In the Woods

Mark exploded. "Jesus fuck! Have you not done enough? What are you afraid of? Even if we find the fucking Holy Grail today, your lot will still level this place on Monday morning. Could you not leave us our last few days in peace?"

For a second I almost thought he was going to come at me, and I felt Sam and O'Gorman moving in at my shoulders. "Settle down, boy," O'Gorman said threateningly.

"Don't you 'boy' me. We have till half past five on Friday and anything you want from us can wait till then, because we're going nowhere."

"Mark," Cassie said sharply, beside me. "This has nothing to do with the motorway. Here's how we're going to work this: we need you and Damien Donnelly and Sean Callaghan to come with us right now. Non-negotiable. If you quit giving us hassle, the rest of your team can keep working, under Detective Johnston's supervision. Fair enough?"

Mark glared at her for another second, but then he spat into the dust and jerked his chin at Mel, who was already moving towards him. The rest of the archaeologists stared, wide-eyed and sweating. Mark snapped instructions at Mel in an undertone, stabbing a finger at various parts of the site; then he gave her shoulder a light, unexpected squeeze and strode off towards the Portakabins, fists shoved deep in his jacket pockets. O'Gorman went after him.

"Sean," I called. "Damien." Sean bounded over eagerly and held up his hand for a high five, gave me a knowing look when I ignored it. Damien came more slowly, hitching up his combats. He looked dazed almost to the point of concussion, but coming from him this didn't exactly set my alarm bells ringing.

"We need to talk to you," I said. "We'd like you to wait in the canteen for a while, until we're ready to take you back to headquarters."

Both their mouths opened. I turned and left before they could ask.

We put them in the canteen, along with a flustered Dr. Hunt-still clutching handfuls of paperwork-and left O'Gorman to keep an eye on them. Hunt gave us permission to search the site, with an alacrity that moved him further down the suspect list (Mark demanded to see our warrant, but backed off fast when I told him I'd be happy to get one if he didn't mind waiting around for a few hours), and Sophie and her team headed for the finds shed and started taping brown paper over the windows. Johnston, out on the dig, moved among the archaeologists with his notebook out, checking trowels and pulling people aside for brief tête-à-têtes.

"The same key fits all the Portakabins," Cassie said, coming out of the canteen. "Hunt, Mark and Damien have one each-not Sean. No spares. They all say they've never lost, lent or missed their keys."

"So let's start with the sheds," I said, "and then we can work our way outwards if we need to. Sam, will you and Cassie take the tools shed? Sweeney and I will do the office."

The office was tiny and crammed-shelves sagging with books and house-plants, desk piled with papers and mugs and bits of pottery and an elephantine, obsolete computer. Sweeney and I worked fast and methodically, pulling out drawers, taking down books and checking behind them and stacking them back roughly in place. I didn't actually expect to find anything. There was nowhere here to stash a body, and I was fairly sure the trowel and the plastic bag had been either dumped in the river or buried somewhere on the dig, where we would need the metal detector and huge amounts of luck and time to find them. All my hopes were pinned on Sophie and her team and whatever arcane rites they were performing in the finds shed. My hands moved automatically along the shelves; I was listening, so hard it nearly paralyzed me, for some sound from outside, footsteps, Sophie's voice calling. When Sweeney dropped a drawer and cursed softly, I almost screamed at him to shut up.

It was gradually dawning on me just how high I had staked on this. I could have simply rung Sophie and got her to come down and check out the finds shed, no need to mention it to anyone if it didn't pan out. Instead, I had taken over the entire site and pulled in just about every person who had anything to do with the investigation, and if this turned out to be a wild-goose chase I didn't even want to think about what O'Kelly would say.

After what felt like an hour I heard, outside, "Rob!" I leaped up from the floor, scattering papers everywhere, but it was Cassie's voice: clear, boyish, excited. She bounded up the steps, caught the door handle and swung round it into the office. "Rob, we've got it. The trowel. In the tools shed, under all these tarps-" She was flushed and breathless, and she had obviously completely forgotten that we were barely on speaking terms. I forgot it myself, for a moment; her voice sent the old, bright dart of warmth straight to my heart.

"Stay here," I said to Sweeney, "keep searching," and followed her. She was already running back to the tools shed, feet flashing as she jumped the ruts and puddles.