The Buried Circle (44 page)
A quarter of a mile on, another field gate appears, and Ed bumps the Land Rover onto the verge. I flip on the map light. ‘Damn. We’ve lost him. Those are barns, where he stopped–he must’ve turned there.’
Ed peers over my shoulder. ‘Oh, you can drive up that track.’
‘It’s marked as a bridlepath.’
‘Well, I’ve driven it with Graham. Twists and turns along the escarpment–fabulous views of the Wansdyke, and plenty of barrows.’ He backs into the gateway.
The absurdity of chasing nighthawks into the middle of nowhere hits me like a bucket of cold water. Beyond the barns, no other buildings are marked on the map for miles. ‘Sorry, Ed. Might as well go home. Should we call the police?’
‘You think they’d be arsed to leave the comfort of Devizes nick to chase a van that might be evil treasure-seekers but alternatively could be two gay gentlemen seeking outdoor fun? No.’ He swings the wheel and accelerates into the road, back towards the barns. ‘We’ve come this far, might as well see it through. We’ll get the van numberplate and report them in the morning.’
My feet are chilling by the second. ‘OK.’ Not my most confident, assertive OK. ‘Umm–keeping well out of sight?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ says Ed, sounding far too enthusiastic for my liking. ‘I’ll do the full commando bit and sneak up on them to take a photo with your phone.’
‘I didn’t bring it.’
‘And mine’s out of battery, so we’d never have been able to phone the police anyway, would we? Hold on, this is where we go off-road.’
How the white Transit negotiated the rutted track is beyond me. I’m amazed we haven’t yet come across its ripped-off exhaust. The Land Rover bounces and jolts, throwing me against Ed. He’s turned off the lights again: darkness has fallen now, but a bright three-quarter moon has lifted over the horizon, making it easy to see where we’re going. The track runs straight across a sloping field, then climbs steeply before skirting the summit of the hill.
‘I’m pretty sure there’s a barrow up there,’ says Ed. ‘Might not be the one they’re after, of course.’
I’m studying the map, with a slender Maglite from the glove compartment. ‘Barrows all over the place. D’you have to go so fast? We’ll catch them up if we’re not careful.’
We top the crest and begin the descent into a valley. On the other side, the headlights of the Transit are crawling up another rise. Ed slows to a standstill, and switches off the engine while I check the map again.
‘That’s Easton Down. A long barrow’s marked, and a couple of tumuli.’
Across the valley, the lights of the Transit wink out.
‘Where are they?’ I say uneasily. No sound reaches us from the other side of the valley.
‘They’ve stopped. I know exactly where they are–pilot instinct. Give ‘em a few minutes to sort themselves out, then we can risk creeping closer…’ Towards the top of the rise, torchbeams bob and weave, too far away to make any sense of what’s happening. Several minutes pass. Then the torches disappear over the starlit brow of the hill.
‘Right.’ Ed turns the key in the ignition. ‘We’ll take the Land Rover to the bottom, then walk from there.’ He edges the vehicle down the track and across the valley floor. ‘Maybe we
could
risk driving a little further…’ He revs as the slope suddenly steepens. ‘How the hell did they get that old heap up this?’ We shoot forward as the track levels. ‘I’ll park before we get too close–oops.’
The white Transit looms out of the darkness in front, a matter of metres away.
‘I thought you said you knew exactly where it was.’
‘Sorry. I’m better at this in the air.’ He turns off the engine. The sudden silence beats at our eardrums. The same thought strikes both of us simultaneously.
‘How far away do you think they are?’ I ask, in a low voice. ‘Within hearing distance?’
‘Only one way to find out.’ He opens the driver’s door and the overhead light comes on. ‘Shit. Not very good at this, are we? Still, with luck, they’ll be–’
The clang on the side of the Land Rover makes me jump. Ed, halfway out of the door, suddenly folds up. A furious Bristolian voice snarls, ‘What the flick you think yur doin’, my cocker?’
Oh, Lord.
My door is wrenched open, and somebody grabs my sleeve and hauls me out. A torchbeam blinds me.
‘Bugrit, Pete.’ The occasion calls for something stronger than
crikey
. ‘Issa girl.’ White-hot scars of light burn themselves into my retina as he waves the torch across my face, and drags me round the bonnet. When my vision clears, Ed’s on the ground in front of me, hands clasped to his midriff. Pete, the Man In Black, is standing over him, hefting a metal detector with both hands.
‘Doggers, probable.’ Pete waves the metal detector menacingly over Ed. Christ, he didn’t hit him with that, did he? He’ll have cracked a rib at least. ‘Durrty doggers. Followed us thinking they was followin’ a courtin’ couple they could spy on. Be disappointed tonight.’ He kicks Ed in the leg an inch or two above the knee, and Ed lets out a tight, hissy little noise. My heart’s pounding: this ought to have been funny, but these guys aren’t amusing at all: up close, they’re pathetic but scary at the same time.
Pete’s drawing back his leg for another kick, aiming higher up the thigh.
‘No,’
I say. ‘Can’t you stop him, Karl?’
‘Eh?’ Karl releases my arm in surprise. ‘Pete, she
knows our names’
.
Pete stares, foot drawn back for the next kick and something dangerous in his piggy eyes. I’ve probably made the situation a million times worse.
There’s a flurry of movement, a shout, and suddenly it’s Pete on the ground, clutching his shoulder and grunting through clenched teeth. ‘You tosser, you’ve dislocated my fuckin’–’
Ed’s getting to his feet, using the metal detector he’s pulled out of Pete’s hands as a kind of crutch.
‘Crikey’
, he says, making the word grate. ‘My heart bleeds. You, you bastard, were about to kick me in the balls–what d’you think I’m going to do, lie back and wait for you to get on with it? Indy, get in the Land Rover. No, driver’s side.’
Karl backs away towards the Transit, hands in the air. Ed waves the metal detector threateningly at him. I climb into the Land Rover.
‘Key in the ignition,’ says Ed. ‘Turn it. Headlights on.’ The engine throbs and the scene springs to dramatic life, Karl flattening himself against the Transit doors, terrified, the other man still on the ground, trying to push himself one-handed onto his knees. ‘Now put her in reverse. Let the clutch out–no,
not yet
, wait till I say go, then straight backwards, if you please.’
In the wing mirror, I watch him walk round the back, carrying the metal detector. He emerges on the other side, his hands empty.
‘OK, Indy.’ He grins at me through the windscreen. ‘Your turn. Go.’
I grasp the gear stick, hesitate, then shove it back into neutral, turning off the engine. I don’t want to be the one to do this.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I…can’t.’ I hand him the keys through the open window. Impossible to explain my reluctance, and the sudden queasiness that has swept over me.
Ed gives me a puzzled stare, lets me climb out, then gets into the driver’s seat. Karl shrinks away as I approach the white van, eyes like a spooked horse’s. He really isn’t very bright, I realize–possibly even has learning difficulties.
‘Is that
your
metal detector?’ I ask him. ‘Not his?’
Karl nods nervously. ‘Pete’s is still in the van.’
‘Hang on,’ I call to Ed. ‘Don’t…’
But he doesn’t hear me because the engine catches. The Land Rover moves backwards, and the back wheels crunch on something solid. Then the vehicle comes forward again, with another sick-making splintering crunch. Ed turns off the engine, climbs down, and walks to the back to look. ‘Don’t think the Man In Black will be detecting much Bronze Age treasure with that.’
‘What the flick you on about?’ says Pete, clambering awkwardly to his feet, still clutching his damaged shoulder. ‘That’s criminal fticking damage. Could sue you. We got rights.’
‘Not to dig up ancient monuments.’
‘Ancient monuments?’ says Karl, next to me.
Ed pulls a phone out of his pocket–the phone that has no charge. ‘And don’t pretend this is innocent because I took a photo when you stopped at Yatesbury. Any more aggro and it’s going straight to English Heritage and the landowner, van numberplate, the lot.’
‘We didn’ touch a thing at Yatesbury,’ says Pete. He limps towards the passenger door of the Transit, rubbing his shoulder. ‘Never even had the detectors out. ‘Sides, what were
you
doin’ at Yatesbury if you aren’t after same as us?’
‘You wouldn’t have found much there.’ My legs are trembling. ‘It’s an airfield. The ground’s full of old metal so you’d never’ve been able to pinpoint antiquities.’ I touch Karl’s arm and whisper, ‘Sorry.’
In the headlights, Pete gives me a withering glare.
‘Who said anything about antiquities? Course it’s a fucking airfield, you daft cow, that’s what we were fucking there for. We’re into aviation archaeology’
‘You’re shivering,’ says Ed, as the white Transit turns awkwardly and bumps down the track, taking Pete and Karl back to Bristol, probably via the nearest A and E. ‘Jump in the Land Rover, and start the heater. It’s the one thing that does work efficiently in this vehicle.’
I haul myself into the driver’s seat and turn on the engine. Hot air blasts out of the vents. ‘I wish we hadn’t done that. They were harmless.’
‘Harmless? He hit me with a metal detector, for God’s sake. They deserved it.’
‘Karl didn’t. He was just some poor slow-witted kid, and it was his metal detector you crushed. It didn’t belong to the bloke who hit you.’
‘Hmm.’ Ed turns and gazes at the retreating taillights. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that. Though if everything was so sweet and innocent, why are they doing it in the dark?’ He leans in and rubs my thigh absent-mindedly. ‘And the Man In Black was remarkably easily pacified, wasn’t he? Shouted a bit, but pissed off exceeding quick. Threw everything in the back of the Transit and fled. They were twitchy at Yatesbury too.’
‘You think they’re the ones responsible for Frannie’s lights on Windmill Hill, after all?’
‘No, no. The aviation-archaeology line had the ring of truth. Only…no airfield up here on Easton Down that I’ve ever heard of. And I know all the Wiltshire airfields. Even the ones that closed down years ago. So what were they looking for?’ He pokes me in the ribs. ‘If you’ve warmed up a bit, you going to move out of that seat and let me drive?’
‘We’d be far safer with me driving.’
‘Bollocks. Get out.’
Obediently, I step down to walk round the bonnet, where insects dance in the headlight beams.
Ed stands in my way. ‘I’ve had a better thought.’ His fingers wander down the side of my face, across my lips, under my chin, hook themselves into the V-neck of my T-shirt and tug gently. ‘How about rough sex in the open air?’
Funny, the same thought was going through my mind.
Although, as the airman at the dinner predicted, Donald Cromley had been posted back to his squadron in early November, all that autumn and winter I couldn’t rid myself of the notion he was following me. I knew the squadron was still in Kent, because Davey was with them now, his letters frequent as ever, full of his hopes for the eventual move to Colerne, which kept being postponed. But sometimes when I walked on the Ridgeway, I’d be sure I’d heard another step. I’d whip round to see the track empty behind me, a long white tongue licking the darkening Downs. The beech leaves reddened, crisped, fell, and turned to a brown sludge. Frost hardened the ruts. The journey home to Avebury each night seemed longer and longer. This year, if there was an air-raid warning and I missed the bus, or if I was fire-watching, there was no Davey along the road at Wroughton to run me home in his steel-roofed Baby Austin. More than once, I made a nest of blankets borrowed from the nurses and slept on the floor at the hospital.
If Mr Cromley hadn’t forced me out of Avebury, that winter would. January ‘42 was a black, icy month. So was the beginning of February. One of the nurses was getting married, and giving up her room in Swindon Old Town to go and live with her fianc’s parents. I had a couple of hours to spare between the end of work and the start of my fire watch, and I agreed to meet Nell when her shift finished, to walk back to her lodgings and be introduced to the landlady. I was still reluctant to move into town, but I knew it was the sensible thing to do.
Everyone else in the almoner’s office had left for the evening. I’d already put on my coat and turned out the light when I realized I’d forgotten to deliver some discharge papers to the sister on Orthopaedics. It was bright enough by the moonlight pouring through the sash windows to see them on the desk; I picked them up with a little shiver, thinking I’d been lucky so far on fire watch but that tonight was what they used to call a bomber’s moon. Bombers were flying all weathers by then, no reason to think they’d be more likely tonight than any other, but that moon filled me with superstitious dread.
My shoes squeaked on the polished lino as I walked down the empty corridor. The hospital was never asleep, but some nights, like tonight, it seemed to be holding its breath. Swindon, with its railway yards and the Vickers aircraft works at South Marston, was bound to get it bad eventual, and maybe this would be the time. Not long ago there’d been a raid on Kembrey Street, where the Plessey factory was, only Jerry had missed that and blown a row of houses to bits instead.
Ahead of me, the thump of double doors announced I wasn’t the only person left in the building. A telephone rang unanswered in an office somewhere; on a side corridor a door opened, and a burst of laughter escaped, cut off a moment later as it closed again. Footsteps receded in the other direction, and I glanced down the passage to see if it was anyone I knew, catching only a glimpse of a flapping white coat. When my eyes returned to the corridor ahead, a blue uniform was approaching from the direction of Orthopaedics.