A sample chapter from Grave concern at the Manor

Published: Oct 17, 2024 by

Here is a free sample chapter from ‘The Little-Astwick Mysteries - Grave concern at the Manor’.

It was a bright sunny day, with a gentle breeze. Alan loved days like this, walking through the countryside, sweeping his metal detector gently from left to right and back again, feeling the warm sun on his face. Despite the warmth, he wore a lightweight waterproof jacket to protect him from the unpredictable English weather, along with quick dry walking trousers and walking boots with thick tread. He had a small rucksack on his back with various tools and a sandwich for his lunch.

On his head he wore his trusty baseball cap, covering his long hair that was pulled back into a ponytail, with his all important headphones over the top, covering his ears. He listened out for any beeps, announcing any metal in the earth twelve inches below his feet.

The field was just outside the village boundary of Little-Astwick. He could see the local pub a few fields away, with the church bell tower poking above the pub roof in the distance. In the other direction he could see the grand manor house of Manor Farm. He had already found an old nail and a beer can today, hoping that his luck would change.

Beep, beep, beep.

He stopped walking and swept his metal detector from side to side, confirming the exact location of the hit. He lowered to his knees and retrieved a narrow but fairly long shovel with serrated edges that was clipped onto his rucksack and began digging. First he carefully removed a square patch of the turf, using the serrated edge of the tool as a saw, so that he could replace it once he had finished. He then got out a wand metal detector out of one of his long pockets along his thigh, waving it around the area to better track the hit.

He removed some more soil, then waved the wand around, repeating the process over and over again until he spotted a coin. He picked it up and wiped away the grime, revealing a shiny surface underneath. He could already tell the value of the coin from the seven sides of the shape. He put the 50p coin into his pocket, thinking he might be able to buy a packet of crisps in the pub with it later in the day.

He waved the wand around the exposed earth and found another hit. He dug once more and this time it revealed a rectangular leather object. He pulled the object from the ground and brushed off the dirt. It folded open and revealed itself as a wallet. There was a bank card with the name Steven Conrad. The card’s expiry date was only last year. There was £20 cash and a few more coins in a small pocket, along with a library card with the name ‘Evelyn McKenzie’ printed in black ink.

Alan thought to himself that he had better try and find the owner of the wallet, but the £20 would buy himself a few pints of beer to go with his crisps, a just reward for making the discovery. He placed the wallet in his backpack, wondering how it could have got there in the first place.

He was about to replace the disturbed soil and turf top, but decided that it was worth waving the wand over one more time to double check there was nothing else. He swiped the wand side to side along the hole, from top to bottom. He had almost finished, but there was one more beep to be found.

A lucky hit.

He carried on digging. This time it took several attempts of removing soil and waving the wand before his next discovery was revealed, the hole now just over a foot underground. He probably wouldn’t have found this third find without the two above to help indicate its location.

Another round metal shape appeared in the soil. He gently brushed off the soil with his fingers before removing his water bottle and pouring a little over the object to help clean it off. Despite the depth of the hole, the bright sunlight glinted the colour gold back at him.

Suddenly more excited he kept digging with his hands, after clipping his digging tool back into place on his backpack. It looked like a gold coin, about the size of a one pound coin. “Yes!” he shouted out loud. He wrapped his fingers around the coin and pulled it up, releasing it from the surrounding mud. Something suddenly felt very wrong.

He turned his hand over so the palm was facing upright, his fingers wrapped around the object. He slowly opened his fingers, revealing the coin to actually be a signet ring. Inside the ring was a bone.

A human finger bone.

He dropped the ring and bone back into the hole, stood back up and then ran back to the village as fast as he could, leaving his prized metal detector where it lay on the grass.

The Little-Astwick Mysteries - Grave concern at the Manor, is available now on Amazon Kindle, Paperback and Kindle Unlimited.