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dreamed that when a coffin was lifted, it fell away
     and a stinking cadaver had tumbled to the ground on top of him, suffocating him with its terrible embrace. He had awoken sweating
     with panic, wrestling with his duvet, relieved that the nightmare wasn’t real.
    He was used to excavating burials but somehow this was different. He knew their names. They were loved ones whose nearest
     and dearest had recorded details of their lives on the lichen-covered headstones. And worst of all there were the babies and
     children; death had claimed the very young in those days as regularly as it now claims the very old.
    Once the coffins were out of the ground they were reburied, with John Ventnor’s solemn prayers, in the place at the edge of
     the churchyard which had been prepared for them. Neil found himself hoping that the Rector was getting paid for all the extra
     work . . . but he doubted it.
    As soon as Ventnor had done his bit, the ground was Neil’s, to investigate as he wished. According to old records there had
     been an earlier church on the site. But he would have to wait until all the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century burials were
     moved before he could dig deeper. He knew there might be medieval bones down there still, but somehow they didn’t bother him
     as much.
    He watched as a fragile coffin emerged from the ground. The contractors’ faces were masks of neutrality, as though they were
     trying to demonstrate their indifference in the face of death. Neil looked over to the lych gate where his archaeological
     colleagues were in a huddle, chatting amongst themselves, awaiting his signal to start work.
    Suddenly Neil heard a voice at his shoulder which made him jump. ‘I’ve found out what it is, by the way.’
    His heart was pounding. He hadn’t realised the place was getting to him so much. He swung round and saw John Ventnor standing
     just beside him, smiling.
    ‘I found an old book on local history in the vestry. Apparently the symbol on the headstones was used by a strange sect who
     called themselves the Shining Ones.’
    Neil took a deep, calming breath. ‘So the people buried here were members?’
    ‘It’s a possibility. Why else would they go to the trouble of putting the symbol on their memorials.’
    ‘But would members of some sect be buried in the parish church?’
    The Rector shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
    At that moment the coffin, held just above the ground by straps prior to being placed onto something more substantial, began
     to break up. First one side fell away, and the bottom began to creak and crumble, revealing the bones within, still festooned
     with fragments of rotting cloth.
    Neil stared, horrified, as the bones fell away one by one and tumbled back into the grave.
    The Trad View Guesthouse was situated some way away from the river, up one of the steep, narrow streets that wound away from
     the town centre towards the outer suburbs. It wasn’t one of Tradmouth’s most sumptuous guesthouses. But although it was short
     on luxurious trimmings, it was clean, well run and reasonably priced. Wesley walked through the neat front garden and when
     he rang the doorbell he was greeted by a plump woman with a fixed smile on her face. But her eyebrows shot upwards in alarm
     when he showed her his ID and when he said he was looking for one of her guests, she began to assure him emphatically that
     she kept a respectable establishment. The police had never come calling before in all the time she’d been in business.
    Wesley was quick to reassure her that her guest, Mr Jones, had, as far as he knew, committed no crime. All he wanted was an
     amicable chat. This seemed to put the landlady’s mind at rest and she became eager to co-operate, telling Wesley that Mr Jones
     had gone out. He had told her at breakfast that morning that he wasn’t sure what he’d be doing that day but, as he’d taken
     his car, she suspected he’d gone off sightseeing. Some people were like that on