by Leo McNeir
“Scheme A, that’s fine. Would you like any changes of detail anywhere?”
“No. I want it just as you’ve drawn it up.”
At that moment the door to the office opened and Rob Cardew walked in, accompanied by two other men. Marnie recognised them from the previous week. Seeing Marnie on the phone, they stopped just inside the door. Anne got up and went over, leading them outside to talk.
Marnie resumed her conversation with Celia.
“Sorry, visitors. I think the dig is about to begin. Where were we?”
“The scheme?”
“No changes, you said. Fine.”
“When can you start work, Marnie?”
“That depends. I’ll need to check availability of materials, finalise some measurements on site. In the meantime I’ll get you a contract and –“
“Contract? How long is all that going to take? Hugh’s always dealing with contracts. He says solicitors take forever to reply to everything. They’re the bane of his life.”
“Celia, this is just a letter plus a listing of the works to confirm that we’ve got all your needs covered. It’s a standard form of wording. We issue it ourselves.”
“When will I get it?”
“We’ll post it tonight.”
“Couldn’t you drop it in?”
Marnie counted up to ten, breathing slowly. “We’ve got rather a lot on our plates today, Celia. Please leave it with me and –”
“Better still, why don’t I pop down later and collect it?”
“Well –”
“You said you’d have it ready today. I could save you the bother of putting it in the letter box.”
Marnie tried not to sigh. “All right.”
“Great. And I can see what the archaeologists are doing at the same time. Two birds with one stone.”
Celia sounded overjoyed. The world was doing what she wanted. Everything was in its place in the universe. There was little doubt what was located at its centre.
Marnie went out to the courtyard, but the visitors had left and Anne had presumably gone with them. Everyone was at the HQ barn, which was now bustling with activity. Rob Cardew was addressing a crowd of people, many of them young women, most of them wearing jeans, skinny tops and working boots. One group was getting ready to set off, gathering up equipment under the direction of a young man with a crew cut. He detached himself from the group and approached Marnie.
“Hallo. Remember me? Dick Blackwood?” He delivered a hearty handshake and exuded enthusiasm, like Rob Cardew. “I’m going to be site director here.”
“Not Rob?”
“He’s head of the project overall. I’ll be running the show in Knightly St John.”
Another young man joined them, another face that looked vaguely familiar. Dick indicated him with a gesture of the head. “You remember Eddy? He’ll be doing levels this morning.”
Eddy flashed a smile at Marnie before turning to Dick. “How are we labelling this job?”
“Call it KGF: Knightly Glebe Farm.”
“KGF it is. We’ll get up to the church, use that marker in the yard as our reference point. See you later!”
“You don’t waste any time,” Marnie commented.
Dick grinned. “Hit the ground running, that’s my motto.”
“Is there anything you need from us, Dick?”
“You’re spoiling us already. We’re used to more primitive conditions. We’ve got a solid dry base camp, plus water, power and a real loo. The girls are particularly grateful for that. There’s only one other thing we need now.”
“If we’ve got it, you can have it.”
“All we need now is some finds, Marnie. Then we’ll be really happy.”
*
Anne pinned a note to the corkboard in the office kitchen area, a rough timetable for the dig.
09.00 – arrive on site – daily briefing
09.30 – work begins
11.00 – morning break (30 mins)
13.00 – lunch break (1 hour)
16.00 – afternoon break (30 mins)
18.00 – finish
She had caused much amusement when Rob Cardew introduced her to the team in his first briefing session.
“I’d like to introduce Anne, Anne Price. It’s thanks to her that we have all these facilities.” There was a ragged round of applause. “Anything you wish to say to us, Anne?”
“Hi! I am the most important person on site.” She kept her expression serious. A few quizzical eyebrows were raised. “I am … the tea-girl.” There were whoops and whistles. “If you need any supplies or have any problems, you can contact me any time in the office over there. Good luck!”
*
Neither Anne nor Marnie had any interruptions from the archaeologists that morning. Anne went out at ten-thirty to check that the urn was switched on and working properly. At eleven Dick Blackwood ordered them to down tools for their first break. To Anne the process was a revelation. She had expected the students simply to leave everything in situ and return to the HQ barn for refreshment.
Instead, the diggers assembled all their equipment and brought it with them from the test pit sites scattered over the hillside. Beside the building they formed a line of wheelbarrows like the starting grid for a race. Behind them they grouped the rubber buckets in a neat formation. Shovels formed another line-up, mattocks another, sieves yet another. These students were no dirt rats. Dick Blackwood made a quick tour of inspection, pronounced himself content and tipped one of the wheelbarrows down onto its handles to use as a seat.
From a shoulder-bag Anne produced Tupperware boxes of biscuits that she opened and laid on the ground in the centre of the group.
“Help yourselves! Not home-made, I’m afraid, but we hope you’ll like them.”
The students made appreciative noises and converged on the boxes. Dick climbed out of his wheelbarrow and walked over to Anne, his expression stern as he looked her in the eye.
“This is completely out of order.” His expression lightened. “Got any custard creams?”
Anne hit him playfully on the chest. He smiled at her.
“For several of the students, this is their first excavation. You’ll be a hard act to follow. This is a dig they’ll remember for a long time.”
*
Celia Devere had dressed for the occasion. When she parked the open-topped Audi in the courtyard, it was soon after two o’clock. The dig had just restarted. From her desk Anne watched Celia advancing on the office across the cobbles, looking like the female lead for Jewel of the Nile.
In safari shirt and matching skin-tight khaki trousers, with boots of brown kid leather almost to the knee, the ensemble was completed with a fawn silk head-scarf that swept back over her shoulder, plus retro sunglasses.
“She’s missing the ivory cigarette holder,” Anne observed.
Marnie looked up, saw Celia and smiled across at Anne. Celia made her entrance.
“Hallo, Marnie. I wasn’t sure if you’d be pleased to see me, but that smile says it all. Hallo, Anne.”
Anne was glad she had dealt with the contract letter as one of her first jobs that morning. It would have galled her to be caught out by Celia making an earlier than expected appearance. Anne stood up, went over to Marnie’s desk and set down a large envelope before heading for the door.
“I’d better go and make sure they’ve turned the urn off. They left it almost to boil dry this morning.”
Marnie handed the envelope to Celia. “You might like to read this while you’re here in case anything needs clarifying.”
As Anne went through the door she could hear Celia’s mock protests.
“What, all that? Oh Marnie, if I’d realised you’d be producing such a big document I wouldn’t have asked you for it so soon. I had no idea.”
From the envelope she pulled out a two-page covering letter, an itemised budget, a statement of fees, plus cash-flow of payments and a room-by-room schedule of works. There were two complete sets of the
papers, both to be countersigned: one client copy, one for the office file.
“Isn’t there something missing from all this, Marnie?”
“Such as?”
“A start date, a timetable.”
Marnie pointed at the bundle. “Last paragraph, second page of the top letter.”
Celia scanned it. “… timing to be agreed on acceptance of the contract … Yes, I see.” She held out a hand. “Do you have a pen I could borrow?”
“A pen?”
“Of course. I’ll sign now and we can agree when the work can start.” She beamed.
Marnie breathed in slowly. “You’ll see that both you and your husband need to sign it and frankly, Celia, I think it would be wise to spend a little time studying the schedules for each area. There’s a lot of work involved. I wouldn’t want any misunderstandings.”
Celia frowned. “But I thought we’d been through everything already.”
“Even so. I’ve worked more quickly than usual on this project.”
Celia reread the letter. “Ah, I understand.”
“Good.”
“You want a cheque for the first payment on signature, a thousand pounds. Is that what this is about?”
Marnie flushed. “No. That’s our standard practice. It covers the briefing process, site visits, the initial design, sketch scheme, the preparation of schedules, costings, everything up to contract preparation and acceptance.”
“It sounds a lot when you put it like that, Marnie.”
“It’s a fair amount of work and it all takes time.”
“And you did all that in just a couple of days. A thousand pounds, that’s not a bad day rate.”
Celia spoke casually but the words hit Marnie full in the face. She dug deep into her reserves of professionalism to keep calm. She wanted to throw Celia out of the office and tell her what to do with her project.
“As I said, Celia, usually I’m able to spend more time on each aspect.”
“I’m not blaming you, Marnie. It’s quite normal. Solicitors do it all the time. They take ages to produce anything. It creates an impression, so much work to be done.”
“A lot of thinking goes into design work. The client is paying a designer to use their experience and training.”
“I find it really interesting talking to you, Marnie. You make me see things I’d never known about before.”
Marnie was unsure how to take that. Was Celia being ironic? She concluded that Celia was incapable of subtlety.
“I really would like you to go through those papers carefully with your husband, Celia. There may be things you’d want to change, and now’s the time to do so. Later on, it could lead to increased costs, lengthen the contract period, cause disruption.”
“And when I bring the contract back – with the cheque, of course – you’ll be able to give me a start date?”
“Within a day or two. We’ll need to check availability and place orders.” Marnie smiled. “No doubt you’ll be on the doorstep when we open the office tomorrow morning?”
Celia’s demeanour changed abruptly as if someone had thrown a switch.
“Not tomorrow, Marnie.”
“Oh?” Marnie was wary. “Is something happening?”
“Good question. Hugh won’t be coming back tonight. He’s supposed to be away on business, a meeting with clients in Norwich.”
Marnie saw a no-go area looming. “Okay. As soon as you can get the contract to me, I’ll set things in motion. I take it you’ll want me to find decorators and curtain-makers? I have a list of reliable local –”
“I know he’s having an affair, Marnie. I recognise the signs. He has to be away overnight and forgets to mention which hotel he’ll be staying in. The diary never leaves his briefcase. He’s got one of those Psion organiser things, electronic, with a secret password.”
“That doesn’t prove –”
“Believe me, Marnie. I know Hugh.”
“Do you have any actual evidence?” What am I saying? Marnie bit her tongue.
“What sort of evidence?”
“Anything other than just suspicion?”
Celia turned and walked over to the window, looking across the courtyard to the cottages.
“It’s so charming here. Life seems calm, peaceful. There’s nothing to disturb the serenity. Yes, that’s the word. Serenity.”
Marnie was grateful for the sudden change of direction. Now was not the time, she thought, to remind Celia that she was standing in an office where Sarah Anne Day had hanged herself, Randall Hughes had tried to commit suicide, and that they were surrounded by teams of archaeologists, swarming all over the property attempting to dig up the remains of dead witches.
Chapter 16
Scrapbook
True to her word, Celia Devere was not on the doorstep on Wednesday morning. Instead, when Marnie arrived from breakfast to open the office, she found Rob Cardew leaning against the doorpost, scribbling a note.
“Ah, there you are, Marnie.” He crumpled the paper together and put it in his pocket. “Got time for a quick word?”
Marnie opened up, switched on her computer and offered Rob a seat.
“So, how’s it going? Probably too early to tell?”
Rob pulled a notebook from his top pocket and flipped it open. “I’ve got a few things on the list, so let’s start there. The results of the first day’s geophys and test pits haven’t revealed anything significant.”
“Would you expect results right away?”
“Usually, especially when we’ve got so many people deployed over an area like this.”
“So you’re disappointed?”
“No. But it would be helpful if we could widen the hunt, perhaps work nearer to the property?”
“Okay. As long as you don’t impede the builders or stop us getting in and out.”
“That’s great, Marnie. Next item. The Timeline people want to come over this week for an initial visit and discussion.”
“How many will there be?”
Rob counted on his fingers. “Director, assistant producer, researcher, site manager, Dick, me and, er, would you be available, Marnie?”
“When is this?”
“Friday afternoon?”
“If you really think you need me.”
“Would there be, er, any chance of somewhere quiet for us to meet? The HQ barn is abuzz with activity.”
“I’d like to keep the office clear for Anne at least to continue working. What about Sally Ann? If it’s fine we could sit out on deck. If not, there’s the saloon at a pinch.”
“Perfect.”
“Anything else you need?”
Rob consulted his notes. “Just one other thing for now. You mentioned that you’d like us to come for dinner one evening.”
Marnie grabbed the diary. “Great.”
“I realise it’s probably too short notice, but Rosemary and I could be free this coming weekend.”
“Saturday?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s go for it.”
As Rob stood up and left, Anne returned from her morning check-up at the HQ barn. She remarked that Marnie seemed thoughtful.
“Any problems with the dig?”
“They haven’t found anything so far, but they’ve only just begun.”
“So what’s bothering you, Marnie?”
“Maybe it’s my imagination …”
“But?”
“Why do I always get the impression with Rob Cardew that he knows more than he’s telling?”
*
Anne had a surprise phone call in the office that afternoon. She had been round at the HQ barn again. One of the girls had reported in feeling dizzy. The wall thermometer was reading in the upper thirties. Anne had spread a picnic blanket out in the spinney and had left the girl lying in the shade to cool off. She was filling trays for ice cubes in the office fridge when her mobile began warbling.
“Danny, hi!”
“Am I interrupting your work?”
“That’s okay. Marnie loosens the chains from time to time. How’s things?”
“I’ve been going over stuff for the new course and I’m getting a bit bored. It’s too hot to sit around reading.”
“D’you want to come up here?”
“Could I?”
“No probs.”
“There’s a coach to Milton Keynes on Saturday morning.”
“Give me the ETA and I’ll pick you up.”
Minutes later Anne was crossing the courtyard on her way to cottage number three when the mobile trilled again.
“Hi! Having second thoughts?”
Silence.
“Hallo?”
“It’s Donovan.”
“Ah, I thought … Never mind. How’s you?”
“Coming on.”
“Mutti still looking after you?”
A chuckle. “Could say that. What about you?”
“Slogging on, as usual.”
“You were expecting someone else when I rang.”
“My friend Danny’s coming up for the weekend.”
“And you were worried that he’d changed his mind?”
“She, Danielle, school friend.”
“Right. Look, I’m still not up to travelling, but I’m weaning myself off the crutches. Could you keep an eye on the boat for maybe another week?”
“Donovan, you’re not going to be fit enough to run a boat in a week, especially for a solo run down to London. Unless … how good a crew member would Uschi make?”
“Is a joke, ja? She’s a great nursemaid, but not in the running for Tugboat Annie.”
“Pardon?” Mock offended. “Tugboat Annie? Would that be me, by any chance?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of … I mean, I didn’t mean …” Laughter.
“So what did you mean?”
“You know what I meant.”
“You want to know if the boat’s all right. That’s why you phoned?”
“Partly. How’s the dig going?”
“Never a dull moment. I’ve never seen so many people around us at any one time.”
“Strangers?” No laughter in the voice now.
“I’m getting to know them. They’re mostly students, nice people.”
A pause. “Anne, make sure you know them all by sight and be aware of any newcomers who turn up.”
