Ruth Galloway (11 page)

Inside, the first sensation is of being in a tent. Midnight blue draperies hang from the ceiling and cover every piece of furniture. Ruth can just make out a bunk bed with cupboards under it, a cooker, covered with rust and food stains, a wooden bench seat and a table, this time covered with billowing red material. The blue drapes give a strangely dreamlike feeling, as do the twenty or so dream-catchers twinkling gently from the ceiling. The air is thick and musty. Ruth sees Nelson sniffing hopefully but she doesn't think it is cannabis. Joss sticks, more likely.

Cathbad gestures them towards the bench before seating himself in a high-backed wizard's chair. First point to him, thinks Ruth.

‘Mr Malone,' says Nelson. ‘We're investigating a murder and we'd like to ask you a few questions.'

Cathbad looks at them calmly. ‘You're very abrupt,' he says, ‘are you a Scorpio?'

Nelson ignores him. From his pocket he pulls out a photograph and puts it on the table in front of Cathbad. ‘Do you recognise this girl?' he asks.

Ruth looks curiously at the picture. She has never seen a picture of Lucy Downey and is struck by the resemblance to Scarlet Henderson. The same dark, curling hair, the same smiling mouth. Only the clothes are different. Lucy Downey is wearing a grey school uniform. Scarlet, in the picture Ruth saw, had been wearing a fairy dress.

‘No,' says Cathbad shortly. ‘What's all this about?'

‘This little girl vanished ten years ago,' says Nelson, ‘when you and your mates were getting all worked up about that henge thing. I wondered if you'd seen her.' Unexpectedly, Cathbad is angry. Ruth remembers his
ability to change emotions in a second. Now, his face dark in the blue light, he looks like his younger self.

‘That henge thing,' he says in a voice shaking with rage, ‘was a holy site, a place dedicated to worship and sacrifice. And Doctor Galloway's
friends
proceeded to destroy it.'

Ruth is rather shocked to find herself under attack. Nelson, though, positively quivers at the words ‘worship and sacrifice'.

‘We didn't destroy it,' Ruth says, rather lamely. ‘It's at the university. In the museum.'

‘The museum!' mimics Cathbad savagely. ‘A dead place, full of bones and corpses.'

‘Mr Malone,' cuts in Nelson. ‘Ten years ago, you were … how old?'

‘I'm forty-two now. Not that I count the years on the temporal plane.'

Nelson ignores this. ‘So, ten years ago you would have been thirty-two.'

‘Full marks for the maths, Detective Chief Inspector.'

‘What were you doing ten years ago, aged thirty-two?'

‘Looking up at the stars, listening to the music of the spheres.'

Nelson leans forward. He doesn't raise his voice but suddenly Ruth feels the temperature in the caravan drop. She is suddenly aware of an undercurrent of violence in the room. And it isn't coming from Cathbad.

‘Look,' says Nelson softly, ‘either you answer my questions civilly or we go down to the station and do it there. And, I promise you, when it gets out that you've been questioned in connection with this case, you won't be looking
at the stars. You'll be looking at a gang of vigilantes trying to burn your bloody caravan down.'

Cathbad looks at Nelson for a long moment, drawing his cloak around him as if for protection. Then he says, in a low monotone, ‘Ten years ago I was living in a commune near Cromer.'

‘And prior to that?'

‘I was a student.'

‘Where?'

‘Manchester.' Cathbad suddenly looks at Ruth and smiles, rather oddly. ‘Studying archaeology.'

Ruth lets out an involuntary gasp. ‘But that's where—'

‘Erik Anderssen taught. Yes. That's where I met him.'

Nelson seems uninterested in this but Ruth's mind is racing. So Cathbad knew Erik long before the henge dig. Why hadn't Erik mentioned it? Erik had been her tutor when she did her doctorate at Southampton but she knew that previously he had been a lecturer at Manchester. Why hadn't Erik told her that he had been Cathbad's tutor too?

‘So, what did you do, on this commune? Did any of you do any real work?'

‘Depends what you mean by real,' says Cathbad with a flash of his old spirit. ‘We grew vegetables, we cooked them, we made music, we sang, we made love. And I was a postman,' he adds, as an afterthought.

‘A
postman
?'

‘Yes. Is that real enough for you? Early starts, it suited me fine. I love the dawn, leaves you with the rest of the day free.'

‘Free to disrupt the henge dig?'

‘Disrupt!' The fire is definitely back in Cathbad's eyes.
‘We were trying to save it! Erik understood that. He wasn't like the rest of those …' He pauses for an epithet strong enough. ‘Those …
civil servants
. He understood that the site was holy, sacred to the place and to the sea. It wasn't about carbon dating and crap like that. It was about being at one with the natural world.'

Nelson cuts in again. Ruth can tell he stopped listening at about the word ‘holy'. ‘And when the dig finished?'

‘Life went on.'

‘You went on being a postman?'

‘No. I got another job.'

‘Where?'

‘At the university. I still work there.'

Nelson looks at Ruth who stares at him blankly. All these years, Cathbad has been working beside her at the university. Did Erik know?

‘Doing what?'

‘Lab assistant. My first degree was in chemistry.'

‘Did you hear about the disappearance of Lucy Downey?'

‘I think so. There was a lot in the papers, wasn't there?'

‘And Scarlet Henderson?'

‘Who? Oh, the little girl who went missing recently. I heard about it, yes. Look Inspector …' Suddenly his voice changes and he draws himself up in the wizard's chair. ‘What's all this about? You've got nothing that links me to these girls. This is police harassment.'

‘No,' says Nelson mildly, ‘just routine enquiries.'

‘I won't say anything more without a solicitor present.'

Ruth expects Nelson to argue (something along the lines that only guilty men need solicitors) but instead he stands
up, hitting his head on a dream-catcher. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Malone. Just one thing. Can I have a sample of your handwriting?'

‘My handwriting?'

‘Yes. For our enquiries.'

Cathbad looks as if he is about to refuse but then he slowly gets up and goes to a filing cabinet which is sitting incongruously in a corner of the caravan. He unlocks a drawer and pulls out a sheet of paper. Ruth wonders why a man living in a caravan full of dream-catchers would also have a locked filing cabinet.

Nelson looks down at the writing and, just for a second, his face darkens. Ruth sees his jaw muscles clench and wonders what's coming. But instead Nelson smoothes out the paper and says in a bland, social voice, ‘Thank you very much, Mr Malone. Good day.'

‘Goodbye,' says Ruth weakly. Cathbad ignores her.

Ruth and Nelson scrunch away over the shingle. The fishermen are still sitting on the harbour wall. The tide is coming in, bringing with it a heady, briny smell and a host of seagulls, calling and crying overhead.

‘Well?' says Nelson at last, ‘what do you think?'

‘I can't believe he works at the university.'

‘Why not? It's full of weirdos, that place.'

Ruth can't tell if he is joking or not. ‘It's just … if Erik knew, he didn't tell me.'

Nelson looks at her. ‘Are you close then, you and this Erik bloke?'

‘Yes,' says Ruth, rather defiantly.

‘He's coming to England soon, isn't he?'

‘Next week.'

‘I'll look forward to meeting him.'

Ruth smiles. ‘He said the same about you.'

Nelson grunts sceptically. They have almost reached their cars, which are still on dry land although the water is lapping round some unfortunate vehicles parked lower down.

‘It'll play havoc with their suspension,' says Nelson.

‘What about his writing?' asks Ruth. In reply, Nelson hands her the piece of paper. It seems to be a poem entitled ‘In praise of James Agar'.

‘Who's James Agar?' she asks.

‘Bastard who killed a policeman.'

‘Oh.' She begins to see why Cathbad chose this particular piece of paper. She glances down the lines. The handwriting is extravagant, full of swirls and loops. It is nothing like the writing in the Lucy Downey letters.

‘It's not the same,' she says.

‘Doesn't mean he's off the hook.'

‘Do you suspect him then?'

Nelson pauses, one hand on his car door. ‘I'm not ruling him out,' he says at last. ‘He's a slippery character. He was in the area at the time and he knows all about that mystic stuff. He's clever too, and he's got something to hide. Why was that cabinet locked? I'm going to come back with a search warrant.'

‘Will you get one?'

‘Probably not. He was right when he said I had nothing on him. That's why I say he's clever.'

Not quite knowing why she says it, Ruth volunteers, ‘Erik says he has magic powers.'

This time Nelson laughs out loud. ‘Magic powers!
Nothing magic about him that a kick up the arse won't cure.' He gets into his car but pauses before putting the key in the ignition. ‘Mind you,' he says, ‘he did get one thing right. I am a Scorpio.'

As Ruth turns into New Road she sees a familiar red sports car parked in front of her house. Shona often explains that her car is a penis substitute and, like the real thing, is often unreliable. Ruth hasn't seen Shona since before Christmas and wonders what new dramas she will have to report. She quite enjoys Shona's love life – second hand, she wouldn't want to live it herself, just as she wouldn't drive a scarlet Mazda. Fat chance of either, she thinks, as she parks behind Shona's car – number plate: FAB 1.

Shona, huddled up in a sheepskin coat, is standing looking out over the Saltmarsh. Dark clouds are gathering over the sea, which gives the whole place an ominous feel. Shadows race over the mudflats and the seagulls are flying inland, sure sign of a storm to come.

‘Jesus, Ruth,' says Shona, ‘I don't know how you can live here. This place gives me the creeps.'

‘I like it,' says Ruth mildly. ‘I like being able to look right out to the horizon, with nothing in the way.'

‘No people, no shops, no Italian restaurants.' Shona shudders. ‘It wouldn't do for me.'

‘No,' agrees Ruth. ‘Do you want some lunch?'

In the cottage they are greeted ecstatically by Flint. Ruth goes into the kitchen and arranges cheese, pate and salami on a plate. Shona sits at the table by the window, talking.

‘I'm definitely going to end it with Liam. He says he loves me but he's obviously never going to leave Anne. Now she's got to have an operation and he can't do anything to upset her. I bet it's just a tummy tuck, anything to avoid making a decision. It was awful on New Year's Eve. Liam kept shoving me into cupboards and saying he loved me and trying to feel me up, then next minute he was back with his arm round Anne talking about their extension. And Phil kept asking me if I'd got a bloke yet. Wanker. Just because I wouldn't go to bed with him. And Phil's awful wife telling me that I'd got a mauve aura. Bloody cheek, I hate mauve; it clashes with my hair.'

She pauses to eat a piece of bread, shaking out her red-gold hair so that it shimmers in the dim afternoon light. Ruth wonders what it must be like to be so beautiful. Exhausting, to judge from what Shona says. Yet it must be exciting too – imagine if every man you met wanted to go to bed with you. Briefly, she flicks through a mental card index of the men in her life: Phil, Erik, her students, Ed next door, David, Harry Nelson. She can't really imagine any of them panting with desire for her. The thought is absurd and oddly disturbing—

‘Ruth!'

‘What?'

‘I was asking what you did on New Year's Eve.'

‘Oh, well, I had a cold, like I told you, so I decided to stay home but next door were having a party and the music was so loud that I gave in and went round.'

‘Did you? What was it like?'

‘Pretty boring. My neighbour kept asking annoying questions about archaeology.'

‘Anyone interesting or were they all smug marrieds?'

‘Mostly couples. There was another neighbour, David, the bird warden.'

‘Oh.' Shona perks up at the thought of an unattached man. Unconsciously she rakes her fingers through her hair so that it falls more seductively across her face. ‘What was he like?'

Ruth considers. ‘OK. Quiet. Interesting, though a bit obsessive about birds.'

‘How old?'

‘My age, I think. Fiftyish.'

‘Ruth! You're not forty yet.'

‘I will be in July.'

‘We must have a party,' says Shona vaguely, licking her finger to pick up cheese crumbs. ‘And what about this highly mysterious police work you've been doing?'

‘Who told you about that?'

‘Phil.'

‘Oh, well it's not very mysterious really. This policeman asked me to look at some bones he'd found but they weren't modern, they were Iron Age.'

‘Why did he think they might be modern?'

‘He was looking for the body of a girl who disappeared ten years ago.'

Shona whistles. ‘There's been another little girl gone missing recently, hasn't there?'

Ruth nods. ‘Scarlet Henderson.'

‘Are you involved in that too?'

Again, Ruth hesitates. She is not sure how much she wants to tell Shona. Shona is always so
interested
in everything, she is sure to make Ruth say more than she wants to.
Nelson has told her that the contents of the letters are confidential (‘Don't want the press getting hold of it') but, then again, Shona is the literature expert.