The Crossing Places

Would she have been found by archaeologists, puzzled over as an academic curiosity, her real history forever unknown?

'I've had another letter,' Nelson says, breaking the silence.

'What?'

In answer, Nelson brings a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. 'It's a copy,' he explains. 'Original's with forensics.'

Ruth leans forward to read: Nelson,

You seek but you do not find. You find bones where you hope to find flesh. All flesh is grass. I have told you this before. I grow tired of your foolishness, your inability to see. Do I have to draw a map for you?

Point a line to Lucy and to Scarlet?

The nearer the bone, the sweeter the flesh. Do not forget the bones.

In sorrow.

Ruth looks at Nelson. 'When did you get this?'

'Today. In the post. It was sent yesterday.'

'So, when Cathbad was in custody?'

'Yes.' Nelson looks up. 'Doesn't mean he couldn't have arranged to have it sent though.'

'Do you think that's what he did?'

'Maybe. Or this letter could be from a different person.'

'It reads like the others,' says Ruth, examining the typewritten paper. 'Biblical quotation, the tone, the reference to sight. It even says "I have told you this before."'

'Yes. That struck me too. Almost as if he was trying too hard to tie it to the other letters.'

Ruth looks at the words, Point a line to Lucy and to Scarlet. She remembers last night tracing the path on the map from the Spenwell bones to the marsh bones to the henge circle. She shivers. It is almost as if the writer was at her shoulder, watching her as she drew the line that led to Scarlet. And the bones. Do not forget the bones. There is a lot about bones in this letter. Bones are her speciality. Is the writer sending her a message?

'The nearer the bone, the sweeter the flesh,' she reads aloud. 'That's horrible, like cannibalism.'

'It's a proverb,' says Nelson, "I looked it up.'

'So, do you still think Cathbad did it?'

Nelson sighs, running his hands through his hair so that it stands up like a crest. "I don't know, but I haven't got enough to charge him. No DNA, no motive, no confession.

We've been over his caravan with a toothcomb, found nothing. I'll keep him until I get the forensics report. If I find a trace of his DNA on Scarlet then he's finished.'

Ruth looks at Nelson. Maybe it's the rumpled hair and the dishevelled clothes but he looks younger somehow, almost vulnerable.

'But you don't think he did it, do you?'

Nelson looks at her. 'No, I don't,' he says.

'Then who did?'

"I don't know.' Nelson lets out another sigh that is almost a groan. 'That's the terrible, shaming thing. All those hours of investigation, all that police time, all that searching and questioning and I've still got no bloody idea who killed those two little girls. No wonder the media are shouting for my head.'

'I got a call from The Chronicle this evening.'

'Bastards! How did they know about you? I've been so careful to keep your name out of it.'

'Well, they were bound to find out sometime.'

Who could have told them though, Ruth thinks. Erik?

Shona? Peter?

'They'll make life hard for you,' warns Nelson. 'Is there anywhere you could go for a few days?'

'I could stay with my friend Shona.' Even as she says it, Ruth dreads the long cosy evenings of Shona trying to worm out information. She'll just have to work late most nights.

'Good. I've sent my wife and kids away to my mum. Just until the worst is over.'

'When will the worst be over?'

'I don't know.' Nelson looks at her again, his dark eyes troubled. She can hear the rain and the wind outside but somehow it seems a long way away, as if this room, this tiny circle of light, is all that is left in the world.

Nelson is still looking at her. 'I don't want to go home,'

he says at last.

And Ruth reaches out to lay her hand on his. 'You don't have to,' she says.

The silence wakes Ruth. The wind and the rain have stopped and the night is still. She thinks she hears an owl hooting and, very far off, the faint sigh of the waves.

The moon shines serenely through the open curtains and illuminates the crumpled bed, the strewn clothes and the sleeping figure of DCI Harry Nelson, breathing heavily, one arm flung out across Ruth's breasts. Gently Ruth lifts the arm and gets up to put on some pyjamas.

She can't believe she went to bed naked. Somehow that is even harder to believe than the fact that she went to bed with Nelson. That she laid her hand on his, that she, seconds later, reached over to touch her lips with his. She remembers his slight hesitation, a whisper of indrawn breath, before his hand reached up behind her head and he pulled her to him. They had clung to each other, kissing desperately, hungrily, as the rain battered against the windows. She remembers the roughness of his skin, the surprising softness of his lips, the feel of his body against hers.

How could this have happened? She hardly knows Harry Nelson. Two months ago she had thought him just another boorish policeman. All she does know is that last night they seemed to share something that set them apart from all the world. They had seen Scarlet's body as it rose, lifeless, from the sand. They had, in some small way, shared her family's pain. They had read the letters. They knew of the evil presence out there in the dark. They knew of Lucy Downey too, feared that the next discovery would be her body. And, at that moment, it had seemed only natural that this knowledge should draw them into each other's arms, that they should blot out the pain with the comforts of the body. They might never do it again but last night… last night had been right.

Even so, thinks Ruth, pulling on her nicest pyjamas (she isn't about to let him see the grey ones with built-in feet), he'd better leave soon. The press knows about her. The last thing either of them wants is for the media to discover the leading policeman in the Scarlet Henderson case in bed with the bones expert. She looks down at Nelson. In sleep he looks much younger, his dark eyelashes fanned out on his cheek, his harsh mouth gentle. Ruth shivers but not from the cold.

'Nelson?' she shakes him.

He is awake immediately.

'What is it?'

'You'd better go.'

He moans. 'What time is it?'

'Almost four.'

He looks at her for a moment as if wondering who she is and then smiles. The surprisingly sweet smile that she has only seen once or twice before.

'Good morning Doctor Galloway.'

'Good morning DI Nelson,' says Ruth, 'you'd better get dressed.'

As Nelson reaches for his clothes, Ruth sees a tattoo high on his shoulder, blue writing around some kind of shield.

'What does your tattoo say?' she asks.

'Seasiders. It's a nickname for my team, Blackpool. Had it done when I was sixteen. Michelle hates it.'

There, he has said her name. Michelle, the perfect wife, who hovered between them all last night, is suddenly there in the room. Nelson, pulling on his trousers, seems unconscious of what he has said. Perhaps he does this all the time, thinks Ruth.

Dressed, he looks a different person. A policeman, a stranger. He comes over to her, sits on the bed and takes her hand.

'Thanks,' he says.

'What for?'

'Being there.'

'Just doing my duty as a citizen.'

He grins. 'You should get a medal.'

Ruth watches as he retrieves his mobile from under the bed. She feels oddly detached, as if she is watching something on television. But she doesn't really watch that sort of programme; she prefers documentaries.

'Will you go to your friend's house?' asks Nelson, shrugging on his jacket.

'Yes. I think so.'

'Well, keep in touch. Any trouble from those press bastards, give me a shout.'

'I will.'