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batteries charged. Perhaps the regiment gave them a filter to put on their phone when they retired, just so they would be forever reminded of the good old days.
    ‘Mac, here’s a bizarre one for you.’
    ‘I’m listening.’
    ‘Did you ever come across talk of an experiment that had the military dropping dead bodies from planes at low altitudes to assess if there was a possibility that live soldiers would be able to handle the jump?’
    He was silent.
    ‘Mac?’
    ‘Sorry, Glyn, I can’t say.’
    Can’t or won’t? I had learned over the years not to press him on these things. ‘Okay, let’s try another tack. Hypothetically, could such a thing ever have happened in this country?’
    ‘What have you found?’
    ‘A body on a remote hillside. It looks like there’s been identity erasure.’
    ‘It’s not the military. All detritus would have been cleared up. Mislaid body parts are not good PR.’
    ‘Thanks, Mac.’ I closed the phone down. The elimination of an admittedly weirdo theory was, I suppose, progress of sorts.
    I took off up the by-way. It was potholed, with grass growing up the middle, but it didn’t look too badly rutted. I drove very slowly, ready to make my retreat at the first sign of loss of traction, or drumbeats on the sump. I didn’t want to find myself explaining this distraction to Jack Galbraith.
    I didn’t see the camp until I crested a rise. The dig, I assumed, was under the canvas enclosure that looked a bit like a bird-watching hide rigged up against a heather-topped earth bank. The camp comprised a rickety caravan, a few small tents and an old long-wheelbase Land Rover station wagon with QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST
on the front door panel. The flash modern intruder was Jeff Talbot’s four-wheel-drive crew-cab pickup.
    Tessa came out from under the tarpaulin at the sound of my approach. She was wearing a sweatshirt, and dungarees with earth-stained knees, and her hair was pulled back with a red, knotted bandana. She had a tiny gardening fork in her hand, and dirt on her forearms where the sleeves were rolled up. She pushed her hair back with her wrist and a smear of dirt appeared on her forehead. She looked great.
    But I was not exactly getting a great big warm smile of welcome.
    And, lurching like I was, in my very ordinary car, on a terrain that was better suited to pack mules, it was going to be hard to casually announce that I was just passing and had decided to call in to say hello.
    I caught sight of Jeff as I got out of the car. He was approaching from the campsite with a tray loaded with assorted steaming mugs. He, for one, was making himself useful. ‘Hi,’ he shouted over, ‘you should have told me you were coming, I would have driven you up the short way.’
    ‘Thanks, but it’s part of a circuit I’m doing. Trying to get an overview.’
    ‘What can we do for you, Sergeant?’ Tessa asked.
    ‘So this is the dig?’ I retorted enthusiastically, hoping that the way into an archaeologist’s grace was through her work.
    Jeff raised the tray. ‘I’ll just take these in for the crew,’ he announced, ducking under the enclosure like one of the family.
    ‘I would have thought that you would have been very occupied by now,’ she observed.
    ‘This is my occupation, Dr MacLean. Some people call it being nosy.’
    She almost smiled properly.
    I gestured towards the tarpaulin. ‘Has your man in there still got his head and his hands?’
    This time the smile broke through. ‘Yes, why do you ask?’
    ‘I’m just chasing possibilities. That maybe you had a collection of headless and handless bodies here, and someone had lifted one and dumped it down there.’ I nodded towards the wind-farm site, which was just visible.
    She shook her head. ‘Sorry, but we’ve only got one here, and he’s still intact. I’d invite you in to have a look, but we’re pretty crowded at the moment.’
    ‘That’s okay,’ I said, not too upset about being unable to share close quarters