Midnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine

it. About ten feet long and two feet deep the interlocking grasses had been sectioned away and below it the sand had been scooped loosely into piles. Jumping down into the hollow she stared at the exposed wall of the dune. The resulting scar in the sand looked too regular and neat to be the result of a child’s game; and it had certainly not been caused by the tide, although further along the cut had been lengthened and randomly enlarged by a muddy landslip where tell-tale strands of weed and a scattering of whelk shells betrayed a recent high tide propelled by an easterly wind.
    Intrigued, Kate ran her hand lightly over the sand face. Who had been digging here, and why? Was it something to do with sea defences? She turned and looked back at the beach. The receding tide looked gentle and benevolent now, but she was under no illusions about the force it could muster if wind and moon were right.
    She was about to scramble out of the hollow to resume her walk when her eye was caught by something shiny sticking out of the sand. It looked like a piece of pottery. She picked it up and examined it, then, frowning, she looked at it more closely. It was thin, fine, red, decorated with a raised pattern and it looked very like the Samian ware she had seen in the museum only yesterday. But that was impossible. She turned and surveyed the sand face again. Was this some sort of abandoned excavation? She stared down at the piece of pottery in her hand almost guiltily. Perhaps she shouldn’t have touched it. On the other hand it had been lying in the loose spoil, obviously overlooked. With another high tide it would have been buried and lost. Pulling her scarf off her hair she wrapped the piece carefully and put it reverently in her pocket, then she turned and examined the exposed sand again. It was in a very crumbly state. The lightest touch dislodged another shower of soil. A few feet to her left she spotted something dark protruding from it. Cautiously she touched it. Metal. Scraping at the sand with her fingers she tried to see what it was without disturbing it. The narrow twisted neck of metal stuck out at right angles from the sand. She must ask the Lindseys. They would know who had been excavating here, and why they had stopped. She eyed the piece of metal longingly. If she touched it and it was of archaeological interest then she might be destroying valuable evidence – on the other hand another tide might remove it even more irrevocably. As she was standing there, trying to make up her mind what to do, a small crack appeared of its own accord in the top of the dune. As she watched a lump of wet sand broke away and fell at her feet. A minute later another six-inch section fell, taking the metal object with it. She bent and picked it up. Twisted, corroded, the metal was heavy and cold in her hand. She could not begin to guess what metal it was. Not gold certainly. Bronze, perhaps, or even silver. She examined it in excitement and awe. In all probability she was the first person to touch it for over a thousand years – perhaps two, perhaps more. It was a torc.
    MY LOVE
    The voice in her head had spoken so loudly she thought it was real. Dropping the torc she put her hands to her ears, looking round.
    There was no one there. An oystercatcher was plodding slowly along the tide line near her, dipping its beak into the sand.
    She could feel her heart beginning to hammer in her ears again, as it had in the woods in the dark the night before. Taking a deep breath she bent and picked up the piece of twisted metal, then she scrambled out of the hollow. She stared round, her arm across her eyes to hold back her streaming hair, loose now she had removed the scarf. There was still no one in any direction as far as she could see. Besides the voice had been inside her own head.
    Taking a deep breath she turned towards the cottage. Get a grip on yourself, Kennedy. You’re imagining things, she told herself sternly. Too much fresh air, that’s