Fifteen

Alan loved Denver Sluice. Its massive green-painted steel gates and wide embanked artificial channels were the ultimate symbol of man’s prolonged and continuing struggle to dominate nature. This was engineering that made a real difference to people’s lives: without Denver, not only would large areas of eastern England flood, but east London’s water supply would fail and of course supermarkets right across Britain would rapidly run out of salad greens and vegetables, which were grown in their tens of thousands of tons in the southern Fenlands.

Denver was the complex of water-courses and sluices that regulated the outfall of the rivers of the Great Ouse system into the shallow waters of The Wash. It was all about retaining river flood water in huge collection areas, also known as washes, and then releasing them out to sea when the tides were low enough. If the floods coincided with a period of unusually high tides, as happened in springtime, the results could be catastrophic: like in 1947, when 10,000 homes were damaged, and 1953, when over 300 people died.

In its strange, open, unearthly way, Alan had always found Denver just as moving and spiritually uplifting as Ely Cathedral, which would revert to a remote island abbey if the great gates at Denver failed, and he could never come here without emotion. This vast landscape was so fragile: disaster lay in the strength of a sluice; one of the towers at Ely Cathedral had collapsed because the footings gave way. Fortunes had been made and lost on the rise or fall of water levels and not just in times of flood, either. The waters below the ground were even more crucial, as poor Sebastian had learnt to his cost. The land he farmed would always be second best and he would never be able to grow a crop that was really profitable: no salads, no vegetables, no cut flowers. For a moment Alan found himself sympathising: it must be so frustrating – and with the good land around Isle Farm, which the family had once owned, within sight. But that was the Fens for you: one dyke was all it took to separate the best from the merely second-rate.

On this unexpected visit to Denver, his natural respect for the place and all that it stood for, was enhanced by a feeling of profound concern. As he had driven along the Great Ouse itself, and over the banks of the many tributaries, dykes, delphs and engine drains that fed into it, he pondered what he would find when he met Lane. The body itself would probably have been removed, but the cause of death? Accidental? Probably – or at least, he thought, that’s what it would seem. But the reality: what would that prove to be? By now he had no doubts at all: Thorey’s death was more than one too many. And as for the Curse of the Cripps? Barty was wrong, it was far from over. It was being used. Someone was deliberately manipulating the superstitions to fuel the family’s bad reputation. He was 100 per cent certain of that.

* * *

The uniformed sergeant took Alan’s details, and entered them into the Scene of Crime log. Then they stepped out of the mobile unit and walked along the bank to the small sluice that managed day-to-day river flows in quiet weather. DCI Lane was waiting for him.

Before his friend could speak, Alan had to ask, ‘Don’t tell me, Richard, it was an accident?’

‘No, Alan.’ He smiled. ‘For once you’re wrong. I’m afraid it was suicide.’

‘You don’t say.’ Alan was genuinely astonished. ‘But Thorey was a big, loud-mouthed …’ Suddenly he realised they were talking about a dead person. Some respect at least was needed.

‘Yob?’ Lane suggested with a quizzical look.

‘Well, perhaps that’s a bit strong. The thing is, I first met him at Stan’s wake and he was extraordinarily rude to ­Candice: very self-assertive. I just don’t see him as the kind of person with the sensitivity to take his own life.’

Briefly Alan had a strong sense of déjà vu. They’d had almost exactly the same conversation beside the Mill Cut when Stan had died.

‘So you’re suggesting somebody else stuffed his jacket pockets full of bricks and pushed him into the water? And don’t forget, he was a big man. Just over six foot two.’

‘Yes,’ Alan had to admit. ‘And he was fit, too. Most keepers are.’

‘Trouble is,’ Lane continued, ‘we’ve pretty well pinned down his disappearance to the evening of the thirteenth of January.’

Alan nodded, he too couldn’t forget that date.

‘And as you know, it’s been quite a wet late winter. Decomposition isn’t as advanced as it would be in August, but I got a phone call from the lab, who are doing a priority autopsy for us, and they suspect, but they can’t yet confirm, that he died by drowning.’

Yes, Alan thought, it had been a while. They’d started the car park dig, done two documentaries and of course the live show, since then. It felt like an age. He closed his eyes and did a rapid mental count. It was now 7 March.

‘So that’s almost eight weeks.’

‘Yes, it’s a long time.’

They both reflected on this. Alan couldn’t help thinking about the condition of Thorey’s corpse: how it would have looked after so long in the water. And his mind’s eye kept returning to the last dead body he had seen. It had been in a gruesome state. That gave him an idea.

‘I suppose it’s too early to say if he’d been drugged?’

‘Yes,’ Lane nodded. ‘That’ll probably take longer – if indeed they can tell at this late date. But I’ve got some ­pictures here.’

Lane’s car was parked a few paces away. His laptop was on the back seat. He opened it on the bonnet. Alan didn’t know what to expect, but he knew it would be grim. And it was.

The first image was a general view, showing the body lying on the grass where it had been laid out by the workman who was operating the mechanical grab that was fixed to the screens across the sluice. The grab operator had had the presence of mind to empty the rest of the cage separately alongside the skip. In the background Alan could see this small heap of debris and driftwood was being searched by two officers in white scene-of-crime overalls.

‘They’ll be there most of the day, poor devils.’ Lane smiled. ‘It’s a thankless task.’

‘Any other clues?’ Alan asked.

‘Hard to say,’ Lane replied, pointing to the second image. This was not a pretty sight: a close-up of the body, skin largely removed from the head and neck, but still wearing his keeper’s tweed Norfolk jacket and knee breeches and above-calf, stout lace-up leather boots. ‘As you can see, he’d zipped up the jacket and buttoned all the pockets; he’d even stuffed more brick pieces inside the jacke—’

‘Or someone had,’ Alan broke in.

‘OK,’ Lane continued patiently. ‘His jacket and its pockets were stuffed with brick pieces and it had been securely buttoned and zipped closed. There was no way those bricks were going to fall out.’

Alan nodded; he wished he could cancel his hasty remarks about suicide.

‘Any idea how much they weighed?’

‘We’ll discover that soon enough, but I suspect somewhere around ten to fiften kilos.’

Alan recalled the 20-kilo feed bags he had struggled with as a lad on the family farm. That was quite a weight.

‘What were the bricks like?’

‘Nothing special. SOCO reckoned they were modern, mass-produced. The sort of thing you’d find on a building site anywhere. But we’ll be getting them analysed. My bet is they’re London Brick Company, Peterborough or Bedford.’

Alan had learnt to respect the judgment and experience of scene of crime officers.

‘And was it just bricks, or were there stones and other things there, too?’

‘No,’ Lane replied, clicking to the next image of five pieces of brick arranged on a folded disposable cover-all. ‘That’s what struck me at the time. It was just brickbats, nothing else. It all suggested cold-blooded preparation. The bricks had probably been broken with a lump-hammer and sharp bits had been knocked off. It’s almost as if he’d done a dress rehearsal to get the maximum number in each pocket.’

Alan’s mind immediately flashed back to Stan’s death.

‘Was he drunk?’

‘He’s been a long time in the water, so forensics were very dubious. But of course they’ll check.’

‘And what about the rest of the body?’

‘Decay was quite advanced and there was a lot of obvious bruising and battering. The skin beneath his clothes wasn’t as badly decayed and damaged as his face and neck. And he probably went through several sluices before fetching up here.’ Lane paused while he selected another picture.

‘But there was one injury that puzzled me,’ Lane continued. The screen now showed a close-up of Thorey’s tweed knee breeches and the pale, mangled flesh beneath. The fabric over one leg, Alan reckoned his right, had been torn in a jagged line just above the knee. ‘You can see that whatever did this tore the fabric on both sides of the leg. And the flesh at that point was cut and damaged. Trouble is, it has also been nibbled by fish or eels. Anyhow, SOCO reckoned it was the sort of injury he’d seen previously when bodies got limbs stuck in those grilles that protect power stations or sewage outfalls – that sort of thing.’

‘And do you agree?’

‘I don’t know. But it seems reasonable enough. We’ll see what forensics think later.’ His radio bleeped. Lane put a hand up to his earpiece. ‘Sorry, Alan, I’m needed back at base.’ He closed the laptop and put it away.

As he was about to drive off he asked, ‘Fancy a quick pint later? I’ve found a great little pub in Ely. I worked through the weekend, so I’m off early today.’

Alan remembered it was Monday. Tricia had already returned to London for more meetings about her new TV series. Slightly to his own surprise he felt glad she was doing this: it was so obviously what she really wanted to do. But there was also a feeling of regret, if not pain. She had sent him a text saying ‘Thanks for a fun night’ and apparently that was it. She was so refreshingly straightforward, and Alan was aware that he was anything but. He caught a glimpse of his face in a pool by the river’s edge. He was looking serious: we are drawn to our opposites.

Lane’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Is that a yes, Alan?’

Alan grinned. ‘Sorry, Richard, I was away with the fairies. Yes, that’s a great idea; I could murder a pint.’

He was in absolutely no rush to return to Fursey and face Harriet.

* * *

Alan headed back south, across a couple of miles of open flat fen, towards one of the low ridges that extend north from the much higher Isle of Ely. After a quarter of an hour he arrived in Ely. He didn’t often find himself with time to kill, but now he decided to park the Fourtrak in one of the little medieval streets down by the river and take a stroll up the hill, through the Priors Gatehouse and into the old monastic precincts. The first view of the great Benedictine Abbey Church, which had dominated the small town around it for over a thousand years, never failed to move him. And this visit was no ex­­ception.

As he passed beneath the gatehouse and drew clear of the buildings, he deliberately didn’t look up. Instead he walked over to the fence that bounded the rough pasture, which now covered many of the monastic buildings that were demolished after the Dissolution. He could hear the sound of sheep grazing close by and could detect their warm, lanolin pre­sence, but he kept his eyes firmly to the ground. Then he looked up. As his focus lifted towards the park and its trees, some just coming into leaf, he found his gaze was following the edge of a patch of sunlight, which rapidly expanded to bathe the scene before him in a glow of spring brightness. Soon he felt the warmth on his own back: a hint of the season to come. The air was crystal clear and the great south tower of the massive cathedral stood out pale against the scudding clouds. It was a transcending experience. For a brief, wonderful moment, time itself seemed suspended. Then he noticed that the sky above the cathedral was identical to the opening sequences of The Simpsons. The magic vanished.

The pub was back down the hill by the river, and even though it was still very early in the year, people were sitting at tables outside. Alan went inside to order a couple of pints. Several people recognised him and there were a few calls of ‘Itsagrave!’ He hastened back outside with two glasses of Old Slodger and had barely sat back down at his table, when he spotted Lane coming towards him.

If they’d been meeting in a Leicester pub three years ago, the chances were that one or two people would have recognised Lane. Alan had learnt to spot the one’s Lane had nicked in the past: they smiled at him in a particularly subservient, ingratiating fashion and then acted the wronged criminal to their friends, but only behind his back. Here, however, he was still just a bloke in the crowd. Alan rather envied him this.

Alan handed Lane his pint, which he gratefully received.

‘Well,’ Lane said, as he placed his glass back on the table with a contented sigh. ‘That wasn’t unexpected, was it?’

‘No.’ Alan immediately knew he was referring to Thorey. ‘Not after he’d vanished. But I’ll be interested to see what happens next.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Whether it restarts all that bollocks about the Curse of the Cripps. Because if it does, I think this is deliberate. Using the rumours to build up bad feeling against the family.’

‘Interesting you should say that. The desk sergeant at Ely has told me he’s already received anonymous calls suggesting that we “look more closely”, or some such.’

‘I wish I could say I was surprised.’

‘That’s not all,’ Lane continued. ‘In fact, as I drove here, I got a call from a reporter from the Enquirer, who wondered if there was any truth in the “rumours” about a possible murder. Reports of his death have already been on local radio and will be on all the regional lunchtime TV bulletins.’

‘So it’s big news?’

Lane leant back and stretched. ‘I don’t know about that, Alan. Maybe locally. But it certainly won’t make the ­nationals.’

‘That’s a relief. I feel for the Cripps family. They’ve put a lot of time and effort into the project and it would be a shame if—’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Lane broke in. ‘It won’t make people stay away. Far from it. If anything, it’ll bring them in.’

But that wasn’t what Alan wanted to hear, either. It was bad enough having to deal with ‘Itsagrave’ and thinly disguised questions about death and decay, without introducing ancient curses. Before they knew it, they’d have vampires and werewolves to contend with.

Lane took a second long pull from his pint. Alan could see his friend was very tired.

‘So tell me, Alan,’ Lane’s voice came as welcome relief, ‘what’s been happening behind the scenes at Fursey?’

Alan told him about Heritage Projects Management, led by John Cripps, taking on the day-to-day running of Fursey – and how it made sense, which it undoubtedly did – to pool publicity budgets and run Fursey and White Delphs together. When he had finished, Lane thought over what he’d just been told.

‘That’s very interesting,’ Lane reflected. ‘I don’t know whether you ever knew, but when HPM took over at White Delphs there was a rumour that they were just a cover for a property developer based in London. They were known to have loads of spare cash and we all thought they’d buy acres of land and then apply for development rights. That way it would be win-win for them: they’d attract more visitors to the area and the attraction – and of course they’d make a killing on the property deal.’

Alan was puzzled. These stories had escaped him entirely. ‘But did it happen?’ He asked, still slightly astonished.

‘No, it didn’t. And that’s the point. Instead, they invested heavily in the attraction and even put a largish sum into the new Community Centre. In fact, they’re very popular locally.’

‘Yes,’ Alan said. ‘And with their workforce, too. I took their digging team on as soon as the White Delphs dig ended, and none of them would hear a word said against HPM.’

‘Really?’ Lane continued, smiling now. ‘It’s not very often that I get to deal with paragons of virtue in my line of work. Who’s the man behind it all?’

‘I met him on my first visit to White Delphs. Drove a flash Bentley. We didn’t have an in-depth conversation, but I got the strong impression he was no fool. Name’s Blake Lonsdale. I gather he’s a successful east London businessman. Certainly John Cripps thinks highly of him. Sarah Cripps, too, so far as I can tell.’

‘Any idea of his “business”?’

‘I don’t know how he made his money originally, but now he manages Water World historical theme park near Hackney Marshes. It’s getting really big now that the 2012 Olympic Park is gathering pace. They’re just down the road.’

‘But you still don’t know how he earned it in the first place?’

Alan shook his head.

‘Can’t say I do. But Barty told me he was the biggest in­­vestor by far in HPM – which is unusual, seeing as how he runs them, too.’

Alan was intrigued: why was Lane so interested all of a sudden? He tried fishing. ‘Why the questions about HPM? Do you suspect something’s going on?’

‘No, not really. It’s just that I’m – how can I put it discreetly – interested in large sums, or potentially large sums, of investment money coming into the area.’

‘Something to do with your new job with Fenland?’

‘Yes, sort of. The thing is, as you know, Cambridge is the fastest-growing city in Britain and development land is very hard to come by. Prices are sky-rocketing. So far, most of the development has been to the south, east and west.’

‘On the higher, drier land, presumably?’

‘That’s right. But recently there’s been much talk of ­“Silicon Fen” and many developers are now looking around here. And some of them have got very big wallets – and backers – indeed.’

‘So the police are worried about corruption?’

‘Well, wouldn’t you be?’ Lane was now leaning forward, talking very softly. ‘There’s billions involved and local politicians could set themselves up for life with just a small backhander.’

‘And do you have anything to go on yet?’

‘I’ve got one or two likely looking cases starting to grow, but these are much closer to Cambridge. Part of my brief is to keep an eye on what’s happening around here, too. The one thing a police authority doesn’t want is to be taken off-guard. If I’m nosing around, however incompetently, they can tell their political bosses that everything’s under control.’

‘So will you be checking out HPM and Blake Lonsdale?’

‘Oh, yes, don’t worry. I’ve got an old friend who’s a DC down in Hackney. If there’s anything to turn up, he’ll find it.’

‘But do you smell any rats around Fursey?’ Alan had to ask.

‘So far I don’t. In fact, it smells very clean—’

Too clean?’

‘No, Alan.’ Lane laughed. ‘I never said that, and you know it.’

* * *

Back in his house in Fursey, Alan poured himself a strong black coffee and opened a packet of chocolate digestives. He’d already started to work on Stan’s hidden notebook, but hadn’t made much actual progress with interpretation, although he had managed to disentangle some of the initial, upland layers and levels. But now he was far more interested in what lay around the fringes of the drowned prehistoric and medieval island. And that meant trying to make sense of the borehole logs.

A search on the Internet had produced location maps of all dykes maintained by the various Internal Drainage Boards of the Fens. Alan clicked on the Padnal Delph IDB, and stared closely at the map. The drains leading into the South Padnal Engine Drain formed a distinctive Y shape, with a long, curved dyke to the south, which skirted the edge of Fursey island and fed directly into the dead straight Engine Drain which headed north for a mile or so to Padnal Pumping Station Number Two. This was the pump that raised their water into the embanked Padnal Delph. It was a very distinct­ive drainage pattern and it precisely matched what Stan had sketched in the back of his notebook.

Alan’s next job was to copy Stan’s sketches onto the large sheet of graph paper he’d bought the week before the live shoot. He arranged them around a horizontal datum line, or TBM (temporary benchmark), precisely as Stan had done in the notebooks. He’d be able to level-in the benchmark, which was on a disused 1950s sluice gate, when he could find an hour or two to spare. Just glancing at the profiles, Alan reckoned that Stan had set his TBM somewhere around half a metre above sea level, or OD (Ordnance Datum), as the notebook had it.

By four o’clock he’d done about a dozen profiles and couldn’t face another coffee. He needed fresh air. He knew he ought to have gone to the dig that afternoon, as it was the start of a crucial week, but he was certain that Stan’s notebook held the clue to his death, and they were also becoming increasingly relevant to the latest discoveries at Fursey itself. But he had to admit they were an excuse not to visit the dig. He stared up at the ceiling, then took a deep breath, he was behaving like a gutless worm. Not turning up would only make matters between him and Harriet worse.

When he entered the shelter, he found Jake and Kaylee starting to clear up. Harriet wasn’t there.

Alan asked after her: had she been there at all, today?

‘Oh yes,’ Jake replied. ‘She was here all day. Said she had to get back promptly for a college commemoration feast or something.’

‘Damn, I wanted to catch her before she left. Any news?’

‘Not really. She said Grave 2 is almost exposed. She should start lifting tomorrow.’

Alan was impressed. He was also glad that Jake had been there. He felt he owed him a word of explanation for his absence.

‘The thing is, I thought I was going to get down here first thing, as usual, but I got a text this morning and had to see someone at County Hall ASAP. I’ve only just got back.’

‘Yes.’ Jake smiled. ‘She said you’d probably not show up. Candice had told her how much booze they were providing for the dinner. Apparently she had said it was the least they could do, after all you’d done.’ By now Alan was frowning. ‘I think Harry thought it a bit of a laugh,’ he added, by way of explanation.

Alan tried a smile; he knew that wouldn’t be the case. But his mind was still working overtime: did she really think that booze was the reason he hadn’t turned up? Or did she guess that her words had hit a nerve? When they had last worked together, Alan had come to respect Harriet’s powers of deduction – and even more her intuition.

* * *

Alan stayed on to help clear up, then made his way back to his cottage with a heavy heart. He was sure Harriet had guessed the truth about Tricia. He paused at the end of the Fursey drive to let a huge John Deere tractor pass, with lights flashing, rubber tracks and a vast Danish seed-drill behind. Somebody’s getting their spring barley in early, he thought. As his eyes followed the tractor down the village street towards Littleport, he noticed the pub was open. That’s what I need. A pint of Slodger – and to hell with women. Suddenly he felt less tired.

He was expecting to be greeted with cries of ‘Itsagrave!’, but it didn’t happen. At the bar, the two Hibbs brothers, Davey and Sam, were having a quiet drink together. Alan joined them. The discovery of Joe Thorey’s body was mentioned, but respectfully. Then they discussed other topics: the price of wheat, the weather, football, the impending Olympics – things that mattered. It was very relaxed and friendly. The beer was going down well, too.

Halfway through Alan’s second pint Sam asked Davey. ‘I thought your new job was meant to start today?’

Suddenly Alan felt concerned: Davey had been his machine driver and he was relying on him to do some more work.

‘No, they had trouble with Cripps’s agent: he wouldn’t give them way leaves. But the office phoned this afternoon. It’s all sorted.’

‘So you start tomorrow?’ Sam asked.

‘A long contract?’ Alan asked.

‘It’s with the IDB, so it’ll probably last a couple of months.’

Alan always liked to keep an eye on the IDB’s dyke maintenance. Freshly scraped dykeside were the only way to get a clear idea of what lay far beneath the surface, well beyond the reach of most geophysics.

‘Do you know where you’ll be working, Davey?’

‘If I told you, you’d be down there like a shot. I know you archaeologist blokes. Too curious by far!’

This was said with a huge grin. Davey and Alan had worked very well together. It was one of those easy-going relationships where differences in education were irrelevant and where respect was earned, not assumed.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Alan replied. ‘But seriously, d’you know where you’ll be working?’

‘Course I do. We’ll be starting in the Padnal Engine Drain, by that big running silt we thought we’d fixed last year. Your mate Stan was always visiting.’

Alan knew precisely where he meant. The Lidar had showed the ridge of a large rodden crossing the fen quite close to the abandoned sluice gate, that Stan had used for his TBM (temporary benchmark) in the notebook. Roddens, or rodhams, were the remains of pre-Roman tidal creeks, many of which still ran with water in wet seasons. This water took the form of ‘running silts’ which could destabilise and undermine dykesides, often causing a landslip, or in severe cases, the blocking of the entire drain. Today, some IDBs held back running silts with porous geo-textiles; but the traditional way was to make bundles of hawthorn branches and pack these fascines into the dykesides, where they acted as pipes-­cum-filters.

‘What happened?’ Alan was curious.

‘Matt said they’d used the wrong grade of textile. Not porous enough. So this year it’s back to bundles.’

Alan smiled. He’d met Matt Grimshaw, Padnal Delph IDB’s chief engineer, before. He was hands-on and very conservative. Alan could imagine his delight when the new technique had failed.

‘Can’t think why they changed.’

‘Money,’ the two brothers said in almost perfect unison.

Then Davey added, ‘The Board reckoned it was cheaper to try the modern way. But it didn’t work.’

Alan had a thought. If he was going to follow up Stan’s work, he’d need permission to visit and sample IDB dykes.

‘Will Matt be there tomorrow?’

‘Yes, at seven sharp. We’ve got to shift that old sluice gate. It’s messing up the new profile.’

Suddenly Alan was galvanised. That sluice carried the TBM and without it, he would never understand the levels in Stan’s notebooks. He had to level it into the Ordnance Survey benchmark at the pumping station. Put simply, if he didn’t get an accurate level on the TBM, all the work Stan had done would be useless. Laying aside the question of the motive behind Stan’s killing, Alan owed it to his old friend not to see all that work made irrelevant – because that’s what would happen if they lost that TBM on the old wooden sluice gate. He decided not to have a third pint. He had to be on top form tomorrow.

* * *

The following morning Alan decided to drive round to the pumping station rather than trudge across the fields, especially given the rain of the night before. The portentously named Padnal Pumping Station Number Two looked remarkably like Padnal Pumping Station Number One, which Alan could see from off the Fursey-Chatteris road. The building had a cast concrete date stone with the legend ‘PDIDB Padnal Pumping Station No. 2 1957’. Presumably, Alan thought, this was where the new electric pumps were installed, but like most IDBs, they had kept the older, 1930s diesel pumps as a back-up and they were housed in a slightly smaller building alongside. This building had a tell-tale massive exhaust pipe protruding from one side. Behind both buildings, and at a slightly lower level, were the mould-made bricks of the wall footings of the Victorian steam pumping house. He was about to start looking for traces of the original windmill scoop-pump, when someone called out his name.

It was Matt Grimshaw, chief engineer, complete with a folder of papers and an assistant who was carrying an expensive, state-of-the-art GPS total station down to the dykeside below the high Delph banks.

‘Young Davey Hibbs phoned me last night. Said you might be here.’

Typical of Davey, Alan thought: always considerate. They shook hands.

‘Been working out the sequence?’ Matt asked.

Like many engineers in the Fens, he had a profound interest in the history of Fenland drainage. Alan was familiar with a couple of papers he had written for the ‘Notes and News’ section of the county archaeological journal. He knew his stuff.

‘Yes.’ Alan smiled. He pointed to the early wall footings. ‘That, I presume, is the Victorian beam-engine house, but where were the earlier windmills?’

Matt stamped his foot. ‘Beneath us. They demolished them in 1938 when the Delph bank was raised. I’ve got photos back at the office.’

They stepped to one side as the IDB’s large Swedish ­Ackerman excavator tracked by, driven by Davey, who greeted them with a cheery wave. But he was concentrating hard, as the digger’s wide bog-crawler tracks were protruding a foot or so over the edge of the gravel roadway beside the Engine Drain. The digger’s bucket and long-reach dipper had been replaced with a heavy-duty hook and chain. Alan knew what that was for.

‘Matt, I’ve got to check for a temporary benchmark on the sluice gate. It was put there over a year ago by my colleague Stan Beaton—’

‘Oh yes,’ Grimshaw broke in. ‘That was sad news. Terrible, really.’ He shook his head. Alan could see he was genuinely upset.

‘Yes, dear old Stan. Everyone liked him. Didn’t have an enemy anywhere.’

‘No, not anywhere …’ Alan agreed softly, with just the slightest hint of a question.

Again, Grimshaw shook his greying head. Alan waited. Nothing. It was worth a try. Rapidly he resumed. ‘When Stan was working down this dyke last summer, he drew up a series of dyke profiles and tied them all into a single TBM—’

‘That’s right, he told me, it’s on the sluice gate – but didn’t he level it in?’ Matt sounded genuinely surprised.

‘No,’ Alan replied. ‘I don’t think so. At least it certainly didn’t find its way into his notebook.’ Suddenly a thought came to him. ‘Why, did he ask where the OS datum point was?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘So he intended to come back and level his TBM in?’

‘Yes. But we had a better idea.’

‘Really?’ Alan was intrigued.

‘That’s because the old Ordnance Survey benchmark had gone when we repaired the foundations here three years ago. Early last year the OS people came down and surveyed in another one, but it’s round the front, down there.’

As he spoke, Matt pointed down to an engineering brick stub wall, just above the double pump inlet sluice. Alan peered at it: he could just see a metal plaque with the distinctive arrow benchmark.

‘Anyhow,’ Matt continued, ‘we used it to transfer a level to the sluice gate for him. We were working here, so it was no extra work to do it. And he was such a nice bloke. It was the least we could do.’

‘Oh well,’ Alan sighed. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t seem to have survived.’ He paused, deep in thought. If the crucial TBM had been levelled in, surely he would have found the information somewhere? It certainly wasn’t something a professional like Stan would mislay. So had it been removed? And if so, by whom?

Matt broke into his thoughts. ‘Well, don’t worry.’ Suddenly he was more businesslike. ‘That’s easily rectified.’

By now Matt’s assistant, Dave, had set up the GPS. A few minutes later he looked up from the instrument, and called across the Engine Drain from almost a hundred yards away. ‘Minus zero point four seven!’

‘Blimey, that’s high!’

Alan had expected a level at least half a metre below that. It meant that the archaeological levels around the edges of Fursey island would extend far further out into the surrounding fen than he’d originally expected. Stan would have been astonished too.

Matt shouted back. ‘Please check that, Dave.’

There was a short pause while his assistant went back to the instrument. Then he looked up. ‘Same result: zero point four seven. That’s below OD,’ he added to make himself clear.

‘Thanks, Dave!’ Alan shouted back, giving him a thumbs up.

Meanwhile Matt was helping Davey attach the chains to the steel framework of the old sluice.

‘Hope that level’s OK, Alan,’ he called over his shoulder.

‘A bit higher than I’d expected.’

Alan was gazing across the peaty fields surrounding them. He now knew there was far more archaeology beneath their surfaces than anyone could possibly have imagined, even five years ago. It was great news for archaeologists, but other people – farmers, landowners, developers, for example – would be less than delighted.

‘Yes, I could see that from your face. But I’m sure it’s accurate. Dave’s very good on the GPS – and it wasn’t a long traverse.’ He paused briefly to check the final position of the chains. ‘Right, Davey, my friend, time we got this old lady out of the way.’

He nodded at Davey who had returned to the excavator. He tweaked the throttle lever, to the right of the driver’s seat. Alan expected to hear the revs roar, but there was only a small puff of smoke and a very slight noise as the huge machine effortlessly pulled the old sluice gate, still embedded in its concrete footings, bodily from the mud of the fen. It was almost too easy; an anticlimax. Alan glanced up. The sun was now well above the horizon and an old grey heron was surveying them quizzically from 50 yards away. At the far end of the field across the dyke, Alan could see a tractor with a set of rolls turn in through the gate. A Land Rover followed it. A large man got out and shut the gate. Then suddenly his attention was reclaimed by a loud splash and gurgle as the gate swung clear of the ground. Pieces of reed and lumps of peat dropped into the clear waters of the Engine Drain.

As he headed back to the pumping station, Alan couldn’t help thinking that they’d nearly lost that TBM. No wonder Stan had been so excited when they’d last met. Those levels were very much higher than anyone could have supposed. Even the Royal Geographical Society’s 1970 survey couldn’t have predicted they’d find Roman occupation at just a gnat’s above OD. He sighed heavily: it had been a close-run thing. For a few satisfying moments, he let relief take over. He felt better. Much calmer. More relaxed – even a bit complacent. But these were not emotions he was very familiar with. In fact, they were so strange, he began to wonder why his sub­conscious should regard something as relatively trivial as a lost benchmark so important?

Then he realised. It was all about credibility and authority. Had the levels in Stan’s notebooks been a bit hit-and-miss, they wouldn’t be so significant. The fact was, they were tied in to an OS benchmark and the TBM had been on a known and fixed point in the open fen. So there could be no pos­sible argument about it: those levels were absolutely accurate and could be validated by anyone. They proved beyond any possible doubt that there were extensive and superbly well-preserved, waterlogged ancient remains in the depths of this fen. More to the point, Alan reflected, their significance was not lost on someone. And that someone was worried. Scared even – but enough to commit murder? Quite possibly. But who – and why?

As he climbed into the Fourtrak, Alan was suddenly overtaken by a feeling of dread. He knew he wasn’t on top of this case. He was aware that things were happening and that people out there were being driven by powerful motives. All his instincts told him, too, that the pace was about to hot up. But this time, he thought, I’ll be ready and waiting.