To Dream of the Dead

6 Bury them Deeper

Shirley West was, arguably, the most sinister person here. Shirley did foreboding in a way that was supposed to have gone out with the Witchcraft Act.

Impressive in a born-again Christian.

A couple in front of Merrily and Lol had slid away, leaving a clear view of Shirley in that grey, tubular, quilted coat. A lagged cistern with no thermostat, and sooner or later — you just knew — she was going to overheat.

Directly ahead of her, at the front of the stage, two pictures were pinned to a display stand. One was a photo showing an empty field with a five-barred gate, the conical hill rising behind it under an overcast sky.

‘Coleman’s Meadow.’ James Bull-Davies tapped his pen on the photo. ‘Earmarked for development of what are described as executive dwellings — like these.’

Tapping the picture below it: an architect’s sketch of a detached house with a double garage, token timber- framing, landscaped suburban gardens, under a blue-washed summer sky.

‘Field being within the village boundaries, therefore seen by county planners as acceptable infill.’

Merrily swapped a glance with Lol. Especially acceptable to Lyndon Pierce, local councillor and chartered accountant. One of whose clients was, as it happened, the owner of Coleman’s Meadow.

It was blatant, really. And because this was a small county, so much interconnected, so many business and family links, sometimes it seemed almost normal, no big deal.

Pierce had sat down now, was examining his nails, like his part was over. Rain smacked at the windows, making the frames shiver and rattle, smearing the reflections in the glass.

‘Complication, of course,’ James said, ‘being the recent discovery in Coleman’s Meadow, of significant archaeological remains. Now, I don’t want to pre-empt the results of the excavation, but—’

‘Old stones.’ A drawly male voice uncurling from halfway down the hall. Merrily didn’t recognise it. ‘Just a few old stones, long buried.’

‘Megaliths,’ James said. ‘The remains of a Bronze Age monument four thousand years old which people interested in such relics would, understandably, like to have unearthed and conserved.’

‘Not a problem, Colonel,’ Pierce murmured. ‘As I keep saying.’

‘In situ.’

‘Ah.’ Pierce sat back, arms folded. ‘That’s the problem, yes. Should a prime site be sacrificed in its entirety for a few stones that wouldn’t’ve been discovered if it hadn’t been for this project — I think that’s right, isn’t it, Colonel?’

‘Don’t think anyone’s ever denied that. However, we now know about them, and we appear to have two options: re-erecting them as a heritage site or—’

‘Three options, in fact,’ Pierce said mildly. ‘The stones could be dug out and taken away for erection on another site — in a park or somewhere.’

‘Somewhere well away from this village,’ Shirley West said.

She hadn’t moved. All you could see was stiffly permed dark brown hair sitting on the funnel collar of the grey coat.

Merrily held her breath.

‘Because, see, we have to ask ourselves,’ Shirley said, ‘why they were buried in the first place.’

‘Not our place,’ James said, ‘to pre-empt the results of the official excavation. Just to remind you all, the Parish Council will be discussing Coleman’s Meadow early in the New Year. We have no planning powers at this level, as you realise, but we can make our voice heard in Hereford. In theory. So that leaves you two or three weeks to make your individual views known to us. In writing, if you—’

‘But I can tell you why, Mr Davies,’ Shirley said. ‘We don’t need no excavation to tell us they were heathen stones in a Christian country. Heathen stones in the very shadow of our church.’

Our church? Merrily knew for a fact that Shirley West was also a member of some born-again, pentecostal-type group in Leominster.

James said, ‘Mrs West—’

‘Bury them again! Bury them deeper! Or, if you have to dig them up, do as Mr Pierce says, put them in a city park or a museum where none of us have to see them.’

Merrily glanced from side to side. Was nobody going to point out — Jane would go crazy — that the stones erected elsewhere would be meaningless? That they were probably part of a prehistoric landscape pattern, aligned to the summit of Cole Hill?

‘Put iron railings around them. Confine them and—’

‘Yes, Mrs West,’ James said, ‘we take your point—’

‘—and the evil they represent. There’s a deep evil in that place and evil returns to it.’

Someone chuckled. A would you believe this crazy woman? kind of chuckle. Shirley whirled round.

‘Don’t you dare laugh at me! You come yere with your fancy talk and your unbelief. You who deny the Lord.’

‘Well…’ Lyndon Pierce opened his hands. ‘Anyone who knows me knows I’d be the last to make a religious issue out of this. But some of you might be surprised at how many folk’ve expressed similar sentiments to Mrs West’s.’

Opportunist bastard. Right…

Merrily was halfway to her feet when James Bull-Davies flicked her a warning with a slight turn of his head and a discreet one-handed wiping motion. She sat down, a tightness in her chest.

‘You may also,’ James said, ‘wish to examine the situation from the tourism angle — for better or worse, a vital part of our economy. Herefordshire has comparatively few Neolithic monuments, none of them, it might be argued, as potentially spectacular as this one. We could expect a substantial number of visitors.’

‘But what kind, sir? What kind?’

The drawly voice again, from somewhere in the middle of the hall.

‘Mr Savitch,’ James said.

Ward Savitch. Entrepreneur who’d bought up the old Kibble farm on the Dilwyn road, a mile out of the village. Turning it into a pleasure park for city slickers — paintballing weekends and corporate pheasant shoots. Jane wanted him dead.

‘I think,’ Savitch said, ‘that we all know the kind of tourism such places attract, and it’s the kind more likely to steal the milk off your step.’

Merrily watched Lol shaking his bowed head, profoundly glad that Jane had seen sense and stayed away.

‘Pseudo-Druids,’ Savitch said. ‘Witches in robes, or… not in robes. Or not in anything. That the kind of tourism you had in mind, Colonel?’

Nervous laughter, James lifting his hands for quiet.

‘Obviously, I’m being facetious,’ Savitch said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I believe we can embrace the future and still hold on to the past. And in Ledwardine we’ve already got some of the finest period buildings in the county. That’s the kind of heritage we should be looking to conserve, not some lumps of rock.’

‘And the evil they bring yere,’ Shirley West muttered. ‘I know this.’

James Bull-Davies looked tired. ‘Anyone else?’

‘I haven’t quite finished,’ Savitch said. ‘Let’s not pretend, any of us, that we wouldn’t appreciate the improved facilities that would come with growth — supermarket, restaurants…’

‘Places for the nouveau riche to unwind in the evening,’ Lol whispered, ‘when they’ve finished blasting a few hundred tame birds out of the hedge.’

‘And, I believe, a fully equipped leisure-centre,’ Savitch said.

There was an explosion of hard rain on the big windows. The strip lights stuttered.