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a Spanish rose who had withered in the English chill. Neil imagined the exotically imported wife, regarded
     with suspicion in life by her in-laws but laid to rest beside them when the time came. She was family after all.
    The Bentham vault was topped by a tall granite obelisk, an all too solid reminder of their wealth and standing in the community.
     From the little local research Neil had conducted – mainly by chatting to the Rector – he had learned that the Benthams were
     the local squires who had lived from the fifteenth century onwards in Bentham Hall. The original hall had been burned down
     and rebuilt in the fashionable classical style in the eighteenth century. After the Second World War the family had moved
     out due to hard times and inheritance tax and the hall had been transformed recently into an upmarket hotel. The last of the
     Benthams, Miss Worth, whose mother had been the family’s only daughter, had died childless in a tiny cob cottage with a smallholding
     attached, not far from the pub that bore her mother’s family’s proud name. Neil supposed that this turn of events was a blow
     for social equality.
    He found himself staring at the symbol carved boldly in the centre of the obelisk. The seven-pointed star with the seven rays
     and the rose at its centre. The Shining Ones. He wondered how it had come to dominate the Bentham family’s last resting place.
     Had they been ‘Shining Ones’? Who exactly were the ‘Shining Ones’ and what did they believe? What, if anything, had set themapart from their more conventional neighbours? He resolved to find out one of these days. But in the meantime he had work
     to do.
    He watched as the crane began to lift the Bentham obelisk, slowly at first, then the thing began to rise into the air, swinging
     to and fro on its chains.
    Once the monstrous monument was clear, Neil walked over to the small digger that was waiting to disinter the bones beneath.
     It was time to start.
    Soon the brick vault was unearthed and the workmen, under the supervising eyes of the archaeological team who were photographing
     and recording the proceedings, began to dismantle the structure revealing two rows of coffins beneath, some stacked on top
     of others. There seemed to be an awful lot of Benthams down there, some tall, some small, some only babies and children. A
     family group.
    The first coffin to be lifted out of the ground belonged to a Charles Bentham and the dates on the plaque fixed to the lid
     told Neil that he had died in 1898 aged eighty-two.
    After that they came thick and fast. These coffins, belonging to the gentry, seemed to be far better quality than the ones
     that had split apart so disturbingly the other day. Class distinction even in death.
    Neil watched as the coffins were moved and stacked, ready to be reburied in the plot prepared for them at the other side of
     the churchyard. This was a job for the contractors: when it was finished, Neil’s team would look for older remains beneath.
     And maybe, with luck, they would find traces of an earlier church.
    He was musing on the most efficient way of completing the work, watching the hoist swinging the coffins out of the ground,
     when all of a sudden there was a thud.
    A slight misjudgement by one of the contractors had caused one of the coffins to land heavily. As rusted nails gave way, the
     coffin lid slid to one side and Neil, through a combination of duty and morbid curiosity, rushed over to where it lay.
    First he noted the name on the lid. Juanita Bentham. The Spanish bride. According to the metal coffin plate she had left this
     uncertain and perilous existence in 1816 – at the time when the Prince Regent had ruled England in place of his poor mad father,
     King George III. And she had been twenty-seven years old when she died. No age at all.
    Neil’s eyes were drawn to the inside of the coffin, to the grinning skull. He averted his eyes. It seemed almost indecent
     to stare. But then he