The Janus Stone

CHAPTER 26

‘How charming,’ says Father Hennessey politely, although the café chosen at random by Ruth is, in truth, anything but charming. Determined to avoid Starbucks she’d Googled ‘cafés Norwich’ and come up with Bobby’s Bagels, an old-fashioned greasy spoon with Formica tables and dirty net curtains. The owner (Bobby himself?) has at least three days’ worth of food spattered on his apron and is either talking on a hands-free phone or is in the grip of severe schizophrenia.

The café is, at least, fairly near to Woolmarket Street and Ruth was able to look in at the site as she went past. Apart from the archway, the old house has now vanished completely: reception rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, wishing well, outhouses all subsumed in a smooth sea of mud. At the back of the site, the new apartments are rising stealthily, now at first-floor height complete with flimsy-looking balconies. Edward Spens is obviously going all out to beat the property crash.

Ruth orders tea because she doesn’t trust the coffee. Father Hennessey orders coffee and, rashly, a bagel. This he eats with every appearance of relish despite the fact that the plate seems to have traces of egg on it. The priest looks completely calm and relaxed. It is Ruth who fiddles nervously with the sugar bowl and twice spills her (disgusting) tea.

‘You must have been delighted to see Martin again,’ she says.

Father Hennessey smiles. ‘Indeed I was. It was a great gift from God. I had feared I would die without knowing what had happened to Martin and Elizabeth.’

This is, presumably, more than a manner of speaking. Father Hennessey, Ruth knows from Max, is over eighty; death is no longer a metaphor. What must it be like, wonders Ruth, to know that you are going to die and to be sure that eternal life awaits?

‘Max… Martin… said that you were very good to him.’

Father Hennessey looks meditatively into his coffee cup. ‘Ah, I tried to be but we never know how much harder we could have tried. If I had been more understanding, maybe he wouldn’t have run away. Maybe Elizabeth wouldn’t have died.’

‘Maybe she would have,’ says Ruth gently. ‘Max says she was often ill as a child.’

Hennessey smiles but says nothing. There is a silence broken only by Bobby in the background having a fierce row with someone called Maggie. Eventually Ruth says, ‘You’re probably wondering why I asked to see you.’

‘I assumed you’d tell me,’ says Father Hennessey mildly.

So Ruth tells him about the baby and the two-headed calf, about the writing in blood and the presence lurking outside her house. She probably tells him more than she means to and she attributes this to some innate spooky priest power. Certainly Hennessey’s pale blue eyes never leave her face.

‘So,’ she concludes, ‘someone is trying to scare me. Someone linked to the house. And I wondered if you had any idea who that could be.’

She forces herself to confront that blue stare. Father Hennessey looks steadily back at her. ‘Do you have any ideas yourself?’ he asks.

‘No,’ says Ruth though, in truth, she does.

‘Have you ever met anyone else from the children’s home?’ asks Hennessey.

‘Only Kevin Davies.’

‘None of the nuns?’

‘No.’

Is he really, as Ted would say, going to pin it on the nuns? But the only person Ruth knows from the Sacred Heart Children’s Home is Father Hennessey himself.

‘Why do you ask?’ says Ruth.

For the first time, Hennessey does not meet her eyes. He looks down at the murky grey liquid in his coffee cup.

‘There are other secrets,’ he says at last. ‘The evil in that house began long before I ever saw it.’

Nelson is actually at Judy’s desk when she calls him. He has been looking for the transcript of her interview with Sister Immaculata and is, therefore, surprised and a little spooked to hear that Judy is actually on her way to Southport to see the nun again.

‘What are you playing at, Johnson?’

‘I think I’ve discovered something about Sister Immaculata. I think it’s important.’

Nelson starts to counts to ten and gives up on five. ‘When will you be back?’

‘Later tonight.’

He sighs. Judy is a good officer. He trusts her instincts and, God knows, they could do with a breakthrough.

‘No. Stay the night if you have to. I’ll get Tanya to stay at Ruth’s tonight.’

Some routine surveillance will do Tanya good, he thinks. She’s been a bit too pleased with herself lately. He hopes she hasn’t got her eyes on Judy’s job. Tanya is obviously intelligent but she still has a lot to learn. Besides he would never promote a newcomer over a long-standing officer. Nelson believes in precedence; it comes of being the youngest of three.

He continues rifling through Judy’s (incredibly neat) papers and comes across the sheet of paper on which she has jotted down the Spens family tree.

He stares at the scribbled names, sure he is missing something. He is so deep in thought that he doesn’t hear his name being called. It is not until Cathbad is actually in the room with him that he registers his presence, purple cloak and all. Tom, the desk sergeant, hovers in the background looking embarrassed.

Since the Saltmarsh case, Nelson and Cathbad have almost become friends. There is an understanding between them, despite Nelson’s contempt for new age philosophy and Cathbad’s dislike for authority. Cathbad has even visited Nelson’s house, bearing dreamcatchers for the girls and Nelson has once or twice met him for a drink in dodgy pubs where the beers all have names and, unless you are careful, people play folk music at you.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ says Tom. ‘He said it was important.’

Nelson notices that, cloak notwithstanding, Cathbad does look unusually serious, even worried.

‘What it about?’ he asks.

‘Max Grey,’ Cathbad answers.

Judy arrives at Southport at just after four to be told that Sister Immaculata is ‘unwell’ and can’t see anyone.

‘It’s important,’ pleads Judy, standing in the spotless reception area surrounded by tropical plants and pictures of saints.

‘I’m sure it is,’ says the Sister sympathetically, ‘but Sister Immaculata is having a bad day. Perhaps she’ll be brighter tomorrow.’

So, after promising to be back tomorrow, Judy finds herself on Southport seafront, tired, hungry, discouraged and slightly scared. What if Nelson is furious with her for disappearing like that? What if Ruth gets murdered tonight and it’s all her fault? What if Tanya finds the dental records, solves the case and gets promoted? She sighs and starts to walk towards the nearest B and B.

Ruth had not been pleased to open her door expecting Judy but finding Tanya Fuller, designer glasses flashing, on the doorstep. She likes Judy and had been looking forward to seeing her again. The morning’s conversation with Father Hennessey has left her rather more unsettled than before. What did he mean, ‘The evil in that house began long before I ever saw it.’? ‘Surely you don’t mean the place is haunted?’ Ruth had answered lightly.

‘Maybe I do,’ the priest had replied.

‘But priests don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘Sure we do,’ Hennessey had smiled. ‘What about the Holy Ghost? The most important one of the trilogy as far as I’m concerned.’

All rubbish as far as Ruth is concerned but, driving back along the misty Saltmarsh road, she kept having a ridiculous compulsion to look in her mirror to check that no one was sitting on the back seat. Even now, as she cooks supper for herself and Tanya, she puts on the radio to stop herself wondering if she can hear breathing outside.

Ruth doesn’t cook much (although she loves reading cookery books, preferably with pictures of Tuscan olive groves) and she slightly resents cooking for Tanya. It had been all right with Judy but preparing a meal for this stranger sitting on the sofa picking cat’s fur off her black trousers, this is different and slightly stressful. Nevertheless Ruth cooks pasta and sauce and mixes a salad. She and Tanya chat in a desultory manner as they eat. Ruth learns that Tanya is twenty five and has been in the police force four years, she is a graduate (sports science) and she thinks keeping fit is a moral imperative. Ruth listens to this in silence, helping herself to an extra piece of garlic bread. Tanya thinks Norfolk is ‘very nice’, her colleagues are ‘very nice’ and Nelson is also ‘very nice’.

‘Don’t you find him a bit of a bully?’

‘No. He’s been very nice to me.’

He’s been nice to me too, thinks Ruth, and look where that got me. She looks out of the window and thinks of Nelson and that night, four months ago, when he turned up unexpectedly at her front door. The sun is setting over the marshes and the birds wheel into the air, shifting black clouds against the deep blue sky.

‘Beautiful view,’ says Tanya politely.

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ says Ruth. She thinks of the Saltmarsh and its secrets: the hidden causeway, the henge, the bodies buried where the land meets the sea. Last year she had nearly died on the marshes. She had thought that the danger was over and that she could live quietly for a while. But somehow danger seems to have found her again.

Tanya eats a tiny amount of pasta, pausing between each mouthful. Ruth has finished her second helping before Tanya has eaten her first. They drink water (‘I’m on duty’) and Tanya reacts to the offer of pudding as if Ruth had tried to sell her drugs. Ruth eats a slice of chocolate cake and wonders what the hell they are going to talk about all evening. Perhaps they can just watch TV.

She is about to suggest this when, without warning, the lights go out. Tanya jumps up, alert at once.

‘It’s OK,’ says Ruth, ‘it’s only the fuse. It does that occasionally. The box is out the back.’

The fuse box is in a small outhouse in the back garden. Ruth’s neighbours, the weekenders, have converted their outhouse into another bathroom but Ruth’s just contains rusty gardening equipment, a defunct exercise bicycle and the remains of a rotary washing line.

‘I’ll go,’ says Tanya.

‘Don’t be silly. It’s right by the back door. Anyway, you’d never find the box. There’s no light in the shed.’

Ruth puts on her shoes and opens the kitchen door. It is dark outside and a fresh, salty wind is blowing. She steps into the garden, feeling for the side of the shed with one hand. She can feel the flint wall, the rotting wood of the door. She reaches out to touch the handle.

And encounters living flesh.