A Crowded Coffin(60)
She caught up with Rory at the corner of the two fields, where the stone walls joined to make a sheltered spot for a clump of blackthorn bushes, their flowers all gone and the sloes showing hard and green. From there they had a reasonably clear view of the tangled thicket further up the rise, where the ancient stone stood. They crouched there, in the rank grass and nettles, straining to see, to hear. A sudden clang, of metal against stone, made them both freeze and Harriet could hear her heart thumping as Rory touched her arm and pointed towards the angel stone.
‘Who?’ She breathed the question and he pointed again. A figure, tall and angular, was silhouetted against the silvery light; it was Gordon Dean’s visitor from Texas, Mike Goldstein, unmistakable in his lean length. As she and Rory held their breath, he dropped to his knees and seemed to be peering at something beside the angel stone. Or was it something below the stone? Harriet felt a frisson of excitement; could they be excavating the Roman ruins?
Even though recent Attlins had been unable to finance any serious exploration, most people in the area knew the legends and, in Harriet’s opinion, her cousin Walter had been incredibly lucky that no enterprising treasure-seekers had so far disturbed the ruins. It looked as though his luck had run out now, because anyone with an innocent interest in archaeology would hardly be out here, secretly, in the middle of the night.
Rory was watching silently while Harriet speculated. Surely Mike Goldstein and his henchman – it would be Brendan Whittaker, her money was on him – surely they couldn’t believe that the rewards of such a dig would be enough to justify such a hole-and-corner venture. This wasn’t a fabled site like Sutton Hoo, or, nearer home, the Roman palace of Fishbourne, a few miles along the coast towards Chichester. Harriet recalled her history. Fishbourne was the home of Cogidubnus, king of the Regni, and recognized by the occupying Romans as a sub-ruler but Lucius Sextus Vitalis, the supposed founder of the Attlin family, had only been a retired soldier who married into the local gentry. Alfred’s son had been the family’s one essay into major-league high society and since then they had kept a low profile: dutiful soldiers, hard-working farmers, solid citizens, with no shooting stars or shining lights. The Locksley villa was small potatoes.
‘We’d better get back to the house,’ Rory whispered. ‘Wonder where they parked their car?’
‘It’s down the back lane.’ The voice, from about six feet behind them, made them both freeze. ‘Oh, don’t look so fed up.’ It was Brendan Whittaker, a gun in his hand pointed straight at Harriet. ‘You’re well hidden. It’s your bad luck that I missed the first turning or I’d never have spotted you. But now, oh dear me.’ His tone was mocking. ‘I thought you had more sense, Miss Quigley. No,’ as Rory straightened up, ‘no heroics please, Dr Attlin, or I’ll have to kill you both. Now get over there to where my, er, colleague is.’
Harriet stumbled along behind, achingly conscious of Brendan’s gun He whistled to the other man who had hastily donned his black balaclava – why on earth? – and who now stood, saw in hand, beside a pile of cut saplings. Without a word he gestured with his other hand to what was revealed as a hole, roughly a metre square, at the base of the ancient plinth. Neatly set aside was a turf ‘lid’ resting on a wooden base, together with some of the uprooted scrub that had been scattered carelessly around. There was no sign of the heap of excavated soil that Harriet would have expected, she noticed, without properly registering the thought, but there was no time to wonder.
Brendan pushed Rory to his knees and with the other man covering Harriet herself, briskly lashed his captive’s wrists with baler twine that he took out of his pocket. Rory uttered a wrathful protest but to Harriet’s horror, Mike Goldstein who had so far not uttered a word, swung his shovel at Rory’s head. Even though he managed to twist away, the back of the blade still clanged viciously against his skull and he dropped to the ground, still and grey in the moonlight, and to Harriet’s extreme distress, apparently dead.
‘You bastard!’ She lost control then, shrieking with rage and anguish. ‘You barbarian, get out of my way, let me see to him.’ Kicking and screaming, beside herself with fury, she scratched and howled, fighting against Brendan’s restraining grasp. The other man ignored her completely and casually gave Rory a shove down into the ruins. As she landed a lucky punch on him, Brendan let out a yelp of pain and loosened his grip.
Harriet twisted away but it was no use. Rory’s captor reached out and caught her, then, barely pausing, picked her up and dropped her down after Rory.