The Crossing Places

CHAPTER 29

Purple cloak flying out behind him, Cathbad leads the way across the marshes. Occasionally he stops and shines the torch at the ground and then he turns slightly to the right or left. Nelson follows. He feels his jaw locked with frustration, but he has to admit that, so far, Cathbad hasn't put a foot wrong. On either side of them he can see still water and dark, treacherous marshland but their feet remain on the twisting stony path. Thunder is rolling above them, the rain beats down unmercifully. Nelson is soaked but none of this matters if they find Ruth.

It is so dark that sometimes he almost loses sight of Cathbad, though he is only a few paces in front. Then he sees a glimmer of purple and realises that the old nutter is still there. Once or twice, Cathbad turns to him, grinning manically.

'Cosmic energy,' he says.

Nelson ignores him.

Where the hell is Ruth? And Erik? Whatever possessed Ruth to go running off like that, chasing over the marshes on the worst night of the year? Nelson sighs. When he thinks of Ruth, a kind of reluctant tenderness constricts his throat. He thinks of her lists, her love for her cats, her refusal to drink station coffee, the calm way she can dig through layers of mud and come up with a priceless THE CROSSING PLACES

treasure. He thinks of the way she fed him coffee and listened, the night Scarlet was found. He thinks of her body, actually rather magnificent unclothed, white in the moonlight. He thinks of her at Scarlet's funeral, her eyes red, and of her face when she told him that Erik was the author of the letters. He sighs again, almost a groan. He's not in love with Ruth but somehow she gets to him. If anything happens to her, he will never forgive himself.

Cathbad stops again and Nelson almost bumps into him.

'What's the matter?' He has to shout to be heard above the wind.

'I've lost the path.'

'You're joking!'

Cathbad sweeps the beam of the torch over the ground.

'Some of the posts are submerged…'he mutters. 'I think this is it.'

He takes a step forward and disappears. He doesn't even have time to scream. He just vanishes, swallowed up by the night. Nelson jumps forward and is just in time to catch a handful of cloak. He pulls, the cloak tears, but now he has got hold of Cathbad's arm. Cathbad is up to his neck in the mud and it takes all Nelson's strength to haul him out.

Finally, with a ghastly sucking noise, the marsh relinquishes its prey. Cathbad kneels on the path, head down, panting.

He is completely covered in mud, his cloak in tatters.

Nelson yanks him to his feet. 'Come on, Cathbad, you're not dead yet.' It is the first time he has called Malone by his adopted name, but neither of them notices this.

Cathbad grasps Nelson's arm, his eyes look white and wild in his blackened face. 'I am in your debt,' he says, fighting for breath. 'The spirits of the ancestors are strong, they are all about us.'

'Well, we're not about to join them yet,' Nelson tells him briskly. 'Where's that torch?'

Ruth and Lucy stare at each other, terrified. The footsteps are coming nearer. Ruth's mind works frantically. They are trapped, they can't leave the hide without Erik catching them. Unconsciously Ruth moves in front of Lucy. Will Erik attack them both? How can she defend herself, defend Lucy? She looks wildly around the hide but it is completely empty. If only she had a stone or a piece of wood. Where is the stone that Lucy was carrying?

The footsteps come nearer and, at the same moment, the moon slides out from behind the clouds. A man's figure approaches, wearing yellow waterproofs. Hang on, wasn't Erik in black? The man reaches the steps to the hide and, in the moonlight, Ruth sees his face.

It isn't Erik. It is David.

'David!' shouts Ruth. 'Thank God!' David has come to save her again. David, who knows every step of the marshes. David who, she realises, is the only person who really loves the place. She feels giddy with relief.

But, behind her, Lucy starts to scream.

Nelson hears the scream. He grabs Cathbad's arm.

'Where did that come from?'

Cathbad points over to the right. 'From over there,' he says vaguely.

'Come on.' Nelson sets out, running, staggering over the waterlogged ground.

'No!' shouts Cathbad. 'You're off the path.

But Nelson keeps running.

Lucy screams and, in that second, Ruth understands everything.

'You!'

She stares at David. 'It was you.'

David looks calmly back at her. He looks no different from the kind, diffident, slightly eccentric David she thought she knew. Christ, she had even, for a minute or two, almost fancied him.

'Yes,' he says. "Me.'

'You killed Scarlet? You kept Lucy a prisoner here for all these years?'

David's face clouds. 'I didn't mean to kill Scarlet. I brought her as company for Lucy. Lucy was growing up. I wanted a younger one. But she struggled. I tried to make her be quiet and… she died. I didn't mean to do it. I buried her in the sacred place. Erik told me it was the right thing to do.'

'Erik? So he knew about this?'

David shakes his head. 'He didn't know but he talked to me, all those years ago, about burial places and sacrifices.

He told me that in prehistoric times they buried children on the marshland, as an offering to the Gods. So I buried Scarlet where the wooden circle used to be. But you dug her up again.' His face darkens.

'You killed my cat,' bursts out Ruth. She knows she shouldn't mention Sparky, she shouldn't be antagonising David, but she can't help herself.

'Yes. I hate cats. They kill birds.'

He takes a step closer. Ruth grabs hold of Lucy, who is shaking violently.

'Keep away from her.'

'Oh, I can't let you go now,' says David, in a sweet, reasonable voice. 'She'd never survive in the wild. She's been in captivity too long. I'll have to kill you both.'

And then Ruth sees that he is holding a knife, a very serious-looking knife. The moonlight gleams on the jagged blade.

'Run!' she yells and, dragging Lucy after her, she sprints past David and into the night.