To Dream of the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

infill.’
    Merrily swapped a glance with Lol. Especially acceptable to Lyndon Pierce, local councillor and chartered accountant. One of whose clients was, as it happened, the owner of Coleman’s Meadow.
    It was blatant, really. And because this was a small county, so much interconnected, so many business and family links, sometimes it seemed almost normal, no big deal.
    Pierce had sat down now, was examining his nails, like his partwas over. Rain smacked at the windows, making the frames shiver and rattle, smearing the reflections in the glass.
    ‘Complication, of course,’ James said, ‘being the recent discovery in Coleman’s Meadow, of significant archaeological remains. Now, I don’t want to pre-empt the results of the excavation, but—’
    ‘Old stones.’ A drawly male voice uncurling from halfway down the hall. Merrily didn’t recognise it. ‘Just a few old stones, long buried.’
    ‘Megaliths,’ James said. ‘The remains of a Bronze Age monument four thousand years old which people interested in such relics would, understandably, like to have unearthed and conserved.’
    ‘Not a problem, Colonel,’ Pierce murmured. ‘As I keep saying.’
    ‘
In situ
.’
    ‘Ah.’ Pierce sat back, arms folded. ‘
That
’s the problem, yes. Should a prime site be sacrificed in its entirety for a few stones that wouldn’t’ve been discovered if it hadn’t been for this project – I think that’s right, isn’t it, Colonel?’
    ‘Don’t think anyone’s ever denied that. However, we now know about them, and we appear to have two options: re-erecting them as a heritage site or—’
    ‘Three options, in fact,’ Pierce said mildly. ‘The stones could be dug out and taken away for erection on another site – in a park or somewhere.’
    ‘Somewhere well away from this village,’ Shirley West said.
    She hadn’t moved. All you could see was stiffly permed dark brown hair sitting on the funnel collar of the grey coat.
    Merrily held her breath.
    ‘Because, see, we have to ask ourselves,’ Shirley said, ‘why they were buried in the first place.’
    ‘Not our place,’ James said, ‘to pre-empt the results of the official excavation. Just to remind you all, the Parish Council will be discussing Coleman’s Meadow early in the New Year. We have no planning powers at this level, as you realise, but we
can
make our voice heard in Hereford. In theory. So that leaves you two or three weeks to make your individual views known to
us
. In writing, if you—’
    ‘But I can
tell
you why, Mr Davies,’ Shirley said. ‘We don’t needno excavation to tell us they were
heathen
stones in a Christian country. Heathen stones in the very shadow of our church.’
    Our church?
Merrily knew for a fact that Shirley West was also a member of some born-again, pentecostal-type group in Leominster.
    James said, ‘Mrs West—’
    ‘Bury them again! Bury them deeper! Or, if you have to dig them up, do as Mr Pierce says, put them in a city park or a museum where none of us have to see them.’
    Merrily glanced from side to side. Was nobody going to point out – Jane would go crazy – that the stones erected elsewhere would be meaningless? That they were probably part of a prehistoric landscape pattern, aligned to the summit of Cole Hill?
    ‘Put iron railings around them.
Confine
them and—’
    ‘Yes, Mrs West,’ James said, ‘we take your point—’
    ‘—and the evil they represent. There’s a deep evil in that place and evil returns to it.’
    Someone chuckled. A
would you believe this crazy woman
? kind of chuckle. Shirley whirled round.
    ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me! You come yere with your fancy talk and your unbelief. You who deny the Lord.’
    ‘Well . . .’ Lyndon Pierce opened his hands. ‘Anyone who knows me knows I’d be the last to make a religious issue out of this. But some of you might be surprised at how many folk’ve expressed similar sentiments to Mrs West’s.’
    Opportunist bastard. Right
. .