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when you grow up.”
    They were almost at the gate lodge. Fred had left a lamp burning in the porch. Hazel said, “How long will you be working at Byrfield? Diana must like having you home.”
    Sperrin shook his dark head. “I’m not staying at home. There’s more room at the big house.”
    Hazel was surprised. She was pretty sure that Diana Sperrin’s cottage was bigger than her father’s. She had room there for her studio.
    Her silence seemed to put Sperrin on the defensive. “I stick my head in from time to time. She’s busy, too. And we never were what you’d call a close family.”
    There were only the two of them. Diana had raised her son alone while her husband indulged his wanderlust. Hazel wondered if Sperrin’s gypsy father had finally returned home, but didn’t know how to ask without risking offense. “Is she still painting?” Diana Sperrin was a moderately successful artist. She had exhibited in London, and Hazel had read newspaper articles on her work.
    â€œLord, yes,” said David fervently. “Nothing short of death will stop her. Even then she may manage a quick sketch of the afterlife on the inside of her coffin lid.”
    â€œThat must be where you get it from,” Hazel said with a chuckle. “Your creative side.”
    He seemed genuinely puzzled. “I’m an archaeologist. A scientist.”
    â€œYou’re saying you aren’t moved by the beauty of the things you find as much as by the information they give you?”
    He hesitated, as if considering that for the first time. “They are beautiful…” he admitted.
    â€œYou see?” said Hazel triumphantly. “The artist speaks!”
    â€œâ€¦ And so is knowledge.”
    They regarded each other levelly in the scant light of the torch. Then, almost simultaneously, they smiled.
    â€œI’ll see you in the morning,” said Hazel.

 
    CHAPTER 4
    S ATURDAY-MORNING BREAKFAST at Byrfield was a slightly odd affair. As three single men of education and intelligence, with barely ten years between the eldest and the youngest, they should have had more in common than they seemed able to find. Of course, Ash wasn’t single by choice—he was a married man in every way but the one that counted most. Only Sperrin appeared to be single by inclination. Byrfield seemed to be single mainly through lack of initiative. They compared notes on their experiences of university—archaeology at Reading for Sperrin, agricultural college for Byrfield, PPE at Oxford for Ash—and still found nothing in common.
    With a hint of desperation Byrfield asked the archaeologist if he liked dogs, and Sperrin looked at him in astonishment and said, “Good God, no.” Under the table Patience rubbed sweetly against him, coating his trouser legs with hair.
    They finished eating in silence.
    Sperrin had gathered some tools in the courtyard. He distributed the load among them. Byrfield got a spade and a crowbar, Ash a bundle of ranging rods, and Sperrin took the rest: a camera, a nest of buckets filled with sponges, cotton wool, Bubble Wrap and plastic bags of assorted sizes, a large bottle of water, a small bottle of glycerin, some wooden wedges, a sledgehammer, and a GPS position finder. When he saw the smaller man about to tip over backward, Byrfield took some of the heavier items and shared them with Ash. Thus encumbered they set off down the path.
    Hazel, leaving the gate lodge at the same time, cut across the meadow and reached the edge of the lake while the men were still laboring through the stable yard. Without hurrying, she made her way around the rushy margin until she came to the stone igloo of the icehouse and the interesting hump Sperrin wanted to examine. She knew it was the right hump because he’d left one of his stripy rods sticking out of it.
    It was years since she’d been here last, but it was no more effort than she