Free Worthless Remains by Peter Helton Page B

Tarmford Hall to be named, but he was constantly there, just out of shot, as close as the TV crew allowed. A decision was made to open two trenches; Andrea herself marked out the areas with spray paint and the mechanical digger moved in. It wasn’t long before the real diggers, the low-paid field archaeologists that included Adam and Julie, were beginning the task of painstakingly scraping away the centuries with their trowels. The spoil heaps that were building up on tarpaulins nearby were being swept with a metal detector for anything that might have been missed.
    Lunch was called at one o’clock and predictably it was first call for the production team and celebrities. And their minders. The catering was provided by a woman called Adèle who everyone called Delia. She was the very picture of a jolly cook who enjoyed her own food a lot and was assisted by her nephew Jamie, a spotty teenage boy with bad posture and translucent ears. We took our place in the queue where I stood in line behind the director.
    â€˜There seem to suddenly be a lot more people, where did they all come from?’ I asked her.
    â€˜Of course, you only met about half of us,’ Emms said. ‘There are so many people working behind the scenes. Mark here kindly found us what we call an incident room in the upper floor of the coach house.’
    â€˜It’s really just a garage now,’ Stoneking said modestly. I made a mental note to check out what the rock star had parked in it.
    â€˜All the information goes to the incident room, where we have computer operators, graphics people and so on. It’s where all the finds get logged, too. If we get any,’ she added, crossing her fingers.
    The lunch served from the catering van turned out to be above-average canteen food and I ended up eating quite an acceptable piece of fish and a mountain of salad on the lawn, watching the real diggers at work. Once the mechanical digger had hit archaeology, no matter what the producer would have preferred, the machine had stopped and shovels and trowels had taken over.
    When the
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elite had finished their lunch and drained their wine glasses the diggers downed tools and took their turn in the lunch queue. Guy was already in discussion with Cy, Emms and Andrea again, going over schedules and scripts. I took myself off for a walk in the grounds.
    The catering van was at the north end so I decided to explore that side first. The digging and most of the geophysics had concentrated on the other end so I felt sure that I was in nobody’s way as I ambled down the gentle incline of the majestic lawns. A paved path of weathered York stone appeared to my right, the width of two wheelbarrows, and soon it ran along a high and dense hedge. I followed the pavement through a clump of trees. Weeds and algae had colonized the path beneath, making me wonder how long the gardener’s sabbatical had been going on, when I heard a grunting noise of effort coming from just out of sight where the hedge curved sharply to the right. The grunts were cut short by a slap of feet and seconds later someone jogged right to left across my path and immediately disappeared again behind the next line of hedges that screened the lake from view. Doubtless he never noticed me. I’d not seen him before but from age and attire I had him immediately listed as a digger. A digger who was skipping lunch.
    When I turned the corner to the right I saw the beginnings of an explanation. A simple but tall iron-grill gate barred my way through an opening in the hedge that ran on for another twenty yards or so to the next corner. Through the gate I could see into an enclosed area which at its centre had a long Victorian glass house. There were sheds, cold frames, water butts and several upturned wheelbarrows. Long snakes of terracotta pots of all sizes, stacked one inside the other, sheltered on the ground in the lee of the big greenhouse. Here was the working heart of