The Hidden Bones

by Nicola Ford

  ‘Was Hemmings involved in the excavations?’ David asked.

  Margaret shook her head. ‘He died not long before I went up to Oxford.’

  ‘Gerald’s site journals suggest he originally intended to excavate all of the barrows in the cemetery,’ Clare said.

  Margaret turned towards Clare, looked her up and down, and, seemingly satisfied with the assessment, smiled. ‘That’s right. These days we tend to try to conserve something for future generations, but the approach to excavation then was somewhat more robust. Gerald and his brother both inherited the Hart gene for persuasion. Because of all of the publicity surrounding the discovery of the goldwork, Gerald secured enough funding from the BM to carry out a sustained campaign of excavations on all of the barrows in the group.’

  ‘But his records show he only actually excavated one of them.’

  Margaret nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why did he stop?’ Clare asked.

  The older woman’s face darkened. ‘That’s a question only Gerald could answer.’ Margaret sat back in her chair. She opened up her hands, which had been loosely clasped together on her desk, scrutinising her palms as if they might provide the answer to Clare’s question. Finally, she looked up at her. ‘The dig had gone better than we could possibly have hoped. We struck lucky. Picked a round barrow that hadn’t been ransacked by nineteenth-century antiquaries. There was some plough damage to the mound, but most of the funerary deposits were intact. Gerald had planned an open day for the public on the bank holiday Monday. We’d been preparing for weeks. But when we got to site on the Monday morning, he called the dig team together and announced we were going to start backfilling.’

  The long-case clock in the corner of the office struck the half hour. Margaret raised her hand to pre-empt further questions and hit the hands-free button on her phone. ‘Emma, be a dear and bring us through three coffees and the usual, would you?’ She returned her attention to Clare. ‘We’d all worked so hard. And Gerald was so passionate about his work; it took a while before we realised he meant it. Gerald and Reverend Hemmings were the only people who took me seriously when I said I wanted to be an archaeologist. So with Hemmings dead, when Gerald told us …’

  Margaret faltered. She looked pale and all at once seemed every one of her sixty-odd years. David had never seen her like this before. ‘You see, it wasn’t the sort of job a working-class girl from a Wiltshire village was meant to have. My mother and father thought I should aspire to something a little more reliable – like working in a bank. But Gerald used to say archaeology gets in your blood. Once it’s running through your veins, you can’t escape. And I was young enough and naive enough to believe he meant it.’ Her expression of disdain was unmistakable.

  Clare spoke softly. ‘Hungerbourne was his last excavation.’

  ‘He cut himself off from archaeology completely.’

  ‘Did you ever ask him why?’

  Margaret nodded. ‘Once I got over the shock. But he wouldn’t discuss it. Just kept saying he had no choice.’

  ‘What do you think he meant?’ Clare asked.

  ‘I’ve always supposed it was something to do with internal politics at the BM. He left the British Museum within weeks of the end of the dig. I’ve heard rumours since that his boss didn’t like his public grandstanding with the media and withdrew funding.’

  David began to feel some sympathy for the man. He knew what it was like to work for a boss who threw obstacles in your path because he resented your success. ‘So it wasn’t entirely Gerald’s fault. Professional jealousy was at the root of it.’

  Margaret wasn’t having any of it. ‘It was a complete dereliction of his duty as an archaeologist not to have published that site. You should know as well as anyone, David, that the most unforgivable sin in archaeology is to excavate a site without making the record of it publicly available. It’s tantamount to looting.’

  He knew she was right, but still couldn’t help feeling shocked by the vitriol of her response. She rose from her desk and turned to look out of the window behind her. ‘It’s weak-willed to give in to bullying from one’s superiors just to keep one’s job. Gerald was a man of independent means. He didn’t need the job at the BM. He wanted the prestige.’ She turned to face Clare and David. ‘That is not the way in which an archaeologist should behave.’ No one could be in any doubt of the force of Margaret’s convictions.

  The door of the office swung open, and a besuited and bespectacled woman in her mid-fifties entered carrying a tray bearing the requested coffee together with a bottle of Irish whiskey. She deposited it on the desk and, after receiving a smile of thanks from Margaret, departed wordlessly.

  Margaret dispensed the coffee, pouring a generous tot of Jameson’s into her own mug. ‘I find one’s metabolism needs a little stimulation at this time of day. Care to join me?’

  Clare declined, but David smiled encouragingly and Margaret poured a splash of whiskey into his coffee. His admiration for this woman was coming on in leaps and bounds.

  Margaret took an appreciative swig of her coffee before setting it down on the desk and looking directly at David. ‘You didn’t come here to listen to a lecture on archaeological ethics. Why are you really here?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘You said Gerald was passionate about his work. Would you have said his record-keeping could be relied upon?’

  ‘The majority of the day-to-day recording was done by me, Gerald’s brother, Jim, and Jim’s wife, Estelle. We did the initial recording and Gerald wrote everything up in his site diary at the end of each day. It was obvious from the start that Jim was there under sufferance, so after the first couple of weeks all of the recording was left to Estelle and me.’

  ‘Was there any possibility of a mistake being made with any of the major finds?’ Clare asked.

  David held his breath. He’d seen too many of his colleagues’ academic reputations destroyed by Margaret’s politely worded rapier thrusts not to be aware of her destructive potential.

  ‘I like to think I maintained a high standard even in my younger days, and Estelle was assiduous in her work. You obviously have something specific in mind. What exactly is this about?’

  Clare looked towards David, and he nodded. ‘The British Museum holds the Jevons sun disc. Richard Jevons donated it to them in June 1973, just before the dig began.’

  Margaret nodded. ‘That’s right. In fact, somewhere in my files I have a copy of a newspaper article with a photograph of Richard handing over the disc after the inquest. I’ll ask Emma to hunt it out and send you a copy.’

  Clare said, ‘But the excavation records describe the sun disc being found during the course of the excavations. In his site diaries, Gerald says it was found in the same pit that contained the largest cremation urn.’

  Margaret smiled. ‘That’s right. Joyce Clifford found it. I have to admit to being somewhat envious of her at the time. To discover the second of a matching pair was unbelievably good fortune.’

  ‘There were two sun discs?’ Clare looked as horrified as David felt.

  He felt a distinctly queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. British Heritage weren’t going to like this.

  ‘I was away at university when the first one was found, but I saw them both. We needed to be able to compare the entire goldwork assemblage so Gerald kept them together at the manor.’

  David raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It was quite secure. He kept the whole assemblage in his safe.’ For a moment, the irony of Margaret’s assertion seemed to escape her. Then a shadow of dismay fell across her face. ‘Am I to infer that one of the sun discs is missing?’

  Clare nodded. Margaret raised a hand to her mouth and, for a few seconds, appeared to be lost for words. This was obviously a day for firsts.

  Then she muttered, ‘Of all the things I imagined, I never thought …’

  ‘Was Gerald ever in monetary difficulties?’

  ‘Clare!’ David snapped his head round to face her.
<
br />   Margaret turned to face him. ‘It’s a perfectly reasonable question. Gerald inherited his father’s fortune. Something I’m afraid his brother never came to terms with. For all of his flaws, Gerald was never dishonest. If you’re looking for a miscreant in the family, it’s Jim. Gerald was continually bailing his brother out of one misadventure or another. Any fool could have told him Jim would never change his ways.’ She took a sip from her afternoon pick-me-up. ‘It’s curious, don’t you think, how some of the most intelligent people see so little of what is going on right under their nose?’ She paused. ‘The end of the dig precipitated something of a crisis in the Hart household.’

  Clare leant forward in her chair. ‘What sort of crisis?’

  ‘On the morning Gerald made his announcement, Estelle seemed to just fall apart. She was inconsolable. We were all shocked by the news, but her reaction was out of all proportion to the event. Of course, by the end of the week the whole village knew the real reason.’

  ‘Which was?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Jim, with his inimitable sense of timing, had run off with Joyce Clifford.’

  David was sitting beside Clare on the back seat of the bus back to Seacourt Park and Ride. He turned to face her. ‘What did you make of Peggy?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of her.’

  ‘All part of her charm.’

  ‘That and her penchant for Irish whiskey.’ Clare smiled. ‘At least now we know for sure there were two sun discs, we can rely on Gerald’s excavation records.’

  ‘But the bad news is somewhere along the line the sun disc from the excavation has been lost.’

  ‘Lost! Didn’t you listen to anything Margaret said in there? Jim Hart had access to the records and the archive. He spent half his life sponging off his brother and five minutes after the excavation ended he bunked off with the landlord’s wife. It’s as plain as day. Jim Hart stole the missing sun disc.’

  ‘You can’t go round accusing people of theft without a shred of proof.’ And he knew British Heritage wouldn’t take kindly to the idea of funding the project if it was at the centre of a police investigation. ‘Besides,’ he added gently, ‘we’ve only got Margaret’s word for what Jim was like.’

  ‘I thought you liked her.’

  ‘I do. But didn’t you think she sounded the tiniest bit bitter about the Harts? You were the one who said you wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of her.’

  Clare fell silent until the bus swung into the entrance to the Park and Ride. ‘Estelle had access to the site records. She was married to one brother and working for the other. She might be able to give us an insight into what really happened.’

  He’d had enough of this whole sorry saga for one day and he wasn’t in the mood for a debate. ‘We’ve got enough on our plates working out what we’re going to tell British Heritage. The last thing we need is Peter on our backs, accusing us of harassing his mother.’

  Margaret was as good as her word. Two days after the conversation in her office, an A5 Manila envelope arrived on David’s desk containing the promised copy of the newspaper cutting. He was pleased with the way Clare had been progressing with the work on the archive, and more than a little relieved that she hadn’t brought up the subject of speaking to Estelle again. After their journey back from Oxford, he’d wondered whether he’d been a little harsh on her. But from what Peter had told him, he knew he and Estelle had had quite enough to put up with from Jim without having to endure it all being raked up again.

  David knew the chances of finding the missing disc were slim. He’d read somewhere that if the police didn’t solve a crime in the first few weeks, they probably never would. So what hope did they have of tracking down a tiny gold disc that disappeared forty years ago? They didn’t even have any proof that it had been stolen. Plenty of artefacts had gone missing over the years, mislabelled in museum stores or lost in garages and attics. After all, that was exactly how they’d found the Hungerbourne archive in the first place.

  It wasn’t until the afternoon, when Clare joined David in his office for tea, that he told her the newspaper cutting had arrived. He handed her the envelope. She opened it and sat quietly scanning the photocopied sheet in front of her.

  He said, ‘It doesn’t help us very much, I’m afraid. Just confirms what we already knew. Richard Jevons gave his disc to the British Museum. You can see from the photo that it was Gerald he handed the disc over to. Only to be expected, as he was the BM’s man on the spot.’

  Clare was peering intently at the grainy image in front of her.

  ‘Did you hear what I said, Clare? The disc we saw in the BM was handed over to Gerald by Richard Jevons.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  ‘Are you getting enough sleep? Look at the photo. It’s Gerald being given the Jevons disc.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not the disc in the BM.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You saw the one in the BM. It was perfect. This one has got a tear along its edge. Take a look.’

  He all but ripped the photocopied sheet out of her hand. He spent a few seconds studying the image, checked the contacts listing on his PC, picked up his phone and dialled an outside line. ‘Hi, Daniel, David Barbrook here. I’m trying to tie up a few loose ends. Would you happen to know whether any conservation work has been carried out on the Jevons sun disc?’ A few moments elapsed before David continued. ‘Hi … You’re sure. OK. Thanks.’ David replaced the telephone handset.

  Clare shuffled forward in her seat. ‘Well?’

  ‘No conservation work has ever been carried out on their disc.’

  ‘So the one they’ve got is the one from the dig.’

  David nodded. ‘It’s the Jevons disc that’s missing.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘It seems to have disappeared sometime during 1973.’

  David had been dreading this. Being at the centre of a criminal investigation wouldn’t go down well with British Heritage, and without their funding there was no project. And without the project, Muir would have all the ammunition he needed to ensure his academic career was toast.

  He’d finally grasped the nettle and agreed to report the theft of the sun disc to the police when Clare had pointed out that as soon as they published the excavation report it would be obvious to everybody, including British Heritage and the British Museum, that it was missing. So if they didn’t report its disappearance, suspicion would inevitably fall on them. He could picture the smirk on the Runt’s face now.

  He was well aware that the police were likely to take a less than proactive approach to its recovery. He should be grateful he wasn’t being met with outright derision.

  As it was, the rotund, rapidly balding desk sergeant, who to judge by appearances was looking forward to his well-earned retirement, was already distinctly less affable than when David had introduced himself. ‘I thought you said it had been stolen, sir.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. Someone stole the sun disc that had been given to the British Museum by Richard Jevons in June 1973 and replaced it with the one found during Gerald Hart’s excavations in August of the same year.’

  The sergeant raised an eyebrow. ‘Right, so the item definitely disappeared in 1973.’

  ‘It could have been later.’

  ‘How much later?’

  ‘We can’t be sure.’

  ‘But you’re sure it’s missing?’

  ‘Stolen – we think.’

  ‘And you don’t have any idea what happened to this disc between 1973 and the present.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right. Wait here, I need to have a word with one of my colleagues.’

  David had to admit that, even to his own ears, the whole thing sounded far-fetched. He turned round, resting his elbows on the counter behind him and considered the two other inhabitants of the reception area. A doleful-looking teenager with a proudly displayed predilection for body art was slumped in the corner next to the vending machine. He was sitting next to a middl
e-aged woman wearing a billowing cotton skirt and drop earrings. On balance, David concluded she was more likely to be his social worker than his mother. The youth looked up at him, and David smiled. Adjusting the angle of his slump, the youngster raised a single digit in response. The woman continued to flick through the pile of papers she was holding without so much as a twitch.

  ‘Right, sir.’

  David spun round to discover the sergeant had been joined by a tall slim woman wearing a tailored trouser suit and open-necked blue blouse. Her long blonde hair was gathered together in a ponytail. It could have looked severe, but it didn’t.

  ‘I’m going to hand you over to one of our CID officers, Inspector Treen.’

  He barely noticed the undisguised note of relief in the sergeant’s voice. It wasn’t just the policemen who were getting younger. Inspector Treen looked young enough to be one of his postgrads. He suddenly wished he’d taken the time to iron his shirt before he’d left the house this morning.

  ‘Good morning. Dr Barbrook, isn’t it? How can I help?’

  Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  As far as Clare could see, everything Margaret had told them about the Hart family pointed to Jim’s involvement in the disappearance of the Jevons disc. Gerald had clearly been used to clearing up his little brother’s messes. And Gerald was the only person who would have had the opportunity to swap the sun disc from his excavations with the one Richard Jevons had given to the British Museum. But would he really have put his career on the line and risked his academic reputation to cover up his brother’s indiscretions?

  David had been insistent, to the point of obstinacy, that they couldn’t be certain that Jim had stolen the sun disc. And while she understood his reasons for not wanting to speak to Estelle unless it was absolutely essential, she couldn’t help wondering whether some of it was down to a reluctance to believe Peter’s father might be a thief. In the end, they’d struck a deal. He would report the disappearance of the sun disc to the police and she would give up on the idea of speaking to Estelle.