NINETY-ONE

‘That all you’ve got?’ Josh looked at the implement Amber held out to him. The price tag was still fixed to the handle. ‘A trowel?’

‘I never bloody thought I’d be doing more than potting plants here.’

‘We’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Get the right tools to get that earth up. Maybe get the police in on this.’

‘No. Now. It has to be done now. We’re so close.’ Amber turned her attention back to the copper pipe that still stood upright in one corner of the earthen floor; the portion of soil that Josh had hacked and dug at with an offcut of wood while she showered.

If they found him down there; if they found anything down there connected to the house in Birmingham, she would burn it herself. She would not allow such artefacts to curse or contaminate another place, or continue to project their influence at her. That was something she would not risk. Whatever was brought up would be summarily destroyed, with or without Josh’s blessing. This was not a matter for the police. They’d had their chance.

The entire surface of the soil floor bore the scars of Josh’s recent prospecting. He had moved systematically, one square foot at a time, and pushed the hollow copper pipe as deeply into the soil as he could, before the earth became too dense, or the end of the pipe impacted against a broad stone or hard object beneath the surface. After each insertion into the ground, he had withdrawn the pipe and placed the wet end beneath his nose, and sniffed. He had shown her how it was done; how buried bodies in waste ground, in woods and grassy fields, used to be found by policemen. He had told her this was how they found the children under the moors.

He also told Amber that though he did not initially believe her about Fergal being buried under her garage, he could see that she believed her own theory, and passionately enough to spend four thousand pounds to have two builders smash it up that very day. Josh conceded that his theories about Fergal Donegal were not adding up either. So he’d had a hunch: if someone was to bury something incriminating beneath the ground of an unprotected building site at night, while the workmen were not present, they would have needed to hide their evidence shortly before the cement was poured, otherwise the builders would have seen a foreign object in the foundations when they came in to work. Such an implant would also need to be inserted far enough beneath the earth, and artfully too, to deter an investigation into broken ground.

Fergal was in Devon, he knew that, and had most likely broken into the building site ahead of her relocation to the farmhouse: entered a site only four people, including him, knew about in connection to its future resident. As much as anything else, Josh had confided to Amber that he wanted to know what ‘that bastard was doing in here’.

‘I’m not going to ask you to sniff the end of that pipe, kid. But trust me, there’s something dead down there,’ Josh had said, and nodded at where he had dug at a corner like a dog after a buried bone. ‘I’ve scraped as much of the dirt off a small portion as I could, and I found polythene. Something wrapped in plastic. Something rotten. And it’s too big to be a cat.’

Following her interrupted shower, Amber had summoned the wits and presence of mind to change while Josh stood outside the door of her bedroom. Out of his sight, she had buried her face in a towel and smothered the sobs and tears that came as an aftershock; the residue of a sexual assault by a dead man who had followed her to Devon from Birmingham: Arthur Bennet. ‘That old perv’ had not yet made an appearance at the farmhouse, and she had wondered why. But he was here now. Perhaps he had saved himself for a special occasion. Maybe the Praetorian Guard was being summoned from the earth and the darkness now that she approached the source: Old Black Mag. Black Maggie. Whatever was here was growing in strength and intensity day by day; had built and was showing more of its black hand. Messengers were revealing themselves to her. She sensed an eagerness for her capitulation.

‘I don’t know if you should stay, Josh.’

He looked up at her, surprised and seemingly disappointed at her remark. ‘Eh?’

‘I don’t think that what is down there is something within your remit, mate. Beyond the call of duty and all that. It might seem funny coming from me, but I don’t think I can guarantee your safety if you stay any longer.’

Josh smothered a smile and attempted to inject some levity into the half-demolished garage they stood inside. He tapped the pocket of his jacket. ‘I’ve got your little friend.’

‘Won’t do much good in this situation. And I’m a bit concerned I might not be safe from you if you’re susceptible to what might be down there.’

Josh stopped smiling. ‘I’m not leaving you. Not like this, kid. Not here. So you want to take the first shift with that?’ He nodded at the trowel. ‘Or maybe we’d both be better off using spoons to get this dirt shifted. But let’s get cracking. I feel like it’s going to be a long night.’

Amber nodded her assent. ‘Before we start, how are you at siphoning petrol?’