The Crossing Places

CHAPTER 17

Unable to get back to sleep, Ruth gets up and showers.

Watching the water running off her body, she thinks of Nelson and wonders if she is symbolically cleansing herself, rubbing off any taint of his touch, his smell, his presence. That's certainly what her parents would want her to do. Be baptised, be born again. A phrase from her churchgoing past comes into her mind: washed in the blood of the lamb. She shivers. It sounds too much like the letter writer for her liking. She thinks of that last letter with its references to bones and flesh. Were those references meant for her?

She dries herself briskly and goes into her bedroom. She strips the bed (more symbolic cleansing?) and dresses quickly in trousers and fleece. Then she gets out a bag and starts to pack some clothes. She will take Nelson's advice and go to Shona's for a few days. She'll call Shona from the university.

Packing her unaesthetic grey pyjamas, she thinks of Nelson. Did he sleep with her only to blot out the horror of finding Scarlet's body? He can't possibly fancy her, not with Miss Blonde Housewife 2008 waiting for him at home. Does she fancy him? If she is honest, yes. She has been attracted to him ever since she saw him in the corridor that first time, looking too big and too grown up for his surroundings. He is an antidote to the weedy academic types around her, men like Phil and Peter, even Erik. Nelson would never sit and pore over dusty reference books; his preference is for doing things: striding over the marshes, questioning suspects, driving too fast. Sleeping with women who aren't his wife? Well, maybe. She senses it isn't the first time he has been unfaithful to the sainted Michelle. There was something practised about his demeanour this morning, gathering up his clothes, carefully not making any promises about when they would meet next. But there had been emotion too last night, something almost shy, and surprisingly tender. She remembers his sharp intake of breath when she first kissed him, the way he had murmured her name, the way he had kissed her, softly at first and then much harder, almost violently, his body pressed against hers.

Stop thinking about it, she tells herself as she lugs the bag downstairs. It was a one-off. It will never happen again. How can it? He is married, they have almost nothing in common. It was only the circumstances of last night that conjured up that particular spell. From now on they will just be policeman and expert witness, two professionals working together.

Flint purrs around her ankles and Ruth wonders what to do about him. She can't take him to Shona's. The change would upset him, especially coming so soon after Sparky's disappearance. She'll have to ask David to feed him. She remembers him saying once that he didn't like cats because they kill birds but surely he wouldn't mind just for a couple of days? Anyway, with the weekenders back in London there is no-one else to ask.

It is still only six o'clock. She makes herself coffee and toast (her first meal for twenty-four hours, she'll be a size 12 before she knows it) and sits at the table to watch the sun come up. The sky is still dark but there is a faint line of gold against the horizon. The tide is out and the early morning mist lies low over the marsh. This time yesterday, she and Nelson were just setting out across the mudflats.

At seven, she goes to call on David. She is sure he gets up early, for the dawn chorus or something. It is light now and the day is cold and clear, the sky washed clean by yesterday's rain. There will be nothing to stop the journalists today. Nelson is right; she must get away.

David takes a long time to open the door but when he does he is, thankfully, fully dressed. He is wearing waterproofs and looks like he has already been outside.

'I'm sorry to call so early,' says Ruth, 'but I've got to go away for a few days. Could you possibly feed Flint, my cat?'

David looks bemused. 'Flint?' he repeats.

'My cat. Could you come in and feed him for a few days? I'd be really grateful.'

David seems to be. registering her for the first time.

'Ruth,' he says. 'Were you involved in all that drama yesterday?'

Drama. The word seems wrong for what happened yesterday on the Saltmarsh. While the day had felt many things, it had never felt unreal. 'Yes,' says Ruth shortly, "I found the body.'

'My God!' David looks really shocked. 'How awful. I can see why you'd want to get away.'

'The press were after me yesterday. I want to lie low for a bit.'

"The press.' David's face darkens. 'Vermin. Did you see them yesterday? Trampling over the reed beds, dropping litter and cigarette butts everywhere. Will they be back today, do you think?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'I'd better be on patrol.' David looks grim. Ruth thinks it might be time to remind him about Flint. She proffers her key.

'So, is it alright about the cat? His food's in the kitchen.

He has one small tin every day and some biscuits. Don't let him persuade you he should have more. Otherwise, he'll just come and go. He's got a cat flap. I'll leave my contact details on the table.'

David takes the key. 'Food. Cat flap. Contact details.

Fine. Yes. OK.'

Ruth hopes that he will remember.

The roads are clear and she gets to the university in record time. The car parks are empty. It seems that journalists, like academics, are not early risers. She punches in the code to open the doors and escapes to her office with a sigh of relief. Here, at least, she can be safe for a while.

Three cups of coffee and several pages of lecture notes later, there is a knock at the door.

'Come in,' says Ruth. She assumes it will be Phil, coming for his dose of vicarious excitement.

But it's Shona. Ruth is surprised, Shona hardly ever ventures over from the Arts Faculty.

'Ruth!' Shona comes over to give her a hug. 'I've just heard about yesterday. You actually found that poor little girl's body.'

'Who told you?' asks Ruth.

'Erik. I saw him in the car park.'

It will be all over campus, thinks Ruth. She realises she was stupid to imagine that she could be safe, even here.

'Yes, I found her. She was buried in the peat, right in the centre of the henge circle.'

'My God.' Shona had been on the dig ten years ago, she would know the significance of the place, the sacred ground.

'Does Erik know where she was found?' asks Shona, sitting down.

'Yes. I think he's more upset about that than anything.

The police digging up the site. Contaminating the context.'

Ruth surprises herself with the bitterness in her voice.

'Why are they still digging?'

'Well, they think the other girl may be buried there. Lucy Downey.'

'The one who disappeared all that time ago?'

'Ten years ago. Just after the henge dig.'

'Do the police think they were killed by the same person?'

Ruth looks at Shona. Her face is soft, concerned, but Ruth also catches a trace of the slightly shamefaced curiosity that she recognises all too well. In herself.

"I don't know,' she says. "I don't know what the police think.'

'Are they going to charge that druid chap?'

'Cathbad? I'm sorry, Shona, I just don't know.'

'Erik says he's innocent.'

'Yes,' agrees Ruth. She wonders how much Erik has told Shona.

'What do you think?' persists Shona.

'I don't know,' says Ruth for what feels like the hundredth time. 'It's hard to think of him as a murderer.

He always seemed a harmless old thing, into peace and nature and all that. But the police must have some evidence otherwise they wouldn't be able to hold him.'

'That Detective Nelson sounds a real hard bastard.'

Briefly Ruth thinks of Nelson. Sees, as if projected in technicolour onto the wall opposite, his face above hers.

Feels his stubble against her cheek.

"I really don't know him that well,' she says. 'Look Shona, I've got a favour to ask you. Can I stay with you for a few days? You see, the press have got wind that I was involved. I think they might come round to my house and I'd just like to get away for a bit.'

'Of course,' says Shona at once. 'You're more than welcome. Tell you what, we'll have a takeaway and a few bottles tonight. Have a real girls' night in. Forget about everything and just unwind. What do you think?'

She doesn't quite know why but Ruth doesn't enjoy her girls'

night in as much as she expected. For a start she is exhausted and after a few glasses of Pinot Grigio she feels her eyelids begin to droop. Then, for perhaps the first time in her adult life, she just isn't that hungry. Usually she loves takeaways: the flimsy silver cartons, the gloriously greasy food, the mystery dish that you're never sure whether you ordered.

Usually, she loves it all. But, tonight, after a few mouthfuls of crispy aromatic duck, she pushes away her plate. The smell of soy sauce is starting to make her feel sick.

'What's up?' asks Shona, her mouth full. 'Dig in. There's loads.'

'I'm sorry,' says Ruth, 'I'm not very hungry.'

'You have to eat,' intones Shona, as if Ruth were an anorexic schoolgirl rather than an overweight woman in her late thirties. 'At least have another drink.' She sloshes more wine into Ruth's glass. 'Come on, chill out.'

Shona lives in a terraced house on the outskirts of King's Lynn. It is near the centre of town, all very urban, the perfect antidote to the Saltmarsh. And at first Ruth had just stood in the tiny front garden listening to the traffic and breathing in the pungent aroma of garlic and cumin from the nearby Indian takeaway. 'Come in,' Shona said.

'Stay outside too long and you'll get clamped. Christ, the parking round here.'

Ruth had come in and installed herself in Shona's spare room (polished floor, pine bed, Egyptian cotton sheets, prints of Paris and New York). Now I can relax, she told herself. No-one knows where I am. I can calm down, have a nice meal and a few glasses of wine. I'll be a new person tomorrow.

But it hasn't quite worked out like that. She feels twitchy, ill-at-ease. She keeps checking her phone though she isn't expecting anyone to call. She worries that David will forget to feed Flint. She misses her cottage and the desolate, doomed view over the Saltmarsh. She feels almost sick with tiredness but she knows she won't be able to sleep tonight. As soon as she shuts her eyes the whole thing will play again, like some X-rated movie on a continuous loop: the early-morning trek over the mudflats, the discovery of Scarlet's body, the little arm hanging down, Nelson at her door, red-eyed and unshaven, Nelson's body moving against hers…

Everything reminds her. Shona's ambient music playing softly in the background reminds her of the rain and the voices of the birds, suddenly stilled. The soft candlelight makes her think of the will o'the wisps with their treacherous flickering lights, leading unwary travellers to their deaths. When she looks at Shona's bookshelves and sees T.S. Eliot nestling next to Shakespeare she thinks of the Lucy Downey letters. We who were living are now dying.

'So do you think he will?' asks Shona, pouring more wine into Ruth's glass.

'What?' Ruth has completely lost track of the conversation.

'Leave

Anne. Do you think Liam will leave Anne?'

Not in a million years, thinks Ruth. Just as Nelson will never leave Michelle.

'Maybe. I don't know. Are you sure you want him to?'

"I don't know. If you'd asked me six months ago I would have said yes, but now? I think I would be terrified, to be honest. There's something safe about going out with a married man.'

'Is there?'

'Yes, you always think, if it wasn't for his wife, he'd be with me. You don't have to face up to anything else that might be wrong with the relationship. And it stays exciting. You don't have a chance to get bored.'

'Have you done this before then?' As far as Ruth knows, Liam is Shona's first married lover but she is talking like a veteran of extra-marital affairs. Like Nelson, she thinks cynically.

Shona's face suddenly takes on a closed, watchful expression. She fills up her own glass, splashing wine onto the trendy rush-matting rug.

'Oh, once or twice,' she says, with what sounds like deliberate casualness. 'Before I met you. Now, for heaven's sake drink up Ruth. You're way behind.'

Ruth was right about not being able to sleep. She tries to immerse herself in Rebus but Rebus and Siobhan become, embarrassingly and explicitly, herself and Nelson. She even opens her laptop and starts to work but, although way behind Shona, she has drunk too much to be interested in Mesolithic burial sites. Tombs, burials, bodies, bones, she thinks blurrily, why is archaeology so concerned with death?

She drinks some water, turns over her pillow and determinedly shuts her eyes. A hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, how many flint mines in Norfolk, hope David remembers Flint, hope Flint doesn't kill any rare marsh birds… Sparky's body in its flimsy cardboard coffin… Scarlet's arm hanging down below the tarpaulin… ninety-six, ninety-five… We who were living are now dying… ninety-four, ninety-three… he'll never leave his wife… why has Peter come back, why can't Shona forget about Liam, does Cathbad still love Delilah, why are the Iron Age bodies in a line, why did the line point to Scarlet… ninety-two, ninety-one…

The bleeping of her phone is a welcome relief. She snatches it up gratefully. A text message. The little screen gleams green in the dark. Caller unknown.

I know where you are.

The sky is full of noises. Thumping noises, crackling noises like very large birds hooting and calling. She knows it is daytime because the window is closed. She can't see anything, only hear the noises. She is scared and huddles in the corner of the room, under the blanket.

For a long time He doesn't come and she is hungry and more scared than ever. She finishes her water and looks in the dark for the piece of bread she thinks she dropped a few days ago. She wonders if she will die if he doesn't come to feed her. Maybe he is dead.

He doesn't come for a long time and her mouth is dry and the bucket in the corner starts to smell.

She edges her way around the room, looking for the bread. She can see lights through the sides of the trapdoor and she wants to call out but is afraid to. The stone walls are damp and mossy, smooth when she runs her hands over them. She can reach higher now, almost to the dry bits at the top where the stones are all crumbly like breadcrumbs.

Why can she reach higher? Is she getting bigger?

He says so. Too big, he says. What does that mean? Too big for what?

She reaches as high as she can and pulls at one of the stones. It comes away in her hands, surprising her, making her fall backwards. She sits on the floor and feels the edge of the stone with her thumb. It is sharp, it cuts her. She licks the blood; it tastes like the metal cup she drinks from but it's also salty, odd-tasting, strong. She licks until the blood has gone.

She takes the stone to the corner of the room where there is soil, not floor. She digs a hole and, very carefully, she places the stone in the hole and covers it with earth.

Then she stamps on the soil until it is all smooth again and no-one but her would know that something is buried there.

It is the first time she has had a secret. It tastes good.