‘I wonder how Anna’s getting on with the baby,’ Evelyn said. She’d put the pot in the oven and turned, her hands still in the oven gloves. ‘She wasn’t getting much sleep last time I saw her. Maybe we should take a walk down to the bungalow. Anna was talking about working on her website if she got the chance. It would be good to put something up about the coins. The folk keen on signing up for her workshops would be interested in hearing about the project. And maybe you’d like to see the baby.’

Hattie thought that was the last thing she wanted; she’d much rather go back to the Bod and begin her plans for the project.

‘You could write something about the dig for her site,’ Evelyn went on, ‘It might persuade folks to book up. It’d help put Whalsay on the map.’

‘We can’t do that yet!’ Hattie felt anxious just at the thought of it. She looked up at Evelyn in horror. ‘We should keep the find secret for as long as we can. If word gets out you’ll have a bunch of people trespassing on the site, looking for buried treasure. It could damage the project.’ She had the image of geeky men in grey anoraks with metal detectors marching all over her dig.

Evelyn seemed not to have heard her. ‘Maybe we should take the coins to show Anna. She has a digital camera. I’d love to have a photo of them.’

‘Not yet. Paul Berglund should be coming in tomorrow. I think I should wait and see what he says.’

‘Maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble with your boss. And it would be good to keep a bit of mystery about them, before we show them to the public.’ Evelyn put the knives and chopping board in the sink to soak. ‘Come on then. Let’s go and look at your treasure.’

The desk was in the living room and locked with a small brass key, which Evelyn took from her jeans pocket. Hattie had put the coins into a clear plastic box. They were small and dull. They were in the box just to prevent the need for their being handled, but Hattie longed to touch them. ‘Imagine them being in Mima’s garden all the time,’ Evelyn said. ‘All those hundreds of years.’

Hattie shut her eyes for a moment and resisted the temptation to lift the lid of the box and put in her nose to sniff the coins. ‘I can’t do any more until Paul comes in tomorrow,’ she said. She replaced the coins in the desk on top of a file containing the Amenity Trust documents and a chequebook.