23

The knock on her door was tentative. She glanced at her wristwatch. It was only just after eight.

‘Is it too early? I can come back later– or not at all, if you're busy.' It was Charles Ford.

‘Of course it's not too early. Come in.' She was genuinely pleased to see him, Cadi realised. She beckoned him over to the breakfast table and rummaged for another mug. ‘Sorry about the mess. I've been a bit preoccupied.' The room was littered with papers and books, but he didn't seem to have noticed.

‘I was hoping to nip over the gate and do a bit of dowsing before people were up and about,' he said as he pulled up a chair. ‘But, my goodness. What's been happening out there? Police tape!'

‘They found a body.' She poured coffee for him and pushed the milk bottle across the table. ‘Have you had breakfast? I can make you some toast.' She had been nibbling at a slice while reading over her notes from the night before.

He shook his head. ‘I'd been thinking about your meadow so much; I just had to come back to have another look at it. I didn't want to bother you, so I've put myself up at the B I think the police want to establish that whoever it was isn't on their missing persons list. He. It's a man.'

‘It was a man,' he repeated ruefully. ‘How awful. And so not a Roman, presumably, if the police hope to find him on their missing persons list?'

She gave a wry grin. ‘They expected him to be Roman, of course, but then they found his head riddled with bullet holes.'

‘Ah, then I suppose the police would take an interest.' Charles sat back in his chair. He frowned.

‘I think they're going to do carbon-14 testing,' she went on. ‘The interesting thing was that there was a rusty old sword buried with him and what they think is a Roman belt buckle. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said. I think the theory at the moment is that the guy was doing some excavating of his own when someone came up and shot him.' She paused. It had only just sunk in properly that David's family had still owned the field until after the war, that this might have had something to do with them.

‘Presumably that will stop the whole planning permission thing for a while?' Charles was silent for a moment. ‘Cadi, I hope you don't think I'm interfering– and please tell me if you would rather I disappeared– but the summer vacation is under way and my duties at the uni are on hold for the time being. I couldn't get this place out of my head and I've been doing a bit of digging. Metaphorically, that is. I can't remember if I told you, but Ancient History is my thing and it turns out I know one of the chaps who has been put in charge of surveying this site for planning permission. He is, at least for now, in charge of the archaeology section at your county hall. Naturally I rang him as soon as I realised.' He glanced up. ‘You don't look horrified.'

‘No. Not at all. This is brilliant. Chris at the mill knows someone, but I don't know how close he is to the actual planning department. Chris is a bit protective of his source.'

Charles laughed. ‘I'm not entirely surprised. If you get a large development going through, or not going through, for what-ever technical reasons, I understand everyone gets a bit jumpy. Luckily, my chap, Stephen Graham, isn't in that position. He produces a report and a recommendation, but that's as far as it goes. Others make the final decisions.'

‘I might have met him. The chap digging up the body was called Steve. He seemed very nice and very efficient.'

Charles laughed. ‘That sounds like him. It was Steve who told me about this place. Do you remember, when I first met you I had come to check it out with my hazel twig?'

‘And will he be digging for the palace?'

‘Palace? So, we have definitely decided it was more than a villa.'

‘A large villa, but it belonged– that is, we think it belonged– to a king, which makes it a palace. Right?'

He gave a slow nod. ‘You "think" it belonged?'

‘We dowsed it again. My Uncle Meryn dowsed it. I showed him your plan. I hope you don't mind.' She reached for her coffee.

He laughed. ‘Of course not.' He hesitated. ‘So, do you want to hear the rest of my discoveries? Nothing to do with dowsing, just fairly competent computer skills delving into information you may already have, but if not, it may be helpful. Steve gave me a nod in the right direction. He's on your side, by the way; he thinks it would be a desecration to build an estate in an idyllic spot like this, but of course he can't say so. And as we all keep saying, they have to put people somewhere.' He paused. ‘He has had a look at some of the paperwork behind all this. It was attached by mistake to a file he was sent. The company who spotted a development possibility here seems to have some kind of local connection. It's called Meadow Holdings. They have an area office in Cardiff, although the main company is registered in London. Steve said the original "survey"'– he sketched the quotes in the air with his fingers– ‘which was attached to their initial approach to the council, was nothing more than a page of notes plus an assurance that there was nothing here to warrant any further investigations, which is why no one at the planning office here bothered about sending in the archaeologists, at least to start with. They assumed that had already been covered. We mustn't say anything. Steve would get into all kinds of trouble for telling me this and it may not be relevant, but it seems too much of a coincidence. The parent company is a city finance firm. Meadow Holdings find niche areas suitable for very upmarket development but relatively cheap because they haven't got prior planning permission. They gamble on getting the permission; of course the land is far cheaper without it because of the risk involved. The company builds expensive houses. These days that in itself is problematic because people need affordable housing not the other kind, but I expect they'll get round that by sketching in a little terrace of houses on the edge of the development which, sadly, if the past is anything to go by, will end up being abandoned because, too late to do anything about it, they find water or subsidence or something else to get in the way.' He tapped his nose. ‘By then of course the rest of the houses will be well under way, so they'll make an undertaking to put the affordable housing elsewhere or arrange a donation towards some green cause or other, and there you are: a beautiful, very expensive cluster of desirable houses on the edge of a pretty village with no cheap little houses as neighbours.'

‘That's dreadful!'

‘Cynical. Greedy and unprincipled, to my mind, but there you are. It's the way of the world.' He sighed. ‘What we need to do is find enough archaeology to put paid to the entire development and send them packing. And it sounds as though we might have done just that.'

‘You said there was a local connection?'

‘To the parent company, yes. Steve was a bit suspicious. He said the detail as to why they didn't need to do any surveys was very thorough for an initial approach. He thought it showed insider knowledge.'

‘So it's someone who knows the village?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘Who?'

‘It's a company: John Davies Associates.'

Cadi frowned. ‘Arwel is a Davies. But surely he would have said.'

‘Not if he had any sense. Not if the feeling in the village is anything to go by. Most people are dead against it according to my landlady.'

‘Everyone is related to everyone round here.' Cadi pulled a face. ‘It could be some relative of Arwel's. He's never mentioned a John, unless– oh my God!' She shivered.

Charles raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless?'

‘Arwel's son, Ifan. That's Welsh for John.' She stood up abruptly, her stomach clenched in real fear. ‘It couldn't be him, could it? He ran some kind of tech company, then I heard he had switched into investments. And,' she took a deep breath, ‘he hated me.'

Charles studied her face anxiously. ‘I can't believe anyone would hate you, Cadi.'

‘Oh believe me, he did. We had a...' she hesitated, ‘a fairly passionate affair.' She glanced across at him, embarrassed. ‘It was a couple of years or so after my husband David and I were divorced, and I was feeling a bit low. Ifan turned out to be a vindictive bastard! Coercive, I suppose they call it nowadays. Controlling. Increasingly nasty. When I tried to end it and he realised it was over, he set out to destroy me. He refused to go. He threatened me. He made my life hell.' She wasn't sure why she was telling him all this, but somehow she couldn't stop. ‘Eventually, I told him I was going to go to the police and he upped and left for London. He deluged me with vicious emails and letters for a bit. I blocked the emails and burned the letters, and they did stop in the end. I heard later he had married a beautiful rich woman. Of course he did.' She gave a little snort of derision. ‘I never heard anything again. It could be him. He knew full well how much I love this cottage and the meadow. It would have been just like him to try to do something to ruin itfor me. But why would he do that now? Why start the -vendetta again?' She shook her head resolutely. ‘No, it can't be him. It just can't.'

Charles frowned. He had seen the panic in her eyes, just for a second, before she sat down again and reached for the coffee pot. Her hands were shaking. He felt a wave of anger, mixed with enormous compassion. ‘With all due respect, Cadi, I can't imagine anyone would go to this much trouble to get his own back for a failed love affair! Think how much organisation it would take.'

She shook her head slowly. ‘He might. As I said, it would be just like him. And it would be win-win. Make me miserable and make him lots and lots of money. It would have given him so much pleasure to hurt me. Perhaps he hasn't changed.'

Charles let out a long sigh. ‘But, as you say, why would he do this after– how long ago did you break up?'

She was chewing her lip. ‘I suppose it all stopped four years ago. I've no idea why he'd do it now. Why does anyone do anything?'

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Are you going to mention this to Arwel?' he asked gently.

She shook her head, swallowing hard. ‘No. No, of course not. It's only a suspicion. And it seems barely credible. Anyway, as you say, we've got to protect Steve as our source of information. It's some totally different John Davies, I'm sure it is. It's a common enough name. I couldn't bear it if it was Ifan and he was still after me. It's unimaginable that he might have been here spying on the meadow. And on me.' She shuddered.

Charles glanced up at her then looked away quickly, realising she probably hadn't intended to reveal so much of her private life to him. ‘OK, let's change the subject and go back to thinking about our masterplan to save the field.'

She smiled. ‘Yes, let's. So, does Steve approve of dowsing?'

‘Yes and no. I have talked to him about it, over several beers, in the past. The trouble is nowadays they have machines and cunning devices that can do the job far more reliably. That's his view. If you can do it by radar, why resort to mumbo jumbo, basically.'

She laughed. ‘Which I suppose is fair enough. It must have been one of his colleagues who came to do the radar stuff in the field. That wasn't Steve. I gather it showed up some walls and a general outline of a big building which he thought was a barn, and it was then they must have spotted the outline of a grave, because they went straight for it. Surely the planners will agree to a proper dig now. It may look like a barn, but we know it was a palace. We just have to convince them. The trouble is, the palace was burned to the ground, probably in the fourth century.'

He frowned. ‘How do you know that?'

She hesitated. ‘Dowsing.' She reached for her coffee cup again and he saw her hand was still shaking. ‘You know all about dowsing. Can you accept ghosts, visions, automatic -writing?'

He stifled a laugh, then he stared at her. ‘You're not joking.'

‘Of course I'm not joking. I'm Meryn's niece.'

‘OK. Fair enough.' He sounded doubtful. ‘Ghosts I can understand. And dowsing, obviously. But visions? Automatic writing?'

‘Visions are easy. We've both seen horses. Flickering lights, all that stuff.'

‘And automatic writing?'

‘Ah, that's me,' she acknowledged, embarrassed. ‘I seem to be doing it. Writing a story about the past which links to the meadow. I don't understand it myself, but Meryn says I should go on doing it. See where it leads. To be fair, I'm only just beginning to accept all this myself. Meryn has been very stern with me.' A thought struck her. ‘You knew about Meryn's books, didn't you.'

He laughed. ‘Of course. I told you. I'm a fan. I love his style. His angle is what I like to think of as metaphysical history. Not my official course subject, obviously. But nevertheless it all fascinates me. Why do you ask?'

There was a slight pause before she answered. ‘Arwel made a huge deal out of the stuff he writes not being proper history or science or whatever. Woo-woo, he calls it.'

‘And why does it matter what Arwel thinks?'

Cadi smiled. ‘It doesn't. Of course it doesn't. But, Charles, supposing it is Ifan? Supposing Ifan has offered his father shares or something and they see Meryn as a danger to the deal going through? No.' She shook her head. ‘I don't want to even think about that.' She scrambled to her feet. ‘Come on, shall we go and see who, if anyone, is in the meadow. Bring your hazel twig.'

‘Charles,' Cadi turned her back on the view, ‘can you do some dowsing up here. This was still a township at the time the palace was flourishing down in the meadow below us. I saw it in my...' she hesitated, unable to put a name to her experience.

‘Vision?' Charles put in helpfully. The padlock on the gate had not been replaced and they had spent twenty minutes or so wandering round the meadow, then walked up the lane to follow the redirected footpath to the summit of the hill.

‘OK. My vision. A woman called Branwen lived up here. Some kind of wise woman.' That was a better word than -Druidess. ‘When I saw it, saw her, there was a village of round houses, like one sees in Iron Age reconstructions, but we're talking about a much later date, towards the end of the Roman occupation, and what I saw was far from primitive. The -houses were furnished with carved furniture and hangings on the walls. I thought they would contrast to the wealthy Romans down below, but they were just as civilised.'

‘Ah.' Charles was threading his way through the beds of nettles and bracken. ‘Another of our famous mistaken assumptions. I often think we inherited from the Romans as they conquered their empire, our– and by our I mean largely English– tendency to assume all others are inferior. They must be if they allowed us to defeat them.'

‘You're talking about the British Empire here?'

‘Maybe. It was certainly the approach of a lot of Victorian historians, but I was actually thinking about the Roman attitude to the people they called barbarians. Our friends here, for instance. The thought that your wise woman had retreated from a beautiful Roman villa, probably with running water and mosaics and statues and carefully cultivated gardens, to an Iron Age township, and a round house, which until only recently was assumed, even at this date, to be furnished little better than a pigsty, and to hear that they lived in some comfort and with exotic and beautiful furnishings, that is fascinating. Proof that the Brits weren't as primitive as the Romans wanted people to believe, or at the very least that they were able to learn from their conquerors.'

Cadi laughed. ‘Sadly, not proof. That was my vision, Charles. How can I ever prove it?'

‘It doesn't matter. Maybe it just proves it to me. I'm happy with our rather wacky method of researching history.' He smiled. ‘Opinions in general are actually changing all the time. We are discovering more and more from the archaeological record as our own forensic methods improve, finding out that things were far more civilised than people assume. It all comes down to archaeology and our wretched climate. Rain– damp soils, acidic soils– makes things rot! That doesn't mean we can assume that people in our little godforsaken island up here beyond the North Wind were little better than ape-men! It's just their stuff didn't survive easily. But look at all the wonderful archaeological evidence they are finding at Vindolanda.' He paused. ‘Sorry. I'm lecturing. Force of habit, I'm afraid.'

Cadi nodded, ‘I enjoyed the lecture.' She smiled, briefly holding his gaze before hurriedly looking away. ‘So, until we find a Welsh Vindolanda, let's go back to our own wacky methods. Can you dowse the centre of the township? I've tried but I'm no good at it, but perhaps you can discover something to back up our theory.'

‘They didn't have books, did they?' He stopped and looked at her enquiringly. ‘Bookshelves in their round house?'

‘Had they invented books at that date?' She grinned. ‘No, of course. That's your point. We don't know, do we. They would have rotted! No, there weren't any books as we know them. I would have noticed. And not in the villa either. But when Branwen left she took her most precious things on the back of her mule and they included several scrolls. I think they were their equivalent of books. And Elen had a whole trunkful.'

‘Yes!' He grinned. ‘Excellent! I can feel a thesis coming on.'

‘Good.' She found herself liking this man more and more. ‘But in the meantime, please can we try dowsing?'

Charles put his hand in his pocket and produced a pendulum, much like hers to look at. ‘I prefer working with the twig, it's more traditional, and easier if it's windy, but it's also harder to disguise,' he said with a wink. ‘I live in fear of running into Arwel.'

Cadi sat down thoughtfully on an earth bank and watched as he wandered away from her.

‘So, what have you discovered?' she asked when at last he came back and sat down beside her.

‘I think there were a dozen or so houses up here and, according to my methodology, they were occupied well into the eighth century when I'm afraid it finally succumbed to Viking raids.'

He slipped his pendulum into his pocket and stared round. ‘The weather is closing in.' The air was humid and very close. ‘It feels as if there's going to be a storm. Shall we go back?' The view of the estuary had disappeared.

‘Wait.' Cadi had turned to look back down at the meadow. ‘Look. Where the grass is short now, and the ground has dried out a bit, isn't that the outline of a building? You can't see it down there, but from this distance, in this light, it's quite clear. Charles. We can see it!'

‘You're right. Oh my goodness!' He reached into his pocket for his phone. ‘There is a distinct drought mark. Well spotted. I'll take some pictures. If it's going to rain, the marks may have disappeared by morning.'

The first heavy drops of rain were falling by the time they reached the village and a distant rumble of thunder rolled round the hills as they made their way indoors.

Transferred from their phones to Cadi's laptop the photos showed the clear pale outline of a large building laid out in the meadow. It was rectangular with two distinct wings, one each end of the main body of the structure, identical to the dowsed outline both Meryn and Charles had sketched out.

Cadi was studying it carefully. ‘I suppose it could be a barn? Isn't it quite likely that a barn was built over the original footprint? Maybe using some of the old stone.'

He nodded. ‘That's probably right. Just think, if we hadn't been up there we would have missed the chance to see the outline in the dry ground.' He glanced towards the window where huge heavy drops were beginning to fall, then checked his watch. ‘I'm really sorry, Cadi, I hadn't realised it was so late. I've arranged to meet up with some friends over in Penarth this evening. I think I'd better nip back to my digs to change and pick up my car before the heavens open. Can we follow up on all this tomorrow?'

‘Of course.' She felt strangely let down for a moment and quickly pushed away the feeling. After all, he had his own life. ‘Do you mind if I email these to Meryn?'

‘Not at all. Take care, Cadi.' He hesitated for a second and then he was gone.

She watched as he disappeared down the path then turned back to her laptop. Five minutes later she pressed send, then she gathered up her notebook and pen and retired to the kitchen table. As the sound of the rain outside grew heavier all thoughts of Ifan and of Charles had vanished. She was already back in the past.