The Crossing Places

CHAPTER 16

They wait for the tide and set off at first light. When they return from the henge circle, with Scarlet's body zipped into a police body bag, Ruth is driven back to her house.

She left Nelson in the car park where they first found the bones. He is waiting for a policewoman to arrive so they can break the news to Scarlet's parents. Ruth doesn't offer to accompany them. She knows it is pure cowardice, but right at this moment she would rather run into the sea and drown herself than face Delilah Henderson. Nelson presumably feels the same but he still has to do it. He doesn't speak to Ruth, or to the sceneof-crime officers who arrive promptly in their white jumpsuits. He stands apart, looking so forbidding that no-one dares approach him.

On the way home Ruth asks the driver to stop so she can be sick. She is sick again, back in the cottage, listening to the radio news. 'Police searching for four-year-old Scarlet Henderson have found a body believed to be that of the missing child. Police sources are refusing to confirm…'

The missing child. How can those few words convey the horrific pathos of the little arm encircled by the silver bracelet? The little girl taken from the people who loved her: murdered, buried in the sand, covered by the sea.

When had he buried her? At night? If she had looked would Ruth have seen lights, like will o'the wisps, guiding her to the dead child?

She calls Phil and tells him that she won't be coming in.

He is agog but remembers to feel sorry for Scarlet's parents: 'Poor people, it doesn't bear thinking about.' But Ruth has to think about it, all day long. Ten minutes later, Peter phones. Does Ruth want him to come over? She says no, she is fine. She doesn't want to see Peter; she doesn't want to see anyone.

By midday, the Saltmarsh is seething with people. It has started to rain again but still she can see little figures crawling over the sands and, in the distance, the lights of police boats out to sea. A new gaggle of journalists swarms past, screeching and cackling like flocks of feeding birds. Ruth sees David standing outside his house, binoculars in hand, looking thunderous. He must hate the Saltmarsh being invaded like this. The birds have been frightened away and the skies are low and dark. Thank God Sammy and Ed have gone back to London so Ruth doesn't have to bear their curiosity and concern. She pulls the curtains. Thank God too that the press haven't caught up with her yet.

Erik rings. He is conciliatory, concerned. Ruth wishes she didn't think that he is as much concerned with the archaeological site as with Scarlet's fate. The police are digging madly in the very centre of the henge circle. For Erik, as for David, the site will be contaminated forever.

He can hardly say this, though, and after a few platitudes he rings off.

Despite everything, she is still shocked when she switches on the TV news and sees the Saltmarsh, rain washed and grey, filling the screen. 'It was at this desolate spot,' intones the newsreader, 'that police made the tragic discovery, early this morning…' No mention of Ruth.

Thank you, God.

The phone rings. Ruth's mother. Not such good work, God.

'Ruth! It's on TV. That awful place where you live.'

'I know Mum.'

'They've found her, that poor little girl. Our Bible study group has been praying for her every night.'

"I know.'

'Daddy said he saw your house on TV AM.'

'I'm sure he did.'

'Isn't it terrible? Daddy says be sure to lock your windows and doors.'

"I will'

'That poor little girl. Such a pretty little thing. Did you see her picture on the news?'

Should Ruth tell her mother that she was the one who found the body? Who lifted up the little arm, miraculously preserved by the peat, and looked at the silver bracelet, decorated with entwined hearts? Should she tell her mother that she saw an identical bracelet on Delilah Henderson's wrist as they sat chatting in her kitchen? Should she tell her that she watched as the little body was lifted from its grave and the hand dangled down, as if in farewell? Should she tell her mother that she knows the murderer, even if she does not know his name, that she hears his voice in her dreams? Should she tell her about Sparky, left bleeding on her doorstep as a threat, or a warning?

No, she won't tell her any of these things. Instead she promises to lock her doors and to ring tomorrow. She feels too tired even to argue when her mother says she hopes the child was baptised and so can go to heaven.

'Who wants to go to heaven with all those Christians?'

has always been Ruth's response. Now she thinks about Alan and Delilah Henderson. Do they think they will see Scarlet again, that they will be reunited in a better place?

She hopes so. She really hopes so.

The rain continues to fall, somewhat thwarting the journalists who tramp back along New Road, their mobile phones subdued by frustration. Ruth, who hasn't eaten all day, pours herself a glass of wine and switches on the radio.

'What does the death of little Scarlet Henderson tell us about our society…' She switches it off again. She doesn't want to hear people, people who have never seen Scarlet, talk about lessons learnt or the decline of morals or why children are no longer safe to play. Scarlet wasn't safe; she was snatched from her garden while she played on the makeshift climbing frame with her twin brothers. Neither of them had seen anything. One minute Scarlet was there, the next she wasn't. Delilah, inside the house with a fretful Ocean, had not even known that her daughter was missing until she called her in for tea, two hours later. Forensics will have to prove when Scarlet was actually killed. Ruth prays it was soon, while she was still happy from the game with her brothers, before she knew too much.

It is dark outside now. Ruth pours herself another glass of wine. The phone rings. Ruth picks it up wearily. Peter?

Erik? Her mother?

'Doctor Ruth Galloway?' An unfamiliar voice, slightly breathless.

'Yes.'

'I'm from The Chronicle.'' The local paper. "I hear you were involved with the discovery of Scarlet Henderson's body?'

'I've got nothing to say.' Ruth slams down the phone, hands shaking. Immediately it rings again and she takes it off the hook.

Flint crashes in through the cat flap, making Ruth jump sky high. She feeds him and tries to get him to sit on her lap but he too is twitchy, prowling round the room with his head low and whiskers quivering.

It is nine o'clock. Ruth, who has been up since four, is exhausted but feels too strung up to go to bed. Neither, for some reason, can she read or watch TV. She just sits there, in the dark, watching Flint circling the room and listening to the rain drumming against the windows.

Ten o'clock and a heavy knock on the door sends Flint running upstairs. Though she doesn't quite know why, Ruth is trembling from head to foot. She switches on a light and edges towards the door. Though the rational archaeologist in her tells her that it is probably only Peter or Erik or Shona (who surprisingly hasn't rung yet), the irrational side, which has been taking hold all day, tells her that something dreadful lurks outside the door. Something terrible arisen from the mud and the sand. What the Sand gets, the Sand keeps forever.

'Who is it?' she calls out, trying to keep her voice steady.

"Me. Nelson,' comes the reply.

Ruth opens the door.

Nelson looks terrible, unshaven, red-eyed, his clothes soaking. He steps wordlessly into the sitting room and sits down on the sofa. It seems, at that moment, completely right that he should be there.

'Do you want anything to drink?' she asks. 'Tea?

Coffee? Wine?'

'Coffee please.'

When she comes back with the coffee, Nelson is leaning forward on the sofa, his head in his hands. Ruth notices the amount of grey in his thick, dark hair. Surely he can't have aged in just a few months?

Ruth puts the coffee on the table beside him. 'Was it terrible?' she asks timidly.

Nelson groans, rubbing his hands over his face.

'Terrible,' he says at last, 'Delilah just… just crumpled up like someone had squeezed all the life out of her. She just collapsed and lay there, curled up in a ball, crying, calling out for Scarlet. Nothing any of us could say was any good.

How could it be? Her husband tried to hold her but she fought him off. Judy, the DC, was very good, but what could anyone say? Jesus. I've broken bad news before in my time but never anything like this. If I go to hell tomorrow, it can't be worse than this.'

He is silent again for a few moments, frowning into his coffee mug. Ruth puts her hand on his arm but says nothing: what can anyone say?

Eventually Nelson says, "I hadn't really understood how much she believed that Scarlet was still alive. I think we all thought… after two months… she must be dead. Like with Lucy, you gradually stop hoping. But Delilah, poor cow, really believed that her little girl was going to walk back in through the front door one day. At first she kept saying, "She can't be dead, she can't be dead." I had to tell her, "I've seen her," and then, Christ, I had to ask them to identify the body.'

'Did they both go?'

"I wanted Alan to go on his own but Delilah insisted on coming too. I think, right up to the moment that she saw the body, she was still hoping it wasn't Scarlet. When she saw the body, that's when she collapsed.'

'Do they know how long… how long she'd been dead?'

'No. We'll have to wait for the forensic report.' He sighs, rubbing his eyes. Then, speaking for the first time in his business-like, policeman's voice, 'She didn't look like she'd been dead long, did she?'

'That was the peat,' says Ruth, 'it's a natural preservative.'

They are silent again for a moment, deep in their own thoughts. Ruth thinks of the peat, preserving the timbers of the henge and now guarding its new secret. If they had never found her would Scarlet, like the Iron Age bodies, have been left there for hundreds, thousands of years?

Would she have been found by archaeologists, puzzled over as an academic curiosity, her real history forever unknown?

'I've had another letter,' Nelson says, breaking the silence.

'What?'

In answer, Nelson brings a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. 'It's a copy,' he explains. 'Original's with forensics.'

Ruth leans forward to read: Nelson,

You seek but you do not find. You find bones where you hope to find flesh. All flesh is grass. I have told you this before. I grow tired of your foolishness, your inability to see. Do I have to draw a map for you?

Point a line to Lucy and to Scarlet?

The nearer the bone, the sweeter the flesh. Do not forget the bones.

In sorrow.

Ruth looks at Nelson. 'When did you get this?'

'Today. In the post. It was sent yesterday.'

'So, when Cathbad was in custody?'

'Yes.' Nelson looks up. 'Doesn't mean he couldn't have arranged to have it sent though.'

'Do you think that's what he did?'

'Maybe. Or this letter could be from a different person.'

'It reads like the others,' says Ruth, examining the typewritten paper. 'Biblical quotation, the tone, the reference to sight. It even says "I have told you this before."'

'Yes. That struck me too. Almost as if he was trying too hard to tie it to the other letters.'

Ruth looks at the words, Point a line to Lucy and to Scarlet. She remembers last night tracing the path on the map from the Spenwell bones to the marsh bones to the henge circle. She shivers. It is almost as if the writer was at her shoulder, watching her as she drew the line that led to Scarlet. And the bones. Do not forget the bones. There is a lot about bones in this letter. Bones are her speciality. Is the writer sending her a message?

'The nearer the bone, the sweeter the flesh,' she reads aloud. 'That's horrible, like cannibalism.'

'It's a proverb,' says Nelson, "I looked it up.'

'So, do you still think Cathbad did it?'

Nelson sighs, running his hands through his hair so that it stands up like a crest. "I don't know, but I haven't got enough to charge him. No DNA, no motive, no confession.

We've been over his caravan with a toothcomb, found nothing. I'll keep him until I get the forensics report. If I find a trace of his DNA on Scarlet then he's finished.'

Ruth looks at Nelson. Maybe it's the rumpled hair and the dishevelled clothes but he looks younger somehow, almost vulnerable.

'But you don't think he did it, do you?'

Nelson looks at her. 'No, I don't,' he says.

'Then who did?'

"I don't know.' Nelson lets out another sigh that is almost a groan. 'That's the terrible, shaming thing. All those hours of investigation, all that police time, all that searching and questioning and I've still got no bloody idea who killed those two little girls. No wonder the media are shouting for my head.'

'I got a call from The Chronicle this evening.'

'Bastards! How did they know about you? I've been so careful to keep your name out of it.'

'Well, they were bound to find out sometime.'

Who could have told them though, Ruth thinks. Erik?

Shona? Peter?

'They'll make life hard for you,' warns Nelson. 'Is there anywhere you could go for a few days?'

'I could stay with my friend Shona.' Even as she says it, Ruth dreads the long cosy evenings of Shona trying to worm out information. She'll just have to work late most nights.

'Good. I've sent my wife and kids away to my mum. Just until the worst is over.'

'When will the worst be over?'

'I don't know.' Nelson looks at her again, his dark eyes troubled. She can hear the rain and the wind outside but somehow it seems a long way away, as if this room, this tiny circle of light, is all that is left in the world.

Nelson is still looking at her. 'I don't want to go home,'

he says at last.

And Ruth reaches out to lay her hand on his. 'You don't have to,' she says.

The silence wakes Ruth. The wind and the rain have stopped and the night is still. She thinks she hears an owl hooting and, very far off, the faint sigh of the waves.

The moon shines serenely through the open curtains and illuminates the crumpled bed, the strewn clothes and the sleeping figure of DCI Harry Nelson, breathing heavily, one arm flung out across Ruth's breasts. Gently Ruth lifts the arm and gets up to put on some pyjamas.

She can't believe she went to bed naked. Somehow that is even harder to believe than the fact that she went to bed with Nelson. That she laid her hand on his, that she, seconds later, reached over to touch her lips with his. She remembers his slight hesitation, a whisper of indrawn breath, before his hand reached up behind her head and he pulled her to him. They had clung to each other, kissing desperately, hungrily, as the rain battered against the windows. She remembers the roughness of his skin, the surprising softness of his lips, the feel of his body against hers.

How could this have happened? She hardly knows Harry Nelson. Two months ago she had thought him just another boorish policeman. All she does know is that last night they seemed to share something that set them apart from all the world. They had seen Scarlet's body as it rose, lifeless, from the sand. They had, in some small way, shared her family's pain. They had read the letters. They knew of the evil presence out there in the dark. They knew of Lucy Downey too, feared that the next discovery would be her body. And, at that moment, it had seemed only natural that this knowledge should draw them into each other's arms, that they should blot out the pain with the comforts of the body. They might never do it again but last night… last night had been right.

Even so, thinks Ruth, pulling on her nicest pyjamas (she isn't about to let him see the grey ones with built-in feet), he'd better leave soon. The press knows about her. The last thing either of them wants is for the media to discover the leading policeman in the Scarlet Henderson case in bed with the bones expert. She looks down at Nelson. In sleep he looks much younger, his dark eyelashes fanned out on his cheek, his harsh mouth gentle. Ruth shivers but not from the cold.

'Nelson?' she shakes him.

He is awake immediately.

'What is it?'

'You'd better go.'

He moans. 'What time is it?'

'Almost four.'

He looks at her for a moment as if wondering who she is and then smiles. The surprisingly sweet smile that she has only seen once or twice before.

'Good morning Doctor Galloway.'

'Good morning DI Nelson,' says Ruth, 'you'd better get dressed.'

As Nelson reaches for his clothes, Ruth sees a tattoo high on his shoulder, blue writing around some kind of shield.

'What does your tattoo say?' she asks.

'Seasiders. It's a nickname for my team, Blackpool. Had it done when I was sixteen. Michelle hates it.'

There, he has said her name. Michelle, the perfect wife, who hovered between them all last night, is suddenly there in the room. Nelson, pulling on his trousers, seems unconscious of what he has said. Perhaps he does this all the time, thinks Ruth.

Dressed, he looks a different person. A policeman, a stranger. He comes over to her, sits on the bed and takes her hand.

'Thanks,' he says.

'What for?'

'Being there.'

'Just doing my duty as a citizen.'

He grins. 'You should get a medal.'

Ruth watches as he retrieves his mobile from under the bed. She feels oddly detached, as if she is watching something on television. But she doesn't really watch that sort of programme; she prefers documentaries.

'Will you go to your friend's house?' asks Nelson, shrugging on his jacket.

'Yes. I think so.'

'Well, keep in touch. Any trouble from those press bastards, give me a shout.'

'I will.'

At the doorway he turns and smiles. 'Goodbye Doctor Galloway,' he says.

And he is gone.