Clare looked around her. With the sun’s rays dancing across the tops of the tall grasses on the side slopes of the hill, it was difficult to conceive of anywhere more tranquil. How many of the dog walkers and Sunday picnickers that used this place now had any idea of the lives that had been lived and lost on this very spot over the centuries?

Clare said, ‘Well, I’m hoping for a slightly more peaceful encounter this evening.’

The car park was situated in an old limestone quarry. According to Margaret, it had been quarry workers that had first accidentally encountered parts of the fort’s ramparts in the 1960s. And as the two women drew closer to the lip of the quarry they could see a white van sitting on the other side of the car park from Margaret’s silver Range Rover. As they approached, a balding middle-aged man with thick metal-rimmed glasses appeared from behind the van.

Margaret half turned her head towards Clare and whispered, ‘Remember that number plate. It might prove useful later.’

Clare silently chanted the letters and numbers to herself, but with little confidence she would retain them. The man stubbed out the cigarette he’d been smoking and crushed it underfoot before looking up. There wasn’t the hint of a smile.

He stuck out a hand towards Margaret. ‘Mrs Draper.’

Margaret, hair swept back beneath a pale blue patterned headscarf and sporting outsized sunglasses to prevent any chance of recognition, looked for all the world like a cross between Audrey Hepburn and the Queen, and every inch a woman of means.

Margaret said, ‘I think you have, in a manner of speaking, already met my daughter.’

Clare, who, unlike Margaret, had never put in an appearance on television and consequently, they’d agreed, ran no chance of being recognised, was clad in an open-necked white blouse and black jeans, smiled at him. In return she received only an abrupt nod. And he showed no inclination to complete the social niceties by sharing his name.

Margaret said, ‘Shall we get down to business, then?’

‘You want to see the finds.’

Margaret said, ‘I do hope we haven’t come all of this way for nothing, Mr …’