Saturday morning, at ridiculous o'clock, Mal was woken by the delicious sweep of a hand down his spine. It was still dark but enough light was coming from the living room for Mal to be able to see that Rob was fully dressed.
"Morning." Rob grinned at him. "You take some waking."
"Sleeping's what I'm best at," Mal mumbled, but turned over and propped up a little to peer at his watch. "What time is it?"
"Nearly six. Didn't want to go without saying goodbye. I've got to be over the other side of Hereford by ten and got to pick up the small excavator from Glyn's first. I'll be digging out the footings for an extension for the rest of the weekend."
Mal made a disappointed grumble. "Pity," he said. "I had plans for this morning."
"Did you now?" Rob put his hands on the pillow, one either side of Mal's head. "Any reason why those plans have to be cancelled? Could they just be postponed?"
It had been a brilliant evening and Mal felt like a limp noodle. The possibility of feeling this way again, the sooner the better, wasn't one to turn down.
"Postponed works for me," he said, and had just enough time to smile before Rob leaned down and kissed him.
When Mal awoke for the second time it was to a wrecked bed and the powerfully pleasant scent of warm men, beer and sex. He buried his face in Rob's pillow with a groan, gave it a hard squeeze then sat up to get on with his day.
Firstly a text because, while he knew he'd spoken to Rob, he couldn't remember the details and was worried he hadn't been clear enough about how much he'd enjoyed their evening and night. Not that he was smitten, of course, but they'd had fun and he'd be delighted to do it again and he wanted Rob to be sure of that. His phone was charging on the bedside table and it bleeped as soon as he picked it up and turned it on. Two new messages. The first was from the bank suggesting he might like some insurance but the second was from Rob. "Can u do W/day? U choose where." Followed by a smiley face.
Mal grinned. "Wednesday," he said as he keyed in his response, "will be fine!"
The rest of the weekend would have been an anti-climax if it hadn't been for the texted pictures from Rob showing everything from the little excavator and the astonishing garden he was working in, to his room at a guest house and the lavish breakfast on Sunday morning. Mal responded as best he could, showing the heap of bedding he was feeding into the washing machine and the moth-eaten badger in the museum, snapped when he popped in on Saturday afternoon.
His weekend custodians had worked together for years and had been friends and confidantes of the previous curator, and they both still treated him with extreme suspicion. He tried to be amused that they seemed to view him as though he was some kind of dangerous beast who might ravage them in the tea room. Soon after he had arrived, Betty had recounted to him their reactions, doing all the voices and actions, and he had almost cried laughing as she had deepened her voice as Gillian and barked "They have appointed a man?" then clasped her hands to her bosom as Melilot and intoned "Oh the Lord preserve us!" in a silvery fairy-like whisper.
Actually the two ladies were very efficient and welcoming custodians, so Mal made sure the biscuit tin was filled and that the supplies of tea were topped up, and he hoped that they would eventually decide that he was harmless.
On Tuesday morning he opened his email and spent an efficient twenty minutes getting rid of the rubbish, then began to open the more important ones. He didn't get down to one with Visit in the subject line until 10.15 and cursed as he read it:
“I'd like to take the opportunity to welcome you to the community on behalf of our sector of the council and will be in your area for an hour on Tuesday morning. If I don't hear otherwise I'll assume that it's all right for me to pop in just after ten.
“Yours
“Lionel Pugh, Cllr i/c Culture.”
On the one level Mal was delighted to see that the museum was counted as culture, while on another he looked around his chaotic office and groaned.
Grabbing the phone he called down to Betty and warned her of the impending visit.
"He's already here," she murmured. "Marcia collared him as he came in through the doors so you've got a few minutes yet. Just move the box of veterinary specimens. They're enough to turn your stomach. I'll ring up to let you know when he's on his way."
Mal thanked her then took a deep breath. If one couldn't be tidy at the very least one needed to look busy.
By the time the good councillor was ready to come up, Mal had fetched a trolley from the stores and had loaded it with half a dozen boxes, including the hideous bottled tapeworm and the foetal sheep, had draped a dust sheet over them, and had parked it all on the landing.
"Hello?" Pugh peered around the corner from the stairs and gave Mal a wary smile.
"You've made some changes," he said. "Last time I came up here it was boxes all the way."
"We've been having a rationalise," Mal admitted. "Loads of stuff to sort through, still, of course. Can I offer you coffee, or tea?"
"No thanks, just a fleeting visit this time. I wanted to introduce myself properly though I expect you remember me from your interview." Pugh was solidly built and tall, with dark hair combed over a bald patch. He sported a golf club tie, a fancy waistcoat with a blazer and a tasteful diamond pinkie ring. Mal remembered him very well.
They shook hands and Mal invited him into the office, apologising for the boxes he had arranged on the floor. "I'm at the stage of making it look worse before it gets better," he explained. "This is turning out to be a steep learning curve. I know best practice and the most common documentation systems, but we have methods here that are completely new to me and, of course, I don't know the history of the town yet."
"I could help you out there." Pugh grinned. "The Pughs have been serving the community hereabouts for centuries."
"I wondered." Mal nodded to a box of legal briefs, neatly folded and tied with faded red tape. "It's a name that I've seen regularly. Along with the Havards, Beynons, Escleys, Farriners and Derrys. But then it's such a lovely town that I suppose people are loathe to move away."
"You'd think," Pugh said. "But honestly there's not much for the kids to do. And, of course, housing is a big problem."
Mal made an encouraging sound while thinking, Ah, I wonder if this is the point?
"I understand you've been seconded," Pugh rolled the word around in his mouth with relish, "to supervise the treatment of archaeological remains - if any - discovered on the new development up along Rifles Lane? I'm just keen to help out any way I can. I've done a lot of study of the area and am almost one hundred per cent certain that the site is clear. Just plough land, you know, so ideal for new housing. Widening Rifles Lane will be a boon, too, because it will open up another whole tranche of land along the slope that's inaccessible at the moment."
"I see." Mal didn't really. From what he had seen, the town was shrinking rather than growing. Rob had said as much on Friday night. Kids moving away to find work and it wasn't as though the town was touristy enough to attract the young-retired, downsizing crowd. "I suppose that area's on the side of town closest to the A465. Good access for housing but also just the place for a business park?"
Pugh nodded. "Nothing has been finalised, of course, but it's a good site, and would lead to more jobs and more opportunities for locals."
"Well, I don't think anyone wants to put too much of a stopper on that," Mal agreed, "but, you know, if there is something ancient there, we need to know and make it safe. If it's a big site we wouldn't even have to excavate it, as long as we could ensure it wouldn't be damaged. Cover it up and preserve it is what happens in ninety percent of cases. It's just if something is vulnerable that it has to be moved."
Pugh frowned. "Well, I'll count on you to hurry it up as far as you can. The bottom end of the site runs right along where we think the old road to Hereford lies and that has Roman foundations so might bear a look, but I think they are going to be making a start along the lane and it's essential that is cleared quickly so the lorries and trades can get in without having to go through the town."
"I'll have a word with Glyn Havard," Mal promised. "He seems reasonable."
"He does what he can with what he has," Pugh said grudgingly. "Though some of his staff could be better."
Having spent the best part of thirty-six hours exchanging daft pictures with one of the staff and being well aware why someone like Pugh might disapprove of Rob Escley, Mal merely smiled and repeated his promise to do what he could with what he had as well.
Pugh gave him an approving nod. "Glad to hear it," he said. "I know that there has been some opposition - there always is to change - but we need it desperately. Oh dear, is that the time. I've got a planning meeting at County Hall in three quarters of an hour."
"You might just make it." Mal got up and opened the door for him then accompanied him down to reception.
"Well, it was a pleasure to do business with you," Pugh said, shaking his hand on the doormat, then hurrying out into the chilly morning.
Mal watched him get into a Jag a few years too young to be considered retro, then turned back to find Betty watching him with raised eyebrows.
"Business?" she said. "I'd be careful if I was you, Mal."
"Nonsense!" Marcia Stenhouse cut in before Mal could reply. "Councillor Pugh is a good friend of mine and a colleague of my husband's. I know that you may feel that the council has been clipping the museum's wings but you must see it's for the best." She gestured to the high ceiling and sweeping staircase. "It was by far cheaper to move the library here and it gives you the opportunity to get a few extra visitors when our many customers come in to renew their books."
"And I'm sure we're all very grateful for that," Mal said. "Was there anything you wanted, Marcia?"
After an hour shifting some boxes of books from the store room to the main body of the library - recorded in a message to Rob who responded with a photo of Sion drinking tea - Mal wiped the sweat from his forehead and returned to the desk. Sharon, his other weekday custodian was there, dusting the shop shelves. She waved her feather duster at him, and smiled.
"Betty said she's making you tea." She dropped her voice to a pantomime whisper. "Said you'd need it after the morning you've had with Marcia."
"It was my other visitor that gave me food for thought," Mal muttered and Sharon beamed.
"Councillor Pugh, wasn't it? Such a nice man, Mal, and does so much for the community. Get him on your side and you'll be able to do a lot for the museum."
"Oh yes, I bet."
Mal repeated that sentiment to Betty who hooted with laughter.
"Pugh does a lot for the town, yes, but he also does a lot for himself. You do realise that it's his daughter, Vanessa, who is married to Selwyn Gaskell? And he and Gaskell regularly make up a golf-four with Sandy Stenhouse, Marcia's hubby, who's something in Planning and Melton from the Highways division?" She grinned at him. "What goes around comes around."
Mal frowned, uneasy at the thought that he might be expected to ignore important finds at the request of powerful men. "Have you and Sharon got things to do?"
"Sharon's going to carry on with the monthly sales figures, in between gassing to whoever comes in, and I thought I'd make the most of you and I both being here and have a bash at some of the boxes in your office. Try to match up things with paperwork, for a start. Then I can file and you can catalogue?"
"That would be brilliant. There's a box in the corner - the one under the stuffed owl - and I'm sure that's not just old correspondence. Last time I looked in a box like that I found eighty quid in loose change. Every little helps. Oh and the veterinary samples are on the trolley by my office door."
"Ewwww tape worm." Betty shuddered. "Let's finish our tea first."