The Hidden Bones

by Nicola Ford

  Friday 3rd August 1973

  We have undertaken a great deal of work over the last several days. Our efforts have been directed towards the recreation of a Bronze Age cremation pyre. We are intending to use the methods and techniques that might have been employed during the period. We will record the details of the size and duration of the task and the traces left following the burning of the pyre.

  I have selected a number of the male members of the team to assist me in the selection and acquisition of fuel. We chose a number of medium-sized trees from the grounds of the manor, sufficient so far as we could judge unto our needs. I had commissioned the local blacksmith in the manufacture of a number of bronze axes of the type sometimes referred to as palstaves and we set about felling the trees using these tools. Each tree was felled in a little less than half an hour.

  This first task accomplished, I arranged for the felled timber to be transported to a site close to the top of the ridge overlooking the barrow cemetery. (I had chosen a site a short distance upslope from the barrows in order to ensure that no other as yet undiscovered archaeology was damaged in the pursuance of our task, but also, it must be confessed, to assuage the fears of some of my fellow residents, who feared that sparks from the blaze might take hold in some of the thatched buildings within the village itself.)

  Much of today has been spent trimming the timber of its greenery. In hindsight, I realise we would have saved ourselves considerable effort had we done this at the time the trees were felled. We stacked the wood in a manner I have observed being used as part of Hindu funerary practice during my travels on the sub-continent.

  There is considerable anticipation among the dig team about the outcome of our little experiment. A number of villagers have been quite open in voicing their opinion that we are ‘quite mad’ going to all this effort ‘for no good reason’. All, that is, except the local butcher, who has had the good sense to stay quiet on the matter as he stands to benefit through the sale of an entire pig carcass, which I have ordered from him and which will take the place of the deceased on the pyre.

  I am allowing a full month for the timber to dry out in situ and I’m hopeful that even the villagers may be won over by the project in the end. I have invited all of them to join us on the afternoon of Monday 3rd September (a bank holiday) to watch the culmination of our efforts.

  Monday 3rd September 1973

  Spoke to the dig team this morning. Commenced backfilling.

  Clare set the coffee down on the table. Jo was hurriedly skimming the unmarked entries on the photocopied sheets.

  Finally, Jo turned back to the 3rd September entry. ‘Where’s the rest?’

  ‘That’s it. That’s the end of Gerald’s entries in the diary.’

  ‘But there’s no mention of the results of the pyre experiment anywhere.’ A look of awful comprehension spread across Jo’s face. ‘You found the urn in Gerald’s attic.’

  Clare nodded, half closing her eyes in a gesture of resignation.

  Jo held up the dog-eared bundle of photocopies. ‘Does David know about this?’

  Clare shook her head.

  ‘We’ve got to tell him. We’re not just dealing with an antiquities theft any more.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘Jesus!’ The clock on David’s office wall read three minutes past nine. He hadn’t even had his first coffee of the day and he’d just been told by one of the most respected bone specialists going that he had bits of Gerald Hart’s baby brother sitting next door in the bottom of a Bronze Age pot.

  He closed his eyes and cupped his head in his hands, slowly drumming his fingers against his forehead. No one spoke. He stood up and began to pace back and forth across the few square feet of clear carpet between his desk and the window. In the quadrangle below, students hurried to their first lectures of the day, unaware that the remains of a murder victim lay two storeys above them.

  He turned to face Clare. ‘Bloody perfect! We get our hands on the archaeological site of the century and you land us in the middle of a murder inquiry.’

  Clare, perching uncomfortably on the edge of a swivel chair, stretched out her arms towards him, palms upturned. ‘How exactly is this my fault?’

  He didn’t respond. Clare was right. She wasn’t to blame for what was in the bottom of that damned urn. He picked up the polished stone axe that was lying on the corner of his desk. He turned the exquisitely crafted greenstone over in his hands, concentrating on the cooling feel of its glass-smooth surface. He took a deep breath and replaced the precious relic on top of the dishevelled heap of papers that it had come from.

  He forced himself to smile. ‘Look, I’m sorry I bit your head off. But we’ve got so much hanging on this project. We can’t afford to do anything that might jeopardise our funding with BH. The archive being seized as evidence in a murder investigation is the last thing we need. It would give the Runt just the excuse he’s looking for to close the project down.’

  ‘All the more reason to find the missing sun disc. Can you imagine the publicity for the university? If we can find it, there’s no way Muir could shut us down.’

  David shook his head. ‘It’s a nice idea, Clare. But it was a long time ago and the police don’t seem to be getting anywhere.’

  ‘I don’t mean the police. I mean us. We’ve already found Joyce Clifford and spoken to her.’

  ‘We?’ Confused, David looked from Clare to Jo.

  ‘No. Not Jo, Peter and me. He came with me to speak to George Clifford and I’d never have tracked Joyce down to Whitby without him. He’s been incredibly supportive.’

  David’s head was throbbing. ‘Whitby! Un-bloody-believable. You tramp the length and breadth of the country with a man you barely know on some wild goose chase, and you don’t even think to mention it to me. Why is that, Clare?’ He ploughed on without giving her the chance to answer. ‘How do you think Peter will feel when he discovers his uncle has concealed his father’s cremated remains in the family home for the best part of four decades? Do you think he’ll be supportive then? Who the hell do you think you are – Agatha fucking Christie? For once in your life, couldn’t you consider the effect your actions have on other people?’

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them.

  Jo said, ‘We don’t know for sure the cremation is modern. Not until we get the XRF results and the radio-carbon dates back from the lab. I could be wrong.’

  David said, ‘Come off it, Jo. How often does that happen?’ Jo opened her mouth to speak, but he held a hand aloft. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been caught up in this. But we’re not hacks working for some dodgy red top careering round the country on a treasure hunt; we’re professional archaeologists.’ He directed his gaze firmly at Clare. ‘But clearly some of us don’t have the faintest conception of what that means.’

  For a moment, he thought Clare was going to say something, but she seemed to think better of it and instead slumped back into her chair, head lowered.

  Good. What the bloody hell had possessed her? He sat down, flipped open the lid of his laptop and started fiddling with his mouse, determined to ignore the two women. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Clare leave the room, pulling the door to with a click behind her. Jo, on the other hand, stayed put, sitting upright but relaxed in the ancient armchair, her hands palm-down on her thighs.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was calm and measured. ‘Do you want me to carry on with the analysis?’

  He didn’t answer. He wasn’t angry with Jo. He was just angry, and now maybe a little regretful too. The old Clare would never have folded so easily.

  ‘I asked you a question, David. Do you want me to carry on here?’

  His eyes remained fixed on the computer screen. ‘Of course I bloody do.’

  ‘OK …’ Jo strung out the word. ‘What about Clare?’

  ‘That’s up to her.’

  ‘I’m guessing that’s not how she sees it right now. I’d say she pretty much thinks you don’t
want her within a million miles of this place.’

  ‘Good. Maybe next time she’ll come and talk to me before she embarks on some half-arsed quest.’

  ‘That kind of implies there’ll be a next time. Will there?’

  He got up, avoiding Jo’s gaze, and made his way over to the book-covered wall next to his desk. Plucking a journal from the shelves, he started to flick distractedly through it.

  Jo remained sitting exactly where she was. David snapped the pages of the journal shut and returned to his desk, allowing the volume to drop onto the paper-strewn surface. He breathed in deeply, let out a slow sigh and lifted his eyes to look at Jo, who sat quite still, watching him.

  ‘I think …’ He hesitated, his voice softer this time. ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

  ‘Do you want me to speak to her?’

  ‘Would you? I’d probably only make matters worse.’

  Jo nodded and got up to leave.

  ‘And Jo …’

  She turned to face him in the doorway.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The door clicked shut and he sank back into his chair. For several minutes he stared straight at the faded poster of Avebury stone circles that was sellotaped to the back of the door.

  How could this be happening to him? It was all such a bloody mess. If anyone had asked him, he’d have told them that when Clare turned up out of the blue he hadn’t thought about her in years. It wouldn’t have been true, of course. The truth was he’d never allowed himself to hope he would ever see her again.

  At first, wary of reopening old wounds, he’d been unsure what to make of her sudden reappearance in his life. But the passing years had changed them both. They seemed to be able to rub along together happily enough now. He could enjoy her company without that sick-making combination of longing and hopeless frustration he’d suffered from before. That was all in the past now.

  Looking back on the last couple of months, he realised that everything had gone so incredibly well since she’d reappeared that, despite the fact he didn’t have a superstitious bone in his body, he’d come to regard her return as an auspicious sign. For once he was on top of things – in control of his life.

  When she found the Hungerbourne archive, everything had just slotted into place. This was the first opportunity he’d had since he couldn’t remember when to get on with some real archaeology, instead of clogging up the university intranet with meaningless pieces of paper and cramming reluctant students full of theory. Even the Runt didn’t have anything to grumble about. The funding that the project had brought in would keep him off his back for months. And he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather share it with than Clare. She still shared his passion for the work, and – he’d thought – they trusted one another. It had been perfect.

  True, he’d been concerned by her growing interest in Gerald Hart. But, at first, it had seemed understandable. She’d needed to throw herself into something, to try to get over Stephen’s death.

  Even when he’d finally reported the theft of the Jevons disc to the police, things had worked out better than he could have hoped. He’d known there was no realistic prospect of recovering the missing goldwork. But Clare had been right; they couldn’t run the risk of being accused of stealing it themselves. And if he hadn’t agreed to report the disc missing, he’d never have met Sally. That was one thing at least he did have Clare to thank for.

  And that was what had made him so mad, though he couldn’t have explained it to Jo or Clare – particularly Clare. He hadn’t told her about Sally yet. He didn’t want to turn it into a big deal and there was no reason he should feel guilty, but the timing could hardly have been worse, so soon after Clare had lost Stephen. Somehow he’d never managed to find quite the right moment to tell her. And now he couldn’t avoid it. Clare and Sally were bound to meet. He was going to have to tell Clare about Sally, and having left it so long it would surely look as if he’d deliberately tried to hide it from her, or worse still that he was embarrassed.

  To top it all, there was no way he could avoid having to explain this whole mess to Sally. He knew that whoever’s remains were lying at the bottom of that urn, someone would have to tell her about it at some point and it was far better that the news came from him rather than someone else. Should he tell her now or wait until the test results and dates were through?

  But that wasn’t going to be the real problem. No. What he was really dreading was telling Sally about Clare’s investigations. He knew she’d regard it as amateur interference.

  He massaged his forehead with his fingertips. It was all such a bloody mess.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘Is that it, then?’ Jo stood in the open office door.

  Clare, bag slung over her shoulder, gazed steadfastly down at a copy of the Brew Crew photograph lying neatly sleeved in its polythene conservation wallet on top of her desk.

  ‘Well!’

  ‘You heard him. He doesn’t want me around. And I can’t say I blame him.’

  Jo folded her arms, her head tilted thoughtfully to one side. ‘Well, I do.’

  ‘There’s no reason for you to fall out with him. I was the one chasing around after the disc.’

  ‘Yeah. Which came from the site you’re employed to work on, right?’

  ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Christ! You two really are a piece of work. Just answer the question. Is the sun disc from the site we’re working on?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t see …’

  ‘Well, I do. So shut the hell up and start dealing with this like the rational human being you are.’

  Clare fell silent. She didn’t have the energy to argue.

  Jo pointed at Clare’s bag. ‘And for Christ’s sake, take that thing off your shoulder and sit down.’

  Clare responded automatically, depositing her bag beside the desk and herself into the seat.

  Jo drew up a chair beside her. ‘Let’s get this straight. David does not want you to leave this project.’

  Clare opened her mouth to respond, but Jo’s look was enough to dissuade her. ‘Just now, he was angry. Though I can’t for the life of me work out why.’

  ‘He thinks I’m not up to the job.’ Clare could feel her head thumping. She wanted not to have to think about this any more.

  Jo sat perfectly still, looking directly at her. When she finally spoke, she said, ‘I’ll come clean with you, Clare. When David asked me to work on Hungerbourne, I was astonished he’d put you in charge of the day-to-day management. I couldn’t understand how the hell he could put someone who hadn’t even picked up a trowel in fifteen years in charge of something this important.’

  Clare sat, shoulders drooping, hands lying limply in her lap. If Jo was trying to make her feel the full depth of her failings, it was working.

  Jo continued, ‘I thought he’d got shit for brains and told him so. But he insisted that if I wouldn’t take the job with you managing the project, he’d find someone who would.’

  Clare didn’t know whether to feel flattered, embarrassed or angry. She plumped for angry. ‘Sounds like you two had quite a little chat.’

  Jo’s voice was matter-of-fact, unaffected by the sudden burst of hostility. ‘I always insist on knowing exactly who I’m gonna be working with. This was no different. And from what I’ve seen since, I understand why David stuck by you. You’re good, Clare – real good. If I hadn’t been told otherwise, I’d have thought you’d been a pro all your working life.’

  Jo looked as if she meant it. Clare felt her cheeks flush. She was beginning to regret her sarcasm.

  Jo said, ‘I get that he’s frustrated. This gig is important to him – to his career. It’s the biggest break he’s had. Hell, it’s probably the biggest break any of us will ever have.’

  ‘I know, that’s what makes it so awful. I’ve let him down.’

  ‘You haven’t let anyone down. I’m no shrink, but if you ask me, David’s reasons for behaving like he did aren’t just professional. It can
’t be easy knowing your buddy’s pop is lying in the bottom of some urn that their uncle had stashed in the attic.’

  Clare stared down at her hands, which were clasped together in her lap. ‘No, I don’t suppose it is.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make the way he behaved in there OK. He was way out of order.’

  Clare looked up. ‘I should have told him what I was doing. Without him, I wouldn’t even be part of this project.’ As much as she was enjoying her newly rekindled passion for archaeology, the reality was that she needed the money. But, given the circumstances, she could hardly tell David or Jo that. How the hell had she managed to end up in this position?

  Jo raised her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. ‘Jesus Christ, Clare, have you listened to a word I’ve said? I know folks who’d kill to be in your position. You’ve got to decide whether you’re prepared to throw that away.’

  Clare looked around the room. Within these institutionally magnolia walls, the carefully ordered records and familiar buff boxes were crammed with the fragmented pieces of past lives – lives she was helping to rediscover.

  When she’d come back to Wiltshire, she’d been searching for a retreat: a place of comfort and safety. She’d wanted to bury herself in potsherds and paperwork, to be completely absorbed by the minutiae of archaeological study. But archaeology wasn’t about dusty artefacts and bits of paper. It was about real people, living and dead. And she’d forgotten how much that excited her.

  Clare became suddenly aware that Jo was waving a hand in front of her face. ‘Did you hear what I said? David wants you on this project. I want you on this project. End of. Are you in or not?’

  Clare looked into Jo’s steady blue eyes. ‘I’m in.’

  It took Clare several disorientating seconds to register the fact that the sound of reveille emanating from her spare room was coming from Jo’s mobile. She’d been up until the early hours, rehearsing Jo for her appearance in the coroner’s court, and had been hoping for a lie-in. Fat chance now.