Could this man – ridiculous, impressive, passionate – really be a killer? Is it possible that a few months after that stand at the henge Cathbad had kidnapped Lucy Downey and killed her?
When she reaches the Saltmarsh, the tide is out and the birds are coming in to feed, their white feathers catching the last of the setting sun. Watching them, Ruth thinks of David, his face transformed as he talked about the migrating birds; and of Peter, saying sadly that he just wanted to come back.
Going back. When Ruth met Peter she was not yet thirty.
She had been newly appointed to the job at North Norfolk University and was full of energy and enthusiasm. Peter, a history research fellow at the University of East Anglia, had heard on the academic grapevine about the dig. He had simply turned up one morning with his backpack and bedroll and asked if they wanted help. They had teased him for being a city boy – though he was actually from Wiltshire and had spent five years in the Australian outback. They laughed at the straw hat that he wore to keep the sun off his pale skin, at his lack of knowledge of archaeological terms. He had always referred to the Pleistocene as the plastocine and could never remember which came first, Bronze Age or Iron Age. Yet he was obsessed with the henge and listened enthralled to Erik's tales of ritual and sacrifice. It was he who had found the first oak stump, exposed when a summer storm had blown the sand away from its base. Peter had been frantically digging around the stump when he had been caught by the tide and eventually rescued by Erik.
It was that evening that she realised she loved him, Ruth remembers. They had always got on well together, learning up on the dig, laughing at the same things. Erik's wife, Magda, had noticed, and often seemed to contrive to leave the two of them together. Once she had read Ruth's palm and told her that a tall red-haired stranger was about to come into her life. Once Ruth had cut herself and Peter had helped her put on the plaster; the touch of his hand had made her tremble. And as they sat by the campfire on the evening of his near-drowning, Ruth had looked at Peter and thought: now, it has to be now. He could have drowned today, we mustn't waste any more time. And she remembers smiling to herself because it seemed such a momentous, and yet such a joyful, thought. Peter had looked up and met her eyes. He had got up and suggested a walk to collect samphire. Magda had discouraged anyone else from accompanying them. They had walked to the water's edge, the sound of the sea rustling in the dark and, smiling, had walked into each other's arms.
And now, as Ruth lets herself into her cottage, she wonders if she really wants Peter back in her life. After the walk on Sunday, he has called twice but she hasn't seen him again. He is staying nearby, she could call him tonight, suggest going out for a drink, but she knows she won't. She is not sure what Peter means by 'coming back'. Does he mean coming back to her} And, if so, is that what she wants? Having ended the relationship, with so much heart searching, does she really want them to get together again?
And why does the new slightly bitter Peter seem more attractive than the adoring Peter of five years ago?
Inside the cottage a clock ticks lugubriously and the seabirds are calling from the marshes. Otherwise, all is silent. Flint, who is obviously nervous without Sparky, leaps down from the sofa back, making Ruth jump. There is something ominous in the silence, she realises, as if the house is waiting for something. Her footsteps, as she goes to the kitchen to feed Flint, echo on the floorboards. The radio is no help – the reception is so bad that all she can hear are muffled crackles, as if the announcer has been gagged and is struggling for freedom. This is so disconcerting that she switches it off and the silence returns, heavier than ever.
Ruth makes herself some tea and sits at her computer, meaning to do some work. But the silence is still at her back, making the hairs on her neck rise. She swings round.
Flint is lying on the sofa again but he is not asleep. He is watchful, alert, looking beyond her, towards the window and the twilight. Is there something out there? Summoning up all her courage, Ruth goes to the door and opens it noisily. Nothing. Only the birds wheeling and calling as they fly inland. A long way off, she can hear the sea. The tide is turning.
Ruth slams the door shut and, as an afterthought, puts on the security chain. Then she pulls the curtains and sits down to work.
But the Lucy letters insist on running through her mind.
The same phrases, over and over again. You are looking for Lucy but you are looking in the wrong places… Look where the land lies. Look at the cursuses and the causeways.
Ruth
rubs her eyes. Flint jumps onto the table and rubs his head against her hand. Mechanically, she strokes him.
She is missing something, she knows it. It is as if she has all the evidence from a dig, all the pottery shards and flakes of flint, all the soil samples, and she can't put it together to make a proper picture. What did Erik say? The most important thing is the direction.
Ruth gets out her map of North Norfolk. She traces a line from Spenwell, where the bones were found in the Hendersons' garden, to the bones at the edge of the Saltmarsh. She catches her breath. The line, cutting through Spenwell village and the dual carriageway, is almost exactly straight. Trembling slightly, she continues the line along the route marked by the causeway. It leads where she always thought it would: the line points, as straight as an arrow, to the centre of the henge circle. To the sacred ground.
She looks down at her page of notes. Under the heading 'Cursuses' she has written: 'Can be seen as lines pointing to sacred places. Longest cursus in Britain =10 km. Sight lines – tell you where to look.'
The house is still waiting, it is dark outside now and even the birds are silent. With a shaking hand Ruth reaches for her phone.
'Nelson? I think I know where Scarlet is buried.'
CHAPTER 16
They wait for the tide and set off at first light. When they return from the henge circle, with Scarlet's body zipped into a police body bag, Ruth is driven back to her house.
She left Nelson in the car park where they first found the bones. He is waiting for a policewoman to arrive so they can break the news to Scarlet's parents. Ruth doesn't offer to accompany them. She knows it is pure cowardice, but right at this moment she would rather run into the sea and drown herself than face Delilah Henderson. Nelson presumably feels the same but he still has to do it. He doesn't speak to Ruth, or to the sceneof-crime officers who arrive promptly in their white jumpsuits. He stands apart, looking so forbidding that no-one dares approach him.
On the way home Ruth asks the driver to stop so she can be sick. She is sick again, back in the cottage, listening to the radio news. 'Police searching for four-year-old Scarlet Henderson have found a body believed to be that of the missing child. Police sources are refusing to confirm…'
The missing child. How can those few words convey the horrific pathos of the little arm encircled by the silver bracelet? The little girl taken from the people who loved her: murdered, buried in the sand, covered by the sea.
When had he buried her? At night? If she had looked would Ruth have seen lights, like will o'the wisps, guiding her to the dead child?
She calls Phil and tells him that she won't be coming in.
He is agog but remembers to feel sorry for Scarlet's parents: 'Poor people, it doesn't bear thinking about.' But Ruth has to think about it, all day long. Ten minutes later, Peter phones. Does Ruth want him to come over? She says no, she is fine. She doesn't want to see Peter; she doesn't want to see anyone.