The Lost Shrine

by Nicola Ford

  Jo leant back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘I see – you did all of this for entirely ethical reasons. Is that the story?’

  Clare flushed. ‘No. I told you I was mad at Stone. For ignoring everything I say, for not caring about the site getting wrecked, and for not being willing to even consider the possibility that Beth’s death was anything other than a suicide.’ She paused. ‘And to be honest I was so angry that when I told Stone about the meeting with the dealer I didn’t stop to think what the implications might be for Crabby, or for anyone else for that matter.’

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t actually say anything to Stone about Crabby’s part in the metal detecting fiasco!’

  Clare shook her head. ‘Of course not. What do you think I am, Jo? I know I’ve been a bloody idiot. And I’m not proud of myself. But I’d never do anything to intentionally hurt Crabby.’

  Jo let out a sigh. It was obvious how worried Clare was – worried and tired. The last few weeks had been difficult for all of them, but Clare had been the one shouldering the lion’s share of the responsibility. ‘I know.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘But you’ve got to admit it was kind of a dumb thing to do. And that’s not like you, Clare.’

  Clare shook her head. ‘I didn’t used to think so either. But lately I’m beginning to wonder.’

  A thought suddenly struck Jo. ‘Did you tell the police Margaret was involved?’ Clare nodded. ‘You need to tell her, Clare. If they do follow it up they’re bound to want to speak to her about it. And she’ll be as mad as hell if they turn up on her doorstep and she knows nothing about it.’

  Clare took a sip of her drink. ‘I’ve already spoken to her. Stone sent someone round to see her after I told him. But she was alright about it. She didn’t know about Crabby’s involvement. So as far as the police are concerned, the dealer and his mates are the ones who planted the finds on-site. And who’s going to believe them if they try to claim otherwise?’

  Jo said, ‘I guess so.’

  Clare said, ‘The thing is, Jo, I was wondering. Do you think I ought to tell Crabby?’

  ‘Tell him what? That he trusted us and we repaid him by telling the police?’

  Clare protested, ‘But I didn’t tell them about his part in what happened.’

  Jo shook her head. ‘That’s not what I’m saying, Clare. There’s nothing to tell. From what you say, Stone and his guys have no idea Crabby has anything to do with what happened. And the only way they’re going to find out is if one of us tells them. And that’s not going to happen. So if you tell Crabby all you’re gonna do is make him panic.’ She took a long swig from her rum and Coke. ‘Oh, and make him mad as hell with us too.’

  Clare said, ‘I suppose you’ve got a point. But it just doesn’t feel right dropping him in it like that and then not even having the decency to tell him what I’ve done.’

  Jo shrugged her shoulders, ‘It’s your call, Clare. But in my experience guilt is never a good reason for doing anything. And telling him is just gonna make things worse.’

  Clare stared down at the tabletop before letting out a long sigh. ‘No. You’re right, Jo. I know you are.’ Looking up, she said, ‘It’s not worth causing more trouble than I already have just to salve my conscience.’

  Jo said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you need to chill out for a while. Take a vacation. You need a break, Clare.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You could take this Friday off, make a long weekend of it. What’s stopping you? I can cover for you on the dig, if that’s what’s worrying you. And I promise not to make any epic finds while you’re away.’

  Clare had been tempted to argue. But when she’d thought about it, she’d recognised the wisdom of Jo’s words. And in the end, she’d decided to take her friend’s advice and had booked herself into a bed and breakfast on the edge of the Peak District for the weekend.

  Now that all of the arrangements were in place, she was surprised at how much better she felt already. And so by the time Wednesday morning came round she was already feeling significantly more content with life as she stood surveying the cuttings, mug of lukewarm tea in hand. That is until she received her first phone call of the day.

  She thrust her mobile into the pocket of her moleskins and muttered, ‘Damn,’ under her breath.

  Jo stepped out of the trench and ambled across to join her. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘That was the solicitors.’

  Jo frowned. ‘Oh. Not more bad news about Stephen?’

  ‘Oh, God no. Nothing like that.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s the house.’

  ‘What house?’ Jo looked confused. She had every right to be. Clare hadn’t shared her plans with anyone yet, not even Jo. Somewhere along the line she’d managed to convince herself that if she told anyone it might never happen.

  ‘The house I’m buying.’

  ‘You’re buying a house!’ Jo asked, ‘Where?’

  ‘In East Kennett.’

  ‘That’s up near Avebury, isn’t it?’ Jo had the look of an excited puppy dog about her.

  Clare nodded. ‘Yep.’

  Jo frowned. ‘But that’s good news, isn’t it? What’s the problem?’

  Clare smiled apologetically, ‘Sorry, Jo. I didn’t mean to sound so grumpy. Of course it’s good news. I can’t wait. But the solicitor just phoned to ask me when I’m going to be able to sign the contract. Apparently they posted it to my flat first class on Monday and the people I’m buying from are keen to get on with it. It means I’m going to have to drive back down there tonight to pick it up and sign it.’

  Jo said, ‘Bummer.’ There was a short pause. ‘But a house near Avebury, that’s real neat.’

  Clare grinned. ‘I suppose it kind of is, isn’t it?’

  It already seemed like a long week and it was only Wednesday. Jo had been amazing; not only was she going to cover for her on Friday, but she’d offered to get the team started on-site on the Thursday morning so that Clare didn’t have to set off from Salisbury at the crack of dawn. Despite that, by the time Clare had gone through everything she’d needed Jo to cover for her in the following day’s briefing it had been gone seven. So she’d decided she might as well eat at the King’s Arms before she set off. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but when she’d finally parked up Little Blue on the street outside her flat it was already dark. And as she hauled her holdall wearily out of the boot, she was bathed in the strange orange half-light of the street lamps.

  Trudging up the front steps to her ground floor flat, she mentally worked her way through her wardrobe, selecting what she was going to take with her for her weekend away. At least that was one advantage to having to come back here. She’d be able to pick up some clean clothes for her weekend away in the Peak District.

  Oh, come on, Clare. Stop being so negative about this. However inconvenient it might be, once she’d signed that contract she was on her way to making this new life of hers permanent. In the two years since Stephen’s death her life had been turned upside down. And despite one or two hairy moments along the way, coming back to Wiltshire was the best thing she’d ever done. Yet somehow her life here still felt a bit like a daydream. She may have had her doubts about whether she was up to it when David had first offered her the job at the Hart Unit, but that was because she hadn’t been sure she really had what it takes to make it as an archaeologist. From the moment they’d first put trowel to earth and started digging together at Hungerbourne, she’d never doubted what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. It might not be a palace but buying the house was her way of finally committing to this new life.

  She fumbled in her pocket for her keys and was about to insert the key in the lock when her hand touched the woodwork and the door swung open of its own volition. Had she forgotten to lock it when she’d left? The only other person who had a key was Jo – and she was safely ensconced in the King’s Arms, the best part of sixty miles away.

  She stepped into the hallway and called
out, ‘Hello. Is there anybody there?’

  Christ, what a daft thing to say. She had no idea what she’d do if there was. She stood stock-still and listened. Outside in the street she heard a car honk its horn and the distant sound of music and laughter drifting from the nearby pub. But inside, nothing. As she got to the end of the hall, she stretched her hand up and felt for the light switch. It came on with a click that in the still of the evening air sounded like a gunshot, and illuminated a scene of devastation in front of her. Her living room was almost unrecognisable. Every drawer in the place had been pulled out and their contents unceremoniously dumped where they fell. The cushions from the sofa had been flung to the four corners of the room. And, worst of all, the books that had once stood neatly arranged in alphabetical order on her shelves lay strewn across the floor.

  She deposited her holdall in the only gap she could find on the living room carpet and picked her way carefully through the debris towards the kitchen. It was the same story here: cupboards and drawers stood open, their contents pushed to one side or lying smashed on the floors. The only place that seemed to have escaped was the fridge. She stood there with the fridge door open, momentarily contemplating whether it would be wise to pour herself a large glass of white wine before she rang the police. Suddenly she heard a movement from somewhere behind her. It was followed swiftly by the clatter of a door smashing against a wall. She turned and scrambled over the top of the intervening detritus and down the hallway. She got to the top of the steps just in time to see the silhouette of a tall figure sprinting down the street and turning into the side alley a few doors down. There was no way she’d catch them. And she wasn’t sure she’d have any idea what to do if she did.

  Clare had no notion what the normal routine was when reporting a burglary to the police, but things being what they were these days she was half expecting the woman on the other end of the line to issue her with a crime number and tell her to get on with it. So it came as something of a surprise when a female police officer accompanied by a forensics team had turned up within little more than an hour. It had, as they later explained to her, been an unusually quiet couple of days in Salisbury.

  She’d been told not to touch anything, but she hadn’t been able to resist checking out the bedrooms to see what sort of a state they were in. And to her relief she’d discovered that, though the contents of the boxes from Stephen’s study had suffered the same fate as the rest of the flat, her bedroom had at least been spared. She must have disturbed them before they’d got that far.

  And that was where she was sitting now, perched awkwardly on the end of the bed alongside the policewoman.

  ‘And as far as you can tell, that’s the only thing that’s been taken.’

  Clare said, ‘Well, it’s difficult to say for sure but the TV’s still here, the iPod is still sitting in its dock in the living room and I had my work laptop with me. So yes, as far as I can tell I think it’s just my husband’s old laptop that they’ve taken. But I can’t imagine they’ll get much for it.’

  ‘And there’s no jewellery missing?’

  Clare fiddled with her wedding ring. It was the only piece of jewellery of any worth that she possessed. She’d sold all of the rest, to help finance the deposit for the house. Clare shook her head. ‘No. No jewellery.’

  ‘Have you got anyone who could stay with you tonight?’

  Clare looked up, startled. ‘Why, do you think they’ll come back?’

  The policewoman shook her head. ‘No, that’s highly unlikely. It’s just that it can be a bit of a shock having someone break into your house and go through your personal possessions. Sometimes it takes a while to sink in.’

  Clare glanced at her watch. It was nearly one in the morning. The nearest person was David. And there was no way she was going to ask him to come over at this time of night. Besides, he might have Sally with him. And Sally was the last person she wanted to see right now. ‘I’ll be fine, honestly. I’d rather just get on with clearing this place up.’

  The police woman nodded and closed her notebook. ‘OK. If you’re sure. The team should be through next door soon and then we’ll be out of your hair.’

  ‘What do you think the chances are of catching whoever did this?’

  ‘Honestly?’ Clare nodded. ‘Without a better description and with no CCTV down this street, I’d say slim to zero. Unless we turn someone over for something else and we happen to find your missing laptop on them, we’ll probably never catch them. Nine out of ten times it’s drugs-related. Whatever they find they’ll flog for a pittance. But you never know your luck if we manage to turn up a decent set of prints. We’ll give it our best shot.’

  A man with a thick shock of grey hair wearing a white Tyvek bodysuit popped his head round the bedroom door. ‘We’ve finished now, Jen.’

  The policewoman stood up and turned to face Clare. ‘Right, if you’re sure you don’t want us to call anyone for you we’ll be on our way now. But promise me you’ll bolt the front door after us when we’ve gone.’

  Almost literally shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. Clare resisted the urge to smile. Instead she nodded. ‘And I’ll get a locksmith out to replace that lock first thing tomorrow morning.’

  As soon as they’d gone, Clare had bolted the front door and collapsed in an exhausted heap on her bed. Maybe she was in shock, maybe she was just knackered, but either way she slept like a baby and didn’t wake until gone nine o’clock.

  When she woke the first thing she did was ring Jo to tell her what had happened and let her know she probably wouldn’t make it to site until late afternoon. As soon as she’d established that Clare was OK, Jo had, as usual, taken the news in her stride, though Clare had had to dissuade her from insisting on ringing David so that he could pop round to check that she was alright.

  When she’d stepped out of the bedroom, Clare noticed that someone, presumably the police, had picked up her post and deposited it on the table in the hallway. On the top of the pile of junk mail sat a bulky-looking A4 envelope – the contract for the house. She picked it up and made her way through to the living room.

  Package in hand, she stood in the doorway surveying the scene. Today was meant to be the next step in starting her new life, but it looked as if the fates had decreed it wasn’t going to be that straightforward. She pushed aside the junk from the drawers that had been deposited on the coffee table and laid the package on it, then made her way into the kitchen.

  There was glass everywhere. Most of the fragments seemed to have originated from a smashed jar of raspberry jam, half of the contents of which was now smeared in a sticky red streak that ran the front length of the under-sink cupboard. She retreated to the hallway, put on a pair of trainers, grabbed a bin bag and the dustpan and brush.

  Within twenty minutes she’d managed to restore sufficient order in the kitchen to consider making herself breakfast. She hadn’t been expecting to be here during the week so there was no juice in the fridge. And it was a little early to start on the white wine, tempting though it was.

  In the end she settled for coffee and, depositing four heaped spoonfuls into the cafetière, which by some miracle had escaped unscathed on the kitchen counter, she filled the kettle. No milk, so no muesli. She extracted a couple of slices of wholemeal bread from her emergency supply in the freezer and inserted them into the toaster.

  Fifteen minutes later, having returned the cushions to their rightful place on the sofa, she was sitting on it, legs crossed to avoid unwittingly damaging anything on the floor, munching away on her breakfast and feeling considerably better. It was going to take more than some bloody junkie to ruin the rest of her life.

  After a shower and two mugs of black coffee, she set to with trying to restore some sort of order out of the chaos that surrounded her. When the locksmith turned up almost as rapidly as the police had the night before, Clare began to think that maybe the fates were feeling more kindly disposed towards her than they had been yesterday evening.
Well, her mum was always telling her that you make your own luck, and she wasn’t going to sit around licking her wounds. She’d soon be out of this flat for good, and in her own home – the next step in her new life. Which reminded her, she must ring her landlord to tell him about the break-in. Though on second thoughts maybe she should leave that until after she’d cleaned the place up and had the lock repaired. She didn’t want to give him a heart attack. Or, worse still, end up losing her deposit when she finally moved out.

  By the end of the morning, Clare had returned the living room to a state that was at least now inhabitable and the locksmith had been and gone, relieving her of a not inconsiderable sum – an expense that at the moment she could frankly have done without. With only the spare room left to tackle, she’d considered just shutting the door on it and leaving it for another day. But in the end she’d decided that as she’d have to have everything packed and ready for the move to her new house in the next few weeks she might as well get it over and done with now.

  But that didn’t mean she had to go through all of Stephen’s stuff now. For the moment she could just put it back in its cardboard boxes and she’d deal with sorting the contents out once she was ensconced in her new home. One or two bits and pieces of Stephen’s old golfing memorabilia lay broken on the floor, which made the decision not to keep them considerably easier. And, in the event, it didn’t take her long to stack the paperwork into neat piles ready to return them to the boxes from whence they’d come. She was just putting the final pile into the last box when her eye was caught by several pieces of A4 paper stapled together that lay on the top of it. It was a printout of an email exchange. She placed the rest of the pile on the box and closed the lid, taping it shut.

  Perching on the edge of the bed, she read and reread the printout’s contents. When she’d finished, she made her way into the living room and slipped it carefully into the side pocket of her laptop bag.