to keep commuting up from Salisbury every day the fuel bill alone will blow the budget.’ And Clare could have added, I’m not sure I’m up to a four-hour commute to Bailsgrove and back every day. But thankfully he conceded the point quickly enough and she shoved her mobile back into her bag.
What she hadn’t told him was that she had in fact already booked the only two single rooms that the King’s Arms in Bailsgrove possessed for what she hoped would be the duration of the dig. As her mum would say, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. And she found herself rather looking forward to spending a few weeks in the Cotswolds with Jo for company.
But as she climbed out of Little Blue, her trusty but aged Fiesta, and scanned up and down the tightly packed row of Victorian terraced houses, she knew that if she was unsuccessful in her mission today they might as well pack up and leave Gloucestershire now. And that would mean saying goodbye to the Hart Unit. She was in search of number 46 – home to Neil Fuller. It didn’t take her long to find it. From somewhere behind the peeling paint of the once pillar-box red front door she could hear a baby wailing.
He must have been waiting for her, because almost the instant she knocked, the door opened. She was greeted by the man himself, one arm shoved into a battered denim jacket and the other thrust towards her in a handshake. ‘Hiya, you must be Clare. Sorry about the racket. She’s teething.’ He turned and yelled behind him, ‘See you later, Sadie. Not sure how long I’ll be,’ before swinging the door to behind him.