Ruth Galloway (23 page)

Ruth kneels beside Erik, who is examining one of the posts.

‘Are you going to take it out?' asks Ruth.

Erik shakes his head. ‘No, I want to keep it in place but I'm worried the waves will loosen it if we dig too far down.'

‘Don't you need to see the base?'

‘Yes, if possible. Look at this wood though. It looks as if it has been sawn in half.'

Ruth looks at the post. The other, softer wood has been worn away by the constant movement of the tides. What's left is the hard centre of the wood, ragged and somehow menacing-looking.

‘It looks like the same wood that was used for the henge posts,' says Ruth.

Erik looks at her. ‘Yes, it does. We'll have to see what the dendrochronology says.'

Tree-dating, or dendrochronology, can be amazingly exact. A tree lays down a growth ring each year, more in wet years, fewer in dry years. By looking at a graph showing growth patterns, archaeologists can chart the growth fluctuations. This process is called ‘wiggle watching' (Peter always used to find this hilarious). Wiggle watching, combined with radiocarbon dating, can tell you the actual year and the actual season when a tree was felled.

Ruth goes to help with the trench where the Iron Age body was discovered. She still has a fellow feeling with this girl who was fed mistletoe and tied down to die. She sees her as somehow linked to Lucy and Scarlet. She can't help thinking that if she solves the riddle of the Iron Age girl she might just throw some light on the deaths of the other two girls.

More than anything though it is wonderful to be digging again. Like the day when she helped Nelson fill in Sparky's grave, it is a relief to forget the heartache and terror and excitement in uncomplicated, physical labour. Ruth settles
down to trowelling, getting into a rhythm, ignoring the twinges in her back and concentrating on moving the soil in neat cross-sections. After yesterday's rain the ground is sticky and sodden.

Cathbad eventually left last night after Ruth promised to help clear his name. She would have promised almost anything to get him out of the house, he was giving her the creeps sitting there in his wizard's cloak with his knowing grin. But, despite herself, as she digs, she can't stop his words running on a continuous loop in her head.

I felt sorry for you because you didn't get a look-in, what with his wife and girlfriend both on the dig
…

Did
Erik and Shona have an affair on the henge dig? Shona is very gorgeous and Ruth knows that no man is impervious to beauty (look at Nelson with Michelle). But Erik has a beautiful wife of his own, and one, moreover, who seemed to share his interests and enthusiasms. Ruth thinks of Magda, whom she has always liked and admired. Magda has almost been a surrogate mother, one who won't say threateningly that she is praying for her or buy her an Oxfam goat for Christmas. Magda, with her sea-blue eyes and ash-blonde hair, her voluptuous figure in fisherman's jumpers and faded jeans, her gleam of Nordic jewellery at the neck and wrists. Ruth remembers once reading about the goddess Freya, the patroness of hunters and musicians, with her sacred necklace and persuasive powers and thinking – that's Magda. Easy to imagine Magda, both youthful and ageless, holding the sacred distaff of life, the power of life and death. How could Erik have risked all this for an affair with Shona?

Is she jealous, Ruth asks herself as she trowels and sifts?
Not sexually jealous. She has always known that Erik could never be interested in her, but she had thought that she was special to him. Hadn't he written on the title page of
The Shivering Sand
, ‘To Ruth, my favourite pupil'? But it turns out that she hadn't been his favourite after all. Ruth digs her trowel into the soil with unnecessary venom, causing a mini landslide and earning her a shocked look from the dreadlocked girl next to her.

‘Ruth!'

Eager to be distracted from her buzzing, unpleasant thoughts, Ruth looks up. Standing in the trench, she sees the newcomer from the bottom up: walking boots, waterproof trousers, mud-coloured jacket. David.

David kneels down on the edge of the trench.

‘What's going on?' he asks.

Ruth pushes a lock of sweaty hair out of her eyes. ‘It's an archaeological dig,' she says. ‘We're excavating the Iron Age grave and the causeway.'

‘Causeway?'

‘Those buried posts you showed me. We think it's a Bronze Age causeway. A kind of pathway possibly leading to the henge.' Ruth looks down, hoping David won't realise that it was she who told the archaeologists about the posts.

But David has other things on his mind. ‘Well, mind you don't go near the hide. The furthest one. There's a rare Long Eared Owl nesting there.'

The Long Eared Owl sounds like he made him up but Ruth can see that David is genuinely worried. ‘I'm sure we won't go near the hide,' she says soothingly. ‘The trenches are all over to the south.'

David stands up, still looking anxious. ‘By the way,' Ruth calls after him, ‘thanks for looking after Flint. My cat.' She had meant to get him a box of chocolates or something.

His face is transformed by a sudden smile. ‘That's OK,' he says. ‘Any time.'

David is looking over towards the car park. Following his gaze, Ruth sees a familiar dirty Mercedes coming to a halt by the bird sanctuary notice board. Nelson, wearing jeans and a battered Barbour, gets out and strides towards the trench. Unconsciously, Ruth rubs her muddy hands on her trousers and tries to smooth her hair.

‘Hello Ruth.' Ruth is fed up with looking up at people. She heaves herself out of the trench.

‘Hello.'

‘Bit of a circus, isn't it?' says Nelson, looking round disapprovingly at the archaeologists swarming over the site. The dreadlocked girl chooses this moment to start singing a high-pitched folk song. Nelson winces.

‘It's all very organised,' says Ruth. ‘Anyway, you gave permission for the dig.'

‘Yes, well, I need all the help I can get.'

‘Did you find anything at the henge circle?'

‘Not a thing.' Nelson is silent, looking out, past the pegged-out trenches and the neat mounds of soil, towards the sea. He is thinking, she is sure, of the morning when they found Scarlet's body.

‘I saw you yesterday,' says Nelson, ‘at the funeral.'

‘Yes,' says Ruth.

‘Good of you to go.'

‘I wanted to.'

Nelson looks as if he is going to say something else, but at that moment a familiar lilting voice cuts in. ‘Ah, Chief Inspector …' It is Erik.

As far as Ruth knows, this is a promotion for Nelson, but he doesn't offer a correction. He greets Erik fairly cordially, and after a few words with Ruth the two men walk away talking intently. Ruth feels unaccountably irritated.

By lunchtime she is tired and fed up. She is considering sneaking off back to her cottage for a cup of tea and a hot bath when two slim hands wrap themselves over her eyes.

‘Guess who?'

Ruth breaks free. She has recognised the perfume anyhow. Shona.

Shona flops down on the grass next to Ruth. ‘Well?' she asks, smiling, ‘found anything interesting?'

As usual Shona looks stunning despite (because of?) looking as if she hasn't tried. Her long hair is caught up in a messy bun and she is wearing jeans that make her legs look like pipe-cleaners and a puffy silver jacket which only emphasises her slimness. I'd look like a walking duvet wearing that, thinks Ruth.

‘Just some more coins,' she says. ‘Nothing much.'

‘Where's Erik?' asks Shona, slightly too casually Ruth thinks.

‘Talking to Nelson.'

‘Really?' Shona raises her eyebrows at Ruth. ‘I thought they couldn't stand each other.'

‘So did I but they seem matey enough now.'

‘Men,' says Shona lightly, pulling her jacket more tightly
round her. ‘It's bloody freezing. How long are you going to stay?'

‘I was just thinking of going back to the house for a cup of tea.'

‘What are we waiting for then?'

On the way back to the house, Ruth wrestles with her conscience. Shona has really been very kind to her, letting her stay with her at a moment's notice. Ruth hasn't even thanked her properly, just disappeared yesterday leaving a brief answerphone message. She needs to go back and pick up her things. Shona has been a good friend to her over the years. When Ruth split up with Peter, she provided a shoulder to cry on plus several vats of white wine. They have spent countless evenings together, laughing, talking, crying. They even went on holiday together, to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Is Ruth really going to let Cathbad's spiteful rumours get in the way of this friendship?

‘I'm sorry about taking off like that,' she says at last. ‘For some reason after the funeral I just wanted to be at home.'

They have reached that home now. Ruth opens the door for Shona.

‘That's OK,' says Shona. ‘I completely understand. Was it awful, the funeral?'

‘Yes,' says Ruth, putting on the kettle. ‘It was terrible. The parents were just shattered. And the little coffin … it was all too heart-breaking.'

‘I can imagine,' says Shona, sitting down and taking off
the silver jacket. ‘There can't be anything worse than losing a child.'

Everyone says that, thinks Ruth, maybe because it's true. It's difficult to imagine anything worse than burying your child, a complete inversion of the natural order of things. Briefly, she thinks of Lucy Downey's parents walking away from the funeral, arm-in-arm. Was that worse? To lose your daughter and not be able to say goodbye?

She makes tea and sandwiches and they sit there companionably in silence. Outside it has started to rain, which strengthens Ruth's resolve not to go back to the dig.

Eventually Ruth says, ‘I saw Cathbad yesterday.'

‘Who?'

‘Michael Malone. You know, the one they questioned about Scarlet's murder.'

‘Jesus! Where did you see him?'

‘Here. He came to talk to me.'

‘Bloody hell, Ruth.' Shona shivers. ‘I'd have been terrified.'

‘Why?' asks Ruth, even though she had been so scared that she had slept last night with a kitchen knife by her bed. ‘He wasn't charged with the murder, you know.'

‘I know, but even so. What did he want?'

‘Said he wanted me to clear his name.'

‘What a cheek.'

‘Yes, I suppose so,' says Ruth, who has been obscurely flattered.

‘What's he like, this Cathbad?'

Ruth looks at her. ‘Don't you remember him? He remembers you.'

‘What?' Shona has taken out her combs and shaken out her hair. She stares at Ruth, apparently bewildered.

‘Don't you remember him from the henge dig? He was the leader of the druids. Always wore this big, purple cloak. He remembers you were sympathetic to them, joined in the protests.'

Shona smiles. ‘Cathbad … Now I remember. Well, he was quite a gentle soul as I recall.'

‘Erik says he has magic powers.'

Now Shona laughs aloud. ‘Dear old Erik.'

‘Cathbad says you had an affair with Erik.'

‘What?'

‘Cathbad. He says you and Erik had an affair on the henge dig, ten years ago.'

‘Cathbad! What does he know?'

‘Did you?'

Instead of answering, Shona twists her hair into a tight knot and puts the combs back in, their little teeth digging viciously into her skull. She doesn't look at Ruth, but Ruth knows the answer now.

‘How could you do it, Shona?' she asks. ‘What about Magda?'

She is shocked at the virulence with which Shona turns on her.

‘What do you care about Magda, all of a sudden? You don't know anything about it, sitting there, judging me. What about you and Peter? He's married now, didn't you know?'

‘Peter and I aren't …' stammers Ruth. ‘We're just friends,' she finishes lamely. Inside, though, she knows that Shona is right. She is a hypocrite. What did she care about Michelle when she invited Nelson into her bed?

‘Oh yeah?' sneers Shona. ‘You think you're so perfect, Ruth, so above all those human feelings like love and hate and loneliness. Well, it's not as simple as that. I was in love with Erik,' she adds, in a slightly different tone.

‘Were you?'

Shona flares up again. ‘Yes, I bloody well was!
You
remember what he was like. I'd never met anyone like him. I thought he was so wise, so charismatic, I would have done anything for him. When he told me that he was in love with me, it was the most wonderful moment of my life.'

‘He told you that he was in love with you?'

‘Yes! Does that surprise you? Did you think he had the perfect marriage with Magda? Jesus, Ruth, they both have affairs all the time. Did you know about Magda's toyboy, back home in Sweden?'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘Ruth, you're such an innocent! Magda has a twenty-year-old lover called Lars. He fixes her sauna and then hops into bed with her. And he's one of many. In return, Erik does what he likes.'

To rid her mind of the image of Magda with her twenty-year-old handyman lover, Ruth turns to the window. The Saltmarsh has almost disappeared beneath the slanting, grey rain.

‘Did you think I was the first?' asks Shona bitterly. ‘There are graduate students all over England who can say they went to bed with the great Erik Anderssen. It's almost an essential part of your education.'

But not of my education, thinks Ruth. Erik treated me as a friend, a colleague, a promising student. He never once
said a single word that could be construed as a sexual invitation.

‘If you knew he was like that,' she asks at last, ‘why did you go to bed with him?'

Shona sighs. All the anger seems to seep out of her, leaving her limp, like her silver jacket lying collapsed on the floor.