Rory started to protest.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she retorted. ‘I may not be thinner than you, but your shoulders are a lot broader than mine and you’ve just been beaten up. My concussion is on the mend and besides, I’m probably fitter than you anyway, even if I am thirty-odd years older, so stay put. I’ll make marks so I don’t get lost.’
Giving him no time to argue, Harriet set off, accompanied by the cat, whose curiosity was plainly roused. Glad of the company, she gave him an encouraging stroke. ‘Where are the Famous Five, or a St Bernard, when you need them,’ she grunted, speaking out loud to scare away the shadows. ‘But you’ll do, old moggie. Just remember to pack a small keg of spirits, whisky for choice, in future. You go in front and show me the way you came in, though I suspect it’ll be too narrow for the likes of us humans. Let’s take a look.’ She shone the torch into the darkness.
‘You know we could see that someone’s shored up the outer wall of the hypocaust?’ she called out to Rory. ‘Even though the hypocaust has collapsed in on itself, a kind of tunnel’s been pushed through, so a man could just about wriggle through. Just as well neither of us is exactly chubby but I’m quite sure we’d never squeeze through the hypocaust itself. This has been done properly, and not recently either. I think it could have been done in Tudor times as a hiding place for Catholic priests, even an escape route.’
She called back over her shoulder to report her findings. ‘I can see that someone’s been in here much more recently, clearing out muck and debris. There’s not hundreds of years’ worth of tree roots and rubbish in this passageway, not by a long chalk.’
With a lot of grunting and occasional cursing, Harriet slithered forward for some time in the wake of the cat. Toby pottered purposefully along, turning into a marginally larger space, with an enquiring look over his shoulder to see if she was still playing this interesting game with him.
‘Just as well I don’t suffer from claustrophobia,’ she muttered. ‘Oops, now what?’ As she caught up with the cat she found herself facing a wall of tree roots and disturbed earth. All around she could see evidence of generations of animal occupation, small bones that could indicate that foxes had once been in residence. And then she saw it: filtering in from outside was a faint, greyish light, the welcome dawn approaching.
Her shoulder was hurting like mad. Bother that bathroom ceiling, she muttered. Decorating in the spring had led to a frozen shoulder and although it was gradually improving, the pain was sometimes agonizing. Concussion and a frozen shoulder, what a state to go on a treasure hunt in. Miss Marple would have had a lot more sense. She gave a final massage to the afflicted shoulder then, following her marks, she wriggled back to where Rory was champing at the bit.
‘I think we can just about squeeze out,’ she told him as she led him back into the tunnels. ‘This enlarged passageway ends in what looks like another entrance to the badgers’ sett – they usually have several. You often get foxes moving in when the badgers leave and I could definitely see traces of a fox’s earth. That must be how the cat got in and I’m fairly sure we can scrape at it till we can clamber out. It’s the most terrific discovery; Cousin Walter shouldn’t have any trouble getting people interested, grants, and so forth. Time Team, even.’
Harriet set out again, averting her eyes from Mike Goldstein’s out-flung hand. Strange how pathetic it looked, she shivered, wondering about his death. And wondering even more who had killed him. And why.
Rory slithered after her, his broader shoulders making his passage through even the widened narrow flue more difficult. He gritted his teeth against the pain of his cracked rib, damaged knee and extensive bruises and when he caught up with her, he shone the torch back the way they had come. What he saw made him whistle.
‘What is it?’ Harriet was fearful now, the nightmare thought beginning to surface. ‘It’s not, not another body …? Oh God, it’s not Colin Price?’
‘Not a body – but that’s a thought, he could be down here, couldn’t he? No, it’s not a body, but look, there’s something.’ He hooked a long arm into a shallow alcove she had missed in her earlier exploration, and fished out a plastic document folder.
‘Well,’ Harriet burst out. ‘That’s definitely not Roman.’
‘There’s something in here, a piece of paper, I think. Proves someone’s been down here recently, doesn’t it?’ Rory fished it out and squinted at it. ‘This isn’t Roman either,’ he said, disappointment in his voice as he handed it to her.