The Way, the Truth and the Dead

by Francis Pryor

  ‘Right, we’ve heard from Alan what the project has to offer archaeologically and I think it’s fair to say we’re all very excited at its potential. Now, as you may know, T2 has been flatlining in its audience share …’

  He was interrupted by Speed Talbot. ‘Ah, so that’s what we call decline, these days …’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Weinstein admitted. ‘Speed’s right, their audience share has actually been dropping very slowly, and they’re planning what their PR people are describing as a multistranded offensive, where two new celeb-focused reality shows will appeal to the 18–35 demographic while we take the message to the more upwardly mobile As and Bs, and of course the over-35s. The emphasis of the new approach, which they’re styling “Come Alive with T2”, will be on live coverage wherever possible. It launches with the new season, not in September, but at Easter. Again T2 are trying to outwit the opposition.’

  ‘And do you think it’ll work?’ Alan was sceptical.

  ‘What the moving of the start of the new season, or the new initiative?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know. But they’ve got to try something radical or they’ll be going out of business in five years.’

  Something was worrying Alan. ‘But surely, I thought they were supposed to be a public service broadcaster. Don’t they have at least some obligation to produce good programmes?’

  ‘They do, Alan, which is why they’re putting so much faith in us. We provide their credibility, not just with the public, but with the government too.’

  ‘So all these bright new ideas won’t affect the quality of our output. You’re not planning for us to dumb down?’

  Alan was aware that the words ‘dumb down’ were like a red rag to a bull as far as media executives were concerned. But what he was hearing was worrying him a lot.

  ‘I think it might help if I explained what we’ve been discussing together, Lew.’ It was Frank Jones. Everyone turned to him and Weinstein nodded for him to continue. ‘I think there is a widely held misconception that live television is somehow less intelligent than more conventional documentary shows. And, sure, that can sometimes be the case. I’ve seen some live TV that made me cringe, but I’ve also seen some docs that were frankly stupid: they were either misleading or else told you nothing. I call them “wallpaper docs” in a film I made for US World View.’

  Weinstein, Speed, Craig and Tricia exchanged significant glances. Alan had never heard of it.

  But Frank was still speaking. ‘The way I was taught to see things in the States, the live element in a show was the means whereby you linked the show’s content to the audience. It was a way of providing relevance for the here and now, because people at home are aware that during a live broadcast the people on the screen are just as vulnerable as them. So when you make, say, an archaeological discovery, even quite minor finds become more important.’ Alan could see he was warming to his subject. ‘More to the point,’ he continued, ‘they immediately identify with the new discovery, even though they hadn’t actually revealed it. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that they were there when it was found. I’ve even heard members of focus group audiences taking ownership of certain things, describing them as “my” dog jaw or jug handle after they had seen one of our live digs on TV. And I think that sense of individual proprietorship is very important. In effect, it’s giving people back their own past.’

  This was stirring stuff. Frank had captivated the small group around the table. Even Alan felt moved and not a little fed up that he hadn’t delivered his earlier summary with more passion. He realised that he would have to up his game, if, that is, he wanted to compete with Frank – and probably with Tricia too.

  ‘That is so inspirational, Frank,’ Tricia was plainly very moved. ‘So you don’t see any possible live element as an end in its own right – as something put there to boost ratings?’

  ‘No, I most certainly don’t,’ he replied, his face a picture of serious concentration. ‘In fact, I wouldn’t work for anyone who suggested such a thing. No, if we do go live—’

  Weinstein interrupted. ‘Forgive me breaking in, Frank, but the reason I was a few minutes late after coffee was that Charles phoned me. He told me that the programme director at T2 had given him the go-ahead to commission six half-hour live shows to be screened during March, with additional and near-continuous coverage on 2-Much.’

  2-Much was the digital and Internet channel owned and operated by T2.

  ‘So forgive me, Lew,’ Alan asked, ‘but will the live shows go out first, because if they do, surely we’ll need to have some sort of initial scene-setting, won’t we?’

  Weinstein was smiling. ‘No, don’t worry Alan, it won’t be like that at all. The mini-series will start with two standard fifty minute documentaries, which will be screened at peak viewing times, probably in late February or March.’

  ‘Phew,’ Speed interjected. ‘That’ll keep the Avid Suites red hot.’

  The Avid Suites were the digital equivalent of the cutting rooms of celluloid film studios.

  ‘Guess I’d better sharpen my trowel – and my wits.’ Alan was stunned. There was so much to think about.

  * * *

  As he made his way back to King’s Cross Station, Alan couldn’t help wondering whether that huge amount of televised scrutiny would merely produce platitudes about the distant past – whereas he was after truthful insight. He’d only been working at Fursey for a few weeks, but already he was growing suspicious. Too many people with widely differing motives were involved. And the all-pervading culture of respect for the Cripps family did nothing to encourage free communication, either at Fursey Abbey or indeed in the village, among the estate workforce or local tenants. He was becoming increasingly convinced that when the cameras arrived and media pressure began to increase, other things would soon become apparent. People’s motives would become clearer. Ambitions would be harder to conceal. Maybe the veneer of upper-class politeness that concealed so much of Cripps family life would begin to crack. But he also knew it wouldn’t happen without help. Without his constant prodding – and alert observation. Ideas were tumbling around in his head. He found he had stopped walking and was standing, stock still, in the middle of the pavement, staring up into the dripping branches of a young plane tree.

  He’d got it.

  He now understood his role. It would be simple. Whatever he might think about what was happening in front of the cameras, his job was to stay there, come what may: to stir the waters and observe the scum that floated to the surface. Eventually some of it would probably be relevant to Stan’s death. If his experience of television had taught him anything, it was that the cameras hastened change: events that would normally have taken years to evolve happened in a few hours. His task was to stay and note down and observe everything that took place around him. It was something that Stan was so good at – as those meticulously observant card index boxes demonstrated. He now realised he was in a uniquely privileged position – and he mustn’t blow it. He mustn’t let his old friend down.

  He thought for a moment about Stan sitting at his desk, with everything sorted and in order around him. What had been going through his mind? Was it all routine work, or was he on the verge of something much bigger? A major discovery? If he was going to do his friend justice, Alan was now acutely aware that he had to up his game. He couldn’t muddle through this case as he had done in the past. Things were going to be far more complex: more people, more events, more public attention, more motives and more opportunities to conceal or commit evil. Big productions bring big facilities: helicopters, hydraulic towers, powerful diggers, drones. And all of these could be abused. He would have to be focused and disciplined. And persistent, too: like a Jack Russell terrier with a live rat, he must hang on – regardless. There was so much at stake and it seemed to Alan inevitable that someone would reveal his, or her, hand. His task now was to make sure he was there when it happened.

  Survival, he realised wi
th a growing chill, would now be the name of his game.

  Five

  It had been a long, wet winter and even January, which Alan knew from his childhood on his family’s small farm in ­Lincolnshire, could often be dry, if cold, was starting with rain. The previous week the contractors working on the new Fursey farm shop and restaurant had got a forklift, carrying a pallet-load of roof tiles, stuck when it dropped a wheel off the concrete floor of the old pig yard. To make matters worse, building inspectors, on one of their routine site visits, had parked on the environmentally friendly cellular plastic car park surface, which covered most of the open space between the old reed barn, the pig yard and Abbey Farmhouse, where John, Candice and Barty lived. The cellular car park surface had been the last word in what today would be called eco-friendly car park solutions when Barty had had it installed in the late ’80s.

  Alan had been preparing to leave for a bite of lunch at the pub when the large, low-slung car from County Hall arrived on-site. It had been raining hard all week and Alan had thought it wisest to leave his Fourtrak on a corner of the pig yard, well out of the way. But not so these important officials, who drove straight onto the cellular matting – which promptly gave way. And hence today’s meeting. After the incident, which involved several pairs of shiny black shoes getting covered with sticky alluvial mud, all visitors to the site, petting farm and abbey were being accommodated on the concrete surface of the old pig yard, which now sported some rather narrow, but freshly-painted parking spaces.

  The site office was housed in a Victorian implement store attached to the reed barn, which Barty had converted in the late ’70s when he and Molly were setting up the original Abbey Farm Shop. Now it had to be reached by a duckboard walkway from the reed barn. As so often seemed to be the case, Alan was the last to arrive. Once inside the office, ­Candice introduced him to the two officials from County Hall, a planner and Clare Hughes from development control, who had offered to help Alan publish Stan’s papers at the wake. Alan knew she was no fool. Although still quite young, and unlike most of her contemporaries, Clare had actually worked in a contracting unit, so was able to appreciate their problems. But on the downside, it also meant she could see through most of their bullshit.

  Candice began the meeting. ‘First, let me apologise for John not being here, but he had a prior engagement with the bank in London.’

  This sounded very impressive, but Alan was surprised that she felt it necessary to apologise at all: she was, after all, a partner in the Fursey enterprise.

  ‘I would also like to apologise for that unfortunate business last week. I do hope your people weren’t too badly affected. We had no idea the cellular car park would be so wet. It’s never, ever, been like that before. I’m sure it’s just the rain.’

  Far from being made to look a fool by her collapsing car park, Alan admired the way she had used it to keep control. Her poise was remarkable.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure, Mrs Cripps,’ the planner interjected. ‘We’ve come across this sort of thing before. Those cellular surfaces are wonderful and generally very effective, especially on well-drained surfaces such as sand and gravel. But they often encounter problems on heavy clay soils and particularly when patterns of use intensify, as is happening here. I’m pleased to hear that your visitor numbers are doing well.’

  ‘Thank you, yes they are.’ Candice was suitably gracious. ‘So it would seem we’ve no alternative but to put down a more durable—’

  ‘And drainable,’ the planner added. Unnecessarily, Alan thought.

  ‘Indeed, and drainable, surface,’ Candice continued, undaunted. ‘But we’ve had contractors visit the site and they are most insistent that we remove all the surface clay, right down to the gravel subsoil. They don’t think we need go any further, provided we lay a geo … a geo …’

  ‘A permeable geotextile sheet.’ This time the planner’s intervention was welcomed.

  Next she turned Clare. ‘And what are the archaeological implications of doing that?’

  Clare pulled a face. She had no idea. ‘I think Alan here, is the best person to ask.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Alan began, ‘if Stan’s survey is correct, the clay alluvium is pretty even across the area of the cellular surface, but perhaps a little thicker to the north, towards the old pig sheds – but not much, maybe three inches. Then below that is the buried soil that was in existence prior to the widespread flooding of the third century AD. So that’s going to be very important and will require close attention, although there shouldn’t be any need to excavate down into features below it, unless, of course, they’re filled with alluvium, too. But then you’d want to get rid of that anyhow.’

  ‘So how long will that take you?’ Candice asked.

  ‘That depends on the team I can assemble at such short notice, but I can’t see it being finished in under six weeks. Maybe ten. It just depends on what we find.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Candice said with a hint of anxiety, ‘we’ve got a big opening ceremony planned for the Easter holiday.’ She paused to check the date on her phone. ‘Which is the weekend of 22 to 25 April. The contractors reckon it’ll take two weeks to do the job and they’d like to allow another week for line-painting and consolidation. So your deadline is the end of March. Can you do it?’

  The question was posed to Alan, but to everyone’s surprise Clare answered. ‘I don’t think that’s up to Alan, Mrs Cripps. We at County Hall decide when and if the car park can be built, and Alan has to satisfy us that the archaeology has been properly dealt with.’

  Blimey, Alan thought, that was a bit strong. Even for a county mounty. But still, he had to concede, it did need saying.

  * * *

  The car from the county council was heading down the drive, when Candice turned to Alan. ‘Are all the county people like her?’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry, Candice. I think her bark is worse than her bite. I’ve worked with her on several jobs and never had a problem.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s hope it was a one-off. So tell me what you honestly think: can we meet the deadline?’

  Alan shrugged. ‘I’ll be frank. Normally I’d say yes. In fact, six to ten weeks would easily be enough on most sites, but we’re on an island here, plus there’s a known Iron Age presence and just over there’ – he nodded towards the abbey ruins – ‘is an important Benedictine monastery. So I honestly don’t know. But as we don’t have to excavate any features below the palaeosol—’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Sorry, the ancient pre-flooding topsoil layer. If we had to dig them as well, I’d say that six months wouldn’t be long enough for a site of this size.’

  By now Candice was looking very anxious. Outside the office the watery sun had retreated behind cloud and light rain was beginning to fall. Alan looked across at Candice. She was obviously determined to make a go of the Fursey enterprise, although Alan wasn’t altogether certain how much real help her husband John was actually providing. But he could see she was determined, and that worried him. A determined woman was not what you wanted when you were trying to prise open a tightly-knit family. Increasingly he realised that poor, gentle Stan would have been no match for her.

  ‘You may well have guessed, Alan,’ she had now adopted a quieter, more confidential tone, ‘that John and I have invested a substantial sum of borrowed money and a lot of ourselves in this project. But I think we knew more or less what we were doing, until, that is, we came across archaeology. Neither of us really understand anything about it, which is why, of course, we invited Peter Flower to join the board of our company back in 2006.’

  Hmm, Alan thought, I’d have chosen someone with some practical experience. But instead, he asked about their company. ‘That’s Fursey Heritage Developments Ltd?’

  ‘That’s right, FHD.’ She paused briefly. ‘John, Barty and I set it up the previous year, when John was starting to become more closely involved in the estate and realised that the farm shop and restaurant were
not very tax efficient and the petting farm was potentially missing out on huge tourism grants. So, using the abbey ruins as an excuse, he was able to convince the Charity Commission that part of the organisation – the Fursey Heritage Trust – should be registered as an official charity. As a result, FHD now pays a proportion of its gross profits to the charity, tax-free.’

  ‘That’s quite a complex arrangement.’ Alan had come across similar set-ups elsewhere, and they didn’t always operate very efficiently. ‘And does it work well?’

  ‘Yes, very well. But you’ve got to understand that setting up companies like ours was meat and drink to John. He did it, indeed, he still does it, for a living. He has a large practice with offices in London and Cambridge.’

  Alan didn’t want her to think he was prying unnecessarily, but he had good reasons to find out more. Very often the organisation of family companies reflects the power structure of the people behind them.

  ‘So did he do his consultancies for all sorts of companies, or just ones like yours, in the heritage sector?’

  ‘Perhaps heritage is defining it a bit closely. No …’ She thought for a moment. ‘He’s interested in projects and companies that involve the public directly. So his firm advises several large theme parks, including Belton Towers and Madame Gaspard’s in London, not to mention Mrs Lipton’s Cave. But they also provide management services to at least one chain of pubs, a group of specialised cinemas and two franchises of high street betting shops.’

  ‘Gosh, that’s quite a portfolio. How does he find the time to do all that and still work here?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I do most of the day-to-day running of Fursey. Like this morning.’ She smiled. ‘The thing is, he has always enjoyed working in the corporate world and he’s very good at it. Ever since he was at Cambridge he has been closely involved with tourist attractions and that sort of thing. He enjoys the public side, too. In fact, strictly between ourselves, I was quite worried when he started to look into the running of betting shops and then found he was actually rather good at it.’