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Cam’s head snapped up at that. ‘The church or the chapel, which one is it?’
She gave him another confused lift of her shoulders. ‘Aren’t they the same thing?’
Reminding himself that not everyone was a history geek with a side interest in religious buildings which some might consider obsessional, Cam reined in his impatience and smiled. ‘Sometimes, sometimes not. Let’s have a look at these stones you found.’
As they made their way to the excavation site, Cam silently counted off the paces he took, mentally verifying the laser measurement reading. The ground here was much flatter than that around the chapel, an open expanse of meadow that extended between the riverbank to the east and the woods to the west. He could see why the spot had appealed to Hope.
The contractors had left a set of barriers around the hole, but they were easy enough to shift to the side. Dropping his rucksack down beside him, Cam went down on his knees and studied the jumble of stones and dirt. His first thought was they were definitely of an age with the walled remains; his second that they were too uniform to be a natural feature or even a dumping ground for leftover building material. There was something different about the colouration – something not quite right.
Hope crouched down beside him. ‘What do you think?’
Not ready to answer yet, Cam pulled a leather tool case from his rucksack and rolled it out. It was a mismatched collection of things he’d put together over the years. The various sized trowels, picks and brushes were mostly courtesy of his local DIY superstore. He selected a narrow pointing trowel and began scraping the loose dirt away from the stones. He’d have to take measurements later, but they appeared smaller than those used in the wall – a floor, perhaps? Whatever he was looking at, the stones were too tightly packed and even to have fallen like this. He spent a few more minutes cleaning the area in front of him. The colour was definitely off. Taking a thin pick from his kit, Cam scraped the corner of one of the stones then raised the tool to examine it. He rubbed the end of the pick between his fingers and noted the black residue, not dirt, more like soot. Had this been a kitchen, perhaps? Were the stones the remains of a fire pit or an oven of some type?
Cam sat back on his heels. The uncovered area was too small to make a proper judgement. He glanced around him, looking for any features in the landscape that might suggest the presence of more buried walls. Technological advances made a lot of things easier, but so much about his job was about observing the land, getting a feel for the terrain, and ultimately getting down on his hands and knees in the dirt. They’d have to walk the full site and note any features in the landscape. He would also need a proper survey trench, maybe two or three given the size of the area. A geo-phys survey would be useful…
‘I’m not going to be building my house any time soon, am I?’
Hope’s quiet question drew Cam back to the reality of the situation. ‘It’s too early to give you a definite answer,’ he hedged, not wanting to upset her. He really needed a second opinion. ‘Where’s Barnie?’ His friend had wandered off as soon as they’d arrived.
He was mostly wondering out loud, but Hope raised a hand and pointed off towards the right to where Barnie was crouched next to the river, a couple of hundred metres away. ‘Hey, what was going on with him earlier in the café? He got a bit weird about names and you said you’d tell me later.’
Cam huffed a soft laugh. ‘It’s a bit of a sore spot for him, personally.’
Hope cocked her head to the side. ‘Barnie’s not that odd of a name, unless he got fed up of being compared to a big purple dinosaur.’
‘Barnie comes from his surname, Barnard. When his mother was pregnant, she had to go on bed rest for a while and developed a mild obsession with Jilly Cooper novels. Barnie’s real first name is Lysander, after her favourite character.’
Hope did her best to smother what he was sure was a laugh with a polite cough. ‘He doesn’t look much like a Lysander.’
Cam grinned at her, not sure he could picture what exactly a Lysander was supposed to look like. ‘Don’t tell him I’ve told you, whatever you do. He’ll never forgive me.’
Hope made a zipping motion across her lips with her fingers. They watched Barnie in silence as he leaned forward so far Cam worried he might lose his balance and tumble into the river. He dropped back on his haunches and pulled what Cam knew was his sketchpad onto his lap. Head bent, arm whizzing back and forth, Barnie was oblivious to their attention. Hope nudged Cam and raised her fingers, miming unzipping her lips. He couldn’t help but laugh at the sweet silliness of it. ‘What’s he doing?’ she asked.
‘Barnie’s an archaeological surveyor. He takes in the bigger picture, tries to identify natural versus man-made features in the landscape. Anything that catches his eye, he makes a sketch of it and then he tries to find maps or photographs in the archives that match what he’s spotted. He’s like a bloodhound and always manages to sniff out details other people miss. That’s why I asked him to come along today. If anyone can figure out the scale of any settlement here, it’ll be him.’
She swung to face him, all sign of her earlier humour gone. ‘Settlement? That sounds significant.’ A deep frown was etched between her brows, and he could tell the word had sent her mind leaping to all sorts of conclusions.
Damn. He needed to guard his tongue better, not just keep blurting the first thing that came into his head. ‘It could be something, or it could be nothing,’ he said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘Sites of religious worship often date back to beyond the Christian era. The church had a habit of taking over pagan sites. Rivers and streams were often used for offerings and rituals dating back centuries and it may be that’s what we have here – a local area of significance that was claimed by an enthusiastic evangelical.’
Hope didn’t look convinced. ‘Settlement implies something more than that, though. Do you think that people lived here?’
It was Cam’s turn to shrug. ‘Honestly, it’s too early to tell. I was speculating rather than interpreting the data. I should’ve kept it to myself.’
She straightened her spine. ‘No. I’d rather you kept me in the loop right from the start. I don’t want you to feel like you need to shield me from anything because you are worried about how I will react. I want to build a home of my own, and yes, this is my preferred location, but I won’t risk destroying a piece of my family’s history just to suit my own selfish desire.’ There was something in the way she said the last couple of words that made him hesitate. She hadn’t struck him as being selfish – determined, perhaps, certainly persuasive because hadn’t he given up his Sunday to come grubbing around in the dirt for her? It sounded more like she was repeating something someone else had said.
Cam shook his head. Whatever it was, it was none of his business. ‘It needs proper analysis but the blackening on these stones looks and feels a lot like soot, so I was wondering if this is the base of a fire pit or some other kind of heating or cooking facility.’
‘Which would mean people lived here.’ Hope held her hand up when he opened his mouth. ‘I know, I know, it’s too early to say.’ She sighed. ‘I knew the moment the digger scraped on these stones that it would be a complication.’ Before Cam could offer his sympathies, Hope rolled her shoulders and straightened her spine. ‘That’s that then.’ She turned towards Cam. ‘The estate is plenty big enough for me to find somewhere else if I need to. I want you to do a thorough investigation here, not a rush job that risks missing something important. Take all the time you need.’
Cam raised an eyebrow at that. ‘Look, I agreed to come here and have a look around and give you my opinion, but that’s all. I have a commitment to my students.’ Sure, he’d been thinking about test trenches and getting a geophysical survey done, but not with any real seriousness. There was a mystery here to be solved, but it wasn’t one he would be unravelling.
Hope put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to one side, a considering expression on her face. ‘Isn’t it the end of the summer term in a few weeks?’
‘Well, yes, but my job doesn’t just stop when the students go home.’ He didn’t tell her he’d planned to take an eight-week sabbatical to tour the Norman churches of the low countries – plans that were now in tatters because his funding application had been turned down. He could still go, of course, but only if he was willing to decimate his savings in the process. ‘Besides, it’s too short notice to be able to put together a team, never mind paying for it.’
‘Paying for it isn’t an issue.’ There was no arrogance to Hope’s statement, it was just a matter of fact to her, and Cam was reminded once again of the gulf between their lives and upbringing. ‘I’ll have to speak to my uncle, but we have reserves to cover unforeseen contingencies and I’d say this qualifies. If there’s something of significance here, then perhaps we can turn it to our future advantage by creating a new attraction to draw more visitors to the estate.’
‘You’re very practical, aren’t you?’ Cam meant it as a compliment. He liked the way she took everything in her stride and didn’t seem afraid to make decisions. Not that he knew much about things outside his rather sheltered academic existence, but he doubted you became the manager of something like the distillery – even if it was a family business – at Hope’s age without having a pragmatic approach to things.
