“I rather think he has shared something secret,” Lucy said. She peered closer at the image, pointing. “Look there.”

Finn screwed up his eyes. “Your sight must be very good. I can’t see anything. The picture’s too fuzzy.”

“Hang on a minute.” Lucy remembered seeing a magnifying glass in one Verity’s boxes of miscellanea. She went into the utility room to fetch it and handed it to him. “I spend so much time peering at musical scores,” she said. “Or I used to do. I can spot small details on a page.”

Finn was looking through the glass. “I see what you mean now. There’s a shadow showing up on the paddock, isn’t there, like a crop mark.” He looked at her. “Sorry, I’m using jargon. A crop mark can show where a buried archaeological feature might be.”

“I know,” Lucy said, smiling. “I’ve seen Time Team, although I will admit that’s about the extent of my knowledge.” She pointed to the picture. “There’s another one on the grass by the barn,” she said, “although that one is even fainter. Maybe if you could get hold of the original pictures, they might be a bit clearer. There might even be more of them. But it does hint at something beneath the ground, doesn’t it?”

“It must have been a very dry summer that year.” Finn put the magnifying glass down and straightened. “Fascinating. Well, I won’t get my hopes up that it’s garden related, but I will try and find the newspaper archive. We did check aerial photos from Historic England at the start of the project but maybe these are in a private collection.” He smiled at Lucy suddenly, a smile that was all the more stunning for being so unexpected. “Thanks for spotting that, Lucy. I really appreciate it.”

“Oh, no problem.” Lucy felt flustered. “Glad I could help. Let me know if you discover anything, won’t you?”

“I certainly will.” Finn picked up the book and stowed the cuttings carefully back inside. Then he frowned. “Think about calling the police over the break-in, won’t you? And have you got the number of a locksmith? If not there’s one on the board up at the cottage.”

“I’ll find one and get straight on to it,” Lucy promised. The reminder of the dead bouquet cast a shadow over her pleasure in finding the cuttings for Finn. Suddenly she didn’t want him to go, and judging by the way he lingered in the doorway, he felt the same.

“Here...” Finn took a card out of his pocket and handed it to her. “My number’s on there. Give me a ring if anything strange happens, anything at all, and Johnny, Geoff and I will be straight down to help out if you need us.”

“Thank you.” Lucy took the card, grateful both that Finn had offered, but also that he’d made light of it. She was used to coping on her own—Cleo would probably say she wasn’t great at asking for help—but Gunpowder Barn was quite isolated and it was good to know she wasn’t totally alone there.