'Ten, nine, eight…'
In the garden, Ed's capering figure looks suddenly demonic, outlined against the red glow of the fireworks.
'Seven, six, five…'
Sammy thrusts a Marmite pot into David's hand. He looks at it helplessly. As he turns to Ruth, he too is lit by technicolour flares. Red, gold, green.
'Four, three, two, one…'
'Happy New Year,' says David.
'Happy New Year,' echoes Ruth.
And, as Big Ben tolls mournfully in the background, the old year dies.
Nelson has sloped out to smoke a cigarette and text his daughters. Tony and Juan, too cool for Big Ben and the C-list celebs, have organised their own countdown with the help of Juan's Rolex. Unfortunately Juan's Rolex is five minutes slow so they have, technically, already missed the New Year. Laura, Nelson's eighteen-year-old, is out with her boyfriend. Rebecca, sixteen, is at a party.
He thinks grimly of young lads like he had once been, using the chimes of New Year as a chance for a snog. Or worse. A text message from their old dad might be just the thing to break the mood.
Happy New Year luv, he texts twice, with scrupulous fairness. Then, glancing down the menu, he sees the name after Rebecca's. Ruth Galloway.
He wonders what Ruth is doing tonight. He imagines her at a dinner party with some other lecturers, all being very clever and intellectual, word games over the brandy, that type of thing. Does she have a boyfriend? A partner, she'd probably call it. She never mentions anyone but he thinks Ruth is the sort of person to guard her privacy.
Like him. Maybe she has a girlfriend? But she doesn't look like his idea of a lesbian (which veers between shaven head and dungarees and the lipsticked porn-film version). Anyway, she might not dress for men but he doesn't think she dresses for women either. She looks, he searches for the word, self-sufficient, as if she doesn't much need other people. Maybe she's spending the evening on her own.
He wonders, for the hundredth time, if he's ever going to solve this case. Earlier in the evening he had heard two women talking about Scarlet Henderson. 'Still haven't found her… terrible for the parents… of course the police are doing nothing.' Nelson had had to control a murderous urge to storm over, seize the women by their surgery-enhanced necks and bellow: 'I'm working twenty-four hours a day on the case. I've cancelled all leave for my team. I've followed up every lead. I've looked at that little girl's face until it's imprinted on my eyelids. I dream about her at night. My wife says I'm obsessed. Every morning when I wake up, she's the first thing I think about. I haven't prayed since I was at school but I've prayed for her. Please God let me find her, please God let her be alive. So don't tell me I'm doing nothing, you emaciated bitches.' But, instead, he had just moved away, looking so thunderous that Michelle accused him of ruining everyone's evening. 'It's just selfish, Harry, can't you see that?'
Nelson sighs. From inside he can hear the sounds of champagne corks popping accompanied by an elderly soprano's rather dodgy high notes as she warbles 'Auld Lang Syne'. He looks down at his mobile phone with its glowing green numbers. On an impulse he texts quickly, Happy New Year HN, and presses send. Then he walks slowly back to the party.
She watches the square of light in the roof turn green and then gold and then red. There are bangs too and sudden whizzing noises. At first she is frightened and then she thinks she has heard these sounds before. When? How many times? She doesn't know. She thinks, once before, he spoke to her and told her not to worry. It was only…
What? She doesn't remember the word.
Usually she only hears the birds. The first ones come when it's still dark; long, wavy noises that she imagines like streamers wrapping themselves around everything. Party streamers, red, gold and green, like the lights in the sky.
Then there are the low sounds, deep down, like a man clearing his throat. Like him, when he coughs in the dark and she doesn't know where he is. The sounds she likes best are the ones very high up, twisting and turning in the sky. She imagines herself flying up to meet them, high up where it's blue. But the window is shut during the day so she never sees the birds themselves.
She looks up at the trapdoor. She wonders if he will come down again. She thinks she hates him more than anyone in the world but, then again, there isn't anyone else in the world. And sometimes he is kind. He gave her the extra blanket when it was cold. He gives her food though sometimes he is angry when she doesn't eat. 'We have to build you up,' he says. She doesn't know why. The words remind her of an old, old story, locked away long ago in that other time, the time she thinks must be a dream.
Something about a witch and a house made of sweets. She remembers sweets, little chocolate pebbles that you put on your tongue and they melted into thick sweetness, so sweet that you almost couldn't bear it.
She thinks he gave her chocolate once. She was sick and the stone floor smelt of it and she lay down and her head hurt and he gave her water to drink. The glass had chattered against her teeth. She's got more teeth now. He took the old ones; she doesn't know why. The new teeth feel crowded and odd in her mouth. She tried to see her reflection once, in a metal tray, but this horrible creature stared back at her. A ghost face, all white with wild black hair and terrible staring eyes. She doesn't want to look again.
CHAPTER 8
'We've found him.'
There is nothing more annoying, thinks Ruth, than someone who thinks they don't have to introduce themselves on the phone, who assumes that you must recognise their voice because it is so wonderfully individual. But, then again, she has recognised his voice. Those flat Northern vowels, the air of suppressed impatience, are unmistakable. Still, just to teach him a lesson, she says, 'Who is this?'
'It's Nelson. Harry Nelson. From the police.'
'Oh. Who have you found exactly?'
'Cathbad. Of course, that's not his real name. He's called Michael Malone.'
I knew that, Ruth wants to say. Instead she asks, 'Where did you find him?'
'He's still in Norfolk. Lives in a caravan at Blakeney. I'm going to see him now. I wondered if you'd like to come.'
Ruth is silent for a moment. Of course, part of her wants very much to come. She is more involved in this investigation than she likes to admit. She has spent hours rereading the letters, looking for clues, chance words, anything that might lead her to their author. She feels oddly close to Lucy and Scarlet and to the unnamed Iron Age girl found on the Saltmarsh. In her mind they are intrinsically linked to each other – and to her. She is also curious about Cathbad and, given that she was the one who gave his name to Nelson, also feels slightly responsible for him. On the other hand, Nelson's assumption that she would be ready to drop everything at a moment's notice is rather insulting. She is actually rather busy preparing lecture notes and updating her slides. Term starts next week. But, then again, there is nothing that can't wait a few hours.
'Hello? Ruth?' Nelson is saying impatiently.
'OK,' says Ruth, 'I'll meet you in half an hour. At the car park in Blakeney. Be careful, though, it floods at high tide.'
Blakeney is famous for its seals. At Blakeney Point, the land juts out into the sea, forming a shingle spit which is a breeding ground for seals. A number of local fishermen offer trips out to watch them, and in summer you can see the little boats shuttling to and fro all day from Blakeney Harbour to the spit, filled with excitable tourists wielding giant cameras. The seals take it all with commendable calm.
They lie on the beach in companionable heaps looking, Ruth always thinks, like drunks who have been chucked out of a pub. She is less tolerant and usually tries to avoid Blakeney in the summer but today the car park contains only a few vehicles, one of them Nelson's dirty Mercedes, parked as far from the sea as possible. Ruth pulls up her Renault next to Nelson's car and gets her Wellingtons out of the boot. She has lived in Norfolk long enough to know that it is almost always advisable to wear Wellingtons.