Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange by Jenny Kane (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📗

herself smiling as he explained how recycling building materials in the Saxon and Norman periods was common practice. I need to talk to him. We need to sort this out. Whatever this is.

Scanning the activity beyond where Shaun, a couple of cameramen, and two people holding clipboards, stood, Thea’s eyes soon hit their targets. The AA were seated at a plastic table, concentrating on the laptop in front of them. Thea edged around the outside of the activity, hoping no one would approach her before she reached the geophysics boys.

*

Sophie watched from her bedroom window. The others had been working on the site for almost four hours, despite it only being just gone eleven. Shaun was obviously desperate to leave Cornwall as soon as possible.

Her cheeks burnt crimson. Sophie had rehashed the bogus date invitation experience through her mind again and again, minute after minute, hour after hour. How could I have thought, even for a moment, I’d won him over? He didn’t say it was a date, but what else was I supposed to think it was?

Unable to face the pity of her fellow archaeologists, Sophie felt helpless as she saw the work she ought to be doing unfolding without her.

Thinking back, she’d never seen anyone drink coffee so fast. And what was worse, she hadn’t noticed at the time, chattering away between sips of latté, telling Shaun about her career dreams and how she’d had a crush on him since she was nineteen. She winced as she recalled the confused expression on his face.

The minute she’d put her empty glass onto its saucer, Shaun had asked for the bill. Before Sophie had known where she was, he’d invented a call he urgently had to make and she was back in her father’s Jag. Perhaps Shaun hasn’t told anyone. Sophie couldn’t honestly imagine he had. But what if he has?

The people in the three trenches below her could have become her friends, but she’d blown it. The chance of friendships with people her own age from the real world, a career in archaeology and an escape from the shackles of life at Guron House were all gone because she’d focused on the wrong thing. A life with Shaun Coulson.

The thought seemed to mock her. Why had I believed he was mine for the taking? Turning abruptly from her vantage point over the old church, Sophie crumpled onto the end of her bed. ‘Why did he ask me out? What was the point?’ Unless… ‘Maybe the call he needed to make was to Thea, telling her it was over? Perhaps he felt bad having a date before dumping her?’

Hearing the hope in her own voice, Sophie was suddenly furious at her neediness. She jumped to her feet and marched to the pile of celebrity magazines heaped up in the corner of the room, scooped them up in one armful, and dumped them in the cardboard box that acted as her paper recycling bin. ‘All lies!’

Glaring accusingly at the discarded magazines that preached women were stronger than men on one page, and then told you how to deliver the ultimate blowjob so you never lost your man on the next, Sophie kicked the box hard. ‘Celebrities are ordinary people doing their jobs the same as the rest of us. How dare you tell us otherwise! Your deceit has made me humiliate myself!’

With a sense of failure, knowing the magazines were just an easy target to blame, Sophie returned to the window. At first glance all seemed as it had before. Then the corner of her eye caught site of Ajay and Andy engulfing someone in an enthusiastic welcome.

Sophie couldn’t see the newcomer. The AA were hugging whoever-it-was tightly, their combined bulk shielding the visitor from view. Yet, Sophie knew exactly who it was.

Thea Thomas had come to claim her boyfriend.

*

‘It is so good to see you!’ Ajay’s face broke into a beam. ‘Shaun will be thrilled.’

Andy added, ‘And relieved! An extra pair of trusted hands.’

Thea smiled at her welcome, but couldn’t prevent the edge of trepidation that crept into her voice. ‘Has it been as bad as that?’ Thea found herself searching for someone who might be Sophie Hammett among the workforce.

Andy got up to fetch a chair from a pile propped against the storage hut. ‘You may want to sit down for this.’

‘Oh.’ Thea didn’t know what else to say as her eyes drifted to Shaun’s back as he continued to work to the camera. He didn’t know she’d arrived yet.

Ajay poured Thea a cup of coffee from a flask on the table. ‘How much has Shaun told you?’

‘Quite a bit. Mostly about being behind schedule here, and that he suspects he knows who’s behind it, but can’t prove it.’

Ajay and Andy exchanged glances. ‘We didn’t know there was a suspect. Interesting.’

Thea found herself examining each female digger in turn. ‘Shaun told me Lady Hammett was difficult about the excavation at first.’

Andy grunted. ‘Difficult is a good word for it.’

‘And the project itself, excavating the church, that’s going well? From where I left my car you get a good view of what’s been uncovered.’

Ajay waved his cup of coffee towards the viewing tower that was currently being wheeled to the opposite side of the dig. ‘Looks even better from up there.’

Thea turned towards the tower. ‘I got the impression that there was some question of damage to the site after a tarpaulin was removed.’

Andy and Ajay exchanged puzzled glances. ‘What tarpaulin?’

‘You didn’t know that someone had taken the covers off one part of the excavation, exposing the church to damage from the weather or wildlife?’

Ajay’s forehead furrowed. ‘No we didn’t. We didn’t see Shaun or Phil last night.’

Lowering her voice, Thea asked, ‘Have you two spoken to Shaun this morning?’

‘No.’ Andy clicked a few buttons on the laptop keyboard to stop the screen from going into sleep mode.

‘I thought not.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll explain later.’ Thea stared across the dig. ‘Can you tell me which one is Sophie? Subtly like, I