Free Worthless Remains by Peter Helton

are,’ Julie said. ‘Field archaeologists are paid really badly, so we’re practically always under canvas. It’s a scandal, really, but we all knew that when we started. And it didn’t stop us, did it?’
    â€˜Nope,’ agreed Adam.
    â€˜So what’s happening now?’ I asked.
    Just then a very large white van nosed backwards past the far end of the great house, bleeping reverse-warnings as it went. It stopped in the lee of the north wing.
    â€˜The catering van’s arrived, that’s what,’ Julie said. She stuffed her paperback into a back pocket. ‘Excuse us, most important matters to attend to.’ They both pushed off towards the van.
    â€˜Pretty,’ said Stoneking.
    â€˜Which one?’
    He snorted. ‘You’re right, both of them, really. They’re so damn young. How old do you think they are?’
    I looked at their slim shapes retreating up the lawn. ‘Oh, twenty-five, twenty-six, perhaps?’
    â€˜Blimey. I think I had made my first million by then and was busy spending it on crap. And all
they
want is to stand in a hole and dig up stuff.’
    â€˜Yes, where did you go wrong?’ I said.
    Stoneking laughed. ‘Quite, quite.’
    I nodded towards the catering van that was setting up at the edge of the house. ‘You’re not feeding them then.’
    â€˜Too many of them. I mean Carla, my housekeeper that is, Carla’s fine about serving breakfast to everyone who is staying at the house but the rest of the meals are all provided by the caterer. I might throw a dinner or two for a few of them at some stage and they can have afternoon tea if there’s time for that but I’m not running a restaurant. Carla would kill me. And I can’t afford to piss her off. I can’t live in this bloody pile without her.’
    We had reached a shady clump of old and twisted trees I didn’t recognize. ‘What are these?’
    â€˜Ancient sweet chestnuts. Aren’t they fantastic? Probably older than the house.’
    â€˜Yes, I meant to ask, how old is the house?’
    â€˜Oh, ancient. Bits of it anyway. It’s been messed about with for hundreds of years. Added to, mostly.’
    â€˜Listed?’
    â€˜Only about ten per cent of it,’ he said happily, ‘or I wouldn’t have been able to put in the pool and decent bathrooms and things. The Cunninghams, the family who owned it since Victorian times, were quite a weird bunch. They were spiritualists and into all things gothic, and they were vegetarians, which wasn’t at all considered normal in those days. They made so many alterations between the wars, pulling stuff down and rebuilding it, that it’s hard to fathom what’s original and what’s fantasy. I had no idea how strange the place was when I bought it. Nothing here is quite what it seems.’
    â€˜Like for instance . . .?’
    â€˜On the first-floor gallery is a door that doesn’t open. It has no keyhole but it won’t budge. Eventually I got a tape measure and figured out that the door is a fake. There’s no room behind it. It’s just there to confuse people. I mean, there is a room behind it but you enter it through a different door. It’s just a visual joke. Like up there.’ He pointed up to the house. ‘See that window right up there? Third from the left? The one that looks a bit darker than the others? That’s a fake too. No room behind it; it’s where a service staircase goes up. The place is full of stuff that doesn’t add up. That’s where the gothic feel comes from. You see all those gargoyles and urns everywhere around the roof? Those weird stone figures and eagles? All added in the 1920s. Some of it isn’t even British. They’d go round Europe and India and buy up anything that took their fancy, then drag it into the house or stick it on the outside or just plonk it in the garden, like this