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with the ancient dead. ‘Do you know what it is that you’ve got?’
    ‘He’s not an “it”, he’s our Redshanks,’ she corrected, mock-affronted.
    ‘Yes?’
    She laughed. ‘It was a colloquial name that was given to highlanders. From their red legs under the kilt.’
    I showed my surprise. ‘Your guy’s a Scottish highlander?’
    ‘We believe so. Some of the stuff we’re turning up has a definite Western Isles connection.’
    ‘He’s a long way from home.
    She nodded. ‘And I think that he came an even longer way round. My theory is that he was one of the Gallowglass. Pure happenstance. But it turned out to be wonderful for us when someone found the remains of a brass boss from a Highland targe here.’
    ‘You’ve lost me.’
    ‘A targe is—’
    ‘A targe is a small shield,’ I interrupted, ‘I know that, it’s the Gallowthingy, that I don’t get.’
    ‘Gallowglass. They were mercenaries from the Western Isles of Scotland who hired themselves out into the service of Irish Chiefs. We think this one could possibly have been a McNeil from the Mull of Kintyre.’
    I looked around. Scrub grass, gorse and patchy heather, everything bent over like supplicants by the prevailing wind. If anything, this place was even more desolate than the spot where we had found our body.
    ‘What would a Scottish warrior working for an Irish Chieftain be doing dying in a godforsaken spot like this in the middle of Wales?’
    She grinned at me. ‘Good question.’
    An idea drifted in. The timeline spanned six hundred years. But could there be a Celtic connection?

3
    The big, dark Ford saloon, with new mud on the polished bodywork, was parked at the construction site when I got back. Jack Galbraith was here. I got out of my car, checked my reflection in the window for rectifiable flaws, prepared my psyche for tension, and started off up the hill to the small canvas pavilion that they had erected over the grave site.
    ‘Glyn . . .’
    DCI Bryn Jones was leaning out of the door of one of the site huts, beckoning me over. I forgot to take a deep breath of good clean air before I entered. They were both heavy smokers. They had already created the effect of a full-blown chip-pan fire.
    ‘Preening yourself, Capaldi?’ Jack Galbraith asked with a sardonic grin. I glanced out the window. My car was in full view. He looked pointedly at his watch. ‘Is this dereliction of duty?’
    ‘I was here earlier, sir. I left the experts to it. I’ve been out getting the feel of the locality.’
    He picked up a sheet of paper and flapped it in front of me. It had the effect of diverting the smoke from both their cigarettes into my face. ‘Inspector Morgan has been bitching about you.’
    ‘Inspector Morgan doesn’t think I should be here, sir.’
    ‘Inspector Morgan doesn’t like the competition? Wants all the prettiest sheep for himself, does he?’
    I tried not to smile. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, sir.’
    He chuckled, pleased with himself, screwed the paper into a ball and aimed it in the general direction of a waste-paper basket, not caring where it landed. ‘Sit yourself down, Capaldi.’
    Bryn had already taken the seat next to him, forcing me to sit opposite them, like the suspect under interrogation. They had an open laptop in front of them, connected to the SOCO camera.
    They were both big men, but the spread of their bodies moved in different directions. Bryn Jones dark, squat and powerful, Jack Galbraith taller, his face more angular, the big head of swept-back hair betraying his underlying vanity.
    ‘Have the forensics people been able to tell us anything more, sir?’ I asked Bryn.
    ‘They think its male, and they think it’s middle-aged, and they’re not even going to attempt to tell us how long it’s been up here until they get it back to the lab.’
    I nodded, keeping my pleasure at Evie Salmon’s continued existence to myself. I made a mental note to call her parents to confirm it for them.
    ‘And