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Chapter Three

The Orkney Islands, UK

‘Hey there, Kate Middleton, how are the royal duties going?’

Luci Cadwallader - tall, fresh-faced and a dead ringer for Britain’s new Duchess of Cambridge - looked up from the pile of earth she was sifting through.

‘You’re such a twat,’ she said, grinning.

‘Charming. I bet Kate doesn’t talk to Wills like that. And I bought you coffee.’ Sam waggled the Thermos flask. ‘Hazelnut latte with an extra sprinkling of chocolate?’

‘I didn’t know Café Nero had started delivering to the Orkney Islands.’

‘They haven’t, but pretending’s the only way I can get through this stuff,’ Sam sighed. He unscrewed the top. ‘Shall I play mother?’

‘Pour away.’ Luci sat back and took her muddy gloves off. She could do with a break - they’d been out here since seven that morning.

‘Any luck?’ Sam enquired sympathetically.

‘Nada. I did think I’d found part of a paleolithic axe head but it turned out to be a weird shaped pebble. Don’t tell anyone, will you?’

‘Your secret is safe with me, chickie. One sugar or two with your ditchwater?’

‘Two. That stuff needs all the help it can get.’

Luci sat back on her heels and cupped the warm coffee. All around she could see her colleagues hard at work on the windswept moor. The tiny island of Wirra (population thirty) had the best-preserved Neolithic settlement in the Orkneys. Only a few weeks ago one of their team had discovered what had been described as the earliest carved representation of a human figure found in the British Isles. Pre-neolithic they were saying. It was beyond exciting.

Luci was mad about archaeology. Nineteen years old, she was in her first year at Oxford University studying for a degree in it. A love for the past ran in the family. Her father was Viscount Peter Cadwallader, Professor of Biological Archaeology at York University. The family seat was a sprawling pile in Gloucestershire and Viscount Peter spent his time between home, university and jetting off round the world on digs. At the moment he was in Bhutan excavating the remains of an ancient palace. Luci was so jealous! She would have loved to have gone with him. The wild splendour of the Orkneys weren’t a bad second, though. Off the northwest tip of Scotland, the white sandy beaches and vast blue skies looked more like a holiday brochure for New Zealand.

Luci was really close to her dad. Her mum had run off with her dad’s best friend when Luci was a baby, and her father had done a brilliant job bringing her up. Intelligent, outgoing and cheery, Luci was an accomplished sportswoman who’d captained every team at her boarding school in Hampshire and represented Great Britain in the Under 18 women’s triathlon. She was also a dab hand at country sports. Hunting, fishing, even shooting: Luci loved nothing more than picking off pheasants out of the sky over her family estate with her own 12-bore shotgun.

She wasn’t squeamish about chucking the dead birds in the back of the Land Rover, either.

‘You’re so annoying, you know,’ Sam told her.

‘What have I done now?’

‘Look at you, no make up and week-old hair and you still look stunning!’ Sam sighed dramatically and wiped a finger over his eyebrow. ‘Hamish is never going to notice me now.’

Hamish was their handsome forty-something team leader, who Sam had a massive crush on. Despite the fact Hamish was happily married with three children, Sam was convinced he could ‘turn’ him.

Luci giggled. She was so pleased she’d met Sam. The youngest by far on this dig, they’d become firm friends. Even if he did call her ‘HRH Kate’, and constantly joked about her royal wedding.

‘What do you fancy doing tonight?’ Sam said. ‘Boujis? Studio 54? We could even try Chinawhite if we’re desperate.’

‘Or we could just go to the bar in our hotel and have a single malt whiskey instead? You were rocking that juke box the other night.’

‘Don’t rub it in,’ Sam sighed. ‘Our social life is desperate.’ He still hadn’t recovered from the fact they didn’t have broadband here. How he’d ever ended up being an archaeologist was anyone’s guess.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Luci said lazily. ‘I quite like it.’ She loved being out here, away from everything and everybody. There was zero phone reception and at least Adam couldn’t get hold of her. Now her ex, they’d met at Uni and had gone out for three months. He’d been sweet but a bit clingy, and when he suggested Luci cancel her dig to spend the summer with him, she knew it was time to call it a day. Her inbox was going to go mental when she finally switched her phone on again. Hopefully he’ll have got the hint by then. She hated upsetting people.

A chugging sound made them look round. It was the boat, coming in from the mainland. ‘Am I going mad or is it Wednesday?’ Sam asked.

Luci checked her Tag watch, a present from her dad for her eighteenth. ‘Nope, it’s definitely Wednesday.’ Mondays and Thursdays were meant to be the days the ferry came in and brought fresh food and supplies for the island. Maybe they were doing a special delivery.

The boat docked and they saw Hamish walk down the jetty. He exchanged a few words with the captain, then a few moments later the gangplank was lowered. A man in a dark suit appeared and walked unsteadily down it. The suitcase he was carrying looked utterly bizarre in the surroundings.

‘Aye up, what’s going on here?’ Sam said.

‘I don’t know, but they’re coming our way. Get up and look busy.’ She didn’t want Hamish to think they were slacking.

She and Sam got back to work, but a few minutes later a pair of shadows fell over them. ‘Luci, have you got a minute?’ Hamish asked.

‘Sure.’ She put down her trowel and stood up.

‘Luci, this is Jeremy… sorry, I can’t remember your last name,’ Hamish said to the man.

‘Jeremy Fitzwilliam,’ the man said crisply. ‘I’m with the Foreign Office.’

‘Mind where you’re standing,’ Luci said cheerily. ‘We don’t want you trampling on anyone’s house.’

Jeremy Fitzwilliam didn’t smile. He looked a bit of a stiff, Luci thought. She watched him open his briefcase and take some official looking papers out.

‘Miss Cadwallader,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news about your father…’