Free The Bone Garden by Kate Ellis

boyfriend, Matt, was working away over by the gatehouse.
    ‘There’s stone here. I think it could be the base of the wall,’ said Jane, matter-of-factly. ‘And look at all these seashells
     – loads of them.’ She put down her spade, took a trowel from her tray, knelt down and began to scrape away at the earth.
    Neil began to dig again, taking off the topsoil, expanding the trench to the limits he had marked out, until he too felt the
     hard resistance of stone against the spade. ‘It’s nearer the surface than we thought,’ he said. ‘Jake says there’s a mention
     in the old records of a shell grotto. This could be it.’
    Jane smiled and carried on, scraping away with her trowel until a small section of stone wall was clearly discernible, surrounded
     by a carpet of tumbled shells. Neil too scraped away to reveal his portion of wall. Things were going well. He was just contemplating
     asking Jake if he could spare any of the volunteers to help with the digging when he heard a scuffling at the side of the
     trench.
    ‘Hi. Are you Neil Watson?’
    Neil looked up to see where the female voice with the slight Irish accent was coming from. Then, feeling at a disadvantage,
     he scrambled to his feet, not taking his eyes off the pretty young woman with long black hair and sapphire-blue eyes who stood
     at the edge of his trench, smiling.
    ‘Sorry if I startled you. I’m Claire O’Farrell, the project historian. I thought we might be able to help each other out.’
     Her smile widened, revealing a set of perfect white teeth.
    Neil, uncharacteristically flustered, wiped his soil-stained hand on his T-shirt and held it out to Claire. ‘Er … this is
     Jane. She’s with the County Archaeological Unit too, and there’s Matt; he’s working on the gatehouse trench.’ Jane raised
     a hand and smiled at the newcomer.
    ‘You lot have arrived just in time,’ said Claire. ‘The deadlines the trust set were a bit ambitious for Jake to cope with,
     if you ask me.’ She paused, still smiling. ‘I hear that one of the policemen who came about our skeletons is a friend of yours.’
    ‘Yeah … Wes Peterson. We were at uni together.’
    ‘So how come he joined the police? Did he drop out or something?’
    Neil shook his head. ‘On the contrary. Our Wes got a first. I thought he’d go on to do postgraduate work but he surprised
     us alland joined the forces of oppression. Don’t ask me why. Mind you, he was always addicted to those Sherlock Holmes books. And
     they do say that inside every archaeologist there’s a detective struggling to get out, don’t they? And his granddad was some
     sort of high-up detective in Trinidad, so that might have had something to do with it. He’s okay is Wes … useful man to have
     around.’
    Claire smiled coyly. ‘So you’re a bit of a detective yourself, then?’
    ‘I’ve had my moments,’ Neil said modestly, studying his feet.
    There was an awkward pause, then Claire broke the silence. ‘Have you seen where I work yet?’
    ‘Can’t say I have.’
    ‘I’ve some maps and prints that you might be interested in. They show the gardens at different stages in their history. You’ll
     probably find them useful. And there are documents too. I haven’t had time to go through them all yet but some of them date
     back to the late sixteenth century.’
    ‘Where did you find them?’
    ‘A family called Wilton bought the place in 1946. It had been used as a base for US troops during the war, and when they moved
     in there were loads of wooden huts down by what’s now the cricket pitch. In fact I think the pavilion there is the last remaining
     one. Anyway, the Wiltons took a great interest in the place and did it up. They also acquired lots of papers connected with
     the estate. They sold it in 1965 but somehow they kept the papers. Which is great for me because the family has been very
     helpful and allowed me free access to them. There’s loads … all fascinating