by Nicola Ford
David glanced around him, uncomfortably aware that the rest of the room had fallen silent. Tony stood behind the bar, arms crossed, giving them a reproving stare. Ed sat quietly, sipping his gin and tonic.
David lowered his voice. ‘I know you mean well, Ed. But we can’t just go round destroying evidence.’
‘Your choice, old boy. But I know what I’d do if I were in your shoes.’ Ed stood up. ‘Want another?’
David’s head was throbbing. He wasn’t in the mood for a jovial pint. He shook his head. ‘No thanks. I’m shattered. I think I’ll call it a night. I’d have thought you’d be knackered too after your heroics today.’
‘I suspect I’ve had more practice at heaving heifers about than you have.’
David stood up to leave and, despite himself, had to struggle to suppress a laugh. ‘I wouldn’t let Clare catch you making that comparison if I were you.’
Jo attached the JPEG of the newspaper article to the email, pasted David’s email into the address line and hit send. He’d been right; she’d found it in The Times. She picked up the photocopy of the original from her desk.
ANCIENT CURSE THREATENS DIG
An ancient legend has returned to haunt the spectacular dig site at Hungerbourne, Wiltshire. Sources close to the excavation have revealed that a mysterious curse has struck, leaving the future of the excavation hanging in the balance.
The discovery of a priceless gold and amber artefact known to archaeologists as a sun disc sparked the most important dig for a generation. Experts say the find is more than three thousand years old.
But villagers believe the discovery of the gold at the very moment when an intermittent stream, known locally as the Woe Waters, was rising is the cause of an astonishing run of bad luck that has befallen the endeavour. Before the project even began, one of the dig huts was burnt to the ground. And now the dig director has had the tyres on his car slashed and a brick thrown through a window of his nearby manor house.
Excavator Dr Gerald Hart of the British Museum has dismissed the curse as ‘superstitious nonsense’. The dig continues …
Reading it again didn’t make her feel any better. She’d done some dumb things in her time, but this was beginning to look like one of the dumbest. David had asked her not to tell Clare and she’d agreed. At the time it had seemed like the right thing to do. Clare had enough to deal with. But she was beginning to wonder whether she’d made the right decision.
Clare struggled to lever herself into a sitting position, her dislocated shoulder twinging painfully in its sling. Beneath her, she was uncomfortably aware of ruched plastic sheets beneath starched cotton. She turned to face Margaret, who was sitting on a vinyl-covered armchair beside the hospital bed.
‘If you don’t do as the doctor told you and lie flat you’ll be in here for a good deal longer than one night.’
‘I don’t have time for this, Margaret. I need to get out of here.’
Throwing back the sheet that covered her with her good arm, Clare swung round until her legs dangled over the cold metal bed frame. She shivered as she felt the rush of cold air on her back where her gown gaped open.
‘Will you pass me my clothes? They’re in a plastic bag in there.’ She pointed her good arm in the direction of the standard-issue cabinet beside the bed.
‘Certainly not.’
‘Fine. I’ll get them myself.’
She tried to disguise a grimace as she stood up and attempted to move towards the cabinet. With surprising agility for a woman of her years, Margaret sprang to her feet, interposing herself between Clare and the cabinet.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Margaret reached inside and retrieved a clear plastic bag containing Clare’s clothes. ‘You’ll do yourself a mischief carrying on like this.’
She thrust the bag at Clare, who flopped back onto the edge of the bed.
‘Would you pull the curtains round, please?’
Margaret complied, then sat down again and pointed to Clare’s sling. ‘How exactly do you intend to dress yourself with that?’
Clare had no intention of asking for help, but without it she was going nowhere. Perched on the edge of the bed, bare feet dangling above the vinyl floor and plastic bag clutched defiantly in her hand, she stared at Margaret.
Finally exasperated, the older woman held out her hand. ‘Bag!’
Even with Margaret’s assistance she took several minutes to achieve a full state of dress. And her trouser leg remained flapping from hip to ankle like an unruly sail where the nurse in A & E had cut it in order to dress her leg wound.
‘Sit still, will you!’ Margaret reached into her handbag and retrieved two safety pins from an inside pocket, as if she’d been keeping them there for just such an occasion. It took a few moments more to achieve her end. ‘It might be a bit draughty, but at least you won’t offend public decency. Now before I take you anywhere, I want to know why you’re so determined to get out of here.’
‘I have to get back to site.’
‘You’re not serious. If you think for a moment David is going to let you go back to work before you’ve had time to recuperate properly then you’ve taken leave of your senses.’ Margaret drew back the curtains surrounding the bed and lifted the corner of the blind in front of the window. ‘And even if he would, it’s dark out there now.’
‘I know, but I’ve got to get back there tonight.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘I need to check out the tower.’
‘The tower!’
An elderly lady in a crocheted blue bed jacket in the next bed turned and glowered at Margaret. Margaret lowered her voice, instead leaning forward so that Clare had no doubt about the full force of her disapproval. ‘Now I know you’re crazy. If you think I’m going to let you go anywhere near that death trap you’re mad. I know I said it was a good idea to use it. But I was wrong.’
Clare knew the last word had been dredged from her lips at considerable cost.
‘I don’t think you were.’
Margaret looked at her in consternation.
‘I’ve been lying here flat on my back thinking about what happened. David went over that tower with a fine-tooth comb. There’s no way he would have let anyone go up it if he thought there was anything wrong with it.’
‘Least of all you.’ Margaret smiled knowingly.
She felt herself flush. ‘Not anyone. I’ve been over and over it in my head. I’d barely put my foot on that plank when it gave way. It wouldn’t have done that if it was sound.’
‘So you do think David missed something.’
Clare shook her head. ‘Someone tampered with the wooden staging after he checked it.’
‘But why would anyone do that? You could have been killed.’
‘I did notice.’
Margaret seemed to be deliberating over her choice of words. ‘I know you’ve had a terrible time of it lately. And shocks like this can be very unsettling even when one’s feeling quite robust.’
‘Why does everyone keep saying that? I’m not in shock. I’m perfectly compos mentis. You weren’t up there. That boarding had been got at and if you’ll just take me up to site, I’ll prove it.’
‘You’re not going anywhere near the dig until you’ve had a chance to rest.’ Margaret halted her protests with an imperious wave of the hand. ‘No argument or you’re going nowhere. Is there anyone to keep an eye on you if I take you back to your flat in Salisbury?’
‘No. But I feel fine.’
‘You are patently not fine. But I’m willing to make a deal with you. First, though, I need to make a phone call. You stay right where you are.’
Clare collapsed back onto the pile of pillows, frustrated and furious with her own physical weakness. She was lying on her side, considering her options, when Margaret returned a few minutes later wearing an expression of triumph.
‘Right, here’s what we’re going to do. Clearly you’re in no fit state to stay under canvas. So I’m going to drive you back to t
he pub and you’re going to stay in one of Tony’s rooms, where, with a little help from Shirl, I’ll be able to keep an eye on you.’
There was no point in prevaricating; Margaret already knew about her financial situation. ‘I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Margaret, but I really can’t afford it.’
‘The financial arrangements are none of your concern. Your responsibility is to concentrate on getting better.’
Clare considered the proposal for a moment. ‘What about the tower?’
‘First thing tomorrow morning I will personally check out every inch of that planking.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Clare leant back into the pillows piled high behind her and took a sip from her steaming mug of coffee. For the last few days, Shirl had clucked and fussed around her as if she were her own daughter. Clare’s first instinct had been to protest, but she’d quickly given in and allowed herself to enjoy being cosseted. Cocooned in her comfortable little bedroom, she was thankful for the respite from the realities of the outside world.
The cream walls, cheerfully unpretentious floral-print curtains and bed linen reflected her hostess’s personality perfectly. And now, glory be, sunlight was streaming in through the window overlooking the hillside where the team was digging. The improvement in the weather was matched by an upturn in her spirits when Margaret had finally acquiesced to her request to bring her the pile of papers and journal articles that now lay scattered about her.
She set her mug down on the bedside table and picked up the photocopied pages that lay in her lap. The subject of her attention was a paper about barrows, written almost a century before Gerald had begun his Hungerbourne excavations, by a Dr John Thurnam. He’d been just one in a long line of antiquaries including John Aubrey, William Stukeley, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, and latterly Gerald Hart, who’d been at the forefront of the study of prehistory in these parts over the last few hundred years.
She craned her neck forward to watch the students digging on the hillside opposite. Did they have any idea what a venerable tradition they were part of? Salisbury was a top-notch university. Most of them would end up with sensible, well-paid jobs – accountants, marketing execs or city bankers. If they wanted any sort of security they would decide, as she had, that their futures lay outside of archaeology. But in the last few months she’d come to realise security was an illusion.
It felt like a lifetime since she’d decided to forsake a career in archaeology. It hadn’t been an easy decision. But the joy on her mum’s face when she’d told her that Stephen – a solicitor-in-waiting – had asked her to marry him had told her everything she’d needed to know about her choice.
When she’d first given up archaeology, she’d had no idea how much she would miss it. She’d been too busy building her new life with Stephen. There was the wedding to plan; setting up home together; making new friends and hosting dinner parties for his clients. But as time passed their life together had fallen into a rhythm. And that was when the unexpected pangs of loss had threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t bring herself to watch a TV documentary about archaeology – much less pick up a book on the subject. They reminded her of the life she might have had.
Stephen hadn’t questioned it. He’d always thought her degree subject was an indulgence – whereas his own was a stepping stone to his career. She’d told herself she was being daft. The chances that she would have made it as an archaeologist were infinitesimally small. And even if she had, an archaeologist’s pay, unlike Stephen’s chosen profession, could never have ensured her mum was properly provided for. Stephen’s relationship with his mother-in-law was the stuff of Les Dawson’s nightmares. In so many ways he’d been the model husband.
But since his death she’d begun to learn that nothing was quite as it seemed. At first, she’d thought she’d end up hating Stephen for what he’d done. Gradually, almost without realising it, he’d become not just the centre of her world but the whole of it. And then one day without warning he and it were gone. Her first reaction when she discovered the unholy mess Stephen had left behind was anger. But try as she might, she couldn’t sustain it.
Her resentment had turned inwards. He hadn’t forced her to marry him – she’d jumped at the chance. She begun to realise that – to begin with at least – she’d used him as her security blanket, luxuriating in the shelter he’d provided from the harsher realities of life. She’d chosen her own path in life. She couldn’t blame him for that.
Had the seeds of her dissatisfaction been obvious to Stephen before the crash? Maybe even before they were obvious to her. She’d never been entirely comfortable with the way he lavished her with gifts. But it was his way of showing how much he loved her, so she’d let it pass. Were his money-making schemes his way of trying to put things right between them?
Now he was gone and, if she was honest, she knew it might not be too many years before her mum was gone too. ‘We make our own choices in life,’ Margaret had said. And at the moment she had the square root of nothing to show for hers.
She looked down at the article she was holding. Since returning to Wiltshire, she’d become acutely aware that they were part of an older tradition. Almost without realising it she’d found herself hoping that in a few hundred years’ time someone would look back at the work she was doing and think of her as being part of this place and its fabulous past. She’d rediscovered her ability to lose herself completely in her work. Being able to step into that long-disappeared world was all that had sustained her in her darker moments. It might not pay much, but it provided her with an entirely different sort of security.
Her musings were brought to an abrupt end by a rap on the bedroom door, and Shirl’s head appeared from behind the woodwork. ‘You up to visitors, love?’
She wasn’t at all sure she was, but she couldn’t bring herself to say no to the woman who’d been the source of so much comfort over the last few days. So she smiled and nodded.
‘I’ll send him up.’ With no explanation of whom ‘he’ might be, Shirl turned on her heels, her muffled clip-clopping receding down the stairs.
She barely had time to set her coffee down on the bedside table and run her fingers through her hair before there was a second knock on the door and Peter Hart’s tall, slim frame stood in the doorway. His concerned expression transformed into a smile the instant he saw her sitting up. He thrust a bunch of brilliantly coloured dahlias at her. ‘Not shop-bought, I’m afraid. They’re from the manor garden.’
‘And all the more lovely for it. They’re beautiful, thank you.’ She tilted her head upwards and, as he leant down, she planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. ‘I’ll ask Shirl if she’s got a vase I can borrow.’
She laid the flowers on the bedside table. Peter looked about him for a suitable space in which to sit, but every spare inch was occupied by books and papers.
She waved her good arm. ‘Just throw that lot on the floor.’
He scooped up a pile of journals and placed them on the carpet, then settled down in the armchair. Pushing aside a sea of paper, he pulled the chair closer to her bed and pointed to the sling from which her arm was suspended. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘A bit, if I try to move it. I feel a bit of a fraud. But the doctor told me I’ve got to keep it on for at least another week – come what may.’
‘I came as soon as I heard. I bumped into Pat this morning in the post office. She told me what happened.’ He paused, his voice softer. ‘I wish someone had let me know sooner.’
‘David wanted to tell you, but I wouldn’t let him.’ She hesitated.
‘Why on earth not?’
‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me.’
‘I’d hoped you might think better of me than that by now.’
She looked away, unwilling to meet his gaze. Peter’s charm was undeniable. He was attractive, thoughtful and intelligent. Any woman would be flattered. But she wasn’t at all sure she could cope with his attention right now.
He rushed
to fill in the silence. ‘How are you really?’
Grateful for the change in subject, she looked up. ‘Pretty much as you see. Dislocated shoulder, a few cuts and bruises – I’ll live.’
‘Only just, by the sound of what Pat told me.’
‘Did she tell you that it’s only thanks to Ed that I’m still here to tell the tale?’
He smiled broadly. ‘She did mention it.’ He leant forward conspiratorially. ‘To tell you the truth, I put her version of events down to the over-exaggeration of a proud wife. As soon as you’re feeling up to it, she’s invited us round to dinner at their place.’ He shifted slightly in his chair, his face flushing crimson. ‘If you’d like to, that is.’
Her eyes sparkled with quiet amusement. Her every instinct told her it was a bad idea, but she found herself saying, ‘That would be lovely. Holed up in here, I haven’t had a chance to thank Ed for what he did. Without him they’d still be scraping bits of me off the Downs.’
Peter’s pallor drained to match the grey of his sweatshirt. ‘What exactly happened?’
‘Someone tried to kill me.’ The words were matter-of-fact.
‘You’re joking.’ Her expression told him she wasn’t. ‘But surely if that were the case, the police would be investigating?’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But Sally Treen thinks I’m hysterical.’
‘But there were witnesses. Pat said the whole dig team was there.’
‘Yes, but all they saw was me crashing through the planking. They didn’t see what caused it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s quite simple, someone was trying to kill me – or at least kill one of us.’
‘What on earth makes you think that?’ Peter’s expression was a mixture of concern and disbelief. Despite his best efforts, it was clear Sally wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe a word she was saying.