by Jenny Kane
Deciding not to mention that she hadn’t gone because she was afraid of not fitting in, Tina chopped off the carrot tops. ‘This walk will be something Sam offers as part of the retreat. So it’s best he leads them alone now; make it a proper trial run.’
Mabel seemed satisfied with Tina’s answer as she poured some more boiling water into the stock.
Wondering how she’d cope if she ever had to entertain their guests alone, Tina was relieved to hear the distracting crunch of tyres over gravel.
‘Are we expecting anyone else?’ Mabel eyed her soup ingredients, weighing up if they’d stretch to an additional mouth to feed.
‘Not to my knowledge. I’ll go and investigate.’
*
The woman by the battered blue Land Rover had a mass of curly copper-coloured hair, tatty dungarees and a pair of hiking boots that had obviously seen many miles’ service. Even without asking, Tina knew she was looking at an archaeologist.
‘Can I help you?’
Swinging round, her smile creasing a myriad of freckles in the process, the woman held out a hand. ‘Forgive my unexpected arrival. I’d say I was just passing, but that would be a lie.’ Seeing the confusion on Tina’s face, she quickly added, ‘Sorry, my enthusiasm gets the better of me sometimes. My name is Helen Rodgers; I used to work with Thea at the Roman Baths.’
‘Of course!’ Waving a hand towards the back door, she said, ‘I’m Thea’s friend, Tina. Would you like to look around?’
‘I would love to.’ Helen followed on Tina’s heels. ‘Is Thea about, or is she digging?’
‘She’s in her office. Come on, we’ll go there first.’
*
Thea stared at the email. It didn’t matter how many times she read it, the wording didn’t change.
Treasure Hunters had upped their offer to film the Mill Grange dig by a thousand pounds.
‘But why?’ Thea chewed the end of her pencil as she tried to think logically. So far, she hadn’t announced their find beyond asking a few fellow Roman historians and archaeologists for their opinions on how to proceed. The only person she’d shown the geophysics plans to was Helen, and she’d expressly asked her not to share them. ‘Treasure Hunters don’t even know if it’ll be a good site yet. Neither do we, come to that, and…’
The sound of chatter and footsteps drumming along the tiled corridor outside the old scullery made Thea switch her attention to the door. She was sure she recognised the voice.
‘Helen! It is you.’ As she was embraced by her former boss, Thea asked, ‘What are you doing here?’
She shrugged. ‘Curiosity. No other excuse than that.’
‘Sounds like a good reason to me. You should have let us know, we’d have got a bed ready.’ She looked at Tina. ‘Sam wouldn’t mind someone else staying, would he?’
‘Not at all, especially if that someone was an expert on Roman stuff.’ She had a thought. ‘I’ll go and tell Mabel we have an extra guest for lunch and grab some hot drinks. What would you like, Helen?’
‘Black coffee would be most welcome. But please don’t worry about a bed; I’ve booked into the local pub.’
As soon as Tina had gone, Thea pulled out the survey results and all the notes she’d made so far for the fortlet, from estimated measurements to her dig plan and plonked them out on the table. ‘You want to see the house first or the site?’
‘Both.’
Thea laughed. ‘Forgive me for saying so, but you’re coming across as a lot more relaxed than the last time I saw you.’
‘That was at work, where I’m all head-curatorish.’ Helen glanced at her dungarees. ‘Outside of work I’m far more, umm, me.’
‘Good!’ Thea gestured to the documents spread across the desk, glad to be distracted from the Treasure Hunters email. ‘I think I’m on the right track here, but I’d appreciate your wisdom.’
‘Wisdom?’ Helen laughed. ‘That could be asking a bit much, but I’ll give it a go.’
*
Cradling their mugs of coffee, the three women stood at the far edge of the fortlet. Tina watched Thea and Helen as they talked about walls she couldn’t see and ditches that were invisible to the eye. ‘Sometimes I swear Thea has x-ray vision.’ Tina smiled as her friend pointed to the corner of a wall that wasn’t there.
Helen nodded. ‘It’s why I employed her. She sees what was once there before the rest of us get anywhere near. Nine times out of ten her hunches as to how buildings or settlements were laid out are correct.’
‘Only nine times out of ten?’ Thea stuck her tongue out at her former employer. ‘I must admit, before we stumbled across this site, I’d forgotten how much I loved the discovery side of the job.’
‘I’d have sent you out to view potential sites more often, but you were so good at your in-house job at the museum, that somehow it never happened.’
‘Well now I get to do both, which I love.’ Thea stopped talking, unsure if she should go on without Sam being there.
‘You left a “but” hanging in the air there.’ Tina frowned. ‘Has something happened? Has Shaun said he can’t make the dig date after all?’
‘Dig date?’ Helen looked from Tina to Thea. ‘Shaun, as in Landscape Treasures?’
Thea was surprised. ‘You know about Shaun’s connection here?’
‘Of course I do. You advertised him opening the place, remember? The Mill Grange Open Day back in July.’
Thea shook her head. ‘I’m such an idiot!’
‘You’ve lost me.’ Helen sipped her coffee. ‘Why an idiot?’
‘Treasure Hunters. That’s how they knew and why they’re so keen!’
Tina lowered her cup mid mouthful. ‘They’ve been in touch again?’
‘Early this morning. They’ve upped their offer. It’s still a bit vague; in excess of six thousand pounds now, rather than five, but I couldn’t see why. I mean, we don’t even know for sure that this is a significant site and—’
‘We do and it is.’ Helen was so definite that Thea couldn’t argue.
‘Okay, we do. But I couldn’t see why they were so desperate to get the filming rights.’
Tina’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve lost me.’
‘If you were part of the team that ran the country’s second favourite archaeology television show, wouldn’t you want to poach a site from under the nose of your main competitor? TV is a cutthroat business after all.’
‘You mean they could gloat about Shaun opening the house, but not getting the filming deal?’
‘Exactly. Wouldn’t do Landscape Treasures’ credibility any good would it.’ Thea pulled out her mobile. ‘I ought to check with Shaun that he is on schedule.’
Tina twirled a pigtail through her fingers. ‘It doesn’t explain how Treasure Hunters knew about the excavation though. Unless that was from the summer’s Open Day adverts too. The publicity was good locally, but not nationally.’
Helen grimaced. ‘I take it you’ve been making discreet enquiries about the site to the various official bodies?’
‘Yes, of course, I had to for legal reasons.’ Thea nodded. ‘Health and safety and stuff; but that’s all supposed to be confidential.’
‘It should be, but people talk. The rumour must have leaked out.’ Helen knelt to help Thea roll the thick layers of tarpaulin back over the fortlet. ‘Why is it a problem? Surely any television coverage would be good for Mill Grange?’
‘It would.’ Tina suddenly wished Sam was there and not walking with his friends. ‘But Shaun is one of Sam’s best friends, and he asked to film with Landscape Treasures first.’
‘Ah, let me guess.’ Helen’s smile faded as she understood the situation. ‘The manor costs an arm and a leg to keep, the retreat you’re opening here needs funding and Landscape Treasures were doing the show as a favour with not much money involved, but the other show is offering serious cash. Sooner or later Sam will need to choose between his friend and his livelihood.’
‘Got it in one.’
Fourtee
n
September 8th
It was just three trowels and a tape measure, but that wasn’t the point. Shaun knew they’d been there when they closed the site the evening before. He’d put them in the porta-shed himself. He was also pretty certain he’d seen them when he followed Ajay into the shed that morning to collect some find trays, on the off-chance they found something other than walls.
At some point between the management team’s early morning meeting (about where to dig that day), and the archaeology team’s arrival at Guron House ready to work, they’d evaporated into thin air.
Saying nothing for the time being, keen to crack on, Shaun found himself occasionally floating back to the porta-shed that accompanied them from series to series. In the past they’d had occasion to employ a security team to watch over the site, but Lady Hammett had insisted that she didn’t want such people lingering on her property all night, and that once the gates to the grounds were closed, no one could get in anyway.
If they have been taken, then someone here has them.
It was not a palatable idea. Shaun had worked with everyone on the regular team for months, years in some cases. Nothing had ever gone missing before. If there was a thief, it had to have been one of the locals from the Cornish Heritage Trust, who were providing extra dig hands.
Deciding he was being fanciful, and that they’d probably simply been put away in the wrong place, Shaun headed to the church site.
‘Hi, everyone, just a quick word. A few trowels and a measure are missing from the shed. I suspect they’ve just been put down somewhere and forgotten about, or rehomed in the wrong place. Can you double-check everything goes away properly at the end of today?’ He raised his hand in a friendly wave.
As the archaeologists went back to work, Phil came up behind him. ‘You want to tell me what all that was about?’
‘A few things are missing from the shed.’
‘Not signed out you mean?’
‘It’s a minor thing, but as Lady Hammett is dead set against us having a security team here, then I thought I’d better say something.’
‘Fair enough.’ Phil nodded towards the dig. ‘Shall we do the introduction piece to camera while the weather is good, and everyone is cracking on?’
‘Good plan.’ Following the producer to where the cameramen were setting up, Shaun pulled his script from his folder and gave it a quick once-over, before standing where he was told, with the site behind him. After a quick prompt to the archaeology team to stop talking while they filmed, Shaun felt the buzz of adrenalin he always experienced when the cameras rolled prickle against his skin. Keeping Phil in view out of the corner of his eye, Shaun focused on the camera, waiting for the red light to turn green; his cue to project his voice towards it.
‘Welcome to another episode of Landscape Treasures. This time we are in the ancient land of Kernow, known to us today as Cornwall, and this—’ he raised his hands to encompass his surroundings ‘—is the Guron Estate on the historic Bodmin Moor.’
Dropping his hands again, he looked across at Phil who gave him the thumbs up, and Shaun’s shoulders relaxed.
‘I’ll quickly listen back to that, but it sounded good from here.’ Phil and the sound man huddled around a screen, headphones in place, while Shaun checked out the rest of the script.
Hoping he could get this longer piece done in one take, Shaun mumbled over the details.
‘The site you see before you is a pre-Norman church, lost beneath the grounds of Guron House’s gardens for at least seven hundred years. The question we’d like to answer during this episode of Landscape Treasures is, are we looking at a rare example of late Saxon Christianity – which would be exciting in its own right – or are we about to uncover the lost church of St Guron himself, the founder of Bodmin?’
Shaun paused, and then, closing his eyes, repeated the words to himself under his breath.
‘Okay, Shaun; voiceover for the introduction now please.’
Joining Phil, Shaun put on his headphones and went through his opener. Although he could read off his script, it always felt more natural to speak without it. Whenever he watched television himself, Shaun always knew when a voiceover was being read off paper. It felt false somehow, so he tried not to do it.
Three run-throughs later and the sound man was satisfied. Relieved, Shaun was about to prep for his background talk on the history of St Guron and the area, when Phil held up his hand. ‘New script, mate. I didn’t have the chance to tell you last night, but we think this would be a good chance to converse with Sophie about the site and area. It is on her family’s land after all.’
‘We?’ Shaun tilted his head to one side. ‘Which we is this?’
Phil hissed under his breath, ‘Sophie being on camera is a condition of us being here, remember. Let’s just get it over with, shall we?’
*
Sophie hoped she’d imagined seeing the curtains to the drawing room twitch, but she would put money on her mother watching from the house. Thinking about it, it was a miracle that she hadn’t insisted on being on screen herself. She spent enough time sniffing around the site on the sidelines.
‘Ready, Sophie?’ Phil called over to her as she fiddled her trowel in her fingers. It was conspicuously new and shiny compared to everyone else’s.
‘I think so.’
‘Don’t worry, everyone is nervous the first time. Let your nerves work for you and remember to smile.’
‘What if Shaun asks me a question I don’t know the answer to?’
‘Then just say so, and we’ll stop the camera and start again.’
‘Right.’ Sophie turned to Shaun.
He was propped against the wall of the house, his attention on the dig rather than her or the cameras. Her mouth went dry as she watched him. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t had a crush on him. Before meeting him in person, she’d wondered if he’d disappoint her; that Shaun Coulson wouldn’t be as attractive in reality as he was on the screen. The truth had been quite the reverse. Sophie felt her pulse trip each time her eyes found him – and they’d been turning in his direction almost constantly since he arrived in Bodmin. It was a miracle she’d got any work done at all, and been able to concentrate enough not to accidentally destroy a wall or dismantle a floor.
Suddenly Shaun looked up. His eyes were so dark, Sophie imagined herself falling into them.
‘Are you with us, Sophie?’ Phil tapped her elbow.
‘Sorry. I was trying to remember what I was going to say.’ Flushed with embarrassment, hoping they couldn’t guess what had been going on in her mind, Sophie snapped to attention. ‘I’m ready when you are.’
Shaun gave her a heart-melting smile. ‘Just relax, you’ll be fine.’
Ten long minutes later, the cameras were rolling and Sophie found herself standing in front of her family home, talking to Shaun. It was strange how, despite being surrounded by people, it felt as they were chatting on their own.
‘Sophie, could you tell us a little about St Guron himself?’
‘St Guron was a sixth-century hermit who established his cell on the site of St Petroc’s church. The creator of the settlement of Bodmin, he lived a quiet existence until St Petroc arrived from Padstow, and then, he gave up his cell, which was later converted into a priory, and he moved south to Gorran, or Guran – where, in approximately 1010 AD a church is believed to have been built in his honour. Possibly, the very church we are uncovering here today.’
Shaun’s expression declared that he found every word Sophie spoke fascinating, as they exchanged thoughts on the site, which prior to the building of Guron House in the Regency period, would have been largely uninhabited, with the village of Gorran being little more than an extended hamlet.
‘Cut!’ Phil’s voice echoed across the open garden. ‘Fabulous. Now, let’s do a piece for later in the show. I’ve cleared it with the diocese to film at St Petroc’s, so we can get some shots of the well house.’
Shaun, who’d plann
ed to check out the new geophysics results, asked, ‘You want us to go there now?’
‘Yep. There’s nothing we can do here for a minute. The lads will keep filming general dig shots while the AA analyse the data to see where the final trench should go. If we go now it’ll save time later.’
Shaun needed no other reason for leaving, and pointed to the bright red Range Rover with the Landscape Treasures logo on the side, which Sophie had seen on screen so many times. She felt her nerves reassert themselves and she hoped she’d get to sit in the back with Shaun.
Just as he was about to get inside, however, Ajay called over from the marquee where he was working, and Sophie found herself alone in the vehicle, wondering if she should just sit there or follow him.
Two awkward minutes later Shaun was back looking puzzled. ‘Everything alright?’
‘The missing equipment has been returned to the shed.’
‘That’s good.’ Sophie played with her ponytail as Shaun fastened his seatbelt.
Relieved that no time had been lost having to hunt for the equipment, Shaun relaxed. ‘So, Sophie, tell me everything you know about St Petroc.’
*
‘Today went well; the girl’s a natural.’ Phil looked like the cat that had got the cream. ‘Pretty too; which will help.’ He held a hand up before Shaun could protest. ‘And yes, I know it shouldn’t matter what she looks like, but it does, and we’d be stupid to deny it.’
Shaun had to agree. ‘Sophie certainly knows her local history. The bit she did about the sixteenth-century well at St Petroc’s, and how it’s believed the spring for it is located deep beneath the church, was very good.’
‘We can’t fault her research either.’ Phil was acting as if it had been his idea to have her on screen, rather than a regal command from Sophie’s mother. ‘What she was saying about the contemporary records documenting the building of aqueducts to carry water through the church to beyond the churchyard was really interesting.’
‘It was.’ Shaun hid behind a menu as he found himself remembering the brief second when Sophie had dropped her script notes, her palm brushing his knee in the back of the car as she bent to retrieve them. ‘Sophie definitely has presence. No doubt about that.’
