PROLOGUE
ENGLAND 2021
Wayne Jayes loved the solitude of his job. Operating a digger meant there was only room for one person inside his cab and he preferred it that way. He loved the sensation as he scooped up earth, filling the ditching bucket until it was piled high with soil then watching it tumble to the ground elsewhere. Wayne watched avidly for misnomer’s in the dirt, usually they were tree roots or broken pipes, occasionally a large boulder and he would hypothesise on what might have stood here before it was turned into a field for farming. One of his friends had once turned out a gold Saxon Torque, he had never been that lucky. The swish of the cab, as he manoeuvred the arm from left to right was reminiscent of a fair ride. After every fourth scrape of the earth, he moved the digger back a few feet and continued to dig a straight line. He had just started to zone out when a piece of fabric dropped out amongst the soil. It was a faded fragment of blue denim that lay fluttering in the warm breeze. The next time he clawed the digger into the ground, he was met with some resistance. He lifted the ditching bucket a few times to get a better purchase and was rewarded when the anomaly was ripped from the earth. Wayne couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He leant out of his cab as though his windscreen was suddenly a barrier. But he saw the same thing. He emptied the load back into the ground and reached for his mobile phone.
