Lovers and Newcomers. Rosie Thomas
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and Miranda herself. ‘It’s almost a rebirth, isn’t it? A completely different way of living, and that leads to general crazy optimism, which is rather at odds with the reality as far as Amos and I are concerned.’
There was a pause. This was quite a long speech, for Katherine.
‘Any news about that?’ Miranda asked, treading carefully.
The reason for Amos’s departure from London and the law wasn’t discussed at Mead, although everyone knew that everyone else knew about it. She was relieved when Katherine answered matter-of-factly.
‘About whether the young woman is finally going to press charges? The most recent notion is that she won’t. I think she may be on dangerous ground because she almost certainly reciprocated some of Amos’s attentions, at least to begin with. Then she probably withdrew, and he naturally refused to accept her withdrawal, and then he would have crossed the line between pursuit and harassment somewhere along the way. I imagine that would all be rather delicate to prove in court, don’t you? Particularly against an adversary like Amos.’
Katherine picked a blade of grass and thoughtfully chewed on it.
‘Now he’s left the chambers that may be enough to satisfy her. I don’t know if he’ll go back to the Bar some day. If he’ll need to, that is. I don’t mean for the money, God knows he’s got enough of that piled up, but just to stay the Amos he is, in his own estimation. That’s why this new house, seeing it take shape here, is so important. It gives him a reason for being. He’s not the kind of man who retires to the golf course, particularly against his will. He’s been bored, lately, and it makes him more difficult.’
There were opposing notes of sympathy and of dismissal in her words, chiming together, that took both women a little by surprise.
‘Yes, I can see that,’ Miranda agreed.
Colin turned back from the boundary fence. He walked slowly, on a wide arc, but he was drawn steadily back to the trench. The young archaeologist was still on all fours, gently scraping with his trowel. He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t hear Colin’s approach, and it was the shadow falling across his work that made him jump. He jerked upright on his knees but his expression relaxed as soon as he saw that it wasn’t Amos.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
‘Why? You’re doing your job.’
The boy wasn’t looking at him. His gaze was fixed on the earth.
‘There’s something here.’ He knew he should keep the discovery to himself, maintain a professional detachment, but he couldn’t help blurting it out. His fist closed tightly on the handle of his trowel and it was all he could do to stop himself in his eagerness from lunging back at the find and gouging at the remains.
Colin heard how his voice shook.
‘What? What is it?’
The boy glanced quickly past him. Miranda and Katherine sat a way off, talking. Amos was still telephoning, the site crew lounged in the sunshine.
‘Look.’ He pointed downwards.
Out of the earth close to the edge of the trench, the rim of something smooth and curved now protruded. Crusted with dirt, it might have been taken for a large piece of broken glass or pottery, but the archaeologist had already rubbed an inch of it clean. The sun struck a dull gleam out of precious metal.
‘Good God,’ Colin said.
‘Yeah. And a bit,’ the boy agreed.
‘What happens now?’
‘Well, it doesn’t happen every day, does it? It’s killing me but I’ve got to wait for my field supervisor to show up. I don’t know much, but I’m pretty sure this is big.’
In the middle distance, a car drew up at the point where Amos’s driveway would one day meet the curving route to the main house. A uniformed policeman got out and opened the gate, then the patrol car bumped slowly over the builders’ track to the site.
‘Christ, now here’s the cops. I hoped the boss would get here first,’ the boy sighed.
‘You can handle it,’ Colin told him. The boy’s resemblance to someone he knew was no longer troubling. It came to him that this wasn’t actually Jessie’s boyfriend from the first evening in the pub, the one she had squabbled with about ownership of the dog, but the two of them were certainly sufficiently alike to be mistaken for one another.
A second solid policeman emerged from the car. Amos made straight for the pair of them, with the site manager bobbing at his side.
‘Here we go then,’ said the archaeologist as he climbed reluctantly out of the trench.
Across the field, alerted by the sighting of police in the driveway of the house, Selwyn was hurrying towards them with Polly moving more slowly in his wake.
‘Has there been a murder?’ Selwyn asked.
‘Not recently, by the look of it,’ Colin told him. ‘Although I think Amos would prefer it to be a straightforward drug-related shooting. History may take longer to unravel.’
Amos said, surveying his site later that afternoon: ‘So, the monkeys have taken over the zoo.’
A van arrived, with ‘Anglian Archaeological Services’ painted on the sides. Several archaeologists of various degrees of seniority climbed out, donned helmets and fluorescent jackets with AAS printed on the back, fanned out and began measuring, pegging lines and scribbling on clipboards. The field supervisor, a lean bearded man in his forties, made a series of urgent calls. A frame tent was brought out and quickly erected over the trench, and the white nylon fabric sucked and billowed in a rising wind. The policemen conferred with the supervisor, the intermittent crackle of voices from their radios carrying across to where Selwyn stood joking about how English Heritage and the county archaeologist would never let Amos dig the channels in the earth for his futuristic ground exchange heating now that there was known to be treasure beneath.
‘Buried gold,’ Selwyn murmured. ‘Who knows, Amos, you might just have got even richer.’
‘Probably not, under the 1996 Treasure Act,’ Amos retorted. But that they should be even discussing this sharpened the sense that an unwelcome change was coming to Mead.
Another car wound its way towards them and yet another archaeologist emerged, bearing a licence from the Ministry of Justice to allow the human remains to be excavated. A copy of it was formally pinned to the door of the Portakabin. Amos read the licence and gave a curt, unwilling nod to acknowledge that, for now at least, he would have to agree to a suspension of work. It was clear that there would be no more progress on the site for the time being, so the builders packed up and went home. The police lingered long enough for the osteologist who had arrived in the van to assure them personally that the uncovered bones were hundreds of years old, then they folded their double bulk back into their patrol car and drove away.
The bearded field supervisor introduced himself as Christopher Carr. He promised that as soon as his team had had a chance to make a first assessment of the finds, Mr Knight would be informed. In the meantime, it was important that the excavation be conducted methodically in order that no vital information or clues were lost in the process, and they would understand that, wouldn’t they? His young assistant, Kieran, had acted correctly in calling a temporary halt to the site work. He thanked Amos for his cooperation.
‘When can we have a look?’ Katherine asked him, then glanced away, as if she suspected it had been in some way wrong of her to ask.
‘As soon as there is anything interesting to see,’ Christopher told her. ‘But I would be grateful if for the time being you wouldn’t mention the find to anyone at all outside this group. Sightseers and the press are never helpful on the scene until we are ready for them.’
Amos struck his forehead quite hard with the heel of his hand.
Katherine and Polly left the site to go back to the house and