The Crossing Places

'Erik told me. Why? Did you think I did it?'

Ruth doesn't know what to think. Is she trapped in the kitchen with a cat killer, or worse, a child murderer? She looks at Cathbad as he stands there, holding Flint in his arms. His face is open, slightly hurt-looking. He doesn't look like a killer but then what does a killer look like?

"I don't know what to think,' she says. 'The police have charged you with writing those letters.'

Immediately, Cathbad's face darkens. 'The police! That bastard Nelson has it in for me. I'm going to sue him for wrongful arrest.'

'Did you write them?'

Cathbad smiles and puts Flint gently back on the floor.

'I think you know I didn't,' he says. 'You've read them, after all.'

'How did you…?'

'Nelson's not as clever as he thinks he is. He gave it away. Yakking on about archaeology terms. There's only one person who could have told him all that. You're very friendly, you two, aren't you? There's definite energy between you.'

Ruth says nothing. Cathbad may not, as Erik claims, be magic but there is no denying that some of his shots hit the mark.

"I know you, Ruth,' says Cathbad chattily, hitching himself up to sit on the work surface. "I watched you fall in love with that red-haired fellow all those years ago. I know what you're like when you're in love. You were in love with Erik too, weren't you?'

'Of course not!'

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

'Girlfriend? What do you mean?'

'That beautiful girl with all the hair. Looks like a Renaissance picture. Frimavera or something. Teaches at the university. She was sympathetic to us, I remember.

Joined in the protests. Well, until it started to get serious.'

'Shona?' Ruth whispers. 'That's not true.'

'No?' Cathbad looks at her, head on one side, while Ruth shuffles quickly through her memories. Shona and Erik always liked each other. Erik called her The Lady of Shalott after the Waterhouse portrait. An image comes to her, clear as a film flashback, of Shona plaiting Erik's grey ponytail. 'Like a horse,' she is saying, 'a Viking carthorse,'

and her hand rests lightly on his cheek.

Cathbad smiles, satisfied. "I need you to clear my name, Ruth,' he says.

"I thought the police didn't press charges.'

'Oh no, they didn't charge me with the murders, but if they never find the killer, it'll always be me, don't you see?

Everyone will always think I did it, that I killed those two little girls.'

'And did you?' asks Ruth, greatly daring.

Cathbad's eyes never leave her face. 'No,' he says. 'And I want you to find out who did.'

He has come back. When she sees him climbing in through the trapdoor she doesn't know if she is pleased or sorry.

She is hungry though. She tears at the food he has brought – crisps, sandwiches, an apple – stuffing another mouthful in her mouth before she has finished the first.

'Steady,' he says, 'you'll make yourself sick.'

She doesn't answer. She hardly ever speaks to him. She saves talking for when she is alone, which, after all, is most of the time, when she can chat to the friendly voices in her head, the ones that tell her it is darkest before dawn.

He gives her a drink in a funny orange bottle. It tastes odd but she gulps it down. Briefly she wonders if it is poison like the apple the wicked witch gave Snow White, but she is so thirsty she doesn't care.

'I'm sorry I couldn't come before,' he says. She ignores him, chewing up the last of the apple, including the pips and core.

'I'm sorry,' he says again. He often says this but she doesn't really know what it means. 'Sorry' is a word from long ago, like 'love' and 'goodnight'. What does it mean now? She isn't sure. One thing she knows, if he says it, it can't be a good word. He isn't good, she is sure of it now.

At first she was confused, he brought her food and drink and a blanket at night and sometimes he talked to her.

Those were good things, she thought. But now she thinks that he keeps her locked in, which isn't good. After all, if he can climb through the trapdoor, up into the sky, why can't she? Now she is taller she has tried to jump up to the door and the barred window but she never manages it.

Maybe one day, if she keeps getting taller and taller, as tall as… what was it called? As tall as a tree, that's it. She'll push her branches through the hole and carry on, up, up to where she hears the birds singing.

When he has gone she digs up her sharp stone and runs the edge of it against her cheek.

CHAPTER 20

Ruth is awoken from confused dreams by a furious knocking at the door. She staggers downstairs, groggy with sleep, to find Erik, dressed in army surplus and a bright yellow sou'wester, standing on the doorstep.

'Good morning, good morning,' he says brightly, like some crazed holiday rep. 'Any chance of a cup of coffee?'

Ruth leans against the door frame. Is he mad or is she?

'Erik,' she says weakly, 'what are you doing here?'

Erik looks at her incredulously. 'The dig,' he says. 'It starts today.'

Of course. Erik's dig. The one approved by Nelson. The dig that aims to answer the riddle of the Iron Age body and the buried causeway. To find out whether the Saltmarsh has any more secrets.

"I didn't know it was today,' says Ruth, backing into the house. Erik follows, rubbing his hands together. He has probably been up for hours. Ruth remembers that one of his traditions on a dig was to see the sun rise on the first day and set on the last.

'Yes,' Erik is saying casually. 'Nelson said it had to be after the funeral and that was yesterday, I believe.'

'It was. I was there.'

'Were you?' Erik looks at her in surprise. 'Why ever did you go

'I don't know,' says Ruth, putting on the kettle. 'I felt involved somehow.'

'Well, you aren't involved,' says Erik shortly, removing his sou'wester. 'High time you stopped all this detective nonsense and concentrated on archaeology. That's what you're good at. Very good. One of my very best students, in fact.'

Ruth, who bridles with indignation at the start of this speech, softens somewhat by the end. Even so, she isn't about to let Erik get away with this.

'Archaeologists are detectives,' she says. 'That's what you've always said.'

Erik dismisses this with a shrug. 'This is different, Ruthie. You must see that. You've given the police the benefit of your professional advice. Now leave it at that.

There's no need to become obsessed.'

'I'm not obsessed.'

'No?' Erik smiles in an irritating, knowing way that reminds Ruth of Cathbad. Have they been discussing her?

'No,' says Ruth shortly, turning away to pour the coffee.

She also puts some bread in the toaster. No way is she going to dig on an empty stomach.

'The poor girl is dead,' says Erik gently, his accent like a lullaby. 'She is buried, she is at peace. Leave it at that.'

Ruth looks at him. Erik is sitting by the window, smiling at her. The sun gleams on his snowy hair. He looks utterly benign.

'I'm going to get dressed,' says Ruth. 'Help yourself to coffee.'

The dig is already well underway by the time Ruth arrives.

Three trenches have been marked out with string and pegs, one by the original Iron Age body, the other two along the path of the causeway. Archaeologists and volunteers are very gently lifting off the turf in one-inch squares; they will aim to put the grass and soil back at the end of the dig.

Ruth remembers from the henge excavation that digging on this marshy land is a tricky business. The furthest trench, which is beyond the tide mark, will fill with water every night. This means it will, in effect, have to be dug afresh every day. And the tide can take you by surprise.

Ruth remembers that Erik always used to have one person on 'tide watch'; sometimes the tide comes in slowly, creeping silently over the flat landscape. At other times the earth becomes water before you have time to catch your breath. These fast tides, called rip tides, could cut you off from land in the blink of an eye.