25

It was after three by the time they walked down through the village to Maggie Powell's cottage beside the pub. She was in the garden pruning back the wildly rampant rose bushes in her front borders.

‘Bloody rude, that policeman, wasn't he!' was her first comment as she saw Cadi at her gate. ‘Throwing his weight about. Who are you then? Another of them archaeologists?' she addressed Charles as she tore off her gardening gloves.

He gave her what he hoped was a friendly smile. ‘Local historian.'

‘Not another one!' She was not impressed. ‘It's bad enough being stuck with that Arwel trying to tell us all about our own village.'

So, not a fan. Cadi tucked that information away for future use. ‘You mentioned that a mosaic pavement had been dug up some time before the war, Mrs Powell, and I was wondering if you had any idea whereabouts in the field it was?'

‘Can't they find it with all their fancy equipment?'

‘No. Apparently not.'

‘And you think they're hiding it.' The woman's bright blue eyes were piercingly shrewd as she stared into Cadi's face.

‘I don't know. To be honest, I don't think it would make much difference. They would dig it up and put it somewhere safe if they found it. But it does seem odd that they're not -surveying the whole field, especially if there is a local story that there's something special there.'

‘That would cost money,' Maggie said with exaggerated cynicism. ‘But on the other hand, after finding that skeleton you'd think the police would insist. Especially when we told them there were other bodies there. But then again, perhaps they only want to find out about the modern one. Have they spoken to Joyce yet?' She tucked her gloves under her arm and groped for a tissue in her apron pocket, mopping her nose with vigour.

‘Joyce?' Cadi frowned.

‘Joyce Blackdon. She was brought up in your cottage. Her grandfather was a gamekeeper on the Caradoc estate.'

Cadi frowned. ‘I didn't know that. I thought the family who lived there were called Harris.'

‘They were. She married Jo Blackdon. He was the farrier; died about twenty years ago now. She lives in the almshouses, if you want to speak to her. I doubt if she'd remember what happened when they found the mosaic– that would have been before she was born, but you'd think the family would have talked about it. It was right next door to their allotment.'

‘Shall we go now?' Cadi and Charles had walked away from Mrs Powell's house with a mutual sense of excitement.

‘Oh yes. I think so! Strike while the iron's hot.' Charles was smiling. ‘This is fascinating.'

‘You don't mind being dragged around on a wild goose chase?'

‘I love wild goose chases. I'm glad she didn't pretend to know things which she obviously didn't. She struck me as being someone who likes to know everything.'

Cadi nodded. ‘I expect she'll know what Joyce Blackdon says before we do, even so. The almshouses are down here.' She led the way down a cobbled lane behind the church.

Joyce seemed overjoyed to see them. Cadi suspected she was lonely, but the tea and home-made shortbread she produced were surprisingly welcome considering they had only recently had lunch.

‘I knew your grandfather,' she announced to Cadi.

Cadi looked blank at this, then realisation dawned. ‘Ah, you mean my husband's grandfather. He was Harri Caradoc.'

Joyce nodded. ‘Of course. Nice man. His father died in the war like my uncle George who was a keeper on the estate, like his father before him.' She glanced up at a black-and-white photograph hanging over the fireplace which depicted a line of serious-looking men very obviously in their Sunday best.

‘I wanted to ask you something about the cottage your family used to live in. Sarnelen.'

Joyce nodded. She took a sip of tea. ‘They were kind to let my family stay on after the war. Tied cottage it was though, so they didn't need to after my tad and my taid – that's my granddad– died. When I married Jo they took the cottage back. My mam was too old to live there on her own anymore. I heard they gave it to you and young David when you got married.'

Cadi glanced at Charles, who appeared rapt. ‘I live there by myself now,' she said. ‘David and I were divorced.'

Joyce gave a sad thoughtful nod and fell silent; Cadi had the distinct impression that the woman was updating the databank in her head.

‘I hope you don't mind, but I was wanting to ask you about the old days when your family lived in the cottage. You'll have heard about the plans for Camp Meadow.'

Joyce's face froze. She put down her cup abruptly. ‘What about them?'

‘They're planning some excavations in the meadow to see if there are any Roman remains there which they need to check out before they build houses on the site. I expect you heard they had found a body there.'

‘No. I can't talk about that!'

Cadi opened her mouth and then closed it again. Joyce had gone white.

Charles sat forward on his chair. ‘We didn't want to talk aboutthe body, Mrs Blackdon,' he said gently. ‘Mrs -Powell thought you might remember something about a mosaic -pavement which she thinks was dug up sometime before the war. Long before you were born, obviously.' The woman didn't look much over seventy, if that. ‘We were hoping someone in your family might have mentioned it to you. It must have been exciting at the time. The trouble is, no one can remember where it was exactly or when they dug it up. We've heard it was covered over again at some point and forgotten until now.'

Joyce shook her head. ‘I'm sorry. I thought...' She gave a little sigh and picked up her cup again, stirring the tea with the silver teaspoon lying in the saucer. Her hand was shaking and the spoon rattled against the china.

Cadi bit her lip. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, talking about the meadow.'

‘No. It was just such a shock after all this time.' Joyce gave a rueful smile. ‘But I knew it would happen one day. It was bound to.'

‘What was bound to?' Charles's quiet voice was obviously more reassuring than Cadi's.

Their hostess put down her cup and saucer again. ‘I suppose it would be a relief to tell someone. My mother told me the story and swore me to secrecy with my hand on the Bible. She was near the end and she said it was important someone knew. I think it was a sort of confession. To get it off her chest, like. Just in case. It was an accident, you see. She was only fourteen. Her brother George had had his call up papers, and he was off the next day.' She glanced up at the photograph again. ‘He took the gun out to see if he could get a rabbit for the larder. My granddad was too ill to go out anymore and things were hard for everyone.' She gave a stifled sob.

Charles glanced at Cadi. Her eyes were fixed on the woman's face. ‘She heard the shot,' Joyce went on at last. ‘Quite close it was. Then George came back a bit later. He was white as a sheet, she said. And shaking. Said he'd aimed at a rabbit but all of a sudden there was a man in front of him and the shot got him full in the face. He hadn't meant to do it. There was no one else out there. There was no one in the field. No one. He was aiming at a rabbit,' she repeated. Her eyes were pleading. ‘He said it again and again and then he was crying. She said he didn't know what to do, but they knew no one would believe him. That it was an accident. So he decided to bury the man. The ground was soft after all the rain and he was going off to the army the next day. Tad couldn't have borne it if his son had been had up for murder. And my mam was so young. There was no one else in the house and her taid was bedridden upstairs. George waited until dark, took a couple of spades out of the shed and made her go with him. She told me the man's face was all bloody. George made her help him dig a great big hole and pushed him in. George was frantic, she said. Angry and frightened. He piled the earth over the body and made her jump up and down on it. He said if she ever told anyone he would say it was all her fault and she would be hanged!' Her voice broke. ‘He thought the man must have been digging for treasure in the field. He was dressed funny and he had a sword with him. All shiny it was. George hadn't aimed at him. He hadn't seen him. He insisted he shot at a rabbit. The man came out of nowhere– there was nothing he could do. It was too late. The shot had gone off.' There were tears running down her face. ‘My mam lived with that secret all her life. George had gone by next morning, before dawn, without saying goodbye to anyone, and the same day the Germans started bombing Cardiff docks, so no one thought about the meadow after that. No one came looking for the dead man. The grass grew. No one noticed the grave.' There was a long silence. ‘George never came home,' she said at last. ‘He was killed in 1942 and my taid died later the same year. My mam kept silent all those years... and now they've found the body.'

She slumped back in her chair. Charles stood up and gently took the cup and saucer out of her hand. He put it down on the tray.

‘You'll need to tell the police,' Joyce said at last through her tears. ‘It had to happen one day. The man's family need to know what became of him, it's only right.'

‘You want us to tell the police?' Cadi repeated at last.

Joyce nodded. ‘Will I be in trouble?'

‘I doubt it.' Charles walked over to the fireplace and gazed up at the photograph. ‘It was all a long time ago. Your mother and brother are dead and the police may not find any relatives of the man who was shot– assuming they can identify him at all after so long.' He and Cadi exchanged glances. ‘I think they will want to come and talk to you, but all you have to do is tell them what you've told us. You've done nothing wrong.'

‘I hope that's right,' Cadi said as they walked back to -SarnelenCottage. ‘Perhaps she should have told them before her mother died.'

Charles grimaced. ‘What good would that have done?' He stopped in his tracks. ‘Did you notice what she said about the man being dressed funny and the sword? Shiny.'

‘Not when we saw it. If that was what we saw. It was corroded. But he hadn't dug it up, had he.' She was trying to make sense of the scenario in her head. ‘We think he was in the field for some reason, this Roman guy.' She glanced at him. ‘That is what we think, isn't it? That he ran down the time tunnel brandishing a sword and popped out in 1939 in front of the gamekeeper who had just at that second aimed his shotgun at a rabbit.' They walked on. ‘So, we'll tell them what she said and no more.'

‘There's nothing more we can say. Not without being -certified.'

‘Even if it explains why the man wasn't there and then he was, intercepting shotgun pellets that had already been fired? If we believe that.'

‘We'll talk, cautiously, to Steve when he's had a chance to work on the bones.' Charles looked at her sideways, then burst out laughing. ‘I knew coming over to have another look at the meadow would be interesting. I never guessed it would be this interesting. Are you going to tell Meryn?'

Of course she was.

She rang him later that evening after Charles had gone back to his B&B. She was standing in her garden, staring out through the hedge towards the tent, which was still there in the meadow, over the site of the grave.

‘Have you told the police yet?'

‘No. We thought we'd go into town tomorrow and explain what Joyce told us. Ask them to go easy on her. She's -pretty vulnerable. I can't believe they would charge her with anything. Isn't there a statute of limitations?'

‘Not on murder. At least, I don't think so. But I don't think they'll be interested in a murder dating back eighty years or so. Obviously no one would still be alive to charge. My guess is they'll take a statement from this lady and then they'll wait to see what the lab comes up with. If anything. We'll all be interested to see what the lab comes up with.'

‘Did you manage to clear your diary?' She found she was smiling at the hedge as she asked.

‘Almost. I'll come over as soon as I can. Just one or two things to sort out here first.'

Meryn hadn't asked about Branwen, she noticed as she switched off her phone and slipped it into her pocket. But he would when she next saw him. She shivered. She wanted so badly to dive back into ‘the novel', as she was now thinking of it. But she needed to do some more writing for Rachel so that when she next spoke to her she could in all honesty say she had written some more verses. She stood watching a couple of bats swooping across the garden. If only she could keep her mind fixed in poetic mode. The way to do that was of course to go back to the Mabinogion. As she walked into the house she saw a light come on at the back of Sally's cottage and moments later she heard a cheerful bark. She smiled. That was at least one time traveller who seemed to have come to no harm.