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‘Can you cost it out when you have time and then we’ll suggest it to Hope? And we’ll keep the code for the new lock to ourselves for now. If the cleaner needs to come in, then one of us can let her in and stick around while she works.’ It would be a small inconvenience and Cam could as easily sit in the office and write up his daily reports. ‘Would you have any objection to me getting the team up here?’ Cam was still worried about who’d broken into the compound, but he didn’t want to lose a day before they’d even got started. ‘We can keep them away from the site office until the Travers decide what they want to do, but I’d like to at least get the surveys underway.’
‘Fine with me. I’ve got the groundworks crew booked for a week on Monday, so if we don’t know where to start, that’ll be a waste of time and money to have them standing around.’
‘Good point. I’ll give Adam a call and get them heading up here.’ He’d just finished his call when Hope and Ziggy came and joined them. ‘Did you manage to sort things out?’
Hope nodded. ‘I had a quick word with Amelia to see how her mum is. From the sounds of it Daisy’s going to be out of action for a while as her cold has developed into a chest infection.’ She quirked her lips in a sympathetic twist. ‘Poor Amelia’s run ragged trying to keep on top of everything. She’s got a full-time job of her own as well as trying to cover for her mum here, and she’ll have to keep things running at home. That father of hers is no use to man or beast, so it’s all fallen to Amelia.’
‘He’s the one Rhys had to let go for being drunk on the job?’ Cam recalled and Hope nodded.
‘Yep. According to what I could get Amelia to admit, he’s all but taken up residence in the Arms. Useless git.’
Ziggy put an arm around her shoulders. ‘I’ll speak to Iain on the quiet and see about getting him to bar Keith, at least temporarily.’
‘So then he’ll just drink more at home and make Daisy and Amelia’s lives even more of a misery,’ Hope protested.
‘I’ll have a word in the shop as well. If we cut him off from any local supplies of booze, then perhaps he’ll sober up long enough for us to be able to talk some sense into him.’ Ziggy didn’t look too hopeful about it, but Cam had to admire the man for being willing to try.
‘It’s better than doing nothing,’ Hope agreed. ‘Now what did the police have to say?’
Ziggy sighed. ‘The officer was sympathetic but not overly interested, as I suspected. He’ll be out later today to do the report, and he’s going to request a technician to come with him. The bad news is that the forensic lab is backed up for weeks and we’d be a low-priority case so he couldn’t say when any results might come back. I had to mention to him that we weren’t 100 per cent sure the site was fully secured.’
Cam felt sick at the thought he might be responsible. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘Don’t be daft, I’m not blaming anyone other than whoever bloody did this.’ Ziggy shoved his hands on his hips and huffed out a breath. ‘The campsite is almost full and I wouldn’t even know where to start with questioning guests about their whereabouts last night without causing serious offence – or making people worry about their own security. What a bloody mess.’
‘It’s a bit of a trek up here from the campsite,’ Cam pointed out. ‘I can’t see someone roaming this far on a whim, especially as there’s no lighting in this part of the site.’
Ziggy nodded. ‘I’m inclined to keep it between us for now. Boost the security where we can without making guests feel like they’re being watched 24/7. If there’s any more sign of trouble, then I’ll have a chat with some of the estate workers about doing a few night patrols. I’d rather not have to get in a specialist security firm because it doesn’t look good, for one thing. I want our visitors to feel safe and secure and having a load of uniforms wandering around could end up leaving the opposite impression.’ A beep of a horn alerted them to the arrival of Adam and the rest of the team and Declan went to unlock the gate and let them in.
‘Right,’ Ziggy said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything more I can do here for now, so I’m going to head into the village and see what can be done about Keith.’ With a wave, Ziggy headed off, leaving Hope and Cam alone together.
‘Do you think it was kids?’ Hope asked.
‘I really hope so.’ Cam folded his arms around her for a quick hug, needing to reassure himself as much as her. If it wasn’t, then the only other possibility was someone had deliberately targeted the dig. He watched as his team climbed out of their cars, the atmosphere subdued compared to their excitement of the previous day. Please let it be a one-off. Please.
* * *
With the site office being the only one targeted, the team were free to crack on with both the walking survey and the geophysical one. Barnie had arrived not long after the others and after a few choice words about whoever had wrecked the site office, he gathered the bulk of the team together for the walking survey. They headed off towards the river, carrying everything from sketchbooks to compasses, pegs and string to use as markers and even a measuring wheel to help calculate distances.
Once they were out of the way, Cam and Adam got to work setting up the magnetometer. Cam always thought it looked like something from a Wallace and Gromit cartoon knocked together from an old bicycle frame and a few plastic poles. Regardless of appearances, it was actually an incredibly sophisticated piece of kit and the data they could gather in a matter of hours was invaluable. Adam was going to do the first section, so Cam made sure he was strapped into the harness which carried the power supply and then positioned himself at the opposite end of the area they’d chosen to map so Adam had a target to aim for.
After about thirty minutes, they swapped places, and it was Cam’s turn to trudge up and down the wide green space between the ruined walls of what Hope knew as the old chapel and the spot where Declan and his team had uncovered the new stonework. There was something about the area which kept nagging at the back of Cam’s mind as he walked. It was too flat, he realised after a while. The wheels of the pushcart rolled too easily over the ground. They’d had the area mowed by the estates team the previous week, but even so, Cam would’ve expected the terrain to be much more uneven if it was an area that had previously been built upon. Maybe he was wrong and the two sites weren’t connected, or the stone in the new trench was some rubble which had been dumped when the old chapel had been destroyed.
The samples he’d taken had contained high levels of soot, which indicated a fire of some description. While the fire could’ve been started accidentally by a lightning strike or a stray candle, it had often been used on churches as an easy way of melting the valuable lead from the roof and other fixtures. He pictured again the size of the blocks he and Barnie had seen used in those cottages in the village. Whatever the land was telling him to the contrary, there’d been something substantial on this site at some point. He’d have to trust his gut and wait until they could download the data from the survey. Lifting the cart by the handles, Cam nudged the kickstand up with his foot and carried on walking.
He was about three-quarters of the way through his section when he noticed Zoë waving to catch his attention. He re-engaged the kick stand and unhooked himself from the harness, setting it carefully on the ground so the battery didn’t become disconnected from the data recording block. He jogged over to where Zoë was showing something on her laptop to Adam. Neither of them looked happy. ‘What’s up?’
Zoë shook her head. ‘There’s something wrong with the magnetometer. The results I’m getting don’t make any sense at all.’
Cam circled around so he could glance over her shoulder at the laptop screen. Instead of a mostly pale background with potential darker markings to reflect disturbances in the ground that might be signs of previous excavation and building work, the entire thing was a mass of dark interference, like an old-fashioned TV which had lost its signal. ‘Are you sure the data is downloading correctly?’
Looking miserable, Zoë nodded. ‘I checked in case I’d somehow corrupted the data, but I’m getting the same result every time. It doesn’t make sense,’ she repeated.
No, it didn’t. ‘Come on, let’s check we wired everything up properly when we set the frame up.’ When she still looked dejected, Cam laughed and patted her shoulder. ‘Shit happens, Zoë. If you let every little set-back get you down, you’re in for a long summer.’
She nodded. ‘I know you’re right, but I was just so excited to finally get started.’
They disconnected everything, set the magnetometer up again and Adam did a trial survey of part of the area they’d previously covered. After an anxious wait for the data to download, Cam was disappointed to see the same fuzzy mess as the first set of results. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say this looks like the whole area has been disturbed at the same time. Let’s take a quick break and then we’ll see what the earth resistance survey has to show us.’
