The Crossing Places

'Does he admit anything?'

'No.' A harsh laugh. 'Says it's all a set-up, wicked police state and all that. But he can't deny he knows the Hendersons: turns out he's the father of the eldest girl.'

'What?

'Yes. He knew Delilah Henderson when she was still at school. He was a student at Manchester, she lived nearby.

They had an affair and the result was Madeleine.

Apparently they lived together for a bit but then she left him for another bloke.'

'Alan Henderson?'

'No, someone else. He came later. Anyway, she left Malone and he claims he hasn't seen her to this day. Had no idea she was living nearby.'

'He must have seen her on the TV. When Scarlet first went missing.'

'Hasn't got a TV. Harmful rays, apparently, polluting the atmosphere. Hasn't got a mobile phone because of the radiation. Nutcase.'

'Do you think he is mad?'

'Don't you believe it. Cunning as a nest of snakes.'

'How long can you hold him?'

'Twenty-four hours. But I'll apply for an extension.'

'Will you tell the press?'

'Not if I can help it.'

But someone did tell them, because that night on the nine o'clock radio news Ruth heard that 'a local man has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of four-year-old Scarlet Henderson.' She had switched on the TV news and, immediately, Nelson's face, dark and forbidding, had filled the screen. 'Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson,' intoned the newsreader, 'who, up to now, has had to admit no progress in the case of little Scarlet Henderson, was tonight unavailable for comment.' As if to prove this, Nelson swept past the hovering reporters and bounded up the steps to the police station. Ruth watched fascinated, feeling slightly smug despite herself that she knew what the inside of the station looked like, could imagine Nelson in his ungainly slice of room examining the evidence, shouting impatiently for coffee, looking again at the laughing face of Scarlet Henderson on the wall.

'The man is believed to be forty-two-year-old Michael Malone, a lab technician at North Norfolk University.'

Jesus, thought Ruth, they know his name. Now all hell will break loose.

And it had. This morning, Ruth had been stopped at the university gates and asked to show her ID. Nodding her through, the policeman had told her to avoid the chemistry wing. Naturally this had aroused her curiosity and she had driven straight round to find the entrance to the chemistry department completely blocked by cars, trailers, even a portaloo. TV camera crews jostled to and fro, waving giant fluffy microphones. Anyone entering the building was greeted by a hysterical babble of questions, 'Do you know Michael Malone? Who is he? What sort of…' Ruth heard French, Italian, even, she thought, an American accent.

Hastily she backed away to the relative calm of the archaeology block.

Erik had arrived an hour later, eyes blazing, white hair flying.

'Have you heard? Have you heard?'

'Yes.'

'What are you going to do about it?'

"Me? What can I do?'

'You're friendly with this policeman, this Neanderthal, aren't you?'

'Not exactly friendly…'

Erik had looked at her narrowly. 'That's not what Cathbad said. He said you and this Nelson turned up together to interview him. Very cosy. He said there was a definite chemistry between you.'

'Bollocks.' Unthinkingly, Ruth employs Nelson's favourite word.

Erik didn't seem to have heard her. 'It is obvious that this Nelson is using Cathbad as a scapegoat and you, Ruth, you delivered Cathbad to him. On a plate.'

The sheer unfairness of this made Ruth gasp. 'I didn't! I asked you if you remembered his name. You told me.'

'And you told Nelson.'

'He would have found him anyway.'

'Would he? He seems a complete incompetent to me.

No, he used you to deliver Cathbad. He used you, Ruth.'

'What if Cathbad did do it?' Ruth countered angrily.

'Don't you want the murderer to be found?'

Erik smiled pityingly. 'Ruth, Ruth. He really has got to you, hasn't he? You're even thinking like a policeman.'

That had been an hour ago and Ruth and Erik are still circling the topic furiously. Ruth is angry that Erik thinks her a patsy, a fool who has been used by the cynical Nelson in his attempt to pin the crime on Cathbad. But, secretly, she does feel slightly guilty. She suggested Cathbad to Nelson. She pointed him in the direction of the henge and the dig ten years ago. If Cathbad didn't do it, his life could be ruined by this notoriety. He could even go to prison for a crime he didn't commit. But what if he did do it?

'I don't know what's going on,' she says again.

Erik looks at her, his blue eyes cold. 'Then find out, Ruthie.'

Then, just as Ruth thinks it can't get any worse, Phil puts his head round the door.

'I couldn't help overhearing, it's a teeny bit loud in here.

How are you Erik?' He puts out his hand. After a second's pause, Erik takes it.

'Fine apart from an innocent man being under arrest.'

'Oh that poor soul from the chemistry department. Do you know him?'

'Yes. A former student of mine.'

'No!' Phil's eyes are round with interest. 'Is he an archaeologist then?'

'He did a postgraduate degree at Manchester.'

'How did he end up here?'

Erik gestures towards Ruth, who is sitting behind her desk, as if for protection. 'Ask Ruth, she knows.'

'Ruth, are you involved in all this?'

'You knew I was helping with the case.'

'Just with the bones, I thought.'

This, Ruth realises, is how Phil sees her. Only concerned with bones, a dull specialisation, useful but ultimately marginal. She is not a heroine type like Shona, she does not belong centre stage.

'Ruth gave Cathbad's name to the police,' says Erik spitefully.

'Cathbad?' Phil looks confused.

'Erik knows Michael Malone as Cathbad,' Ruth shoots back. 'They're old friends.'

Phil glances from Ruth to Erik, enthralled. 'Are you?' he asks. 'Old friends?'

'Yes,' hisses Erik, 'and I'm going to clear my old friend's name.'

And he sweeps out, colliding in the doorway with Ruth's student, a polite Chinese man called Mr Tan, who is most surprised to find himself at the receiving end of a stream of Norwegian invective.

'I'll leave you to it, Ruth,' says Phil. 'Let's catch up later.'

Not if I can help it, thinks Ruth. She turns to Mr Tan.

'I'm so sorry. We were going to talk about your dissertation.

What was it about again?'

'Decomposition,' says Mr Tan.

Ruth has to battle past the reporters again on her way home. The news reports gave no further developments in the case. 'Police have been granted another twenty-four hours to question the suspect, believed to be forty-two year-old Michael Malone from Blakeney.'

Ruth switches off the radio. She still feels uneasy about Cathbad's arrest. Although she doesn't, like Erik, think that Cathbad is simply a scapegoat, equally it is hard to think of him as a murderer. Yet he could conceivably be the author of those letters. Erik hasn't read them. He can't hear the erudite, sinister, taunting voice. She lies where the earth meets the sky. Where the roots of the great tree Yggdrasil reach down into the next life… She has become the perfect sacrifice. Blood on stone. Scarlet on white. Thinking of Cathbad in his wizard's chair, the dream catchers glittering around him, Ruth can imagine him writing these lines. But abducting and killing a little girl?

He is the father of Scarlet's half-sister, how could he possibly have done this to Scarlet? To Delilah, whom presumably he had once loved?

And what about Lucy Downey, all those years ago? Ruth thinks of Cathbad in his prime, purple cloak fluttering, exhorting his followers to stand firm against the police and the archaeologists. She has a vision of him standing within the timber circle, arms aloft, as the seawater swirls around his feet and the other druids clamber to safety. She had thought at the time that if conviction could stop the tide the sea would surely turn in its tracks. But of course it hadn't, and ten minutes later Cathbad too was scrambling for the higher ground, holding his sodden robe above his knees.