MURDER IN THE FIELD an addictive crime mystery full of twists by LEWIS ROY

Author:LEWIS, ROY
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime thriller, mystery and suspense
Published: 2021-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

3

The work advanced well over the weekend. To be fair to Karen Stannard, she threw herself enthusiastically into the task, and Arnold was amused at the way the young men looked at her. She played up to them, teasing them, talking with them, dispensing smiles and sunshine into their lives. She displayed none of the toughness that men in the office saw: she was practising her skills, honing them on an admiring group of inexperienced men, and enjoying herself hugely.

She was even pleasant to Arnold.

She seemed also to be getting on very well with Rena Williams. They spent much of the time working closely together, their conversation animated and clearly amusing, and Arnold wondered whether Ms Stannard was enjoying herself so much that she might be coming up to the site more often in future. It was not a prospect he was particularly enamoured of, but he did not spend too much time dwelling on it. Instead, he concentrated on the work he was doing.

And on the Sunday morning Ainsley Close stood up, scratched his designer beard and called to Arnold. ‘You’d better have a look here.’

The others had gone for their coffee break. Arnold and Ainsley were alone under cover. ‘What is it?’

Ainsley pointed.

The earth at his feet was darker in colour and more friable in texture than the surrounding area. Ainsley had been scraping away at the edge of what seemed to be a piece of sandstone, curving along towards the centre of the mound. ‘It looks as though it’s not just one piece,’ Ainsley said. ‘You see? It’s as though there’s a joint there.’

Arnold squatted down, and ran his fingers along the edge of the stone. Ainsley was right: there was a second piece of stone, smooth to the touch, jointed to the first. He took a trowel and began to clean away at the edge. It curved away from him regularly; he peered at it closely. It had been worked by man; on the flat surface he picked out chisel marks.

Arnold stood up. ‘We’d better tell the others.’

The whole group came back to the site, coffee mugs in hand and stood staring down at the stone edge. Rena Williams inspected it, and looked up at Geoffrey Westwood. ‘What do you make of it?’

He shook his head. ‘A lintel, maybe . . . or the cover of another grain pit.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Arnold demurred. ‘The bit we’ve exposed would suggest it would be a very large grain pit, if we follow the curve of the stone.’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Rena Williams said in a determined tone. ‘I think we should all work here for the time being — there’s only about two inches of soil at the top there.’

They started work immediately.

Arnold found himself working next to Karen Stannard.

She said nothing to him, but she worked quietly and carefully and he realized that she was in her element here — all need for the continuing power struggle gone, the urge to dominate forgotten, it was a return to the early things that had driven her.

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