by. The gallery I’m investigating is a dead end, never properly dug out, a speculative tunnel that either failed to produce any decent flint or perhaps was one of the last to be opened before stone tools were superseded by bronze. Sorry, mate, no call for flint axeheads any more. Ever thought of reskilling in metalwork? Poor old flint miners. The thought of a Neolithic Arthur Scargill pops disconcertingly into my head, reminding me of those little yellow ‘Coal Not Dole’ stickers Martin and I used to wear in our student days. Flint Not Skint.
Sea urchin apart, though, I don’t like this place. There’s something claustrophobic about it, even for someone who makes a living out of going underground. The side galleries nip and pinch spitefully as you crawl down them. I keep thinking I should have brought a ball of string to make sure we find the way out again.
We’ll look bloody silly if we can’t. Particularly as no one knows we’re in here.
The point is, if Martin’s right and he can raise the money for a proper dig with the university’s blessing, I might get paid for this afternoon’s spur-of-the-moment expedition. That would be useful, because if I turn down the Bath job there may be lean times before I get a better offer.
And I will turn down the Bath job. No doubt about that.
I say goodbye to the sea urchin, and finally succeed in wriggling on to my stomach so I can start shuffling backwards down the tunnel. It seems much further when you can’t see where you’re going, and it’s with enormous relief that I feel Martin grasp my ankles to let me know I’ve made it out to the main gallery.
‘Whew. Don’t ask me to do that again in a hurry.’ I flip over on to my bottom, and bang my hard-hat on the tunnel roof. ‘Next time it’s your turn to slither up the miners’ back passages.’
Martin giggles, easing back on to his haunches. He may be six foot four and built like a bear, but he’s as camp as a Boy Scout jamboree. He’s had my arse in his face more times than I care to count, crawling through underground tunnels, and never shown the slightest interest in it, which suits me fine.
‘So, what do you think?’ he asks, offering me a swig of water. It tastes of chalk dust.
‘Well, it’s going to be expensive to dig. You’ll need to prop it to make it safe.’ I look around, my head-torch casting wild, wobbling shadows over the walls. ‘And I think you should steer clear of the side galleries altogether.’
‘Which are, of course, the most interesting from an archaeological point of view. Most of the main shafts were worked over thoroughly in the nineteenth century. Damn …’ Martin is chewing it over. I can see his heavy jaw grinding away as he nibbles the inside of his cheek. ‘… and blast. And fuck. If I had the money to employ diggers who knew what they were doing, I might risk it, but I’m going to have to take on students and anoraks. “Ooh, durr, Dr Ekwall, I seem to have brought down the ceiling with one blow of my mighty trowel.”’
‘Don’t joke. It’s that delicate.’
Martin frowns. ‘I suppose the insurance will be prohibitive.’
‘And there’s one tiny technicality,’ I remind him.
‘Ah. Yes.’
We don’t have permission to be here. Martin picked the padlock on the shaft cover. We broke in and we’re trespassing. Legally we don’t have a leg to stand on, even if we could stand up. An unofficial recce saves paperwork, but the drawback is that if anything happens to us down here we’ll be waiting a hell of a long time for the rescue party.
‘Quarter to four,’ he says. ‘Better get a move on, or it’ll be dark before we’re back at the jeep.’
We crawl back towards the central shaft, the one we climbed down earlier, my knees giving me hell in spite of the borrowed pads. I didn’t come prepared this weekend for going underground, and all Martin’s gear is miles too big. I have a prickling feeling between my shoulder-blades, and fight the temptation to keep twisting round to look behind. For God’s sake, what am I expecting to see? A flare of light far away down the passage?
It’s bliss to stand up again under the shaft. The light above is fading fast, and I can just make out an early star in the violet sky as I set foot on the iron ladder back to ground level.
By the time we reach the top my arms are killing me. I could swear my belly’s on fire too. While Martin’s on his way up, I unzip my fleece to take a look. I was in such a hurry to get out of the passage that my sweater must have ridden up as I inched over the chalk floor, and there are ugly red grazes across my abdomen. Should have worn overalls. An icy wind flicks across the hollow in the hillside, and I zip up again.
Martin swings the trap-door shut over the shaft, and crouches to padlock it. The sun is almost touching the metal rim of the sea, and there’s a tiny sliver of moon in the sky, no more than a nail paring. Back in the Neolithic, the hillside was probably cleared right up to the entrance to the flint mine. Those old miners liked a spectacular view when they came up from below. Martin’s theory is that flint mines were as much sacred sites as industrial estates, the underworld being the realm of the ancestors.
‘You didn’t like it much in there, did you?’ he asks. He has the unnerving habit of reading my thoughts.
‘No.’
‘It’s funny, I don’t like this one either,’ he says. ‘Some of those side galleries feel … spooky.’
‘I just got a bit claustrophobic. It was very tight.’
‘Sorry. Get fatter. Then I wouldn’t send you in.’
‘You’d still send me in and I’d get stuck, like a chimney sweep’s boy.’
‘If only you were.’ Martin sighs, and starts to undo the chinstrap on his helmet.
My nose is beginning to run in the freezing air so I reach into my pocket for my tissues. ‘Ah, shit.’
There’s nothing in my pocket. My tissues have gone. My stomach does a flip, and I go cold all over, then hot. My fingers are scrabbling down to the very bottom of the pocket, but all they find is fluff and an old sweet wrapper.
Martin looks up, his face ghostly with chalk dust. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘We’ve got to go back. My …’ I have to improvise, or no way will he let me go back in. ‘My car keys have fallen out of my pocket.’
He rolls his eyes. Yeah, well, I don’t feel like it either. But I have to go. I feel sick with panic.
‘The spares are three hundred miles away in Cornwall,’ I remind him.
‘Have you got the slightest idea where they fell out?’ The patient tone of someone really, really pissed off, but too nice to say so.
‘That last tunnel. I’m sure. I blew my nose just before I went into it–can’t have zipped up the pocket properly afterwards, and I turned over at least twice in there.’
‘You twit. Be quick. I want to be gone before dark. If the landowner sees a light, we’re stuffed.’
Something coughs behind me, and I swivel in sudden panic, just in time to see a huge black bird flap out of the beech trees and swoop across the clearing.
‘Jesus!’
