his
PhD he would soon be able to call himself ‘Dr Watson’. That would tickle Wesley, he thought as he raised a glass of beer to
his lips – his friend had always been a great fan of Sherlock Holmes and his medical side-kick.
He glanced around the pub, low beamed and cosy with a roaring fire in the hearth. The locals he had talked to while working
on his excavations had told him that several celebrities had places in Derenham. A couple of television presenters, three
actors, including Jeremy Sedley – quite a household name – a TV chef, a bestselling author, Michael Burrows the weatherman,
and feared TV interviewer Jack Cromer all featured in the latest roll-call of famous inhabitants. But ifthese august personages were resident in the village, they hadn’t chosen to drink in its pub tonight, although the place was
filling up nicely.
Neil looked at his watch. He had limited himself to one pint of bitter. He had to drive back to Exeter, so hanging around
for another drink might not be the wisest of options.
He resented the fact that he had to attend a meeting at his Exeter office first thing in the morning. He wanted to stay in
Derenham. The aerial photographs he had seen, the geophysics results and the finds they had already unearthed, all pointed
to something really exciting in Manor Field: something he was impatient to uncover.
Everything found so far dated from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and evidence of scorching on the low stone walls
suggested a building which had been destroyed by fire.
The skull – the village hall contractors’ original grisly find – was still a mystery. No other human bones had been found,
as yet, among the medieval foundations. Just the skull – a head buried on its own. Some sort of ritual, perhaps. Were the
inhabitants of the big house back in the Middle Ages involved in black magic?
Neil had already begun to delve in archives and consult local historians. Some deeds he had discovered in Tradmouth Museum
suggested that the foundations belonged to a lost manor house, the home of a family called Merrivale. All mention of the house
had ceased at the start of the sixteenth century, and later Tudor records made no mention of a family called Merrivale in
the village at all. Old tithe maps named the site of the excavation as Manor Field but gave no hint of any sort of building
there. In fact the field, although in a prime position in the village, hadn’t been built on since the Middle Ages, as far
as he could see.
But the skull and the sudden disappearance of the manor house weren’t the only secrets kept by the pretty riverside village.
There was the strange painting in the old barn: a huge semicircular wooden panel covered with bizarrepainted scenes which seemed tantalisingly old. At some point in its existence it had been shoved up in the old hayloft, face
to the wall and out of sight behind the hay bales – but then it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone would keep around for decoration.
Neil had seen medieval wall paintings in a similar style, but he hardly liked to speculate about what it could be until it
had been examined by experts.
He had the uneasy feeling that perhaps he had let his enthusiasm run away with him and raised Terry Hoxworthy’s hopes too
much; that it might be some lurid and worthless nineteenth-century daub after all, a gross fantasy in oils produced by some
sexually repressed Victorian amateur artist. But the thing did look old – and Neil was an optimist by nature.
Just as he was thinking of Terry Hoxworthy, the man himself appeared in the doorway of the long, low-beamed pub. Now was his
opportunity to convince the farmer that bringing in experts to examine his barn and his strange painting would bring no end
of nameless benefits.
He was about to call Hoxworthy over and offer him a drink to oil the wheels of co-operation, but he saw that the farmer looked
secretive, preoccupied, and
PhD he would soon be able to call himself ‘Dr Watson’. That would tickle Wesley, he thought as he raised a glass of beer to
his lips – his friend had always been a great fan of Sherlock Holmes and his medical side-kick.
He glanced around the pub, low beamed and cosy with a roaring fire in the hearth. The locals he had talked to while working
on his excavations had told him that several celebrities had places in Derenham. A couple of television presenters, three
actors, including Jeremy Sedley – quite a household name – a TV chef, a bestselling author, Michael Burrows the weatherman,
and feared TV interviewer Jack Cromer all featured in the latest roll-call of famous inhabitants. But ifthese august personages were resident in the village, they hadn’t chosen to drink in its pub tonight, although the place was
filling up nicely.
Neil looked at his watch. He had limited himself to one pint of bitter. He had to drive back to Exeter, so hanging around
for another drink might not be the wisest of options.
He resented the fact that he had to attend a meeting at his Exeter office first thing in the morning. He wanted to stay in
Derenham. The aerial photographs he had seen, the geophysics results and the finds they had already unearthed, all pointed
to something really exciting in Manor Field: something he was impatient to uncover.
Everything found so far dated from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and evidence of scorching on the low stone walls
suggested a building which had been destroyed by fire.
The skull – the village hall contractors’ original grisly find – was still a mystery. No other human bones had been found,
as yet, among the medieval foundations. Just the skull – a head buried on its own. Some sort of ritual, perhaps. Were the
inhabitants of the big house back in the Middle Ages involved in black magic?
Neil had already begun to delve in archives and consult local historians. Some deeds he had discovered in Tradmouth Museum
suggested that the foundations belonged to a lost manor house, the home of a family called Merrivale. All mention of the house
had ceased at the start of the sixteenth century, and later Tudor records made no mention of a family called Merrivale in
the village at all. Old tithe maps named the site of the excavation as Manor Field but gave no hint of any sort of building
there. In fact the field, although in a prime position in the village, hadn’t been built on since the Middle Ages, as far
as he could see.
But the skull and the sudden disappearance of the manor house weren’t the only secrets kept by the pretty riverside village.
There was the strange painting in the old barn: a huge semicircular wooden panel covered with bizarrepainted scenes which seemed tantalisingly old. At some point in its existence it had been shoved up in the old hayloft, face
to the wall and out of sight behind the hay bales – but then it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone would keep around for decoration.
Neil had seen medieval wall paintings in a similar style, but he hardly liked to speculate about what it could be until it
had been examined by experts.
He had the uneasy feeling that perhaps he had let his enthusiasm run away with him and raised Terry Hoxworthy’s hopes too
much; that it might be some lurid and worthless nineteenth-century daub after all, a gross fantasy in oils produced by some
sexually repressed Victorian amateur artist. But the thing did look old – and Neil was an optimist by nature.
Just as he was thinking of Terry Hoxworthy, the man himself appeared in the doorway of the long, low-beamed pub. Now was his
opportunity to convince the farmer that bringing in experts to examine his barn and his strange painting would bring no end
of nameless benefits.
He was about to call Hoxworthy over and offer him a drink to oil the wheels of co-operation, but he saw that the farmer looked
secretive, preoccupied, and
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