‘How’s he going to find out? Margaret won’t tell him. And I’m certainly not going to. So unless you’re planning to say something, there’s no one else who knows.’ She shook her head. ‘No, David’s mad as hell right now. The last thing we need to do is pour fuel on the fire. Let’s just let him calm down and keep quiet until we’ve got a better idea of what’s been going on.’

Jo didn’t look convinced, but she acquiesced readily enough. ‘OK. If you say so, Clare. What is it you English say? Mum’s the word.’

The weather had finally broken and for the last few days Bailsgrove had resembled a disaster zone. They’d tried baling out the pits, but to no avail. As fast as they scooped and poured, the water seemed to rise again. They’d eventually abandoned all hope of digging in favour of finds washing. But twenty diggers into two Portakabins was a less than ideal equation. And as a consequence the office and the welfare unit now both looked even more of a shambles than when they’d taken the site over. To top it all they’d had Paul Marshall stomping round site muttering darkly about penalty clauses and threatening to withhold payment on their contract.

So it was to Clare’s intense relief that she pulled back the curtains on her bedroom at the King’s Arms to see the thick cloud being chased across the horizon by a stiff south-westerly. By the time they’d got to site the sun was starting to break through. This was more like it. Now that the university exams season was over, Jo was on-site practically full-time. And between the two of them and Neil they should be able to make decent progress. By morning break, and not without a good deal of mopping, baling and backache, everyone was digging on-site again.

Clare was standing alongside Neil, surveying the site from the top of the hill. ‘It really is an extraordinary spot. We’re only a couple of hundred metres from the edge of the Cotswold scarp, but you’d never know it. The lie of the land on this side of the hill makes it feel totally cut off.’ She turned to Neil. ‘Funny, isn’t it? We always seem to think nowadays that if you’re on the edge of something it’s less important. But I remember David telling me once that in prehistory, places on the edge were often revered – treated as the meeting point between two worlds.’

Neil nodded. ‘Beth used to have a word for it—’

Clare cut in, ‘Liminal.’

‘That’s it. I remember now.’

As they ambled downslope Clare stopped and pointed. ‘You know, Neil, I’ve never noticed before, but our site sits on its own little plateau. It looks as if it’s been deliberately cut into the slope.’