The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [125]
‘You know where we’re going?’ asks Martin, jumping down after me.
‘Somewhere near the top end of the wood.’ As Ed turns to point the direction, the light reveals faint lines of strain around his eyes. Not so relaxed, after all. ‘This morning a woman walking her dog found recent digging under the trees and rang the estate office. She was vague about the exact spot.’
‘Is it exciting?’ I ask.
‘Possibly.’ Martin adjusts the strap of his leather satchel across his body. As we stride across the open hilltop, the first of the round barrows dotting its crown pops into view like a green pimple. ‘See, those are Bronze Age, but the occupation of Windmill Hill goes back much further, even before the stone circle. All the lower humps and bumps aren’t natural features: they’re older banks and ditches, forming what archaeologists call a causewayed enclosure. Probably a meeting place with ritual use.’ He waves at some shallow undulations in the field. ‘It shows up better from the air. This was where Keiller found Charlie’s skeleton, in one of the ditches, on his first dig in the Avebury area in the 1920s–the Marconi Company wanted to put a radio mast on the hill, and he led a campaign to prevent it. But he didn’t excavate the slope on the far side so we’ve no idea what’s under the trees.’
‘Of course,’ says Ed, ‘you have to ask yourself how the hole the dogwalker found got there. That’s what’s bothering Michael’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nighthawks.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Metal detectorists,’ says Martin. ‘The illegal sort. Meaning they don’t bother to ask the landowner’s permission, and they don’t declare what they find. They’d be interested in Bronze Age barrows: chieftains, grave goods, swords, jewellery, maybe gold.’
‘There’s treasure up here?’
‘Well, probably not. The barrows were excavated long ago: gentleman archaeologists and nineteenth-century vicars plundered the lot. But nighthawks’ll still scavenge for anything that might have been missed.’ Martin glowers. ‘I spotted a hole in the side of one of the Hedgehogs last week.’
‘Meaning someone found something?’
‘Meaning someone dug a hole in the side of a scheduled ancient monument. If they did lift anything valuable out of it, it’ll be on eBay by now. Bloody thieves!
‘You really don’t like them, do you?’
‘“Nighthawks” makes them sound far too sexy,’ says Martin. ‘Dung beetles would be better.’ He spreads a molehill with his foot and crouches to peer at the soil.
‘Um…’ says Ed.
‘That’s different. The mole did the digging and, anyway, I’m a professional.’ He peers at the earth, picks up a flint pebble and sighs, drops it back, then straightens up, looking towards the trees. ‘I’m always hopeful I’ll find an arrowhead Keiller missed.’
John says you don’t find arrowheads, they find you. He has half a dozen or more at his cottage. But I don’t mention this in case Martin says they ought to be handed over to a museum.
‘How are we going to tackle it?’ says Ed, as we reach the trees. ‘You take the bottom while India and I work our way along the top?’
Martin scrambles down the hillside, and Ed and I walk slowly along the top edge of the wood. The stone circle and Big Avebury, a mile away, are hidden among foliage, but the church tower lifts above the green canopy and, further on, I can make out the houses at Trusloe.
Lights, buggerin’ lights
‘If there were metal detectorists here at night, they’d be using torches, right?’ I ask, wondering if that was what Frannie saw from her bedroom window.
‘I suppose so.’ Ed steps carefully over a dead crow. ‘For Chrissake, don’t tell Martin, but I used to own a metal detector.’
‘Ed. Is there no end to your iniquities?’
‘I was still at school.