by Nicola Ford
‘Love one.’ He nodded in the direction of the lane down which the woman in the Barbour had disappeared. ‘What was all that about?’
‘I’m tempted to say “don’t ask”. But unfortunately I think there’s something you need to know.’
He didn’t like the sound of this one little bit. It was obvious that Clare was finding things tough. But with the teaching commitments Muir had piled on him this year there was no way he had the capacity to take Bailsgrove on as well. However difficult she was finding it, she was just going to have to stand on her own two feet with this one. At least Jo was going to be around some of the time – though she had teaching commitments of her own. Maybe he could give Margaret a call and get her to drop by now and then to keep an eye on things.
A few minutes later the two of them were sitting clutching mugs of tepid brown liquid in the site office.
‘So, what is it you need to tell me?’
Clare put her mug down and reached over to extract three context sheets from the ring binder on her desk. She spread them out in front of him. ‘Take a look at those.’
David examined them. ‘Three pits. So what?’
‘Three pits with absolutely no finds in them except for some modern plastic. And none of them with any record of having been there when Beth was working on the site.’
‘So Beth wasn’t the world’s best archaeologist. We all miss things from time to time.’ He hesitated. ‘And we do know that things weren’t quite right with Beth. After all, she did kill herself.’
David sincerely hoped that was true. Ever since Sally had mentioned the narrative verdict at the inquest he’d been worried about the prospect of leaving Clare up here on her own if there was even the slightest possibility that Beth’s death was less than entirely straightforward. He’d toyed with the idea of mentioning it to Clare, or at least to Jo. But if he told Jo she would only tell Clare. And in the end he’d decided he was worrying about nothing. If the police weren’t concerned, then all he’d succeed in doing by mentioning it would be to make Clare more nervous about the place than she already was. But there would be no harm in making that call to Margaret even if he didn’t tell her about the inquest.
Clare said, ‘Beth Kinsella’s mental health may have been in a questionable state before her death, but none of her team seem to think it ever affected the way she dug. Neil says she was a brilliant excavator – it was just that she sometimes took her interpretation of what she found a bit far.’
David snorted. ‘Made things up, you mean!’
Clare shrugged her shoulders. ‘Whatever. What’s important is that it didn’t affect her ability to recognise an archaeological feature. And more to the point, from what I’ve seen, the team we’ve got digging out there are bloody good at their jobs. There’s no way they’d have missed something like this.’
‘So, what are you saying? Someone deliberately vandalised the site before we started work here?’
‘That woman you nearly mowed down’ – David wasn’t entirely happy with that description but now didn’t seem the moment to argue about it – ‘is Sheila Foggarty. She lives locally. She says she’s a parish councillor.’
‘She sounded to me like she was saying quite a lot of things, not all of them entirely complimentary.’
‘No. In fact she was bloody rude. But that’s not important.’
‘It might be if she ends up writing to the vice chancellor.’ Clare’s face reddened. ‘What was she so upset about?’
‘Us. Or more specifically us working for Paul Marshall. She’s convinced we’ve sold out to him and we’re only in it for the money.’
David raised an eyebrow.
Clare said, ‘Yes, well, I know we need the money. But that doesn’t mean we’ll go to any lengths to get it, does it? Anyway, what she thinks of our ethics is of no consequence. But what she showed me might be.’
He was beginning to lose patience now. Where exactly was all of this leading? ‘What?’
‘It was a screenshot of an Internet auction site selling what they claim is an Iron Age sword.’
David said, ‘So? I’m as opposed to selling antiquities online as you are, but what exactly has this got to do with us?’
‘It came from Bailsgrove.’
‘You’ve seen plenty of those sites, Clare. Half of them give fake locations and the other half are flogging replicas.’
Clare nodded. ‘I know. But there are a good many dealers selling real metal detector finds advertised on the net too. And not all of the vendors are too fussy about how they’ve come by them.’
She glanced down in the direction of the context sheets. David pulled the sheets towards him again and reread them.
He looked up at her. ‘Are you saying you genuinely think the sword could have come from this site?’
‘It’s got to be a possibility, hasn’t it?’
He looked up at her. ‘But you’ve found more than one of these pits.’
‘And according to Sheila Foggarty there’s more than the sword being advertised on the web as coming from Bailsgrove.’
David sat back in his seat and rubbed his forehead. ‘Jesus Christ, Clare. That’s all we need – nighthawks on the site.’
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry, David, but I thought you needed to know.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he replied. But he was barely listening any more. What on earth was he going to do? How could he leave Clare here on her own to deal with this? Anything could happen.
‘What are we going to do, David? We can’t just let them waltz in here and strip the site.’
‘You have no idea what these people can be like, Clare. The sort of people that take finds from excavations haven’t been given a metal detector by their granny for their birthday.’
‘I know that, David. Neil has been telling me about some trouble he had on another site.’
Great. She hadn’t known Neil Fuller two minutes and now he was suddenly the fount of all bloody wisdom. Sometimes it seemed she’d listen to anyone except for him. ‘Look, Clare, we don’t do anything. You tell the police and then you let them handle it from there.’
Clare sat tight-lipped.
‘Promise me, Clare.’
There was a determined look in those hazel eyes that he recognised only too well from their student days.
So he was all the more astonished when she raised her hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. ‘OK, I give in. The right thing to do is contact the police.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Before you ask, I’d say somewhere between twenty-four and thirty-six hours ago.’
The jowly, time-wearied features of the medical examiner were in sharp contrast to those of the ashen-faced cadaver of the young man on the metal trolley that lay between them. Mid to late twenties, Frank had said. Sally had had little doubt he’d been drinking before he died, even before Frank had confirmed it from the tests he’d run. The stench of it managed to overpower the unpleasant whiff of the examination room. There was no sign of illegal substance abuse and none of the tell-tale needle marks. But from his build and muscle development Sally had already known this one wasn’t going to turn out to be drug-related. That at least gave her something to be grateful for. She’d seen enough of those to last her a lifetime when she’d been a young beat copper in Bristol.
‘You can put the sheet down now, Frank! I’ve seen a dead body before,’ Sally said.
‘But they’re all different, you see. This particular example has been struck down from behind with something heavy.’ The rotund little Welshman swung his arms above his head theatrically, miming the way in which the fatal blow had been dealt. ‘Left what you might call a lasting impression on him.’ He smiled, clearly satisfied with his humorous offering.
‘Couldn’t he just have fallen backwards and hit his head on something?’
‘You tell me. I’m the medical examiner, not SOCO. Did they find any blood spatter at the scene?’
Sally shrugged. ‘I’m still waiting for the
report.’
‘Well, patience is a virtue.’ He paused then winked at her. ‘So they tell me.’
He washed his hands at a small stainless-steel sink in the corner of the room before turning to face her. ‘Fancy a cuppa? I might be able to stretch to a slice of malt loaf if you’re lucky.’
As long as Sally had known him, Frank Barlow’s office had suffered from a slightly unsettling odour that sat somewhere between mouldy fruit cake and Milton fluid. It was a cramped affair on the ground floor, with a window that gave onto a view of bumpers and exhaust pipes in the car park. But Frank wasn’t a man to grumble. Instead he found solace in food and drink.
His desk was jammed up against the wall and they were sitting knee-to-knee eating buttered malt loaf.
‘How’s it going with Morgan off?’
Sally shrugged her shoulders and munched on a mouthful.
Frank peered over the thick frames of his glasses. ‘You look knackered, girl.’
‘Thanks, Frank. You always know how to make a girl feel better.’
He shrugged. ‘Just being honest. I wouldn’t want to end up with another one to process.’
She smiled wearily. ‘Any chance this one will turn out to be an accidental?’
He screwed up his nose. ‘I’d not be counting that particular chicken if I were you.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘There’s something about the positioning of the fracture. It’s very high up on the back of the head. Don’t suppose he was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs by any chance?’
Sally shook her head. ‘Next to his settee on his living room floor. Why?’
‘It’s the only way I can think he might’ve received a blow to the cranium like that without someone else being involved.’ He rubbed his fleshy chin. ‘Long shot, though. If he’d fallen down stairs I’d have expected multiple contusions as a minimum. He has sustained another minor blow to the back of his head. But I’d expect to see fractured limbs and probably the odd broken rib if it was a fall.’
‘No sign?’
‘Nope. Nothing except broken skin on the knuckles of his right hand, and one small and one large donk on the bonce.’ He took a slurp from his tea before setting down his mug on top of the jumble of papers and cardboard folders that occupied his desk.
Sally smiled. ‘There you go again, Frank, blinding me with science.’
‘Well, whether it’s a depressed fracture of the cranium or a donk on the bonce, the blow that killed him wasn’t self-inflicted. And from what you’ve said about where he was found it only confirms my conclusions. It most definitely wasn’t accidental. So, Sally my girl, it seems congratulations are in order. It looks like you’re going to be heading up a murder inquiry.’
Sitting curled up on the sofa in the living room of her Salisbury flat with her laptop in front of her and a large glass of Sancerre by her side, Clare was feeling almost human again after her shower. She’d thought about staying on at Bailsgrove this weekend to keep an eye on the site, but she was shattered, and in the end she’d decided that David had a point. An encounter with a bunch of pickaxe-wielding thugs was not her idea of a fun night out. And, just as importantly, if she did run into them there was no way she was going to be able to stop them on her own. So instead she’d asked Neil to install a couple of battery-operated wildlife cams on-site in the hope that if the nighthawks did show their faces they might at least have some sort of evidence.
The mood David had been in, she hadn’t wanted to tell him that she’d already spoken to the police and they’d been less than interested. As far as she knew he’d never met Mark Stone, but despite that for some reason he already seemed to have taken exception to him.
It suddenly struck her that maybe Sally knew Mark. For once she wished that she’d listened a bit more closely when David had been chuntering on about Sally. She knew that she came from Bristol. Was she imagining it or had he told her that she’d been in the Gloucestershire force before she transferred to Wiltshire? If so, it was possible Sally had worked with Mark Stone, or at least come across him. Clare smiled. Maybe Sally had worked rather more closely with him than David would have liked. She banished the thought as soon as it had arrived; something about David suffering from the green-eyed monster over Sally made her feel distinctly queasy.
She took a sip of her wine and fired up the laptop. It had been a long week and it wasn’t finished yet. She’d already done what David had asked and contacted the police. Even if she’d done it before she’d told him, they had a problem. Though she’d be happy if he never discovered that particular detail. And she’d come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to tackle the nighthawks single-handed on-site. But that didn’t mean she had any intention of sitting back and doing nothing. She was responsible for what happened at Bailsgrove and she was damned if she was going to have Sheila Foggarty or anyone else accusing her of not taking her responsibilities seriously.
Apart from anything else, she’d only just started getting back on her feet financially after Stephen’s death. And if the unit went under she’d be out of a job. The only real skills she had were as an archaeologist, and the way the construction industry was going every archaeology unit in the country was laying people off. The complexities of her husband’s ill-judged property dealings had meant that he’d not only left a trail of debt behind him but also some legally dubious investments that had meant his estate had only recently finished going through probate. But there was one thing he had done that she’d had cause to be grateful for over the last couple of years. He’d appointed his friend and fellow solicitor James as his executor and not her.
At the time she’d felt more than a little hurt by the decision. She’d never really taken to James when Stephen was alive. Looking back now she could see that maybe she’d even been a touch jealous of the amount of time the two men had spent together, at work and on the golf course. But he’d shouldered the bulk of the responsibility of sorting Stephen’s estate out without a hint of complaint and, frankly, without his legal know-how she would have been sunk.
She typed the words ‘Bailsgrove’ and ‘Iron Age sword’ into the search engine and the page that Sheila Foggarty had shown her popped up. There were already a couple of bids on the sword. She searched the auction site for other items from Bailsgrove and it didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. There was a whole scree of them; most of them smaller items than the sword, but all metalwork and all looking as if they were in pretty good condition. If what Sheila Foggarty had said about these coming from their site was true, then there was every chance that Beth Kinsella had been right. Bailsgrove could very well have been an Iron Age shrine, or at the very least a major site of some kind. From the research she’d already done she knew that swords didn’t pop up just anywhere; as well as shrine sites and sanctuaries, they were found in burials. And Iron Age cemeteries were all but unheard of in this neck of the woods.
Under any other circumstances it would be a major coup for the unit. But Paul Marshall wouldn’t like what it might mean one tiny little bit: there was every possibility the site would be Scheduled. And with Bailsgrove legally protected, his chances of being able to build his houses would be non-existent. He’d have a totally worthless, if stunningly beautiful, slice of Cotswold countryside on his hands. And whatever she might have told Sheila Foggarty, the uncomfortable truth was that right now Paul Marshall’s money was the only thing standing between the Hart Unit and closure.
‘But that’s great, Sal. Isn’t it?’ David looked at Sally, who appeared to think it was anything but great. She looked tired and flat. He’d never seen her like this. She was normally such a bundle of energy he’d begun to worry that she might start to dwell on the twelve-year age gap between them. But this morning he’d have been hard-pressed to have said who looked older. An observation he thought it wise to keep to himself.
He continued to butter his toast. Sally was supposed to have been staying over last night. He’
d planned a nice relaxing dinner, bought a bottle of good Burgundy. But the duck still sat uncooked in the fridge. And his throbbing head reminded him only too keenly that he’d ended up drinking the contents of the bottle on his own. Sally hadn’t got in until the small hours.
The lack of rest didn’t appear to have improved her mood. And her only reply to his comment was a snort, head down, as she continued to play with the muesli in her bowl.
‘I thought you’d be pleased. Isn’t this what you’ve been after? SIO on a murder inquiry.’
‘No time. No resources. And, most importantly, no bloody suspects.’
‘Isn’t that how murder inquiries usually start?’ David considered chancing a smile, but seeing Sally’s expression thought better of it.
‘Why couldn’t I get a nice straightforward domestic?’
David looked up. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’
She tossed her spoon into her cereal bowl, causing a splash of milk to slop onto the wooden tabletop. ‘I’m sorry. But you know what I mean. It’s just not how I imagined it.’
He leant across the table, covering her hand with his. ‘I don’t imagine the poor sod who was murdered had this in mind either.’
‘I know.’ Sally looked up at him and smiled. ‘Ignore me. I’m just tired.’
‘Anyway, if this isn’t a run-of-the-mill murder and you manage to solve it, it would be a feather in your cap, wouldn’t it?’
‘Solve it?’
‘Well, that’s what detectives do, isn’t it? Solve crimes.’
‘You always make it sound so Holmes and Watson. Murder inquiries are more about data management than deerstalkers and calling cards.’
David tugged his forelock. ‘I stand corrected. But it wouldn’t hurt your promotion prospects, would it?’
‘I don’t suppose it would. But right now I’ve got more important things to worry about – like how I’m going to find a killer.’