Ring of Guilt (19 page)

I looked down at the neat trousers and top I was wearing. My jacket was my better one, too – not my pushing through thorns and mud one. ‘I've got some wellies in the van,' I said, trying to sound keen on the adventure.

‘And I'm sure I can lay hands on a paper suit to protect your clothes.'

This time leaving the van where I'd parked it, I travelled in style, Will rather showing off his driving skills. Praying there was no sign of the wellies Titus had wanged into the hedges, I pointed out where I'd parked. Like me, Will kept two wheels on the road.

‘You look like a snowman!' I crowed, as he pulled on the suit.

‘And you!'

Blow me if we weren't both singing the Aled Jones song. So we seemed to be getting on at last. But we didn't hold hands and there was no floating through the air.

I didn't have Titus' knack of detecting invisible tracks, but set off slowly along one that looked right. There was no sign of any badger activity and at last I stopped dead.

‘The ground was all lumpy, like a miniature moonscape,' I said. ‘I didn't think it was this far. Oh, dear.' I surveyed the unappetizing spot.

‘There was that path sixty yards back . . .' Will said doubtfully. ‘Maybe I should have brought a dog handler – you know there are some specially trained to find corpses. Dogs, I mean.'

My shudder was genuine. What if Titus' patterans came to light? I fell in behind him as we marched back. The path he'd seen was more of a track – but then, that was exactly the sort of thing Titus had chosen. So I set off hopefully. It didn't take long to realize I'd got us hopelessly lost.

‘You said you'd not crossed our lines, or got into the site. Did you see the hand before or after?' Will asked, in the tone of a man just about keeping his temper.

‘Before. I think. Yes, before. Definitely.' I crammed all thoughts of Titus' weird behaviour into the back of my memory, and hoped that not even his name would pop out. ‘Walked along; saw the setts; saw the bones or roots; headed fast to the police tape.'

‘All very intuitive,' he said dryly.

‘All very panicky! I wasn't staying near the bones, not for anything.'

‘You didn't think of turning tail and running back.'

I lifted my chin. ‘I'm not as good at running away as I ought to be.' Chew on that.

We pressed on, and at last I pointed. ‘There – that's the track. All oozy and yucky.' And fortunately with a lot of confused footprints, not just two sets. ‘Let's see – the road's over there. On our left. So we need to turn right.'

Only about thirty yards away was the sett. ‘A bit further on. Slow down . . . Shine your torch over there. No. Look, give it to me.' Just as Titus had done I played the beam backwards and forwards, and then, recognizing where Titus had found his coin, shone it directly into the sett mouth. And although it was dead repetitious, I screamed again.

And lost my coffee in a nearby bush.

So there I was, stuck in the middle of nowhere with a gorgeous bloke who was so busy trying to get a signal for his mobile phone I might not have existed. Eventually it dawned on him that my teeth were chattering so hard I couldn't speak. What I needed was a good comforting hug. What I got was a suggestion that I went back to his car, but there was no way I was wandering about on my own. Not that I could say so. After all, officially I'd done exactly that a couple of days back.

I turned my head to a tree trunk and sobbed.

At last when he'd established that a team would come out, he turned and put an arm round me. ‘I'd suggest we both went back now, but I'd never find it again. Here, what are you doing?'

Tears still dripping down my face, I was trying to tear little shreds off my paper overall. I hung a couple on bushes. ‘Making patterans,' I managed. ‘Leaving a trail.

‘Come on, Lina,' he said, as if it was just dawning on him that something was wrong. ‘Here.' He burrowed in a pocket and produced a packet of tissues. ‘This isn't like you.'

I was so taken aback I asked, ‘What isn't like me?'

‘You're so feisty, so gutsy—'

‘So guilty! I saw this man alive and did nothing. It was my fault he died and rotted in an animal's lair. Hell, I could have saved him if I'd had any guts at all. I left him lying in a wet field and . . . and . . .' I pointed to the bones.

He turned towards the road. We could hear emergency vehicles. Several of them.

‘Could you do your patteran thing and go back and send them over?'

‘Me?'

‘I'd better stay here.'

‘Couldn't you do your radio thing and guide them over?'

‘You really are freaked out, aren't you?' He sounded more disgusted than anything – like Griff when one of his TV cricketers misses an easy catch or gets run out.

‘And you wouldn't be?' In my anger I plucked at a fistful of paper overall. He wanted patterans, he'd get bloody patterans. But it wouldn't tear and I was left impotently tugging at the stuff.

‘Hello, there!' The voices calling us sounded so everyday, so ordinary you'd have thought they dealt with bodies every day. It was only when I saw the first very businesslike cases and other gear that I realized they did. It seemed they even had someone in the team to deal with wimps like me, and before I knew it I was back in a warm car heading back to Maidstone.

One of the things that bothered me was the amount of explaining I'd have to do to Griff. It was one thing to persuade Will that I'd been wandering round on my own in the woods, but another to convince Griff. But the truth, that I was in the company of Titus, would be even less to his taste.

I phoned him from Maidstone to explain. And got, thank goodness, his voicemail. It was reasonably easy to lie, and say that Will and I were having a bite of lunch. Finding a skeleton wasn't the sort of thing you could leave a message about.

As a sergeant, Will was much too important to take my statement, which was fine by me. In any case, he was only a man for old bones, not new ones. Much as I'd liked him at first, he'd slipped so far down in my estimation that I didn't want to see him again. Except for one thing. As I signed where I was told, I said to the woman I'd dictated everything to, ‘Before I go, I need to see DS Kinnersley again.'

‘It doesn't quite work like that,' she objected.

‘On a personal matter,' I said, looking straight at her with my still puffy and bloodshot eyes.

I was lying, of course. Technically.

She managed what might have been a sympathetic nod, and slipped out of the room. I didn't bother checking to see if I was locked in or not.

After about twenty minutes, during which I repaired my make-up as best I could, and practised what I wanted to say, in came Will, looking so apprehensive I nearly laughed. I didn't. Stern-faced, I got to my feet and said, ‘I know you've got plenty of other things to worry about. But I really think it's time you returned my property to me, Will. Unless it's an essential part of your enquiry, of course.'

‘Property? Oh, the rings.' He pulled a face. ‘They're still bagged up as evidence, as far as I know.'

‘Evidence? Against whom?' I remembered to add the
m
right at the last moment.

‘Well, I suppose it was against you. But the receipts and everything were kosher, so you should be getting them back. Unless you want me to find a collection for them to go in?'

‘If I decide they should go to a museum, I shall choose it myself, thanks. So do I sit and wait?' I plonked myself down again.

‘Er . . . Look, as you said, I'm rushed off my feet now. Can I drop them round later? May have to be tomorrow. Perhaps we could have a curry or something?'

Damn, when I should have been saying that that wasn't quick enough, I took the curry bait. ‘In Bredeham?' I squeaked in spite of myself. As far as I knew there was only one decent place to get a curry in the whole of Kent, and that was the Gurkha-run restaurant in Folkestone. What I ought to have done was tell him in no uncertain terms where to go. And I promised myself I would, the moment the rings were back in my hands.

I
spent the journey home rehearsing the version of the truth that Griff was most likely to swallow. I wouldn't lie, but there had to be a plausible explanation for my visit to the woods. And then I realized I had a trump card – Will not handing over my rings. That should get him so annoyed he'd forget to question me too closely about anything else.

There was a very nice car parked outside our cottage. Had Griff's partner Aidan come up with a new model? No. He was a Mercedes man, and this was a BMW. Whoever the driver was, he was just turning away from our front door, looking fed up. I pulled up behind him and gave a light toot. And then a smile and a wave. Our visitor was Harvey Sanditon, no less.

Even if you don't fancy a man, to have someone's face light up like that does your ego no end of good. So does having someone run to open your van door for you, as if you were minor royalty getting out of a Rolls. And though I'm no delicate flower, having a hand to support you as you wriggle out is quite nice too. So suddenly Harvey was flavour of the month, and I gave him one of my more welcoming smiles. Only to find I was being kissed, not the cheeks, one-two, either side, but full on my lips

‘How wonderful! I thought I'd been so foolish, calling in on the off-chance, and here you are!'

‘Yes, I've just got back,' I said, stating the obvious. ‘And Griff's not in?'

‘I was just going round to the shop to see if he was there. But it was you I wanted to see.'

‘Another casualty?'

‘You don't think I might just want to see you?'

Not on the basis of that dinner we had together
, I thought, but didn't say aloud. Well, I couldn't think of anything to say aloud, as it happened. So I blushed (not something under my control) and gave a half smile. And then I thought of something. ‘Well, me and a lady you might want to see even more,' I said. ‘Let me just lock the van in the yard and I'll introduce you.'

‘Lady in a Swing!' he said, turning the étui gently. ‘Perfect? Or did you have to help her?'

‘I had to wash her hair and give her a bit of a facial,' I admitted. ‘But nothing involving the glue pot, I promise.'

‘And she's for sale?'

‘I did want to keep her for myself,' I admitted, more or less truthfully. ‘And then I thought about the V and A – they have a collection of Gouyn's stuff, don't they?' Thank goodness that breakfast coaching session had stuck in my mind.

He put the étui down very carefully. ‘But something held you back – my goodness, I can't believe you thought of me!'

When a man smiles at you like that, it's hard not to smile back. And then get kissed, quite seriously this time. Well, it was better than staring at a skeletal hand, that was for sure. Stupid woman, thinking about that. I stepped back.

‘Have I done something wrong?' No wonder the poor man was confused.

‘No! It's me. Something that happened earlier today.' Hell, this was not the moment for bursting into tears. But I was very close to it.

‘Tell me. Or can I get you a drink?' He looked wildly around, as if he might find a drinks cabinet in our office.

‘Let's have a cup of tea,' I said, with a horrible unromantic sniff. I grabbed some tissues. ‘Oh dear, that sounds like something from one of those daytime war movies Griff watches if he has a cold.' But I led the way into the kitchen. ‘Green or builder's?'

We agreed on Lapsang Souchong, and I dug in the cake tin. He watched while I laid a tray – some of my favourite old but damaged china – but insisted on carrying it through to the living room.

He sat me down and fussed almost as well as Griff did. But there was an altogether different feel from Griff's hand as he held mine and asked me to tell him what was wrong. And then he did exactly what Will should have done: he pulled me to him so I could bury my face in his shoulder. Shame about his suit. But maybe the fine cloth would deal with mascara and tears.

At this point Griff let himself in through the back door and came sailing into the living room.

‘Harvey, how nice to – But Lina! My dear one!' He sat the other side of me, and took the spare hand.

‘She was saying something about finding a body!' Harvey explained.

Letting go of both hands, and gesturing for a bit of breathing space, I explained the background to Harvey, then gave them both a believable version of the day's events. ‘Will told me about the archaeological dig, and I'd never seen one, except on
Time Team
,
so he said he'd take me. We came across this badger's sett and what I thought were roots turned out to be a man's hand. Oh, Griff, if only I'd stopped that day!'

Harvey grasped my hand again. ‘This body was moved from where it lay to where it was found? My God, Lina, if you'd gone to investigate you might have ended up as a skeleton in a sett too! It doesn't bear thinking about!'

I stared. ‘I was afraid they'd rob me and steal the van. I never thought of any other sort of danger.' Dabbing my eyes with a hankie that Griff handed me showed how much eye make-up I'd lost. There's a difference between tears and mascara streaks, so I excused myself as soon as was tactful. I wouldn't change. Just repair the face. A few minutes to clear my thoughts. That was what I needed. Time to ponder how much Griff had bought of my story, and time to ponder why Harvey was here. I'd been right about his reaction to the étui. How would he react to the price?

The answer to the second question was simple. He shoved his plastic into the terminal and tapped. Then he asked both Griff and me for dinner, but Griff swiftly said he was already booked. I'd bet any money that he'd just nip off to Tenterden to spend at least the evening with Aidan. It meant, of course, that he'd given me his tacit blessing for anything that might develop.