The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [194]
Lonely stretches of chalk hills, peppered with barrows…
A plane crashed on Easton Down, probably in the Second World War.
And my maybe-grandfather’s memorial sits a few miles away in Yatesbury churchyard. In Loving Memory. David Fergusson, killed 29 August 1942.
Why Yatesbury? Why not Avebury itself? Or Swindon, or Chippenham, wherever Fran happened to be living during the war? What was the connection with Yatesbury? Could it have been–
Not far from where Davey’s plane went down?
If a plane crashed on the hills nearby in wartime, who would know about it, who would be first on the scene? Who would have known Davey Fergusson, because he’s mentioned in those letters?
I shove the guard in front of the barely glowing fire, grab my bag and a notebook, and turn out the lamps before heading out of the door.
CHAPTER 54
I lock the cottage door behind me with Martin’s key and follow the lane towards the lights of the Red Lion. The moon’s well into its last quarter, but the sky is oddly incandescent, streaks of high cirrus glimmering electric blue against indigo.
The lights in one of the thatched cottages wink out as I pass, as if the occupants are giving me the cold shoulder. What made me think I belong? The truth is that people like the Robinsons no longer have any claim to Avebury. Most people who live in the village are blow-ins looking for thatch and roses round the door. Do the incomers ever think about Keiller, and what he did to the place? As the local saying goes, they know more in the churchyard than live here now.
The church tower is black against the glowing clouds, the windows of the Manor blind and expressionless. Perhaps the tenants have fled for Solstice week. The smell of lavender floats from the garden through the warm night. My mobile shows a weak signal, but still no messages; I’m surprised John hasn’t responded to my text. I send him another, for good measure, asking if there’s any news. Even if the scan’s been postponed, surely the police surgeon has arrived by now.
The museum, too, is in darkness, apart from the low-wattage glow of the gallery’s nightlight seeping through the windows. I key in the security code at the staff entrance, to turn off the alarm, and let myself in.
There’s no need to go into the gallery before heading upstairs, but I have that creepy sense, going into an unoccupied building at night, that it’s wise to check every room really is empty. Of course, there is no one, unless you count Charlie sleeping in his glass coffin.
‘Hi, Charlie,’ I say cheerily, to dispel the shadowy silence. ‘Sorry to disturb, come to do a spot of research.’ Closing the door on him, I make my way up the narrow stairs.
I’ve never been into the loft office at night before. The overhead striplight manages to be both harsh and dim at the same time. The curator has left behind a single Anglepoise lamp, but the bulb has blown. There doesn’t seem to be a spare.
The letters are in their usual place, in box files along the shelf, next to the photo albums. Further along, in another box file, are photocopies of W.E.V. Young’s diaries, meticulous accounts not only of the excavations but of life in wartime Avebury. There’s no guarantee Keiller went to an air crash on Easton Down: he might have been away when it took place, or some other officer could have been sent to deal with it. But at least this gives me something to take my mind off Frannie in her hospital bed.
Absorbed in an account of the icy winter of 1940, I almost miss the bleep from my mobile phone: voicemail coming in. Sometimes at night the signal is stronger. The Orange lady tells me the message was received nearly an hour ago, at 9.33 p.m.; my heart starts to sink.
Indy,’ says John’s voice. ‘Nothing to be alarmed about. Scan’s been done, couple of hours ago, though they haven’t yet said what the results are, but they don’t seem worried.