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then pulled herself together and tried Neil Cooper again. Thinking she’d leave a message on his machine so that both he and his wife would know that she definitely wasn’t—
    ‘Cooper.’
    ‘Oh—’
    ‘Jane,’ he said, and if she was honest she’d have to admit he didn’t sound over-excited.
    ‘Sorry, I thought I’d get the machine. Coops, listen, I’m not stalking you or anything. You gave me your home number, in case anything came up?’
    ‘And what’s come up, Jane?’
    ‘Erm . . . well, like . . . nothing. I mean, that’s the point. Nothing’s happening. It’s all stopped. Why’s it all stopped, Coops?’
    She felt stupid, but he must surely understand how importantthis was to her. She was carrying the blazing torch lit by Lucy Devenish, folklorist of this parish, now dead, and if she let it go out . . .
    ‘Weather’s not helping, obviously,’ Neil Cooper said.
    ‘You’ve got those tent things you can put over the trenches.’
    ‘Yeah, but it’s not satisfactory. And there’s no desperate hurry, is there? And anyway, I keep telling you, it’s not my—’
    ‘There is for me, Coops, I’ll be back at school in the New Year.’
    ‘Jane, they can’t time the whole project to fit your personal schedule.’
    ‘I just want— Don’t want to interfere or anything, I just want to
be
there. On the fringe, quiet as a mouse. Just like want to be there when the stones are raised again.’
    ‘Well, yeah,’ he said. ‘I can understand that.’
    There was something Neil Cooper wasn’t telling her. Or maybe he was just pissed off because the dig had been taken out of the hands of the county archaeology department: too big, too important, needed specialists in prehistory.
    ‘And let’s not forget,’ Jane said, ‘that if it wasn’t for me you might never’ve discovered it in the first place. I mean, I don’t like to keep throwing this at y—’
    ‘
Jane
—’
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘None of us will miss anything, OK? It’ll be on TV. All the best bits, anyway.’
    ‘Huh?’
    His voice had sounded damp and sick in a way that didn’t make sense. ‘What would you expect,’ he said, ‘with Blore in the driving seat?’
    ‘Sorry . . .’ Jane was on the edge of the sofa. ‘Did you say—
what
did you say?’
    Coops said nothing.
    ‘Did you say
Blore
? As in, like,
Bill
Blore, of
Trench One
?’
    ‘I’d hate to think there was another one out there,’ Coops said.
    ‘Holy shit,’ Jane said.
    ‘Look, don’t get—’
    ‘But like, I thought the contract had gone to this . . . Dore Valley Archaeology?’
    He was silent again.
    ‘Come on, Coops, who am
I
going to tell?’
    ‘Dore Valley Archaeology,’ Coops said, ‘no longer exists as an independent contractor. In mid-October it was acquired by Blore’s company, Capstone.’
    ‘
Wow
. I didn’t know that. I mean, I didn’t know he had a company.’
    ‘They all do. Archaeology’s a business. Like everything else. And Capstone have swallowed Dore Valley. More people, more resources, more prestige digs, plus TV documentaries on the side. Blore’s got it sewn up, money at both ends.’
    ‘Bill Blore,’ Jane said slowly. ‘Wow.’
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Jane . . .’
    ‘Hey, I’m sorry, but
Bill
—’
    ‘You’re missing the point, Jane, and maybe I shouldn’t expect you to see the significance, but you’re thinking about the so-called glamorous TV presenter, while I’m seeing the man who is
not
Herefordshire Council’s favourite archaeologist.’
    Jane thought about this for a moment, and then she started to understand.
    ‘The Dinedor Serpent.’
    ‘We still prefer to call it the Rotherwas Ribbon,’ Coops said primly. Well, he would. The council stuck to the original name,
Ribbon
, because that sounded less sexy than Serpent or Dragon. Easier to ignore.
    But it
was
sexy. Unique, probably. Coleman’s Meadow, with real standing stones to uncover, might turn out to be more immediately spectacular, but the Dinedor Serpent