Dying Fall

press. She is sure that if Phil found even a hint of a legendary British king, he’d be on
Newsnight
in two seconds flat. She asks the question.
    For the first time, Clayton Henry looks really uncomfortable. He fiddles with his letter-opener – a rather ornate silver knife – and avoids meeting Ruth’s eyes.
    ‘It’s a bit sensitive,’ he says at last. ‘I wanted to make sure. Our department … well, our department isn’t that popular in the university.’
    ‘Why’s that?’
    Clayton laughs though he still looks rather shifty. ‘Oh, probably just because I’m Yorkshire and this is Lancashire. The old Wars of the Roses stuff, you know.’ Ruth looks at him incredulously and Clayton must feel the inadequacy of this explanation because he says, still not meeting her eyes, ‘History doesn’t bring in much money. There are always people who’d like to see us replaced with something sensible like metallurgy.’
    ‘But if you made a really big discovery …’ says Ruth.
    ‘Exactly.’ Clayton Henry looks up with almost painful eagerness. ‘If this did turn out to be the real thing, we’d be made. Press, TV, conferences. It’d put Pendle on the map all right. But if I went public with it and the bones turned out to be a hoax, I’d be a laughing stock. That’s why I wanted you to look at them.’ Now he does look at Ruth. His eyes are a very clear blue, almost childlike,
    ‘I’d be happy to look at them,’ says Ruth. In fact, she can hardly wait. This could be the biggest find of the decade and she is right there, the first archaeologist on the spot. After Dan, of course.
    ‘I can take you to the site now, if you like,’ says Henry.‘The bones aren’t still there. We’ve moved them somewhere safer.’
    Ruth wants to ask if the bones have been excavated with due care but realises that this would sound insulting. All the same, she wishes that she had been able to supervise. One false move, one mistake in recording and an entire excavation can be ruined. She would have taken days over this – cataloguing, examining the context, just looking. As Erik always said, ‘First, you look. Look as long as you like. You won’t get that first sight again.’
    ‘Did Dan send any samples for analysis?’ asks Ruth.
    ‘Yes, he sent samples off for carbon 14, isotopic testing and DNA. We haven’t had the results yet.’
    Again, Ruth feels a thrill of excitement. Who knows what the results might show? And she will be the first to see them.
    ‘The temple,’ she says. ‘Who was it dedicated to?’
    ‘A strange deity,’ says Henry. ‘A version of the Celtic god Bran, which means …’
    But Ruth knows what it means. Bran means Raven.
    The Raven King.

CHAPTER 11
    Nelson, though he doesn’t know it, is only a few miles away from his youngest daughter. His mother has insisted on taking him and Michelle to Rook Hall, a nearby stately home. Nelson’s sister, Maeve, has accompanied them, along with her granddaughter, Charlie.
    ‘Charlie?’ Nelson had said, peering at the blonde moppet in a fairy dress. ‘I thought she was a girl.’
    ‘Of course she’s a girl, Harry,’ said Maeve, hoisting a nappy bag on her shoulder. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
    ‘Is it short for Charlotte?’ asked Michelle, crouching down to say hello to the baby.
    Maeve had shrugged. ‘Not as far as I know.’
    Nelson can never get used to these new androgynous names. He has a colleague with daughters called Georgie and Sidney. At least Judy had chosen a traditional name for her baby. Michael. But why does that name choice make him feel uneasy?
    He also can’t get used to his sister being a grandmother. But since Maeve, at fifty-three, is ten years older thanhim, she’s not especially young to have grandchildren. Her daughter, Danielle, had married at twenty-three and had Charlie at twenty-five. All very respectable. It’s just that it makes Nelson feel old. He’s a great-uncle now. Jesus wept.
    Maeve seems to do most of the childcare while Danielle is out at work. Nelson’s mother helps too, still fit at seventy-five. She now looks critically at Charlie’s uncovered head.
    ‘She needs a sun hat on her, Maeve.’
    Maureen Nelson’s voice is still unashamedly Irish after five decades in England. Her daughter, on the other hand, is broad Lancashire. The first thing Maeve had said to Nelson was, ‘You’ve lost your accent.’
    ‘I haven’t!’ said Nelson, outraged. His colleagues in Norfolk think that he talks like