It had been a long, wet winter and even January, which Alan knew from his childhood on his family’s small farm in Lincolnshire, could often be dry, if cold, was starting with rain. The previous week the contractors working on the new Fursey farm shop and restaurant had got a forklift, carrying a pallet-load of roof tiles, stuck when it dropped a wheel off the concrete floor of the old pig yard. To make matters worse, building inspectors, on one of their routine site visits, had parked on the environmentally friendly cellular plastic car park surface, which covered most of the open space between the old reed barn, the pig yard and Abbey Farmhouse, where John, Candice and Barty lived. The cellular car park surface had been the last word in what today would be called eco-friendly car park solutions when Barty had had it installed in the late ’80s.
Alan had been preparing to leave for a bite of lunch at the pub when the large, low-slung car from County Hall arrived on-site. It had been raining hard all week and Alan had thought it wisest to leave his Fourtrak on a corner of the pig yard, well out of the way. But not so these important officials, who drove straight onto the cellular matting – which promptly gave way. And hence today’s meeting. After the incident, which involved several pairs of shiny black shoes getting covered with sticky alluvial mud, all visitors to the site, petting farm and abbey were being accommodated on the concrete surface of the old pig yard, which now sported some rather narrow, but freshly-painted parking spaces.
The site office was housed in a Victorian implement store attached to the reed barn, which Barty had converted in the late ’70s when he and Molly were setting up the original Abbey Farm Shop. Now it had to be reached by a duckboard walkway from the reed barn. As so often seemed to be the case, Alan was the last to arrive. Once inside the office, Candice introduced him to the two officials from County Hall, a planner and Clare Hughes from development control, who had offered to help Alan publish Stan’s papers at the wake. Alan knew she was no fool. Although still quite young, and unlike most of her contemporaries, Clare had actually worked in a contracting unit, so was able to appreciate their problems. But on the downside, it also meant she could see through most of their bullshit.
Candice began the meeting. ‘First, let me apologise for John not being here, but he had a prior engagement with the bank in London.’
This sounded very impressive, but Alan was surprised that she felt it necessary to apologise at all: she was, after all, a partner in the Fursey enterprise.
‘I would also like to apologise for that unfortunate business last week. I do hope your people weren’t too badly affected. We had no idea the cellular car park would be so wet. It’s never, ever, been like that before. I’m sure it’s just the rain.’
Far from being made to look a fool by her collapsing car park, Alan admired the way she had used it to keep control. Her poise was remarkable.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure, Mrs Cripps,’ the planner interjected. ‘We’ve come across this sort of thing before. Those cellular surfaces are wonderful and generally very effective, especially on well-drained surfaces such as sand and gravel. But they often encounter problems on heavy clay soils and particularly when patterns of use intensify, as is happening here. I’m pleased to hear that your visitor numbers are doing well.’
‘Thank you, yes they are.’ Candice was suitably gracious. ‘So it would seem we’ve no alternative but to put down a more durable—’
‘And drainable,’ the planner added. Unnecessarily, Alan thought.
‘Indeed, and drainable, surface,’ Candice continued, undaunted. ‘But we’ve had contractors visit the site and they are most insistent that we remove all the surface clay, right down to the gravel subsoil. They don’t think we need go any further, provided we lay a geo … a geo …’
‘A permeable geotextile sheet.’ This time the planner’s intervention was welcomed.
Next she turned Clare. ‘And what are the archaeological implications of doing that?’
Clare pulled a face. She had no idea. ‘I think Alan here, is the best person to ask.’
‘Well, yes,’ Alan began, ‘if Stan’s survey is correct, the clay alluvium is pretty even across the area of the cellular surface, but perhaps a little thicker to the north, towards the old pig sheds – but not much, maybe three inches. Then below that is the buried soil that was in existence prior to the widespread flooding of the third century AD. So that’s going to be very important and will require close attention, although there shouldn’t be any need to excavate down into features below it, unless, of course, they’re filled with alluvium, too. But then you’d want to get rid of that anyhow.’
‘So how long will that take you?’ Candice asked.
‘That depends on the team I can assemble at such short notice, but I can’t see it being finished in under six weeks. Maybe ten. It just depends on what we find.’
‘The thing is,’ Candice said with a hint of anxiety, ‘we’ve got a big opening ceremony planned for the Easter holiday.’ She paused to check the date on her phone. ‘Which is the weekend of 22 to 25 April. The contractors reckon it’ll take two weeks to do the job and they’d like to allow another week for line-painting and consolidation. So your deadline is the end of March. Can you do it?’
The question was posed to Alan, but to everyone’s surprise Clare answered. ‘I don’t think that’s up to Alan, Mrs Cripps. We at County Hall decide when and if the car park can be built, and Alan has to satisfy us that the archaeology has been properly dealt with.’
Blimey, Alan thought, that was a bit strong. Even for a county mounty. But still, he had to concede, it did need saying.
* * *
The car from the county council was heading down the drive, when Candice turned to Alan. ‘Are all the county people like her?’
‘I wouldn’t worry, Candice. I think her bark is worse than her bite. I’ve worked with her on several jobs and never had a problem.’
‘Oh, well,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s hope it was a one-off. So tell me what you honestly think: can we meet the deadline?’
Alan shrugged. ‘I’ll be frank. Normally I’d say yes. In fact, six to ten weeks would easily be enough on most sites, but we’re on an island here, plus there’s a known Iron Age presence and just over there’ – he nodded towards the abbey ruins – ‘is an important Benedictine monastery. So I honestly don’t know. But as we don’t have to excavate any features below the palaeosol—’
‘The what?’
‘Sorry, the ancient pre-flooding topsoil layer. If we had to dig them as well, I’d say that six months wouldn’t be long enough for a site of this size.’
By now Candice was looking very anxious. Outside the office the watery sun had retreated behind cloud and light rain was beginning to fall. Alan looked across at Candice. She was obviously determined to make a go of the Fursey enterprise, although Alan wasn’t altogether certain how much real help her husband John was actually providing. But he could see she was determined, and that worried him. A determined woman was not what you wanted when you were trying to prise open a tightly-knit family. Increasingly he realised that poor, gentle Stan would have been no match for her.
‘You may well have guessed, Alan,’ she had now adopted a quieter, more confidential tone, ‘that John and I have invested a substantial sum of borrowed money and a lot of ourselves in this project. But I think we knew more or less what we were doing, until, that is, we came across archaeology. Neither of us really understand anything about it, which is why, of course, we invited Peter Flower to join the board of our company back in 2006.’
Hmm, Alan thought, I’d have chosen someone with some practical experience. But instead, he asked about their company. ‘That’s Fursey Heritage Developments Ltd?’
‘That’s right, FHD.’ She paused briefly. ‘John, Barty and I set it up the previous year, when John was starting to become more closely involved in the estate and realised that the farm shop and restaurant were not very tax efficient and the petting farm was potentially missing out on huge tourism grants. So, using the abbey ruins as an excuse, he was able to convince the Charity Commission that part of the organisation – the Fursey Heritage Trust – should be registered as an official charity. As a result, FHD now pays a proportion of its gross profits to the charity, tax-free.’
‘That’s quite a complex arrangement.’ Alan had come across similar set-ups elsewhere, and they didn’t always operate very efficiently. ‘And does it work well?’
‘Yes, very well. But you’ve got to understand that setting up companies like ours was meat and drink to John. He did it, indeed, he still does it, for a living. He has a large practice with offices in London and Cambridge.’
Alan didn’t want her to think he was prying unnecessarily, but he had good reasons to find out more. Very often the organisation of family companies reflects the power structure of the people behind them.
‘So did he do his consultancies for all sorts of companies, or just ones like yours, in the heritage sector?’
‘Perhaps heritage is defining it a bit closely. No …’ She thought for a moment. ‘He’s interested in projects and companies that involve the public directly. So his firm advises several large theme parks, including Belton Towers and Madame Gaspard’s in London, not to mention Mrs Lipton’s Cave. But they also provide management services to at least one chain of pubs, a group of specialised cinemas and two franchises of high street betting shops.’
‘Gosh, that’s quite a portfolio. How does he find the time to do all that and still work here?’
‘Well, I suppose I do most of the day-to-day running of Fursey. Like this morning.’ She smiled. ‘The thing is, he has always enjoyed working in the corporate world and he’s very good at it. Ever since he was at Cambridge he has been closely involved with tourist attractions and that sort of thing. He enjoys the public side, too. In fact, strictly between ourselves, I was quite worried when he started to look into the running of betting shops and then found he was actually rather good at it.’
Alan was intrigued. Betting shops? Not at all what he’d have expected. ‘At what? Running the companies, or betting?’
It was meant as a slightly risqué joke. But to Alan’s surprise, Candice took it at face value.
‘Betting. Believe it or not, he made quite a lot of money for himself that way. In fact, I had to make him promise he’d stop. It was starting to worry me. They always say you never win in the long run …’ She trailed off.
‘And did you succeed?’
‘Oh yes, of course I did. And I don’t think he has the sort of addictive personality that gets sucked ever deeper into gambling. I’m fairly sure he did it with his eyes wide open. And as I said, he was very good at it. So he still goes racing—’
‘Really? I’m surprised he finds the time?’
And I wonder what else he gets up to when he’s away? Alan was starting to wonder whether the John/Candice marriage was quite as Made in Heaven as it first seemed.
‘And I used to accompany him. But now it’s purely and simply for the horses, which he loves. In fact, we’d have a race horse if we had the money.’ She paused, frowning slightly. ‘The thing is, Alan, it’s not like he’s got the sort of personality that enjoys taking unnecessary risks. Far from it. But he can spot opportunities and has got a very sound business head, too. And that’s why for several years he’s been very keen to get involved with White Delphs down the road.’
Alan didn’t quite get the connection. ‘Sorry, I don’t follow you.’
‘Well you know White Delphs?’
‘Only vaguely. It’s over towards Outwell, isn’t it? Something to do with wartime remains. Pillboxes. That sort of thing.’
This was slightly untrue, as Lane had told him quite a lot. But he needed to discover what Candice thought of John’s idea. And what were his motives? Maybe she could give him the Cripps family line on what might be seen as local opposition? Or was there such a thing as a Cripps family line at all? If ever a family was composed of individuals, Alan mused, this surely was one.
‘That’s right. Up until recently it was being run by a group of local enthusiasts, but then it was taken over by Historic Projects Management in 1996. They run it very successfully. In fact, even now, their visitor numbers put ours in the shade. I tell myself they’ve got more popular appeal, being wartime – Dad’s Army and all that – but even so, I can’t help wondering how much of it is down to the family’s bad local reputation.’
Her husband’s familiarity with their operation suggested something to Alan. Was this John’s way of getting away from the Cripps Curse? And did he tell Stan? Alan knew Stan’s views about recent, especially wartime, archaeology – and they weren’t printable. The kindest thing he ever said was: ‘They’ll do the archaeology of The Archers next.’
‘And was John anything to do with that takeover?’
Candice was amazed. ‘How did you guess? Well, actually he was. And still is. He’s their principal projects consultant and between you and me he is very keen that HPM become partners here. They seem to have unlimited access to capital and all the people at White Delphs speak very highly of them.’
‘So they’ve had no trouble at White Delphs?’
‘I think there were a few problems when they took over. You can image the sort of things: health and safety issues, insurance etcetera, but once the people there realised their work could be properly financed, they shut up. And there’s never been any more trouble since.’
Now he had been told that John Cripps was involved with them, Alan needed to know more about the company that ran White Delphs. From what Candice had said, he guessed they’d soon be getting more closely involved with Fursey. He was beginning to suspect that John had agendas of his own. But first he needed to discover more about the way Fursey was managed – and by whom.
‘So is Fursey Heritage Developments still run by the two of you?’
‘Yes, plus Peter Flower,’ she reminded him. ‘And then two years later we had to ask Sebastian to join us.’
‘Had to?’ Alan wasn’t sure if he dared ask, but he did. And she didn’t seem to mind.
‘Yes, had to. He felt it ridiculous that the manager of the estate should be excluded. In fairness, John and I thought he’d be too busy, what with running Woolpit Farm, the hall and his district council work, but of course we invited him to join the board that autumn.’
Alan had some sympathy with Sebastian: they were wrong not to have invited him from the outset.
Candice continued. ‘Then he wanted his wife, Sarah, to join, but we drew the line at that.’
‘Why was that?’
He asked that question in a casual and unconcerned voice. He feared it wouldn’t work and she’d ask him to mind his own business. But instead she smiled, and replied, ‘She had never run a company of any sort and had no business background at all. At least I ran quite a successful restaurant in London before I joined John at Fursey.’
‘So what made you change your minds?’
She sighed heavily. ‘I know it sounds odd, but quite suddenly she seemed to grow up. She wasn’t the rather brain-dead county bimbo we thought Sebastian had married. I don’t know, but then in March 2004 there was that tragic accident.’ She trailed off and lifted up her handbag, probably for her phone, Alan thought. He knew he mustn’t let her stop. This was crucial.
‘An accident? What, here, on the estate?’
‘Yes, in the river.’ She put down her bag and looked Alan in the eye. ‘You’ll find out sooner or later; everyone who stays here seems to. One of the tenants at the hall was a London banker called Hansworth. He was a keen fisherman …’ She trailed off, unsure of how to phrase the next bit. ‘And he drowned.’
Alan decided not to reveal that Lane had already told him about it. There was a short pause, while Candice again contemplated her handbag. She was frowning heavily.
‘That’s terrible,’ Alan said as gently as he could. ‘And was he well liked?’
‘Yes, that’s what made it worse. He was. And of course it revived all that rubbish about the family curse. It was so sad, because Sarah and he had worked closely on improving the hall’s gardens, which were then very run-down.’ She paused. Alan could see that the memories were still very fresh and painful. With a sigh she continued. ‘No, it’s hard to find anything positive from such a horrible event, but I often think it was Hansworth’s death that made Sarah change. She seemed to become more serious and focused overnight. It was shortly afterwards that she began to make a big effort with the social side of the shoot – doing lots of catering and organising house parties. That sort of thing.’
‘But commercially?’
‘Oh yes, her enterprises were making money for the estate. And remember, they’ve barely got 400 acres at Woolpit Farm, so they need every penny they can earn.’
Alan was smiling. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected. Sarah hadn’t impressed him with her business acumen. Alan began to imagine Fursey Heritage board meetings, with the huge bulk of Sebastian dominating the table.
‘And what does Sebastian think about John’s plans to collaborate more closely with HPM and White Delphs?’
‘Oh, he’s dead against them. Thinks it’ll bring in the wrong sort of people – whoever they are. And so far he’s managed to convince his father, too, which is rather more worrying, although John thinks he’ll come round in time.’
Alan was nervous about asking any more questions and thought he’d pushed his luck as it was. He needn’t have worried.
Candice glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘Heavens, is that the time? I must be off. And don’t forget, Alan, do try to squeeze in a visit to White Delphs. I think you’ll be impressed.’
And with that, she walked briskly to the farm office and shut the door.
Alan turned around and looked across to the car park. He couldn’t just shut the door on that one. How on earth were they going to get it dug in time? It would be bad enough if that was all he had to worry about. But it wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t. He felt very low.
* * *
Alan strolled across the car park into the wintry shadows cast by the lime trees lining the avenue. He moved behind a large tree, pulled out his phone and dialled Richard Lane.
‘Richard, I’ve just had a very long conversation with Candice Cripps.’
‘I’m sure that must have been interesting.’
Lane was being drily inscrutable. He did it sometimes for effect. But Alan needed to get to the point. ‘She gave me lots of interesting details about the management companies at both Fursey and White Delphs. Anyhow, it’s clear that her husband John, is the driving force behind them both, although I suspect it’s she who does the lion’s share of the real work.’
‘Yes,’ Lane broke in. ‘I’ve suspected as much myself. But I think their relationship is straightforward compared with Sebastian and Sarah. They’re the strange ones …’ He trailed off, deep in thought.
Alan was thinking about Sarah and the banker Hansworth working in the garden together. How did Sebastian see that? But this was getting nowhere. Time to focus on the current problem. ‘But what I want to know, Richard, is what did John do for a living after he left Cambridge?’
There was a short pause, before Lane replied: ‘Yes, that’s something I’ve been meaning to look into myself. Leave it with me; I’ll get back to you ASAP.’
* * *
The next two days were hectic. Contractors arrived to lift the cellular car park reinforcement, which they took away, but it left a very rough surface behind. Alan’s heart sank. He phoned Clare, the county mounty to tell her it was far too uneven for a geophysical survey. He suggested that instead they should very carefully remove all the alluvium and then do the survey on the surface of the exposed palaeosol beneath. He wasn’t at all sure she’d agree to this, but to his surprise she did. He also told her he wasn’t planning to lay out any trial trenches until they’d got all the field walking and geophys results in front of them. And again, she thought this an excellent idea. Alan still felt very pessimistic about meeting the deadline but at least things were starting to move. With the survey done, they’d be able to start digging. And time was pressing.
Once Alan’s plans had been agreed with County Hall, he set about his next and most important task: to find a good digger driver. As any experienced field archaeologist is well aware, a skilled machine driver is at the heart of a good excavation. So he needed some advice on who to hire. Alan knew that his old friend Jake Williamson was working on a watching brief at White Delphs, so he decided to give him a call. It had been far too long since they’d spoken and Alan felt bad about the fact that he’d called Jake in to supervise at Impingham after that terrible accident when the cistern collapsed and Steve had been killed. It had been a very difficult time for both of them. With hindsight Alan realised that Jake had treated him with kid gloves. He had always avoided any rows or major disagreements and Alan was still grateful for that. In fact, he had a very soft spot for Jake and he was acutely aware that he had never thanked him adequately.
He phoned Jake who, as chance would have it, was busy machine watching as he spoke, so was able to ask his driver, Davey Hibbs, whether he’d be available to do another archaeological job the day after tomorrow. He was. Jake handed Davey the phone and Alan asked him a few questions about the machines he could get hold of and ordered a long-reach 20-ton 360 on bog-crawler tracks: the sort of digger that the internal drainage boards used to clean the dykes. Then Davey returned the phone to Jake, who spoke very highly indeed of Davey. He said the county mounties approved of him, too, which was always comforting. Before he rang off Alan mentioned that he was planning a visit to White Delphs.
‘Why not come on Saturday?’ Jake suggested. ‘The trench will still be open and I could give you a quick site tour. We finish on Sunday.’
‘Who’s we?’ Alan asked.
‘Jon and Kaylee, my two oppos. They’re great. You’d like them.’
‘So you’re all going to be available after the weekend?’
‘Yes, at least I don’t think any of us have work planned. There’s not a lot around as it is – and seeing as how it’s early January, we’re dead grateful to have this. It wasn’t very big, but it was work.’
Alan knew only too well how hard things still were in commercial archaeology.
‘Would you be interested in coming across to Fursey? There’s a bit of a panic here. I’ve got nobody on my books and I desperately need help. Any chance you three could join me here Monday morning? I don’t know what you’re all getting now, but I promise we’ll match it. How does that sound?’
‘That’s brilliant, Alan. I’ll speak to the others, but we’ll meet up on Saturday and can discuss any problems then. Cheers.’
And with that he rang off. All of a sudden, Alan could see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Was he starting to feel a bit more optimistic?
* * *
The digger was delivered on a low-loader late on Wednesday afternoon. Davey Hibbs followed the lorry in a small and very muddy white van. By now it was getting dark. After Davey had unloaded the digger, which he did very expertly but in the non-approved way, straight over the side, using the long-reach digging arm as a huge mechanical crutch. The lorry driver, grateful that he hadn’t had to lower the rear wheels and go through all that performance, gave Davey a big thumbs up and headed back down the drive. As the driver eased the low-loader out into the road behind them, Alan introduced himself to Davey Hibbs.
Davey was a good-looking, fair young man in his early thirties. When Alan asked where he was based, he explained that he had been born and brought up in the village and that he owned this slightly ageing JCB 360 plus another standard, smaller digger. The lorry driver was a mate of his. When Jake had mentioned his name on the phone it rang bells with Alan.
‘Davey, I’m sure I’ve come across the name Hibbs before. It rings loud bells.’
Davey laughed. ‘Yes. We were in the news. It was my little brother Sam who got hit by that willow tree at Smiley’s Mill.’
‘That’s right. It smashed through the grille. And is he OK?’
‘Yes, much better, thanks. Dad said he did it to get the time off.’
Alan smiled at this. Fen humour: dry, unlike the landscape. Yes, he thought, he seems a nice bloke. When Alan returned to his Portakabin, he left Davey starting to grease the machine for the next day. A good sign that. Some drivers left it to the following morning, when they could add it to their time sheets.
* * *
Alan drove the Fourtrak onto the old pig yard and drew up. When he turned off the headlights he could see that, far away on the south-eastern horizon, the sky was just starting to lighten up. He peered out of the window. Not too bad. Light cloud cover, a slight breeze. The farmers’ forecast had said the next three days would be dry with just the occasional shower along the east coast. Ely was well inland, so they should be OK.
He got out, walked round to the back, opened the big single door and took out his steel-capped rigger boots. Then he started to pull them on. As he was finishing, his eye was caught by three sets of headlights turning into the drive off the Ely-March road. That must be the crew. It didn’t make him feel particularly good. In fact, for a brief moment he wished they weren’t coming. The site was starting to get into his blood and he wanted to give it all his attention, but he knew that would be impossible once the filming started. It was so frustrating: they were off to a good start, with an experienced young digger driver, and Alan would have liked nothing better than to spend a day with him alone, watching how he worked, without all the distractions of the film crew. He sighed heavily; it was not to be.
He reached deep into the back of the Fourtrak and dragged out a large and very dirty hi-vis topcoat which he struggled into. It always felt cold – he much preferred good old-fashioned donkey jackets, but they’d long gone. He returned to the front and reached onto the sill, where he kept his trowel. Instinctively he thumbed it clean. Nothing worse than a dirty trowel.
By now the three vehicles had drawn up alongside him. Two VW vans and a very clean Citroen hire car. The car was closest and both passenger side windows wound down as it drew alongside him. Through the half-light Alan could discern two faces. In the front was a lady in her mid-forties; in the back a younger woman.
The older woman was the first to speak. ‘You must be Alan Cadbury?’
Alan nodded and stepped closer.
‘I’m Sonia Hawkes, the production manager. I always like to visit any major new locations so I know what I’m dealing with. Offices and screens can be so impersonal.’ Then she turned towards the back seat. ‘And this is Trudy Hills, our PA on this shoot.’
It had been several months since Alan had last filmed and for a moment he couldn’t remember the difference between an AP and a PA. Then Trudy stepped out of the car and he could see she was very young.
‘This is only my second shoot, Alan, so you must be patient with me.’
Alan couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound hopelessly patronising. So he smiled benignly. Then the driver’s side door opened and Frank Jones, the director, got out. He gave a huge stretch, his arms straight out, and yawned widely.
‘Ah, that’s much better. Morning, young man. I trust you’re feeling alert. Lively and well-informed. We’ve got to get this film off to a good start, you know.’
Alan could see these words were just a long way of saying hello. Frank opened the boot and hunted around for his wellies.
‘Alan, be a treasure and show young Trudy here where you keep the tea-making stuff. I think we’re all desperate for a cuppa,’ said Sonia Hawkes.
Trudy produced two large bags from the boot. Alan took one and escorted her around the perimeter duckboard walk, past the reed barn, to his Portakabin office, where he had a small fridge and an electric kettle. He told Trudy, who was looking rather anxiously at the tiny shelf, that over the weekend contractors would be delivering two more Portakabins for the dig, and one would have a larger sink and more power points. Meanwhile they would just have to make do.
As he walked back, this time taking the direct route across the disturbed surface left by the removal of the cellular paving grid, he was in time to see Davey’s small van arrive. By now the two other members of the film crew had got out of their rather larger vans and were preparing their equipment. Speed Talbot was frowning as he wrestled with the settings of the HD camera he had had to hire for the shoot. His sound recordist and long-time sidekick was Dave Edwards, known to everyone in the business as ‘Grump’. In fact, Grump and Speed had become something of a legend, a few younger people even referring to them as ‘G and S’. When Alan first heard this, he assumed it was a pun on Gilbert and Sullivan. But it wasn’t.
Alan stood by his Fourtrak and watched. He liked to see how directors handled their subjects and crews; it told you so much about them. He’d seen Frank having a few words with Speed as he was walking back from his Portakabin, but now he was nowhere to be seen. That was odd. Then he noticed that Speed had stopped fiddling with his camera settings and was filming, while sitting on the tailboard of his van. His camera was pointing at Davey who was pulling on his boots. He continued to film as Davey extracted two heavy jerricans of diesel from the back of the van and carried them the few paces to his digger. He was still filming as Davey collected a third can, plus a large yellow plastic funnel and began to fill up. He only stopped when Frank, who had appeared from nowhere, tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Alan was very surprised. This was the first time he’d worked on a shoot where the subject didn’t know he was being filmed. He decided to have a word with Frank, as he was blowed if anyone was going to treat him like that; but then he paused. Would that be entirely wise? No, he reminded himself, he was here for the long haul. Best put up with it for now.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the digger engine starting up. This time Alan noticed that Speed had the camera on a tripod and Grump was recording on a boom. Alan had to confess it looked quite spectacular with the machine against the clear sky and the abbey ruins looming in the background. As Davey pushed on the throttle the smoke from the exhaust briefly turned dark and they could all smell the diesel, but soon the engine warmed up and the fumes ceased. Alan walked over to the cab, this time wearing hi-vis and a hard hat. He pointed towards a rather battered red-and-white range pole where he wanted Davey to start stripping. Slowly the great machine began to move off, then it slewed hard right. By now Speed was on his knees, the camera focused on the single turning track as it churned its way through the sticky clay.
The crew and Alan walked rapidly towards the range pole, in time to film the digger arrive and stop. Slowly Davey extended the boom and dipper, then it froze: the bucket about an inch off the ground. He looked towards Alan, who beckoned him forward. Then he raised a hand and the digger again stopped more abruptly this time, rocking slightly under the weight of the long-reach digging arm. Again Davey looked towards Alan, who was aware that Speed was now pointing the camera directly at him. He held one hand about six inches above the other, a signal that Davey immediately understood. The bucket was about two-and-a-half metres wide and had a sharp, toothless cutting edge, which bit into the ground, then pulled back gently to remove a smooth slice of clay, almost exactly six inches thick. Alan was impressed. Jake had been right: Davey was a superb driver. Alan was a useful digger driver himself, but he recognised Davey was in a different class. The machine vibrated as Davey shook the bucket to get the sticky clay to detach. Then he was back.
Normally Alan would have taken a whole area down one spit at a time, but as this was the first trench of the day he decided to go right through the clay to the surface beneath, to see what was there and how deep they’d have to go. He jumped as Frank tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Can you get the digger to do that again, to one side. Speed needs another shot of the first scoop. It’s always better from several angles.’
Alan shook his head. ‘Sorry, that’ll have to wait. We need to go down now.’
‘But the light may have changed!’ Frank shouted against the digger’s engine. Davey had boosted the revs.
Alan pretended not to hear. It was important to establish who was boss, and he also knew that they’d have many more opportunities to film close-ups of buckets cutting into virgin ground. What mattered now was to establish the depth of clay to be removed. Again he signed six inches with his hands. And Davey repeated the manoeuvre. They did this five times before Alan held up his arm. Instantly the digger stopped. Alan jumped into the trench, pulling his trowel from his back pocket. He scraped down and started to feel a slight grittiness. That was what he wanted. He stood back, this time indicating two inches.
Most drivers would have slackened off the revs to do something delicate, but Davey was more experienced; the higher revs gave him greater control – it was just a matter of working the hydraulic levers with immense finesse. And that took skill. Slowly he drew the bucket back and lifted it out of the slot. This time he didn’t slew round to the spoil heap, but gently lowered the curled bucket to the ground. Alan went over to it. He was very impressed indeed; Davey had lightly tickled the buried land surface, but no more. He went over to the cab and asked Davey to empty this bucket on the nearside of the spoil heap. Davey did as he was bid, lightly spreading the loose earth at the same time. This would make it easier for Alan or the metal detectorists to search later.
Meanwhile Alan was back in the trench. Should he go down any further to get colours to define better, or should he stay at this level, right at the top? Generally speaking, he liked to go down to where everything was a bit clearer, but that was also the way to scrape off original floors and surfaces. The best way to decide was to get down on his hands and knees and have a good trowel-scrape. He signalled to Davey to cut his engine, then walked over to the cab and told him to take a break for five minutes. At this point the PA Trudy appeared with a tray of tea and biscuits. He grabbed one and had jumped back into the trench, when again Frank stopped him. This time he was being more circumspect.
‘Alan, I don’t suppose you could get back in the trench again. Speed missed it. And what are you doing now?’
‘I need five minutes to have a close look at the surface that’s just been exposed and then I’ll be able to decide if we go down further, or else we go sideways at this level and open up a wider area.’
‘OK, Alan, that’s fine.’ He looked towards Speed who made a churning motion with his free hand to show the camera was turning over. ‘And action …’
Alan jumped back into the trench, crouched down and began trowelling the surface. Speed and Grump recorded this from every conceivable angle and were about to return to their cups of tea when Alan instinctively gave a little ‘Hmm’ and leant back into the daylight, holding something in his hand. As an old pro he tilted his hand towards the camera which zoomed in on something resembling a large broad bean. Alan put it by his teacup at the side of the trench and then resumed trowelling. After a few scrapes, he came up with another piece, this time a bit larger than the first.
Davey wasn’t in the cab, but for Speed’s benefit Alan looked towards it and shouted, ‘Davey, I think we’ve got something interesting here!’
Out of the corner of his eye Alan had noticed that Frank was back with the others supping tea. As he shouted to the non-existent Davey in the cab, he caught a glimpse of Frank’s reaction. He sprayed tea everywhere. Wonderful.
A few moments later Frank hurried across to rejoin them.
‘OK, everyone, we’ll go from Davey’s reaction in the cab, to Alan in the trench.’ Frank looked at Speed, who muttered.
‘Turning over … Speed!’
Frank turned to Alan, nodded twice, and said, ‘In your own time, Alan.’
Alan took a deep breath and shouted, ‘Davey, I think we’ve got something interesting here!’ He’d been doing television long enough to make the words sound reasonably fresh and original.
Davey, now back in his cab, looked up, seemingly slightly startled, yet inquisitive. Hmm, Alan thought, he can act too. After a few seconds on Davey, Speed panned back to Alan.
Then Frank said, ‘And cut.’
Alan breathed a sigh of relief. That was the first scene out of the way.
* * *
The two small fragments of pottery were instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever dug on a Romano-British site in eastern England. There was a huge industrial complex of Roman pottery kilns in the suburbs of the small town of Durobrivae. Earlier in the Roman period they produced Nene Valley Grey Ware (NVGW) which was later replaced by Nene Valley Colour Coated Ware (NVCC) and both were traded widely across the province of Britannia. The two sherds in Alan’s hands, which Speed was filming in ultra-close-up, were undoubtedly of the distinctive Grey Ware, which has a slightly darker exterior and a paler grey interior. The second of the two sherds had been chipped by the digger bucket to expose the lighter core. So Alan was in absolutely no doubt whatsoever about what they had found. The other thing that interested him was the small size and rounded shape of the fragments, which Alan was fairly certain showed they had been lying around on the surface for some time before they got incorporated into the soil. On Frank’s suggestion Alan found himself explaining these things to Davey, as neither Tricia nor Craig Larsson could be with them until Monday. Nobody had expected this much action so early in the dig.
But as Alan had already noticed, Davey proved to be a TV natural – and in more ways than one. Somehow he managed to be enthusiastic, but without going too far. He was the perfect representative of the viewing public and instinctively posed the questions they wanted him to ask. As Frank said to Alan at the end of the day, ‘Blimey, that Davey’s good. Craig had better look out!’
As they cleared a larger and larger area, they found a lot of pottery lying on the old land surface and Alan marked the position of each potsherd with a white gardener’s tag. By lunchtime they had stripped an area the size of a small bungalow and Alan’s bag of 50 garden labels had shrunk to close-on half its original size. Again, the pottery was quite consistent with an early Roman date: first or second century AD, with some hand-made sherds, but mostly NVGW. Then after lunch they began to find a few small sherds of Samian Ware. This was top-quality table pottery made in a distinctive clay that fired to a vivid reddish-orange. Today, of course, it would be glazed, but in Roman times it was given a hard, bright polish known as a burnish. Samian was made in the south of France and was not what Alan expected to find on a small rural settlement in the Fens. And again there were several worn sherds and from more than one vessel. By the end of the day, Alan was in absolutely no doubt: they had stumbled across a higher status Romano–British site that had developed out of the rich Iron Age settlement that Stan had discovered the previous summer.
As he explained to Davey on camera, in the final interview of the day: ‘The people who imported this fine pottery from the south of France would have been the children and grandchildren of families who had been living in the area for generations. What we’re witnessing here is the process of people becoming Romanised. They basically bought Roman things and then used them. And that was the way the period began for most ordinary folk in Roman Britain.’
It sounded splendid and Frank was delighted when a few moments later he declared to the crew and a couple of bystanders who had wandered over from the building site, ‘Thank you, Alan. And that’s it, folks. Well done. A great first day. That’s a wrap.’
Alan sighed. He was exhausted. Filming was much harder work than just digging – and doing both was knackering. He had contemplated going to the pub for a quick beer with Davey, but now found he couldn’t face it. He needed to plan for tomorrow. He climbed into the Fourtrak, his legs stiff from so much standing. Then he thought about what they had found: so much Roman material and some of it very upmarket. As sometimes happened, he found himself thinking about the present, through the past. Were the Iron Age Brits who lived here at Fursey like the Cripps family in the 17th century? Did they take ruthless advantage of new circumstances? And then what happened? Did they hang onto their wealth and status, or did they lose it, through indolence and the Roman equivalent of death duties?
Alan turned on the ignition and headed slowly along the drive. He smiled as he remembered Frank’s efforts to call the shots. But he had to concede, Frank had been dead right about one thing: it had been one hell of a good first day. Stan wasn’t a great fan of TV but he would have been over the moon about the high-status Roman finds, which had to be a development from his original Iron Age settlement.
When he got back home he went straight over to the fridge, opened a beer and raised the bottle to his old friend. That felt better.