Crabby said, ‘Her old man is sick to death of her shenanigans. Acting the high and mighty on the parish council. Don’t make him many friends round here. But then neither did selling that land. And if she manages to stop Marshall building on the site it’ll cost him a bob or two.’ Clare looked at him quizzically. ‘He’s the one as sold the plot in the first place. Marshall did a deal with him. He takes part of the profits when the houses get built.’

‘Can’t make for a very happy home life.’

Crabby took a long draught of his cider. ‘Sometimes I think she’s doing it just to spite him. But he don’t know the half of what she gets up to.’

‘He doesn’t know about planting the finds.’

Crabby shook his head. ‘He’d ’ave her guts for garters if he found out.’

Clare said, ‘What I don’t understand is where you got the stuff from.’

He said, ‘Was easier than you’d think. Sheila did a bit of research on the Internet to look at what sort of stuff we should be looking for. Then I went online and bid for it.’

Clare said, ‘But it must have cost you a fortune. Some of that stuff came from all over Europe,’ then added quickly, ‘from what I can tell on the auction site.’

Crabby took a long, slow slurp of his cider and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘There are plenty of folks with money round ’ere as value their way of life and are willing to pay to keep it that way. Sheila organised a bit of a whip-round.’

Clare looked around at the assorted residents of Bailsgrove enjoying their evening tipples, seemingly without a care in the world. How many of them knew about what Crabby was telling them? Did everyone in the village know about what had been going on at the dig site?

Crabby said, ‘I went up to the dig the afternoon after I’d planted them. I was dead pleased with myself when Beth found one of the brooches. It all seemed to be going a treat. But Beth knew there were something fishy going on right off. She brought it over to show me. I don’t know how she guessed. I never did have much of a poker face. But she just looked at me and said, “This was you, Crabby, wasn’t it?”