‘Does she have to give her evidence in French?’ Chrissy said.

‘With the degree of complexity involved there’ll be an interpreter, although Jen’s quite fluent in French,’ Rhona had told a wide-eyed Chrissy.

‘I’d better get started on the Duolingo then,’ Chrissy had announced with a characteristic grin.

The emailed piece from Jen on raised bogs had made for interesting reading, particularly in the current circumstances.

The specific acidic and oxygen-poor conditions which are present allow for the mummification of the body’s soft parts such as skin, hair and stomach contents. However, many other conditions must also be fulfilled in order to prevent microorganisms from breaking down the human body. The corpse must be sunk in water or dug into the ground and covered quickly. In addition, the deposition of the body must occur when the bog water is cold, in the winter or early spring, otherwise the process of decay can begin. Examples of raised bog bodies include the Woman from Huldremose, Grauballe Man and Tollund Man.

‘Cool,’ Chrissy had pronounced on reading it. ‘So that’s how we become famous. We unearth a five-thousand-year-old body, perfectly preserved, and have to go around the world giving lectures on our discovery.’

They’d exchanged looks at that point, signifying their mutual hope that it would in fact be a prehistoric mummy they were heading towards, rather than a more recent burial.

Had it been warm, damp summer weather, rather than a cool, dry spring, disturbing the heather cover near the designated area would have resulted in a concentrated cloud attack by the resident midges. There were still some about, many of which found their way to the areas of Rhona’s face not covered by the mask. Chrissy had determinedly flapped at a few herself before heading for her bag to bring back a supply of midge repellent.

Rhona smiled her thanks as she sprayed her exposed skin.

Once the mix of grass, heather cover and associated roots were removed to expose the underlying peat, they began laying out an alphanumerical grid round the suspect area at 0.5-metre intervals.

There had been nothing definitive on the surface in the form of vegetation to suggest a recent decomposition below, although the heather had given way to grass in part. If it was indeed an ancient burial, then the ground cover would have had time to recover.

Rhona had already studied the fingers visible in the bank, just short of a metre below the surface of the peat. They belonged, in her opinion, to a human hand, either that of a small female or a child. Its time in the ground would only be determined when the excavation was complete. Once the remains were fully exposed, should they appear to be prehistoric, like the other bog bodies found in Britain and Europe, then archaeologists would be called in.

As she became absorbed in the careful removal and sifting of the layers of earth, Rhona recalled the last time she’d been involved in such an excavation. Then, they had been called to the Orkney island of Sanday where a digger, breaking up the tarred playground of a former island school, had unearthed a human skull. The site had been very sandy, much like the rest of the island, although as exposed to both the wind and the weather as the current locus.