Free The Marriage Hearse by Kate Ellis

house.
    He’d told Big Eddie to go. He’d see to it from now on. It was his field after all. His responsibility.
    ‘You’re quiet,’ his wife, Margaret, said as he sat down for the cup of tea he usually enjoyed in the middle of the afternoon,
     anoasis in his day before he had to think of the evening’s milking.
    ‘What’s up?’
    Brian hesitated. ‘You know that bloke with the metal detector?’
    ‘What about him?’
    ‘He’s turned up some bones in the lower meadow.’
    Margaret seemed to lose interest. Animal bones were always turning up on farmland.
    ‘Human bones.’
    She looked up. ‘You sure?’
    ‘Course I’m sure. He didn’t uncover all of them. I told him to stop and cover them up again until I told the police. But it
     looked like a ribcage and …’
    ‘All animals have ribcages. Probably a dog … or a pig. Police won’t thank you for fetching them out to a dead dog.’
    ‘You’re a nurse. Why don’t you come and have a look?’
    Margaret snorted. Viewing old bones was the last thing she fancied doing at that moment. But, after thinking it over, she
     agreed that they had to be sure. If the remains were human, the police would have to be called in. After the tea was finished
     and the mugs stacked in the sink, she pulled on her wellingtons and followed her husband down to the meadow.
    As they neared the field, Brian was surprised to see that Big Eddie had returned and that he was kneeling over where the bones
     lay, digging with a trowel. Brian shouted to him and the big man jumped up in alarm.
    ‘What the hell are you doing? I told you to go home.’ Margaret put a restraining hand on her husband’s arm and whispered to
     him to remember his blood pressure.
    Big Eddie stood there, sheepish. He shifted from foot to foot, his weather-beaten face turning beetroot red behind his beard.
    ‘If there’s anything down there that’s worth a bit, I couldn’t let the filth get their hands on it, could I? I was going to
     tell you. I was. Honest.’
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Margaret asked, deeply suspicious. If she’d had her way Brian would never have let Big Eddie
     on his land. But he’d insisted that it was like playing the lottery.There was a chance, albeit an infinitesimally small one, of a big win.
    Big Eddie drew something from his pocket. A small gold ring, with a red stone set in its centre glinting in his soil-stained
     fingers. A treasure.
    ‘I found it on one of the fingers. If the filth got it they would have taken it for evidence and we’d never see it again.
     I wasn’t going to keep it for myself, Brian. You do believe me. I’d give you your share.
    Brian said nothing as Margaret put out her hand and Eddie handed over the trinket obediently. Not many people argued with
     Margaret.
    She placed the ring carefully in a clean tissue and put it in the pocket of her cardigan before squatting down beside the
     bones. The ribs were exposed, the hands laid across them. Whoever had buried this unfortunate corpse had taken the trouble
     to lay it out properly, with some reverence. The rest of the skeleton was still beneath the earth. Margaret brushed some soil
     off the thin ribs with the large, capable hands that were as adept at delivering babies as they were at bandaging ulcerated
     legs. She stared at the yellowed bones for a few seconds before straightening herself up.
    ‘We’ll have to call in the police. They’re definitely human.’ She glanced at Big Eddie who was hanging his head like a naughty
     schoolboy. ‘But I suppose tomorrow morning’ll do. I’ll look after the ring. The police might want to see it. It might help
     them find out who she was.’
    ‘She?’
    Margaret smiled. ‘Just a feeling. Those hands look too delicate for a male.’
    Brian looked around, as if checking that they couldn’t be overheard. ‘There could be more jewellery down there. We could have
     a bit of a dig around before the police come …’
    Big Eddie nodded in agreement.