The Crossing Places

CHAPTER 3

Nelson cuts across two lanes of traffic as he heads into King's Lynn. His car is unmarked but he makes it a point of honour always to drive as if he is pursuing a suspect. He enjoys the expressions on the faces of the clueless uniforms when, after pulling them in for speeding, he flourishes his warrant card. In any case, this route is so familiar that he could drive it in his sleep: past the industrial park and the Campbell's soup factory, along the London Road and through the archway in the old city wall. Doctor Ruth Galloway would be sure to tell him exactly how old this wall is: 'I can't be that exact but I estimate that it was built before lunch on Friday 1 February 1556'. But, to Nelson, it just represents a final traffic jam before he reaches the police station.

He is no fan of his adopted county. He is a northerner, born in Blackpool, within sight of the Golden Mile. He went to the Catholic grammar school, St Joseph's (Holy Joe's as it was known locally) and joined the police as a cadet, aged sixteen. Right from the start, he'd loved the job. He loved the camaraderie, the long hours, the physical exertion, the sense of doing something worthwhile. And, though he would never admit it, he'd even liked the paperwork.

Nelson is methodical, he likes lists and schedules, he is excellent at cutting through crap. He'd risen through the 32

ranks and soon had a pretty good life: satisfying work, congenial mates, pub on Friday nights, the match on Saturdays, golf on Sundays.

But then the job in Norfolk had come up and his wife, Michelle, had been on at him to take it. Promotion, more money, and 'the chance to live in the country'. Who in their right mind, thinks Nelson, thinking of the Saltmarsh, would want to live in the bloody country? It's all cows and mud and locals who look like the result of several generations of keeping it in the family. But he'd given in and they had moved to King's Lynn. Michelle had started working for a posh hairdressing salon. They'd sent the girls to private schools and they'd come back laughing at his accent ('It's not bath, Daddy, it's ba-arth…'). He'd done well, become a detective inspector in double quick time, people had even talked of higher things. Until Lucy Downey went missing.

Nelson turns, without indicating, into the station car park. He is thinking of Lucy and of the body on the marsh.

He had always been sure that Lucy was buried somewhere near the Saltmarsh, and when the bones were found he thought that he was near an ending at last. Not a happy ending, but at least an ending. And now this Doctor Ruth Galloway tells him that the bones are from some bloody Stone Age body. Jesus, all that stuff she'd spouted about henges and burials and being able to walk to Scandinavia.

He'd thought she was taking the piss at first. But, when they got to the site, he could see she was a professional. He admired the way that she did everything slowly and carefully, making notes, taking photos, sifting the evidence. It's the way that police work should be done. Not that she'd ever make a policewoman. Too overweight, for one thing.

What would Michelle say about a woman so out-of-condition that she is out of breath after a five-minute walk? She would be genuinely horrified. But, then, he can't think of any situation in which Michelle would meet Doctor Ruth Galloway. She's not likely to start popping into the salon, not from what he could see of her hair.

But she interests him. Like all forceful people (he calls it forceful rather than bullying), he prefers people who stand up to him, but in his job that doesn't happen often.

People either despise him or kowtow to him. Ruth had done neither. She had looked him in the face, coolly, as an equal. He thinks he's never met anyone, any woman, quite as sure of themselves as Ruth Galloway. Even the way she dresses – baggy clothes, trainers – seemed to be a way of saying that she doesn't care what anyone thinks.

She's not going to tart herself up in skirts and high heels just to please men. Not that there's anything wrong with pleasing men, muses Nelson, kicking open the door to his office, but there's something interesting, even refreshing, about a woman who doesn't care whether or not she's attractive.

And the things she said about ritual were interesting too.

Nelson is frowning as he sits behind his desk. Talking about ritual and sacrifice and all that crap has brought it all back: the days and nights spent in fingertip searches, the anguished meetings with the parents, the gradual, unbearable shift from hope to despair, the station full to bursting point, teams brought in from six different forces, all dedicated to finding one little girl. All in vain.

Nelson sighs. However much he tries not to, he knows that, before he goes home tonight, he will read through the Lucy Downey files.

It is pitch black by the time Ruth drives home, edging her car carefully along New Road. There are ditches on both sides of the road and the merest twitch on the wheel can send you plunging ignominiously downwards. This has happened to Ruth once before and she is not keen to repeat the experience.

Her headlights illuminate the raised tarmac of the road; the land drops away on either side so that she seems to be driving into nothingness. Nothing but the road ahead and the sky above. Where the earth meets the sky. She shivers and turns on the car radio. Radio 4, soothing, civilised and slightly smug, fills the car. 'And now for the News Quiz…'

Ruth parks outside her broken blue fence and pulls her rucksack out of the boot. The weekenders' house is in darkness but the warden has a light on upstairs. She assumes he goes to bed early so as to be up for the dawn chorus. Flint appears on her doorstep mewing piteously for admittance even though he has his own cat-flap and has, in fact, been snoozing inside all day. Remembering she hasn't yet seen Sparky, Ruth feels a pang of anxiety as she opens the door. But Sparky, a small black cat with a white nose, is sleeping safely on the sofa. Ruth calls her but she stays put, flexing her claws and shutting her eyes. Sparky is a reserved character, quite unlike Flint who is now weaving ecstatically around Ruth's legs.

'Stop it, you stupid cat.'

She drops her rucksack on the table and puts down food for the cats. Her answer phone light is flashing. She has a feeling that it won't be good news and when she presses PLAY she is right. Her mother's voice, aggrieved and slightly breathless, fills the room.

'… whether you're coming for Christmas. Really, Ruth, you could be a bit more considerate. I heard from Simon weeks ago. I assume you'll be coming because I can't imagine you'll want to spend Christmas on your own in that awful…'

Ruth clicks delete, breathing hard. In just a few short sentences her mother has managed to encapsulate years of irritation and subtle put-down. The accusation of inconsiderate behaviour, the comparison with the perfect Simon, the implication that, if she doesn't visit her parents, Ruth's Christmas will consist of an M amp; S meal for one in front of the TV. Angrily sloshing wine into a glass (her mother's voice: 'How are your units Ruth? Daddy and I are worried you're getting dependent…'), Ruth composes a reply. She will never give it in person but it is comforting to stomp around the kitchen, cutting her mother down to size with thin slices of logic.

'The reason I haven't told you about Christmas is that I dread coming home and hearing you drone on about the Christ child and the true meaning of Christmas. Simon has been in touch because he's a creep and an arse-licker. And if I don't come home I'll be with my friends or on some tropical island, not alone slumped in front of The Vicar of Dibley. And my house isn't awful, it's a hundred times better than your Eltham semi with its pine cladding and vile china ornaments. And Peter didn't finish with me, I finished with him.'

She has added the last one because she knows from experience that her mother will bring up the subject of 36

Peter sometime over Christmas. 'Peter sent us a card…

such a shame… do you ever hear?… you know he's married now?' That her daughter could voluntarily end a relationship with a nice-looking, eligible man is something that Ruth's mother will never be able to accept. Ruth noticed the same tendency in her friends and colleagues when she announced that she and Peter were no longer together. 'I'm so sorry… Has he found someone else?…

Don't worry, he'll come back…' Ruth explained patiently that she had ended the relationship five years ago for the simple, yet surprisingly complicated, reason that she no longer loved him. 'That's right,' people would say, ignoring her, 'he'll soon get bored with the new woman. In the meantime, pamper yourself, have a massage, maybe even lose some…'

To cheer herself up, Ruth boils the water for some nice, fattening pasta and rings Erik. Her first tutor, Erik Anderssen, predictably nicknamed Erik the Viking, was the man responsible for getting her into forensic archaeology.

He has been a huge influence on her life and is now a close friend. Smiling, she conjures him up: silver-blond hair pulled back in a pony tail, faded jeans, unravelling sweater. She knows he will be passionately interested in today's find.

Erik the Viking has, appropriately enough, moved back to Norway. Ruth visited him last summer, in his log cabin by the lake – freezing morning swims followed by steaming saunas, Magda's wonderful food, talking to Erik about Mayan civilisation as the stars came out at night. Madga, his wife, a voluptuous blonde goddess whose beauty manages to make you feel better, not worse, about your self, is another good friend. She never once mentioned Peter, even though she had been there that summer when Ruth and Peter first fell in love; had, in fact, by her tact and gentle benevolence, actually brought them together.

But Erik is out. Ruth leaves a message and, feeling restless, gets the battered lump of metal out of her rucksack and examines it. Still in its freezer bag, carefully dated and labelled, it stares back at her. Phil wanted her to leave it in the Department safe but she refused. She had wanted to bring the torque home, to the Saltmarsh, at least for one night. Now she examines it under her desk light.

Stained dark green from its long immersion in the marsh, the metal nonetheless has a burnished sheen that looks like it might be gold. A gold torque! How much would that be worth? She thinks of the so-called 'marriage tore' found near here, at Snettisham. That had been a wonderful, elaborate object, showing a human face with a ring through its mouth. This piece is more battered, perhaps it has been broken by ploughing or digging.

However, squinting closely, she can just see a twisted pattern, almost like a plait. The piece in her hand is barely fifteen centimetres long but she can imagine it as a full half circle, imagine it round the neck of some savage beauty. Or round the neck of a child, a sacrificial victim?

She remembers Nelson's bitter disappointment when he learnt that the bones were not those of Lucy Downey.

What must it feel like to have those deaths, those ghosts, forever on your mind? Ruth knows that for him the Iron Age bones are an annoyance, an irrelevancy, but for her they are as real as the five-year-old girl who went missing all those years ago. Why were the bones left on the edges of the marsh? Was she (from their size, Ruth thinks the bones are female but she cannot be sure) left for dead, sinking in the treacherous mud? Or was she killed somewhere else and buried at the start of the marshland, to mark the beginning of the sacred landscape?

When her pasta is cooked Ruth eats it at the table by the window, Erik's book The Shivering Sand propped up in front of her. The title is from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins and Ruth turns again to the first page where Erik quotes Collins' description of the sands: The last of the evening light was fading away; and over all the desolate place there hung a still and awful calm.

The heave of the main ocean on the great sandbank out in the bay, was a heave that made no sound. The inner sea lay lost and dim, without a breath of wind to stir it. Patches of nasty ooze floated, yellow-white on the dead surface of the water. Scum and slime shone faintly in certain places, where the last of the light still caught them on the two great spits of rock jutting out, north and south, into the sea. It was now the time of the turn of the tide: and even as I stood there waiting, the broad brown face of the quicksand began to dimple and quiver – the only moving thing in all the horrid place.

Collins, surely, had understood about the ritual landscape of the sea and land and of the haunted, uncanny Places that lie between the two. Ruth remembers that at least one character in The Moonstone meets their death on sands. She remembers another phrase, 'What the Sand gets, the Sand keeps forever.' But the Saltmarsh had given up some of its secrets; first the henge and now this body, just waiting there for Ruth to discover them. Surely there must be a link.

Reading again about the discovery of the henge (Erik wrote at least three books on the strength of the find), Ruth remembers how eerie it had looked in that first morning light, like a shipwreck that had risen silently to the surface, the wooden posts forming a sombre ring, black against the sky. She remembers Erik telling fireside stories about Norse water spirits: the Nixes, shape-shifters who lure unwary travellers into the water; the Nokke, river sprites who sing at dawn and dusk. Water as a source of life and a place of death. Water is also often associated with women; women with vengeance in their hearts, luring men to a watery grave. Drowned spirits, their hair flowing green around them, their webbed hands reaching out above the turning tide…

Ruth reads on, her pasta forgotten. She has no lectures tomorrow; she will go back to the place where the bones were buried.

But in the morning it is raining, driving, slanting rain that batters against the windows and envelops the marsh in an impenetrable grey haze. Frustrated, Ruth busies herself with work: writing up lecture notes, ordering books from Amazon, even cleaning out her fridge. But she keeps coming back to the torque lying in its freezer bag on the table by the window. Sensing her interest, Flint jumps up and sits heavily on the bag. Ruth pushes him off. She doesn't want Phil to notice the cat hairs. He is apt to be whimsical about the cats, calling them 'Ruth's familiars'.

She grits her teeth. He is not going to be whimsical about this find. Phil has always been rather sceptical about Erik the Viking and his views on ritual landscape. For the Iron Age people the henge was already ancient, probably as much of a mystery to them as it is to us. Did they bury this body in the mud to symbolise the beginning of this mystic landscape? Or was the victim ritually killed to appease the water spirits? If Ruth can prove a link between the body and the henge, then the whole area becomes significant. Saltmarsh could become a major archaeological site.

By lunchtime she thinks that the weather is improving slightly. She goes out as far as the gate and the rain is soft and friendly on her face. It is ridiculous really, because the trench will have filled with water and she can do no real work on her own, but she makes up her mind to walk to the site. It's not far, maybe a mile away, and the exercise will do her good. She tells herself this briskly as she puts on the sou'wester and waders she'd bought for a dig in the Outer Hebrides, puts a torch in her pocket and shrugs her rucksack onto her back. She's just going for a look, that's all. A nice brisk walk before it gets dark. Better than sitting at home wondering and eating biscuits.

At first it is quite pleasant. She is walking with her back to the wind and the sou'wester keeps her nice and dry. In her pocket she has the very same ordnance survey map that they used on the henge dig. Looking at it earlier, she saw the henge marked in yellow, with green stickers where other pieces of prehistoric wood were found. They seemed to form a line radiating out from the henge and Erik thought at the time that they might have been part of a path, or causeway. Could the path be leading to Ruth's bones?

Rather than following the road to the car park, Ruth strikes out west, keeping to a path intended for bird watchers. As long as she sticks to the path she will be fine.

The marsh lies on either side of her, huge clumps of reed and mile upon mile of windswept grass. The ground looks solid enough but she knows from experience that it is full of hidden pools, treacherous and deep. When the tide comes in, the sea will come halfway up the marsh, covering the ground swiftly and silently. It was here that Peter was marooned all those years ago, stuck between the tidal and the freshwater marshes, lying on his face in the muddy water, clinging to a piece of driftwood while Erik crept towards him across the mudflats shouting words of encouragement in Norwegian.

Ruth plods along the path. It is very narrow here and the mist means that she can only see a few yards in front of her.

She doesn't want to be lured onto the marsh. The rain falls steadily and the sky is heavy and grey. Once, she disturbs a flock of snipe, who rise zigzagging crazily into the air, but otherwise she is quite alone. She hums as she walks, thinking of Erik and Peter and of the enchanted summer on the Saltmarsh. She thinks of the druids who came and camped out by the henge. Erik had been on their side, she remembers. After all, he had said, this is what it was built for, not for scientific study in a museum. But the university, which was sponsoring the dig, had wanted the timbers moved. They were being eroded by the tide, they had argued, they needed to be moved for their own safety. 'But they were meant to be eroded,' Erik had argued. 'Life and death, ebb and flow, that's what it's all about.'

But Erik had lost and the timbers were removed, slowly and painstakingly, to the university laboratory. Now Ruth feels a stab of regret for the timber circle that had lain buried in the sand for two thousand years. It belongs here, she thought, wading through muddy puddles, hands deep in her pockets. What the Sand gets, the Sand keeps forever.

At last she can see the hide where Nelson ordered Clough to bag up the litter. She can even see the car park, deserted now of course. The ground is firmer here and she walks quickly despite being out of breath (she really must start going to the gym in January). The police tape is still fluttering in the breeze and Ruth, ducking underneath it, thinks of Nelson, his eagerness, his disappointment when the bones did not turn out to be those of Lucy Downey. He was an odd man, she thought, brusque and unfriendly, but it seemed as if he had really cared about that little girl.

As she suspected, the trench is now almost entirely filled with water. This is the major problem with excavating marshy, tidal sites. In archaeology, it is essential to get a 'context', a clear view of where something is discovered.

With sites like this, the very ground is changing beneath your feet. Ruth takes out her beaker and starts to scoop away some of the water. She cannot hope to empty the trench but she just wants to see if there is anything else visible in the soil. Phil has promised to send a team from the university to excavate properly but she wants to see it first. This is her discovery.

After about half an hour, maybe more, she thinks she sees something. A dull, bronze-green gleam in the rich, dark soil. Gently she brushes away soil from its edges. It looks like another torque. Trembling, she takes out her original plan of the site and marks in the new find. A second torque could mean the beginnings of a hoard, a ritual depositing of treasure.

It is definitely another torque, battered and scrunched up as if crushed by a huge hand. But, looking closely, Ruth can see that it is intact. She can see both ends, rounded and smooth compared with the plaited quality of the rest of the metal. Ruth is sure it is from the same period, early to middle Iron Age. Is this a votive hoard? One find looks like chance, two starts to look like a ritual.

She sits back on her heels, her arms aching. It is only then that she realises how dark it has become. She looks at her watch. Four o'clock! The walk can only have taken half-an-hour so she has been squatting here in the mud for nearly two hours. She must be getting back. She straightens up, puts the bag containing the torque in her pocket and pulls up her hood. The rain, which had settled into a fine mist, now suddenly gathers in strength, hitting her in the face as she starts the climb back up towards the path. Ruth puts her head down and ploughs onwards; she has never been stuck on the marsh in the dark and she doesn't mean to start now.

For about twenty minutes she plods on, head down against the driving rain. Then she stops. She should have reached the gravel path by now. It is almost completely dark, with just a faint phosphorescent gleam coming from the marsh itself. Ruth gets out her torch but its shaky light shows her only flat marshland in all directions. Far off, she can hear the sea roaring as it thunders inland. She tries to get out her map but it is blown back in her face. It is too precious to lose so she packs it away again. She can hear the sea but from which direction? She gets out her compass. She is heading too far to the east. Slowly, trying not to panic, she revolves on the spot until she is facing south, then sets out again.

This time she stops because her foot steps into nothingness.

Literally one minute she is on dry land and the next she has sunk knee-high into the bog. She almost falls on her face but manages to save herself, rocking backwards until she is sitting on the firm ground. With an effort she pulls her leg from the liquid mud. It comes free with a horrible squelching sound but her wader, thank God, stays on. Panting, she takes a step backwards. Firm Ground.

Step forwards. Oozing mud. To the right, more mud. To the left, firmer ground. She starts to edge to the left, her torch held out in front of her.

After a few yards, she falls headlong into a ditch. Putting out her hands to save herself, she encounters icy water. She raises a hand to her lips. Salt. Oh God, she must have wandered right out to the tidal marsh. Scrambling to her feet she wipes mud off her face and checks her compass again. Due east. Has she missed the path altogether? Is she heading straight out to sea? The roaring in her ears is so loud now that she cannot tell if it is the sea or just the wind. Then a wave breaks right over her feet. There is no mistaking it, a freezing, briny-smelling swell of water. She is on the tidal mudflats, possibly at the very spot where Peter called for help all those years ago. But there is no Erik to save her. She will be drowned right here on the desolate marshland with a priceless Iron Age torque in her pocket.

She is sobbing now, her tears mingling with the rain and sea water on her face. Then she hears something so miraculous that she almost discounts it as a mirage. A voice. Calling her. She sees a light, a shaky hand-held light coming towards her. 'Help!' she shouts frantically, 'Help!'

The light comes nearer and a man's voice shouts. 'Come this way. Towards me.' Almost on all fours, she crawls towards the light and the voice. A figure looms out of the mist, a thick-set figure wearing a reflective jacket. A hand reaches out and grabs hers. 'This way,' says the voice, 'this way.'

Clinging on to the yellow waterproof sleeve as if it were a lifebelt, she stumbles along beside the man. He seems familiar somehow but she can't think about that now. All she can do is follow him as he traces a circuitous path, first left and then right, now into the wind, now away from the wind, through the mudflats. But whatever route he is taking seems a remarkably effective one. Her feet are on firm ground almost all the time, and before too long she can see the blue and white police tape and the car park where a battered Land Rover is waiting.

'Oh my God.' She lets go of the man and leans over to catch her breath.

The man steps back, shining his torch into her face.

'What the hell were you playing at?' he demands.

"I was trying to get home. I got lost. Thank you. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come along.'

'You'd have drowned, that's what you would have done.' Then his voice changes. 'You're the girl from the university, aren't you?'

Ruth looks at him, taking in close-cropped grey hair, blue eyes, official-looking jacket. It is her neighbour, the warden of the bird sanctuary. She smiles. Despite her feminist principles, she quite likes being called a girl.

'Yes. You're my neighbour, aren't you?'

He holds out a hand. 'David.'

She shakes hands, smiling again at the strangeness of it.

A few moments ago she was clinging on to his sleeve, sobbing hysterically. Now they are behaving as if they have just met at a cocktail party.

'I'm Ruth. Thanks again for saving me.'

He shrugs. 'That's OK. Look, we'd better get you home. My car's over there.'

In the Land Rover, a blessed oasis of warmth and safety, Ruth feels almost elated. She isn't dead, she is about to be driven home in comfort and she has the torque in her pocket. She turns to David, who is coaxing the engine into life.

'How did you know the way back? It was amazing, the way you twisted and turned across the marsh.'

'I know this place like the back of my hand,' says David, putting the car into gear. 'It's weird. There are wooden posts sunk into the ground. If you follow them, it leads you on a safe path through the marsh. I don't know who put them there but, whoever did, they knew the land even better than I do.'

Ruth stares at him. 'Wooden posts…' she whispers.

Yes. They're sunk deep into the ground, sometimes half submerged, but if you know where they are they'll lead you through the treacherous ground, right out to sea.'

Right out to sea. Right out to the henge. Ruth touches the freezer bag in her pocket but says nothing. Her mind is working furiously.

'What were you doing out on a night like this anyway?'

asks David as they drive along the Saltmarsh Road. The windscreen wipers are almost buckling under the weight of water.

'We found something. Over by the car park. I wanted to take a second look. I know it was stupid.'

'You found something? Something old? You're an archaeologist, aren't you?'

'Yes. Some Iron Age bones. I think they might be linked to the henge. Do you remember, ten years ago, when we found the henge?' She dimly remembers David watching the excavations that summer. How terrible that they haven't spoken since.

'Yes,' he says slowly, "I remember. That chap with a pony tail, he was in charge wasn't he? He was a good bloke. I had a lot of time for him.'

'Yes, he is a good bloke.' Funnily enough, there is something about David that reminds her of Erik. Perhaps it's the eyes, used to scanning far horizons.

'So, will there be all sorts of people here again? Druids and students and idiots with cameras?'

Ruth hesitates. She can tell that David thinks the Saltmarsh should be left to him and the birds. How can she say that she hopes there will be a major excavation, almost certainly involving students and idiots with cameras, if not druids.

'Not necessarily,' she says at last. 'It's very low key at the moment.'

David grunts. 'The police were here the other day. What were they after?'

Ruth is not sure how much she should say. Eventually she says, 'It was because of the bones, but when they turned out to be prehistoric they lost interest.'

They have reached Ruth's blue gate now. David turns to her and smiles for the first time. He has very white teeth.

How old is he she wonders. Forty? Fifty? Like Erik, he has an ageless quality.

'But you,' says David, 'you're more interested now, aren't you?'

Ruth grins. 'Yes I am.'

As she opens her front door, the phone is ringing. She knows, beyond any doubt, that it will be Erik.

'Ruthie!' Erik's singsong voice echoes across the frozen miles from Norway. 'What's all this about a find?'

'Oh Erik,' says Ruth ecstatically, standing dripping onto the rug. "I think I've found your causeway.'

It is dark but she is used to that. She stretches out a hand to see if she can touch the wall and encounters cold stone.

No door. There is a trapdoor in the roof but she never knows when that will open. And sometimes it is worse when it does. No use screaming or crying; she has done this many times before and it never helps. Sometimes, though, she likes to shout just to hear her own voice. It sounds different somehow, like a stranger's voice. Sometimes it's almost company, this other voice. They have long talks, sometimes, whispering in the dark.

'Don't worry.'

'It'll all come right in the end.'

'Darkest before dawn.'

Words she can't even remember hearing, though now they seem lodged in her brain. Who was it who told her once that it was darkest before dawn? She doesn't know.

She only knows that the words give her a warm, ticklish feeling, like being wrapped in a blanket. She has an extra blanket when it's cold but even then she shivers so much that in the morning her whole body aches. Sometimes it's warmer and a little light shines through the edges of the trapdoor. Once he opened the window in the roof. Usually it's only open at night when the sky is black, but this time it was bright and blue and it made her eyes hurt. The bars on the window turned into a little yellow ladder. Sometimes she dreams about climbing the ladder and escaping to…

where? She doesn't know. She thinks of the sun on her face and being in a garden where there are voices and cooking smells and cool water falling. Sometimes she walks through the water and it's like a curtain. A curtain. Where? A beaded curtain that you run through, laughing, and on the other side there's the warm light again and the voices and someone holding you tight, so tight; so tight they will never let you go.

And, other times, she thinks there is nothing there at all, beyond these walls. Only more walls and iron bars and cold, concrete floors.