It was Clare that broke the silence. ‘You knew Beth.’

Crabby nodded. ‘As well as anyone round here. Better than most.’

Clare asked, ‘Didn’t she mix much with the locals?’

‘More a case of most of ’em didn’t want to mix with her.’

David seemed to perk up at this information. ‘Oh, why was that?’

Crabby sniffed. ‘That’s obvious, ain’t it?’

David looked perplexed. ‘Not to me, it’s not.’

‘It’s the houses. They don’t want ’em.’

‘Who don’t?’ Clare said.

‘That lot.’ He pointed in the direction of the village that lay far below them at the foot of the hill.

‘Why not?’

‘Not posh enough for ’em. Bunch of snobs the lot of ’em. It’s alright for them to live in their fancy mansions. But woe betide any of us who’ve got the nerve to want to live where we was born. Time was the kids round here could move into one of the cottages or get a job on the land and a tied house that went with it. Not these days – they’re all holiday cottages or second homes for city types.’

David said, ‘And some of the city types object to the houses.’

‘What planet do you people live on? Course they do.’

Clare’s heart sank. She’d been worried enough already about stepping into Beth’s shoes. But now it looked as if those shoes were none too comfortable. She was already beginning to regret persuading David to take this job and they hadn’t even stuck a trowel in the ground yet.

As site offices went, this one was a bloody mess. Clare stood alone in the Portakabin surveying her new domain. Aside from her and David, the only people who’d been in here in the last month were the police. And either Beth Kinsella was the crazy woman that David seemed to think she was or the Gloucestershire police were less than particular about the state in which they left their crime scenes. Open box files containing the completed context sheets that would tell them what every layer, pit and post hole on the site were lay strewn across the trestle tables that served as desks. And a seemingly random assortment of seed trays and plastic boxes that had been pressed into service to dry the finds on were teetering at unlikely angles on the wooden shelving that lined the walls. It looked as if the place had been burgled.