50
He had to wait until late afternoon, until the shadows stretching over the moor were in a similar position to those he remembered on the day he had found the clock before he could get his bearings. Even though he found the rocky area west of the path where he had tripped, he was still wandering among the stones for a good half an hour, wondering if he would ever find the right spot again, before stumbling across a disturbed patch of ground where a finger of torn plastic bag still fluttered out of the earth.
Here.
He pushed the spade slowly into the ground until it met resistance. Then, using the spade’s head and his hands, he scraped away the peat to reveal the object that had been buried below the clock.
The wooden casket had been wrapped in cellophane which had torn, allowing the
