‘Ideal cover for a Watcher,’ murmured Jake.
‘Exactly what I thought,’ said Lauren.
After a breakfast that was so huge, Jake was sure he wouldn’t need to eat anything again for a couple of days, they put on their boots and anoraks, packed a small rucksack with provisions provided by Jeannie MacClain, and notebooks, maps and a guide book, and with binoculars hanging around their necks, set off. They were heading for the dig where the Russians were claiming to be unearthing an ancient Neolithic site.
As Jake and Lauren stepped out of the guest house, once again he was struck by the vastness of the sky above them; it wasn’t something he had ever thought about living in London and the south-east. But here, there was so much space!
They walked along the road, past a small group of holiday cottages, and then turned off on to a path that rambled across a vast expanse of heathland. Wild flowers were everywhere, and huge bushes exploding in a riot of colours.
‘Wow!’ said Jake. ‘What are they?’
‘Rhododendrons. It’s a parasite,’ said Lauren dismissively. ‘It poisons the ground and kills off other plants.’
‘So why do they allow so many of them to grow?’ asked Jake. ‘They’re everywhere!’
‘Because once they’ve been planted, it’s almost impossible to get rid of them,’ said Lauren. ‘You have to dig up the roots, and if you leave a piece of the root in the ground it’ll spread very fast. But the Victorian plant hunters didn’t realise that when they brought them back to Britain. Like you, they just saw a plant that looked beautiful. But beauty often hides a secret killer.’
‘And on that grim note . . .’ muttered Jake.
They continued on the path for almost two miles, and suddenly they were out of the bushes and saw, about half a mile ahead of them, an almost industrial monstrosity: a wire fence over three metres tall, topped with razor wire, surrounding a large area.
‘What on earth is that?’ burst out Jake.
‘That is the Russians’ dig site,’ said Lauren.
‘What? In a beautiful place like this! How did they get permission for it?’
‘How do rich Russians get permission for anything?’ asked Lauren. ‘Planning permission for a fence like that in a conservation area like this. Or a controlling monopoly interest in some nationalised industry.’
‘You’re suggesting money talks?’
Lauren nodded.
‘Exactly. It’s an international language.’
As they drew nearer to the site, Jake could see a small party of about half a dozen people at work, two digging and the rest crouching down and sifting through the earth that had been turned over.
‘It’s a massive site,’ murmured Jake.
‘Which means they don’t know the exact spot where the book was buried, just the general area where it was hidden,’ said Lauren.
By now they had reached the fence. They walked along it until they came to a gap, an open gateway. A piece of rope had been hung across the gateway to stop people from wandering in. Jake and Lauren stopped by the rope and looked into the site. Some sections of the area had already been dug up; there were mounds of earth dotted all over the site. But it was being searched methodically, and about half of the site had been uncovered: the topsoil turned over and the rocks beneath exposed.
‘It doesn’t look much like a Neolithic site,’ murmured Jake.
‘Who can tell what a Neolithic site looks like?’ responded Lauren. ‘They didn’t plan their buildings the same way later civilisations did.’
Just then there was an angry shout.
‘Go away!’
They turned and saw a man approaching them from within the fenced-off area, a grim scowl on his face.
‘Pardon?’ asked Jake.
The man arrived by them, on the other side of the rope. He was short and squat, dressed in what looked like a navy-blue boiler suit. He pointed a stubby finger at them and repeated: ‘Go away! Private property.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Jake. ‘It may be on that side of the rope, but not where we’re standing.’
‘Dmitri!’ came another voice.
And then another man was hurrying towards them, this one older, taller, thinner, and with an apologetic expression on his face. The short squat man, Dmitri, turned and looked at the new arrival, the scowl on his face even deeper. The taller man stopped by the rope and said something to Dmitri in rapid Russian. Even though Jake and Lauren couldn’t understand the words, they recognised the firm tone. The tall man finished talking, and Dmitri nodded, turned on his heel, and went back into the centre of the dig site, still scowling. The tall man gave Jake and Lauren a friendly smile.