Digging Deeper

by Barbara Elsborg

  * * * * *

  Henry went to close the curtains in the bedroom and froze. There was something in his field and it wasn’t a person. It moved on all fours and had a long pale tail. Too big to be a cat. He pressed his nose against the glass. He’d heard rumors about the beast of Ilkley Moor but had always dismissed them as superstitious rubbish. In any case Ilkley Moor lay the other side of the valley. Just then, whatever prowled his land, reared up on its hind legs and Henry dragged the curtains across the window and staggered back to slump on the bed.

  “Whatever’s the matter?” Celia looked up from one of her romance paperbacks and glared.

  “Nothing.” If he told Celia she’d make him go out with the shotgun and he’d rather jump in bed, even though it was with her, and pull the covers over his head.

  Flick stood up to stretch her aching back and surveyed her handiwork. She hoped it met with Beck’s approval. Not that he’d ever know she’d done it. She crept back to her car, jealous of what they’d be doing for the next few weeks because even though most of their time would be spent sifting through piles of dirt, there was a chance of uncovering something exciting.

  The weird thing was that Paris and Hilton were the reason Flick found the Samian fragment that brought Beck to the Hall. Paris had grabbed the squeaky mouse attached to Flick’s key ring, wrenched the keys from her fingers and bolted off with Hilton in pursuit. Flick had caught Paris digging a hole for her treasure and the red pottery simply lay there in the soil.

  Flick had known instantly it was Samian and understood the significance. She’d given it to Henry, but not thought much more about it other than wishing she could dig up the field in case a few valuable coins awaited discovery. When she’d found out Yorkshire University students were coming to do a summer dig, Flick wondered if Henry regretted she’d spotted it.

  She’d always thought the artifact side of her history course at Birmingham had been more interesting than discussions on things like how the English Civil War affected pig breeding. Handling real historical pieces made Flick feel she was as close as she could get to an understanding of how people had lived and fought and loved. A truth lay in 64

  Digging Deeper

  physical remnants of a bygone age that was impossible to feel from words. But Flick did everything so fast, she wasn’t sure she had the patience for archaeology. By the time she got home, Josh and Kirsten were asleep and the house looked neat and tidy. Flick knew she was lucky. They paid their rent directly into her bank account, settled their share of the bills without query, didn’t fight over who ate whose food and they were good company. When she remembered the house she’d shared in Birmingham, Flick shuddered. The roof leaked and mold gradually developed everywhere as water pouring in met the rising damp halfway up the stairs. Flick often had to dry her duvet with a hair drier before she could go to bed. She’d shared with three guys who’d devised a juvenile game called “Find the dead mouse”. One of them, Flick suspected Justin, the one with gills and the room in the basement, had discovered a desiccated mouse in the shed and had hidden it in Pete’s trainer. Once it was found, it was hidden again. Flick hadn’t thought she was part of the game until she discovered the mouse at the bottom of her tub of margarine. The boys paid for that disgusting prank. Big-time.

  Flick bent over the sink to wash her face and wondered what Beck would say tomorrow when he saw the field. Might he guess it was her? Maybe if he spoke to her again, he’d smile and not scowl.

  65

  Barbara Elsborg

  Chapter Ten

  Dina was desperate. She’d steamed through her book of little hints and was running out of time to seduce Beck before Isobel arrived. Last night she’d kept topping up his wineglass over dinner and then slid into his bed while he’d been in the bathroom cleaning his teeth. Make it impossible for him to say no. But when he’d seen her, he wouldn’t even come into the room. This morning she’d emerged for breakfast wearing her see-through top and he hadn’t even blinked. Matt, on the other hand, had tipped his milk all over his bacon and eggs. He’d still eaten them. When they reached the dig and found it had all been taped out again, Dina had been tempted to claim the credit. No one admitted doing it, and she half-opened her mouth before deciding she didn’t want to get caught in a lie and instead tried to look coy without actually saying anything. She hoped she fooled Beck.

  * * * * *

  Beck dreaded being in the house. He felt relatively safe from Dina while they were out in the field but he’d had enough of the fluttering eyelashes, strategic brushing of limbs against his and the see-through clothes. He hadn’t missed the constipated cat look on Dina’s face when he asked who’d returned to tape out the dig. He thought she was the least likely to have gone back on her own at night, and if she had, she’d have made damn sure he knew it was her. She was making life uncomfortable for everyone. He decided as soon as Isobel arrived he’d take Giles up on his offer and move into the gatehouse with him and Willow.

  It was another morning of slow progress. Matt and Ross nursed hangovers and worked at the speed of comatose koalas. Dina spent thirty minutes doing her exercises and then cried for another fifteen when she broke a fingernail. Beck was tempted to shoot her and put her out of her misery. When he went to fetch a spade from the van, he returned to find Matt and Ross asleep in the tent and Dina lying in the sun in her bikini, reading a book. Beck thought it was unlikely that Their Last Sizzling Summer would add to her knowledge of Roman artifacts.

  Eventually he cajoled them all into working. He’d just settled into writing chapter seven, where his hero discovered his girlfriend was the latest victim of the serial killer, when he heard screaming.

  “Oh God, I’ve been bitten. Oh God, help me, help me.”

  Beck rushed out of the tent. Matt danced around, howling and clutching his hand to his chest. There were adders on the moor so Beck kept his eyes peeled as he ran over.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  66

  Digging Deeper

  The rest of the group tiptoed around, scouring the ground.

  “Stand still everyone. Which way did it go?” Beck had no fondness for snakes but he didn’t want anyone to step on it.

  “It’s still there.”

  Beck registered a large worm but was looking for an anaconda. His gaze moved on, scanned the surrounding area and then moved back to the worm.

  “Where did it bite you?” He took hold of Matt’s trembling arm. Matt was almost hyperventilating. “I-I…”

  “Calm down. Breathe slowly. In. Out. You’re going to be fine. Now, where did it bite you?”

  “Didn’t…actually…bite,” Matt gulped. “Sort…of…slithered on me.”

  “It’s a worm.” Jane looked down. “Worms don’t bite.”

  “I’m…helminthophobic,” Matt mumbled.

  “What? What the hell does that mean?” Beck yelled. “You were supposed to tell me all your medical stuff.”

  “Acute fear of worms,” Matt gasped.

  Ross and Dina burst out laughing. Beck turned and glared. “Dina, perhaps you’d like to pick up the worm and throw it well away from Matt.”

  “I’m not touching it. I must be hell-minty-phobic too,” she said.

  “Helminthophobic,” Matt whispered.

  “Whatever.” Dina walked off.

  As Pravit picked it up, Matt gagged. Beck took him into the tent, sat him down and talked to him quietly for a few minutes until he was calm again. He wondered how Matt thought he’d survive archaeology with an acute fear of worms. This was the slowest group Beck had ever led. He now understood why Matt had done so little. He’d watched him using a teaspoon to move minute quantities of soil and put his caution down to thoroughness, not sheer terror. Dina was so determined not to get her nails dirty she’d taken to wearing a pair of washing up gloves, but they were far too large and fell off when she reached down. Ross had dug a bigger hole than any of the others but if there had been anything significant to find, it was likely burie
d in the mound of earth he’d excavated and in more pieces than previously. Only Pravit and Jane worked in the way Beck hoped for, both methodical and careful. Having loosened the dirt in their sector with trowels, they used brushes to sweep it aside. Jane had found the rusty screw that cut Flick’s knee and was about to bag and catalogue it until Beck had told her not to bother. He hoped Flick was up to date with her tetanus, and made a mental note to ask her as his gaze wandered up the manicured lawns to the hall. When would he see her again?

  They’d found nothing of interest so far, and although it came as no surprise to Beck, he knew the team had expected to uncover a terracotta army in the first hour, possibly 67

  Barbara Elsborg

  the first day, and if not by then, certainly on the second day. So had Celia, and she kept popping down to check on their progress. Beck hoped Flick would reappear, with or without biscuits, though preferably not with the dogs, but there had been no sign of her. He’d really blown it. She wasn’t listed in the telephone directory. He wondered if Giles knew her number. Yet even as he thought it, he didn’t want Flick to be in Giles’ little book.

  By the middle of the afternoon, everyone had wilted. It was a blazing hot day and tempers were frayed. Ross had showered Dina in dirt with his enthusiastic digging style, the result of which was a hissy fit that lasted ages, and that was from Ross after Dina thumped him. Every few minutes Pravit made a circuit around everyone’s patch before returning to his own, collecting worms in a bucket and Beck was impressed with his kindness until he came over to ask if they had any retail value. Matt caught sight of the wriggling mass and threw up in the hole he’d just dug. Beck made Pravit dump the worms in the wood.

  As Beck wrote in the tent, he could hear the grumbles.

  “I wish I’d gone to Italy,” Dina said. “I could have been in the pool.”

  “This isn’t a holiday,” Jane pointed out.

  “No, but it’s a waste of time,” Matt said. “We haven’t even found anything worth washing yet.”

  “Do you include yourself in that?” Dina asked.

  Then she squealed. Beck didn’t want to guess what Matt had done. He came out of the tent and they all tried to look busy doing nothing.

  “How would you like to go swimming?” he asked.

  “Oh, oh, oh, oh, yes, yes.” Dina jumped up and down.

  “He said swimming, not shopping,” Jane said.

  Beck noticed Jane’s reluctance, but by the time they got back to the house to pick up their costumes and towels, Pravit had talked her around and they all gathered by the van.

  * * * * *

  Flick looked longingly at the water and passed a handful of change to the small boy in front of her kiosk. The ice-cream she’d given him already dripped down his hand and he’d smeared his chest with raspberry sauce. Hopefully his mother wouldn’t think he’d been stabbed, although by the time he’d decided what he wanted, Flick had longed to do just that. Now she had a huge queue and she could see Roger, the lido manager, walking in her direction.

  “Sorry you’ve had to wait,” Roger apologized. “Speed up, Felicity. It’s too hot to keep people standing around.”

  “I need nuts,” the man in front of her complained.

  68

  Digging Deeper

  “Sorry.” Flick took the ice-cream from his hand. She could feel Roger glaring at her.

  * * * * *

  Jane had bought her costume especially for this dig. She normally took a size sixteen but it had been far too tight and cut so high on the leg it made her look deformed. She’d kept trying larger and larger sizes and eventually settled on a size twenty-two. It was crazy and she’d never ever tell anyone, but it had fit like a dream. The straps weren’t trying to drag her shoulders down to her knees. The slinky material covered all of her bottom and the top of her thighs. It made her look taller and slimmer. The first thing she’d done when she got home was cut off the label and throw it in the dustbin. No one would ever know.

  Once she saw Dina in her tiny pink bikini, Jane’s confidence fizzled and evaporated with a pop. Dina had worn a different costume every day and they grew smaller and tighter. She used every break on the dig to top up her tan and each time she stripped off, Ross and Matt got immediate erections, something they treated as a competitive sport. Dina stood looking at Beck as though she wanted to eat him. The fact that he’d resisted all Dina’s moves made Jane admire him all the more. Jane pulled her large blue sarong more tightly around her.

  “Let’s all jump in together,” Dina said.

  Jane watched Dina elbow Pravit out of the way so she could stand next to Beck. She reluctantly pulled off her sarong, joined the line and jumped first. Cold didn’t begin to describe the temperature of the water. Jane expected it to be chilly but she came up gasping, wondering why the surface hadn’t iced over. It seemed Dina had abandoned her plans to grab hold of Beck because she’d shot out of the water like a bullet, followed by a shivering Matt.

  Jane wanted to get out too but she’d expected to perform that maneuver out of sight of the others when she’d swum across the pool. As she swam she’d become aware that her costume seemed to be moving down her body. Jane struggled to the side clutching the straps at her neck with one hand and tucked her feet on the ledge, pressing her chest against the wall of the pool.

  “Come and swim.” Pravit bobbed at her back. “Let’s go down to the shallow end.”

  “Later. I’m er…exercising,” Jane said, relieved when he swam over to Ross. What could she do? She needed her towel.

  * * * * *

  Flick served her last customer and closed up the kiosk. She’d completely run out of ice-creams so there was nothing to return to the central freezer. Trevor, the lido manager’s son, had collected the money so she’d done for the day. Flick gazed at the water but decided not to go in. More important to paint her room. 69

  Barbara Elsborg

  As she walked past the pool she saw an unhappy face looking up at her. She recognized the girl as one of Beck’s team and bent down.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No. I’m freezing.” Her teeth chattered.

  “Get out then.”

  “I can’t. My costume’s stretching. It’s getting bigger and bigger. If I climb out it’ll stay behind in the pool. I don’t know what to do.”

  The girl sounded close to wailing point.

  “Where’s your towel?”

  “It’s the green one over there with the big pile of bags.”

  “Hang on.” Flick ran over, grabbed the towel and rushed back. She bent down, trying to help her get out of the water, when someone caught hold of the other end of the towel. Flick looked up in surprise.

  “Let go,” the blonde pencil snarled.

  “No,” Flick snapped. “You let go.”

  “Dina, don’t,” came the plaintive voice from the edge of the pool. Right in the middle of the tug-of-war, Dina did let go. Flick flew backward, colliding with someone as she toppled into the water. Flick went straight down with the weight of another person on top of her. She scraped her arm on the bottom, kicked her way to the surface and emerged to find herself face-to-face with Beck.

  “You. I might have guessed,” he sputtered in fury.

  As Beck hoisted himself out, Flick realized she wasn’t the only one dressed and her heart sank. She levered herself on to the side and stood up.

  “Sorry,” she said, as he stood glaring.

  At the edge of her vision, Flick saw Roger approaching at warp speed. Trevor had wasted no time in running to tell his father. Beck held up his wallet and water dripped out. Then he took out his mobile phone. Water dripped out of that, too and Flick began to wish she’d drowned.

  “I’m terribly sorry about this, sir. We’ve plenty of towels inside. If your phone is damaged we’ll put in an insurance claim.”

  “It was an accident,” Flick said.

  “Excuse me a moment, sir.” Roger took Flick by the shoulder and pulled her to one side.
>
  “What a lovely shirt, Roger. Is it new?”

  “I’ve had enough. Don’t bother coming back.”

  Flick removed his hand from her shoulder. “Look, I didn’t do it delib—”

  “I don’t care,” Roger snapped at her. “You can’t just knock people into the pool.”

  70

  Digging Deeper

  She closed her eyes for a moment, tired of people blaming her when it wasn’t her fault. Flick glanced to check no one stood in the way and then pushed Roger in. A collective roar of astonishment surged from the crowd and then a trickle of laughter. She waited until he came to the surface and said, “But that wasn’t an accident, Roger. I did it deliberately and for the record, I resign.”

  “I sacked you first,” he yelled.

  Flick seethed. Trevor had been angling for her job for weeks, ever since he’d gotten fed up with pushing shopping carts at the supermarket. She sloshed through the parking lot, shaking with indignation. Beck could have said something. He surely didn’t think she’d pushed him in on purpose, then thrown herself in too, somehow managing to get underneath him, so she hit the bottom and not him. But he’d just stood there like a stupid lemon.

  When she reached her car, Flick stripped to her underwear and dropped her wet clothes into the passenger foot well, turning to glare at the guys in a passing car who sent her two piercing wolf-whistles.

  Why did it have to be Beck she’d knocked in? What did life have against her? Oh look, Flick, here’s the man of your dreams. Now let’s see how many ways you can find to make him hate you. Oh yes, dozens.

  71

  Barbara Elsborg

  Chapter Eleven

  Flick drove over to Hartington Hall at Henry’s request. It was Celia’s birthday and she’d made a last minute decision to go to York. Flick was in charge of Gertrude. What joy!

  “I hope it’s not too much of an imposition,” Henry said. “Gertrude specifically asked for you.”

  “No, it’s fine, Baresches.” Flick smiled, thinking sticking her tongue in a mousetrap held more appeal.