The Crossing Places

CHAPTER 11

'Drowned landscapes,' says Erik, his singsong voice echoing across the wind-flattened grass, 'have a peculiar magic of their own. Think of Dunwich, the city swallowed by the sea, the church bells ringing underwater. Think of the drowned forest on this very beach, the trees buried beneath our feet. There is something deep within us which fears what is buried, what we cannot see.'

Ruth and Erik are walking along the beach, their feet crunching on the hundreds of razor clam shells brought in by the tide. Yesterday's rain has given way to a beautiful winter's day, cold and bright. The horrors of last night seem far away. It seems impossible that Sparky is dead and that Ruth herself could be in danger. And yet, thinks Ruth, trudging along beside Erik, it is true and it did happen.

Last night she had flung herself into Erik's arms, almost incoherent with crying. He had been very kind, she remembers, had sat her down and made her coffee with whisky in it. She had told him about Sparky and he had said that, when they got the body back, they should give her a Viking funeral, a burning pyre drifting out to sea.

Ruth, who wanted to bury Sparky in her garden, under the apple tree, had said nothing but had been aware that Erik was paying Sparky a huge compliment, considering her a soul worthy of such an honour. She remembers her mother telling her that animals don't have souls. Another black mark against God.

Ruth hadn't wanted to be alone last night and so Erik had slept on the sofa, folding up his long limbs under Ruth's sleeping bag and not complaining when Flint woke him up at five, bringing in a dead mouse. He has been a true friend, thinks Ruth. Despite everything, it is wonderful to see him again, to be striding over the Saltmarsh with him once more.

After breakfast, Erik suggested going to look at the henge site and Ruth had agreed readily. She feels the need to be out of doors, away from the house and the dark corners where she expects, every second, to see Sparky's little face appear. No, it is better to be in the open, to be walking along the wide expanse of beach, under the high, blue sky. Mind you, she had forgotten how far it was when the tide is out. The sand stretches for miles, glittering with secret inlets, the occasional piece of driftwood black against the horizon. It looks vast and completely featureless but Erik seems to know exactly where he is going. He strides ahead, his eyes on the horizon. Ruth, wearing her trusty Wellingtons, plods along behind him.

Last night's wind has blown the sand into odd shapes and ridges. Nearer the sea it is flatter, striped with empty oyster shells and dead crabs. Little streams run across the sand to join the sea and, occasionally, there are larger expanses of water, reflecting the blue of the sky. Ruth splashes her way through one of these pools, remembering the summer of the henge dig and the way the sand had felt under her bare feet. She can almost feel the sting of the water and the exquisite pain of walking on the clam shells. At the end of the day, her feet had been a mass of tiny cuts.

'Do you still think we should have left the henge where it was?' she asks.

Erik raises his face to the sun, shutting his eyes. 'Yes,' he says. 'It belonged here. It marked a boundary. We should have respected that.'

'Boundaries were important to prehistoric people, weren't they?'

'Yes indeed.' Erik steps delicately over a fast-flowing stream; he isn't wearing Wellingtons. 'Which is why they marked them with burial mounds, religious shrines, offerings to the ancestors.'

'Do you think that my Iron Age body marks a boundary?' Over breakfast, Ruth had told him more about her find, about the girl with her head shaved and branches twisted around her arms and legs, about the torques and the coins and the tantalising location of the body.

Erik hesitates. He uses his professional voice; measured, calm. 'Yes, I do,' he says, at last. 'Boundaries in the ancient landscape were sometimes marked by isolated burials.

Think of the bodies at Jutland, for example.'

Ruth thinks of the Jutland discoveries: oak coffins found in water, containing Bronze Age bodies. One had been that of a young woman and what Ruth remembers chiefly were her clothes, a surprisingly trendy outfit of braided miniskirt and crop top.

'What does gadget boy think?' asks Erik.

'Oh, he thinks it's all chance. No link between the Iron Age body and the henge.'

Erik snorts. 'How that boy ever became an archaeologist!

Doesn't he understand that if the area was sacred to the Neolithic and Bronze Age people it was sacred to the Iron Age people? That the landscape itself is important.

This is a liminal zone, between land and water, of course it's special.'

'It isn't that special to us though.'

'Isn't it? It's National Trust land, a nature reserve. Isn't that our way of saying that it is sacred?'

Ruth thinks of the National Trust, sensible women in quilted coats selling souvenirs at castle gates. It isn't her idea of sacred. Then she thinks of David and the way he spoke about the migrating birds. He is someone, she realises, who does think that the place is special.

Erik stops abruptly. He is looking at the sand, which has suddenly become dark and silty. He traces a line with his smart shoe. Underneath, the sand is quite startlingly blue.

'Burnt matter,' he says, 'the roots of ancient trees. We're getting near.'

Looking back, Ruth sees a clump of trees to the left and the spire of a church away in the distance. She remembers the view perfectly; they are very near the henge circle. But the sand, grey in the winter sun, gives nothing away. What the Sand gets, the Sand keeps forever.

Ruth remembers how the henge had looked that summer evening ten years ago, the ring of gnarled wooden posts sinister and otherworldly as if it had risen out of the sea. She remembers Erik kneeling before the posts in an attitude almost of prayer. She remembers, when she first entered the circle, a shiver running through her whole body.

'It's here,' says Erik.

There is nothing to see, just a slightly raised circle, darker than the surrounding sand, but Erik acts as if he has entered a church. He stands completely still, his eyes closed and then touches the ground, as if for luck.

'Sacred ground,' he says.

'That's what Cathbad would say.'

'Cathbad! Have you seen him?'

'Yes… Erik?'

'What?'

'Why didn't you tell me that you knew Cathbad quite well, that he'd been a student of yours?'

Erik is silent for a moment, looking at her. She can't read his cool, blue stare. Guilt? Amusement? Anger?

'Does it matter?'

'Of course it matters!' Ruth explodes. 'He's a suspect in a murder investigation.'

'Is he?'

Ruth hesitates. She knows that Nelson suspects and distrusts Cathbad but is that enough to make him a suspect? Probably. Aloud she says, 'I don't know. The police think he's hiding something.'

'The police! What do they know? Hoi polloi. Barbarians.

Do you remember when they removed the protesters from the site? The unnecessary violence they used?'

'Yes.' The police had been heavy-handed when they removed the protesters. Erik and the other archaeologists had been distressed. They had lodged a complaint, which the police had ignored.

'Did you put Cathbad up to it?' asks Ruth. 'The protest?'

Erik smiles. 'No, the local pagans were up in arms already. There are a lot of pagans in Norfolk, you know.

Let's just say that I encouraged him a bit.'

'Did you get him the job at the university too?'

'I gave him a reference.'

'Why didn't you tell me he was working there?'

'You didn't ask.'

Ruth turns away, stomping her way over the wet sand.

Erik catches her up, puts his arm round her.

'Don't be angry Ruth. Didn't I always tell you, it's the questions that matter, not the answers?'

Ruth looks at Erik's familiar, weather-beaten face. He has grown older, his hair is whiter and there are more lines around his eyes, but he is still the same. He is smiling, his blue eyes sparkling. Reluctantly, Ruth smiles back.

'Come on,' says Erik, 'let's see if we can find that causeway of yours.'

They set off, walking inland across the dunes. A couple of waders are feeding on the mudflats. Ruth thinks of David's description of the Saltmarsh as nature's service station. The birds look up as they pass and then continue their frenzied digging. In the distance, a heron watches them, standing meditatively on one leg.

Ruth has David's map, showing the buried posts.

Silently she unfurls it and hands it to Erik. He makes a hissing noise of satisfaction, 'So… Now we have it.' He examines the map for a long time in silence. Ruth watches him with admiration. No-one is better at reading a map or a landscape than Erik. For him, hills and streams and villages are signposts pointing directly to the past. She remembers him saying to her when she first started his postgraduate course, 'If you wanted to make a map of your sitting room for archaeologists of the future, what would be the most important thing?'

'Er… making sure I have a full inventory of objects.'

He had laughed. 'No, no. Inventories are all very well in their place but they do not tell us how people lived, what was important to them, what they worshipped. No, the most important thing would be the direction. The way your chairs were facing. That would show archaeologists of the future that the most important object in the twenty first century home was the large grey rectangle in the corner.'

Now Erik looks up from the map, sniffs the air and smiles. 'This way, I think.' They set off at a brisk walk. The wind is behind them now, blowing the coarse grass flat against the ground. They pass the tidal reed beds, the shallow water dark and mysterious. Above them a bird calls, hoarse and angry.

'Here.' Erik stops and bends down. Ruth squats beside him. There, half-buried in the peaty ground between the reeds and the mudflats., is a post. It extends about ten centimetres above the soil.

'Bog oak,' says Erik. Ruth looks more closely. The wood is dark, almost black, its surface dotted with little holes, like woodworm.

'Molluscs,' says Erik laconically, 'they eat away at the wood.'

'How old is it?' asks Ruth.

'Don't know for sure. But it looks old.'

'As old as the henge?'

'Possibly later.'

Ruth reaches out to touch the post. It feels soft, like black toffee. She has to resist the temptation to gouge in her fingernail.

'Come on,' says Erik. 'Let's find the next one.'

The next post is about two metres away. This one is harder to see, almost submerged by water. Erik paces between the posts.

'Incredible. The land between the two is completely dry, although it's marshland on either side. It must be a shingle spit, incredible that it hasn't moved over the years.'

Ruth can sense his excitement. 'So it could be a pathway through the marsh?'

'Yes, a crossing place. It was as important as marking a boundary, marking a crossing place over sacred ground.

One step the wrong way and you're dead, straight to hell.

Keep on the path and it will lead you to heaven.'

He is smiling but Ruth shivers, remembering the letters. Look to the sky, the stars, the crossing places. Look at what is silhouetted against the sky. You will find her where the earth meets the sky. Did the letter writer know about the pathway? He spoke about causeways and cursuses.

Had he brought Lucy here, to this desolate landscape?

They find a total of twelve posts, leading them back almost to the car park and the place where Ruth found the Iron Age body. Erik takes pictures and makes notes. He seems completely absorbed. Ruth finds herself feeling restless, abstracted. With Nelson, she had been the expert.

Now she feels relegated to the position of student.

'How will you get the wood dated?' she asks.

'I'll ask Bob Bullmore.' Bob is a member of Ruth's department, an experienced forensic anthropologist, an expert on the decomposition of flora and fauna. Ruth likes Bob; involving him is a good idea but, again, she has the sensation of being sidelined. This was my discovery, she wants to yell, you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me.

Aloud she says, 'Shall we tell Phil?'

'Not yet.'

'Bob might tell him.'

'Not if I ask him not to.'

'Do you think we have found a link between my Iron Age body and the henge?'

Erik looks at her quizzically. 'Your Iron Age body?'

'I found it,' says Ruth defiantly.

'We own nothing in this life,' says Erik.

'You sound like Cathbad.'

Erik looks at her for a minute, consideringly, like a lecturer assessing a new student. Then he says, 'Come and meet him.'

'Who?'

'Cathbad. Come and meet him properly.'

'Now?'

'Yes. I thought I'd look him up.'

Ruth hesitates. Part of her, the amateur detective part, wants to see Cathbad again, to assess him without Nelson's sceptical presence clouding her judgement. But she is still slightly angry with Erik for not telling her that he had been Cathbad's tutor. She considers, stuck in a liminal zone of her own between curiosity and resentment.

As she is thinking, watched quizzically by Erik, her phone rings, the noise sounding shockingly twenty-first century.

'Excuse me.' Ruth turns away.

'Ruth. It's Nelson.'

'Oh… hello.'

'Are you busy? Can you come to Spenwell? Now'

'Why?'

'I'm at Scarlet Henderson's house. We've found some human bones in the garden.'