The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [208]
‘And they’d be crap pictures.’
He turns his head and gives me a grin. ‘What makes you so sure yours will be any better?’
‘Please keep your eyes on the instrument panel’
‘You’re enjoying this really.’
‘I am not.’
‘And you look delicious trussed up in that bondage rig.’
The straps tighten across my body as we bank over the Kennet and Avon canal and turn back northwards, the helicopter’s snub nose lifting to take us over the Downs.
‘Know what that is down there?’ says Ed. ‘Easton Down. D’you suppose the nighthawks ever found their crash site?’
‘I hope not.’
In spite of my misgivings, the flight is exhilarating, on an afternoon perfect for aerial filming. The helicopter is flying over dusty August fields, Silbury wobbling in the heat haze like a greeny-gold blancmange. Ibby, wielding the other camera, will be darting round the trussed stone, the students hauling on the ropes, timing it for the helicopter to arrive as they lever it finally upright. The invited audience of local dignitaries includes Druids, Wiccans, and anyone connected with the village in the thirties.
‘Want me to take her down lower when we fly along the Avenue?’ says Ed in my headphones. ‘For a better shot?’
‘No,’ I say. I don’t feel ready for that yet. ‘I like this helicopter better, you know.’
‘Better?’
‘It’s dinkier. And a lot less sinister-looking than that big black bugger you flew the racing people home in–what did you call it? The R44?’
‘This is the R44.’
‘But it’s not black.’
‘Never been black.’
‘It looked black, that night.’
Ed banks the helicopter into a turn across the main road. ‘Why do I have the feeling this conversation is at cross purposes?’ he says. ‘Far as I know, you’d never set eyes on the R44 until I strapped you into it half an hour ago.’
‘You flew over the circle that night. Really low. With the racing people.’
There’s a long, puzzled silence. The tall stones of the Avenue flick past below.
‘I didn’t,’ says Ed, eventually.
‘Well, it looked low to me.’
‘I mean I didn’t take her over the circle. I’ve told you. Avebury is a PAZ–Permanent Avoidance Zone–unless you clear over-flying it for a special project like the filming today. That was a joke, about flying over the cottage. I wouldn’t have risked being caught buzzing the circle late at night with the inquest coming up.’
‘Somebody flew over. I…heard it. Saw it. The downdraught was what dislodged the stone…’ My voice trails off into the hiss and crackle of Ed’s scepticism over the headphones.
‘Is this why you kept asking where I’d landed that night?’ Ed banks the helicopter across the A4. ‘I’m not going to say you dreamed a helicopter, Indy, but it doesn’t sound likely, so late. Might have been the military, I suppose, on a night-flying exercise. But definitely, most definitely, not me. Now–I am going in low when we clear the brow of the hill. You OK with that? It’ll give you much better pictures.’
Before I have time to react, the helicopter is swooping down towards the southern rim of the circle. Ed banks the craft in a slow turn westwards, over the stones Keiller re-erected in 1938, then north towards the high street and the church tower poking through the trees. Avebury is laid out beneath us: museum, dovecote, duckpond, caf, another arc of reconstructed stones, then we’re turning again, over the Swindon Stone and into the bare north-eastern quadrant, dotted with grubby sheep. We cross Green Street almost at treetop level. Going sunwise. Round, and round again.
Without having to think, I’m adjusting the focus, though we’re still too high on the second pass to make out individuals in the crowd gathered around the stone, but I know she’s there. She didn’t need much persuasion, after all. We come round again, sunwise, lower, and I can pick her out this time, standing a little apart from the rest with John and Martin flanking her.
‘Your grandmother’s waving,’ says Ed.
Completely wrecking