‘Or it could be they just selected a natural terrace.’

‘Maybe. And then adapted it a little.’ She grabbed his arm. ‘Look! Do you see that dark streak running across the cutting? It seems to stretch right into the centre of the trench and then it turns at a right angle.’ She started jumping up and down. ‘Oh my God, Neil! It looks like a ditch. All this wet weather we’ve been cursing. It’s found us our ditch.’

Somewhere in the distance behind her she could hear Neil saying, ‘Are you sure?’

But she was halfway down slope by then. ‘Jo! Jo! You’ve got to come and see this! We’ve found the ditch.’

Much to the amusement of Malcolm and the rest of the dig team, Clare came to an abrupt halt, tripping over a bucket and landing squarely at Jo’s feet.

Jo helped her up. ‘Are you OK? You came down there at a heck of a lick.’

Clare brushed herself down impatiently. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’

‘What’s all the hullabaloo about?’

Clare dragged Jo upslope to get the best vantage point. She pointed. ‘Do you see down there, that dark line?’

Jo stared at the cutting, at first struggling to make it out. Then suddenly she clapped her hand across her mouth. ‘You’re right, Clare. It’s a ditch. It’s got to be. And it goes right round our pits.’ She placed both hands on her friend’s shoulders and shook her. ‘You know what this means, don’t you? We’ve found ourselves an Iron Age shrine. Do you know how rare they are, Clare? I can’t believe it. This is epic.’

Clare couldn’t help smiling at her friend’s unbridled joy. But she knew she was going to have to prick the bubble. ‘Well, to be strictly accurate we’ve got a ditch and some pits. We won’t know if the complex is Iron Age until those radio carbon dates come back from the infants’ skeletons.’

As they’d hoped, by mid-afternoon they had their answer when an email from Florida popped into Jo’s inbox.

Jo hurried over to Clare, who was filling in context sheets by the side of the cutting. ‘See, I told you. First half of the first century AD.’

‘Oh, thank God for that. Whatever happened to those poor little mites, it happened two thousand years ago. Have you—’

Jo interrupted her. ‘Oh yes. Don’t worry. First thing I did was email David. And then Mark Stone.’

‘We’d better let Margaret know too. I can’t wait to see her face when we tell her.’ Clare tucked the ring binder she was holding under her arm and got to her feet. ‘Come on, I think this deserves a cup of warm brown sludge.’

The two women strolled contentedly downhill, chatting about their discovery.