TWENTY-SIX

Elias was brushing his teeth in the field across from Warne Farm when his mobile rang. It was still so early that he suffered a spike of panic that something had happened to the twins – but then he saw it was Anna Warne and calmed down again. ‘What?’ he asked. He listened in increasing disbelief as she told him about her morning. He rinsed out his mouth, pulled on a fresh shirt then drove across the lane to find her crouched down in her uncle’s burial pit while being filmed by Merchant. ‘What the hell?’ he said furiously, slamming his door and marching up to them. ‘This is a crime scene. Your uncle was murdered here. Is this any way to honour him?’

‘Yes,’ said Anna. She stood up and held up her left hand to show him three shards from an ancient small pot and five small coins, two of them stuck fast together by their tarnishing. ‘I just found these here. They may help catch whoever killed him. And you idiots missed them.’

Elias stared at the coins in shock. ‘That’s no excuse for contaminating the scene,’ he said weakly.

‘Contaminating the scene!’ she scoffed. ‘You were done with it. You know you were. These would never have been found if I hadn’t thought to come looking.’

Her phrasing caught his ear. ‘You thought to come looking?’

Anna nodded. ‘I realised something at dinner with Oliver last night. Why bother burying my uncle without moving the van? A pit this deep would have taken ages to dig. Surely in that time they’d have checked for keys. So the only way it made sense was if the pit was already dug. And who else would have dug it in the middle of the night except a treasure hunter? It was obviously possible that my uncle had surprised them before they’d recovered whatever it was they’d been digging for, so I borrowed a metal detector and came to look.’

Elias was still furious, but he was also conscious of Merchant’s camera upon him. ‘What are they?’ he asked grudgingly.

‘King John silver pennies. And the detector’s still screeching, so there’s obviously more down there. But I figured it was time to let you know.’

‘That’s something.’ He fetched a pair of evidence bags for her to tip the shards and the coins into. ‘You still should have called me first.’

‘And have you kick me off my own property again?’

‘Oh. So that’s it, is it? You’re miffed.’ He turned to Merchant. ‘Her I can understand. She doesn’t know better. You damned well should.’

‘I didn’t tell him where we were going,’ said Anna. ‘He tried to stop me when he realised, but I went ahead anyway. His choice was to film or not to film. You should be thanking him.’

Elias glowered a few moments longer, but then he sighed and let it go. ‘Do you get a lot of treasure hunters around here?’

‘Yes. Particularly at this time of year, with the fields just ploughed. Though it’s hard to know exactly how many. Some leave pits behind, but presumably others go away empty-handed, or cover their traces better. It drove my uncle nuts, particularly the ones from the hotel. You could tell them by their tracks. But what could he do? He was already running a whole farm by himself. He could hardly sit up nights as well.’

‘Are you saying this was someone from the hotel?’

‘Not necessarily. There are plenty of places around here where people can park and walk on in. But sure, if any of their guests checked out unexpectedly first thing last Monday morning, that might be a place to start.’