Jane, of course, had been following the story from the other side, with frequent explosions of Jane-rage: another example of the jackbooted bastards at County Hall sacrificing Herefordshire’s sacred past in the cause of dubious progress. A crime against history and the environment.
But it still looked like patio gravel.
‘You’re not getting the full picture here,’ Jane said. ‘That’s not possible with hardly any of it uncovered. Take it from me — if it was fully exposed, this could be the most amazing archaeological discovery of the last century. Anywhere in the country. And far, far, far more important than another stretch of crap tarmac.’
She’d found the images on the website built by the protesters: SAVE THE SERPENT. On its homepage was a picture of what was said to be one of the only comparable monuments in the world — a hillside seen from above, with sculpted mounds on it protected by new walls. Above the picture, it said:
This is the imaginatively preserved and presented Ohio Serpent.
And below:
Imagine what would happen to it if Herefordshire Council were in charge.
‘The Ohio Serpent mound is probably the only comparable monument anywhere in the world,’ Jane said. ‘That tells you how significant this is.’
‘The Dinedor Serpent’s not actual mounds like this, though, is it?’ Merrily leaned over the back of Jane’s chair. ‘It just looks like… chippings.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s what they thought at first — that it was a road, a prehistoric pathway, maybe going all the way to the top of Dinedor Hill. A ritual pathway, for ceremonial processions.’
‘Like your pathway to Cole Hill.’
‘Except Cole Hill’s only an alignment, with no actual visible path, other than the one across the meadow. And that’s a straight line, whereas the Serpent is… serpentine. But the archaeologists decided it couldn’t’ve been an actual pathway, because it has nothing under it — no base, no support. If people had walked on it, the stones would just’ve been trodden in. Wouldn’t’ve lasted a year, never mind a few thousand.’
‘So if it’s not the remains of a road or a track…? I’m sorry, I should know this, shouldn’t I?’
Ought to have paid more attention to the Serpent dispute, but other things had been happening at the time. Also, access to the site had been restricted because of the work on the new road, so few people had actually seen it. Not even Jane, apparently.
‘Everybody should know about this, but most people don’t,’ Jane said. ‘The truth is totally magical. Archaeology to die for.’ She looked up. ‘You OK, Mum?’
Sophie had said Helen Ayling remembered her husband receiving at least half a dozen angry phone calls and several abusive letters, half of them unsigned. How many had been actual threats she didn’t know. If Clement took the call, he simply hung up and wouldn’t talk about it afterwards. The letters he burned. Nothing to worry about. Part and parcel of local government service.
Bloody cranks, he’d say. As if we’d block the city’s economic development for their juvenile fairy stories.
Actually sparing the time, for once, to explain to Helen why the Rotherwas relief road was of such strategic importance, issuing as it did from Hereford’s primary industrial sector and perhaps eventually forming part of the city’s long-needed bypass.
Opening up this side of Hereford, the commercial possibilities were enormous, Clem said. Only cranks and drug-addled hippies would even want to get in its way, and at least they were relatively harmless. Sophie said Helen had been less convinced of this — recalling coming home one evening, about four months ago, and finding a message on the answering machine warning Clem to stay away from Dinedor Hill if he didn’t want to be buried there.
Dinedor Hilclass="underline" implications here. The city’s mother hill, the site of its Iron Age origins. Aligned with the Cathedral in the same way that Cole Hill was aligned with Ledwardine church, but on an altogether more impressive scale. Some people in Hereford felt an almost obsessive attachment to Dinedor. Running a new road too close, cutting off the city from the mother hill, was always going to cause unrest. And if the roadwork itself had exposed even more evidence of Dinedor’s sanctity…
Sophie said Helen had been concerned enough by the tone of the message on the answering machine to hang on to the tape. Had thus been able to present the evidence to Howe when Howe brought up the issue.
‘I’m sorry,’ Merrily had said. ‘I don’t understand. Howe brought this up?’
‘Well, yes, I think so. She seems to have specifically asked Helen if Clement’s attitude to the Dinedor Serpent had led to threats.’
‘As if she already had reason to suspect the murder was Serpent-related?’
‘I thought I’d made that clear,’ Sophie said.
Merrily looked down at the seated Jane from behind, really not liking where things were going.
‘So when the Council decided to go ahead with the road… people were very angry?’
‘You think they didn’t have good reason to be?’ Jane turned her chair round. ‘Soon as the council learned about the Serpent, they hushed it up. They didn’t want it to come out until they knew they could bulldoze the road through regardless. One guy chained himself to a machine.’
‘You sure about that — that they were hushing it up?’
‘It’s obvious. They didn’t even want to hear any arguments. Wouldn’t allow any public debate. It was discussed by the so-called Cabinet behind closed doors. All we heard was this reactionary old bastard Clement Ayling going on to Midlands Today and the Hereford Times about how crap the Serpent was anyway and how it wasn’t even worth preserving.’
‘Mmm.’
‘They didn’t even take any steps to protect bits of the Serpent they’d uncovered — like against the elements? So it was all filling up with water during heavy rain, causing untold damage.’
‘But as I understand it, that’s why it needed to be covered up again, even if it was by a road — to protect it against bad weather.’
‘And people nicking stones as souvenirs, sure. But you could cover it up and still make a feature out of it. Look at Ohio. No, it was the way this was done — hushed up. And like when a few civilised protesters turned up at the council offices and refused to leave they were actually arrested? By the cops? You must remember that.’
‘Well, I do, but it came to nothing, surely? Nobody was charged.’
‘Mum… they were thrown into police cells! These were just ordinary people disgusted at the way the council was behaving. And two of the ones arrested, they were, like, over eighty?’ Jane’s eyes wide now, with outrage. ‘And some of them got taken all the way to Worcester because like there weren’t enough spare cells at Hereford? OK, the charges were withdrawn, but banging elderly people up in cells just for standing up for some kind of democracy… Like they were terrorists or something?’
‘You’re sure about this?’
‘Why do you keep saying that? Of course I’m sure. And the reason I’m sure is because some of the protesters are also members of the Coleman’s Meadow Preservation Society. Same problem, same council. I’d’ve been with them myself if it hadn’t been a school day — wow, does that sound pathetic or what?’
‘Actually, it sounds sensible. If you can cope with sensible.’
‘I should’ve been there. Wimped out.’
Jane turned back to the computer and brought up another SAVE THE SERPENT page, which said: