Perfect Sins Read Online Free PDF Page A

enough to have supper with her father, Hazel excused herself. Sperrin volunteered to walk her to the gate lodge. It was a kind thought—an unexpectedly kind thought—and Hazel refrained from pointing out that (a) she’d been walking up and down this drive, alone and with company, in the daylight and in the dark, since she was a child, and (b) she was a police officer. If there was anyone lurking in the bushes, she could entirely ruin their evening.
    She said none of this because she didn’t think David Sperrin was a man to whom gallantry came easily. So she thanked him for the offer, and let him carry the torch, and tried not to notice when he tripped on rough ground and steadied himself against her.
    When he’d recovered his poise, Sperrin said, in a half-jocular sort of way that suggested this was better than asking the question outright, “So what is it between you and dog boy?”
    Hazel kept a rein on her patience. “He’s a friend. A good friend, but nothing more. All right? And don’t call him that. At least not in his hearing.”
    Hazel could hear the cocky grin in his voice. “Why? Do you think he could take me?”
    â€œI doubt it,” she said frankly. “But I’m pretty sure his dog could.”
    As the lights of the gate lodge came into view around the sweep of the drive, she steered the conversation back toward something simpler than her relationship with Ash. “What happens if you do unearth a burial tomorrow?”
    â€œWell, if is the critical word. Mostly what you find inside oddly-shaped mounds is oddly-shaped boulders. But if it is a cist, then there are some hoops to jump through. People to inform, approvals to seek, big boys’ toys to whistle up. All the stuff we haven’t got here. The days are long gone when archaeology was a kind of educational hobby for vicars and their daughters.
    â€œThere’s only so much of it, you see,” Sperrin continued seriously. “You can’t have people blundering around, confusing or even destroying important sites. All excavation is destruction—the only way you can justify it is by recording meticulously everything you see, everything you find. I couldn’t do that on my own, even with Pete helping. You hope that if you find something significant, you’ll be involved in the excavation, or at least recorded in connection with it. But the important thing is that you’ve contributed to the sum of knowledge. In the end, that may be all the reward you get.”
    She looked at him, a dark profile against the white wall of the lodge, in surprise. Talking about his own subject, the combative wit and sharp-honed cynicism that sprinkled his general conversation disappeared. Perhaps he felt sufficiently confident of his abilities in his own field not to need them.
    â€œIt was a good choice, then?” said Hazel. “Archaeology. I seem to remember people around here being a bit surprised that was what you wanted to study.”
    â€œI imagine half the people around here had to look the word up in a dictionary,” said Sperrin drily. “The other half don’t own a dictionary.” The cynic was back.
    Hazel shrugged. “This is farming country. There are only so many ways you can spell sheep. ”
    â€œI’ve never regretted it,” he said, answering her question. “It’s endlessly interesting. Even the small details are interesting. And there’s always the chance of finding something no one has seen for thousands of years. Or something that makes sense of things we’ve been seeing but not understanding. Plus, I don’t need to wear a suit.”
    Hazel laughed out loud. “That was the deciding factor, was it?”
    In the backwash of the torch she saw him smile. “Not exactly. But … It’s like this. Once you wear a suit, the die is cast. Until then, you still have the luxury of wondering what you’ll do