MURDER ON EXMOOR
BY
P.J. THURBIN
Copyright 2015 P.J. Thurbin, All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are a product of the author’s imagination. Where public figures, historical events or places are used they are used in a fictitious way. Otherwise any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is dedicated to the Members and Friends of The North Devon Archaeological Society Who Give Their Time and Support to Discovering and Documenting the History of Exmoor National Park
Acknowledgement:
My appreciation, as always, to my wife, Daisy, for her tireless editing and advice, without whose efforts this book could not be produced. She remains my harshest critic, my staunchest fan and my constant helpmate.
Chapter 1
The rain clouds swept in across the wild open moor as the two friends tried to keep their backs to the wind. What had promised to be a pleasant September day searching for that illusive find that would make their fortunes was turning into a test of endurance. “This bloody iron ore’s a pain in the butt. I’m getting signals everywhere I go. Let’s pack it in, Joe. It’s not worth carrying on. There’s a pub down the lane. We passed it coming up through Brayford. I could murder a pie and a pint.” He wiped the rain from his face with a muddy hand. “I’m soaked.”
Joe ignored him. He was engrossed in trying to decipher the sounds that pinged in his earphones.
Bruce Ansell and his pal Joe Minton had been prospecting for treasure. It was their hobby. They had spent a lot on their metal detectors, but so far they had little to show for two years of scouring farmers’ fields with the hope of hitting what they jokingly called the mother-lode. It was an expression they had picked up from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the old film where Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston go prospecting for gold.
They had concentrated on Romano- British sites in an attempt to narrow their search for relics, but it was still like looking for a needle in a haystack; Exmoor National Park covers almost 270 square miles.
In their first year it had gone well. They had found a gold bracelet and a silver bowl, which they guessed were Roman. A friend of Joe’s who ran a jewellery shop in nearby Barnstable had bought them for a good price. No questions had been asked and the money had come in handy. Since then all they had to show for their efforts was a collection of Roman coins and a few iron-age pins that they kept in a cardboard box at Joe’s cottage.
Bruce was Australian born. He had only planned to be in England for six months before returning to Australia and the farm where he had been raised. But he had met and married an English girl while working at a pub in Exeter. One year after they married, Joan died of a rare blood disease; Bruce had been devastated. He had confided in Joe that in a strange way he was glad that they had not had a child. After Joan’s death he had moved some 60 miles to Lynton, a small seaside town in North Devon, where he rented a run- down cottage. To make ends meet, he worked on building renovations and took any farm work that he could get.
Joe was a confirmed bachelor. Known for his short temper and essentially a loner, he had few friends besides Bruce. He lived by himself in a small cottage on Lord Farleigh’s estate near Dulverton, where he maintained the farming equipment.
“Did ya see in the paper what those buggers from Exeter University said,” Joe shouted over the sounds of the wind. “They said it was a big Roman iron smelting factory and that pile over there is the slag heap or whatever. But whoever ran the place must’ve been paid and probably in silver or gold,” shouted Joe as he struggled to keep his balance against the gusts that followed each fresh burst of rain.
He cupped his hands to his mouth and made a howling noise. “Now we can see if that Conan Doyle and his story about that bloody Hound of the Baskervilles is true or not.” He laughed as an angry gust tried to pluck him from the hillside. “Catherine and that bugger Heathcliff of ‘ers would’ve been inside bloody hours ago.” He shouted to his friend.
“You’re going bloody loony, you silly bugger. Look, I’m givin’ it another fifteen minutes and then I’m packing this spot in,” Bruce said. “I wanna try over on the other side of the hill. I heard that the Brits grabbed what they could when those legions buggered off back to Rome. If they buried it, it’s gotta be here somewhere.” The tall rangy Australian walked off into the gloom.
Joe grunted to himself and hunched his shoulders as he scanned the rock and heather strewn hillside. The light was fading as the clouds closed in. He gave an involuntary shudder as he clasped the headphones to his ears and began swinging the metal detector over the rough ground.
Although Joe and Bruce enjoyed being out in the open and shared the excitement of a discovery, there were other areas where they violently disagreed. Bruce wanted to turn everything they found over to the authorities and settle for the treasure trove fee. Joe’s philosophy was: ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’. “Damn the government and a bunch of old fogies who want to put things in glass cases for people to gawp at. I want the money,” he muttered. Years of having to doff his forelock to Lord Farleigh and the fear that he might lose his job and the small stone cottage that came with it, had made him bitter. He was just about to give Bruce a shout and concede that the pub was their best option when his friend came running through the squelchy mud.
“We’ve made it.
