Clare had set up an Outlook account in the name of Emily Draper and then she’d emailed the seller on the auction site saying that she was contacting them on behalf of her mother, who was a collector and potentially interested in buying all of the items on the website that were from Bailsgrove. Clare could almost picture the pound signs lighting up in the vendor’s eyes when she’d read his reply. If, he’d said, her mother was genuinely interested in purchasing all of the items he was willing to put all of the lots on hold for up to a fortnight while they negotiated a price. He wasn’t quite so delighted, however, when she’d emailed back saying that they were happy to proceed on that basis, but as the sum involved was likely to be considerable, her mother wanted to examine all of the items in person before committing herself.

After a brief exchange he’d agreed to a meeting in a ‘mutually convenient location’. It had been evident from the exchange that that didn’t include the home or office of the vendor – who still hadn’t revealed his, or for that matter her, name. In the end it had been Margaret who had suggested Crickley Hill. As the site of not one but two Iron Age hill forts, the connection had seemed to appeal to Margaret’s sense of humour. But that particular nicety seemed to have entirely escaped the seller, who was more interested in knowing how many other people were likely to be around and if there were any CCTV cameras in the car park.

They’d settled on meeting in the bottom car park at eight-thirty, an hour before the park gates were due to be locked, but a time when there were guaranteed to be hardly any visitors still about.

Clare glanced down at her watch. It was eight-fifteen, and despite Margaret’s advice she couldn’t help feeling distinctly queasy at the thought of what they were about to do.

Her anxiety had evidently communicated itself to her ‘mother’, and Margaret slipped a reassuring arm through hers. ‘Come along, my dear. We can’t put this off any longer. You’ll be fine.’ She added, ‘You know, David dug up here when he was an undergraduate. He told me once it was why he decided to go in for prehistory.’

‘But this place was a hill fort, wasn’t it? I would have thought the Iron Age was more your sort of thing than his.’

‘It is, but Crickley was a Neolithic enclosure millennia before the hill fort was built. It was the site of Britain’s earliest battle – the excavators found hundreds of flint arrowheads. The whole place was burnt to the ground. The first farmers didn’t inhabit the peaceful rural idyll popular television might have one believe.’