The Avalon Chanter Read Online Free PDF Page A

passenger seat—riding shotgun, an American would say. His
face was so utterly blank, Jean was impressed. Very few people
could do a great stone face as effectively as Alasdair could.
Unless Crawford’s blank face indicated no one home behind it. That
might explain why a man who had to be over forty still served as
the constable in a small seaside community. Although, to be fair,
he might be content where he was, with no ambitions to move up the
ladder. Unlike Alasdair, who’d climbed the ladder so quickly he
came down with a nosebleed.
    She shoved a couple of electronic umbilical
cords and a muddy trowel out of her way. The nylon of the seat was
spattered with mud, but every now and then you had to sacrifice
your clothes for a story. She was glancing around to see what was
piled in the back of the vehicle—more digging implements, folders
of computer printouts, a bin holding mud-caked items of the pottery
shard type—when Alasdair clambered into the other side.
    Surreptitiously Jean offered him the
flat of her hand. We’re in! Kudos to the
team! Instead of returning a high five, though,
Alasdair shot her a stern look. She retracted her hand and tried a
sheepish shrug instead. No, he didn’t like pulling rank, not when
his purpose for doing so was still undefined.
    Tara fired up the engine and took off,
flinging Jean against the seat back.
     
     

Chapter Four
     
     
    Reddish stone, gray stone, and lumpy
white pebbledash facades whizzed by the window. A pub, The Queen’s Arms written in Gothic
script on its signboard. A cobblestoned alley. A Co-op grocery
store, where a woman with a shopping bag stepped off the curb, then
stepped quickly back as they sped past. A tea room. The smell of
baking bread and frying potatoes filtered into the musty interior
of the Land Rover and Jean’s stomach emitted a forlorn
growl.
    Then they were screeching around a hairpin
turn, climbing a hill behind the village. Jean grabbed for the
handle above the window. The back of Crawford’s head, covered with
the brown stubble of a military-style cut, held perfectly
steady.
    A strain of pipe music, bravado in sound
waves, rose and fell. A kilted man with hair so black it glistened
even in the diffused light played a set of Great Highland bagpipes
in front of a long, low building. Two teenagers held chanters to
their lips and presumably followed along.
    The village church was a small beige-walled
and tile-roofed structure not much bigger than the vicar’s house
next door, and displayed no more than a stub for a steeple. Both
probably dated to mid-Victorian times, but seemed downright modern
compared to . . .
    Yes. Beyond a
cemetery surrounded by a low stone wall lay Farnaby Priory. When
the vehicle skidded to a stop, Jean was ready. She flung open her
door, leaped out, and tried to check out as much as possible before
any fecal matter started hitting any fans.
    Like Lindisfarne, the surviving ruins of
Farnaby Priory had been built in the early Middle Ages of red and
silvery gray sandstone, now sculpted by time and weather into
flowing patterns that seemed more Art Nouveau than Norman French.
Unlike Lindisfarne, Farnaby’s remains were far from dramatic. A
rectangle of roofless walls marked the church, one of them barely
tall enough to retain a row of round-headed windows behind a
columned arcade. What had once been the cloister was filled by a
walled garden, gravel paths laid out between scraggly beds dotted
with flowers and thick with weeds such as thistles and stinging
nettles. A couple of rabbits raced across a shaggy plot of grass
and into the shrubbery.
    The other buildings—refectory, prioress’s
hall, kitchens, dormitory—were marked by little more than the
footings of the original walls. Several archaeological test
trenches cut across grassy areas and over walls, their slumping
sides softened by opportunistic plants. Maggie Lauder’s focus had
moved on.
    Alasdair stepped up beside her and Jean
pointed to the one roof still