Even the trenches near to dry land have their problems.
Although Erik has already mapped the area, the land can shift overnight, nothing remains certain. Archaeologists tend to become twitchy if they can't rely on their coordinates.
Ruth
finds Erik leaning over the furthest trench. Because of the shifting ground, the trench is narrow and reinforced with sandbags. Two men are standing in the trench, looking nervously at Erik. Ruth recognises one of them as Bob Bullmore, the forensic anthropologist.
Ruth kneels beside Erik, who is examining one of the posts.
'Are you going to take it out?' asks Ruth.
Erik shakes his head. 'No, I want to keep it in place but I'm worried the waves will loosen it if we dig too far down.'
'Don't you need to see the base?'
'Yes, if possible. Look at this wood though. It looks as if it has been sawn in half.'
Ruth looks at the post. The other, softer wood has been worn away by the constant movement of the tides. What's left is the hard centre of the wood, ragged and somehow menacing-looking.
'It looks like the same wood that was used for the henge posts,' says Ruth.
Erik looks at her. 'Yes, it does. We'll have to see what the dendrochronology says.'
Tree-dating, or dendrochronology, can be amazingly exact. A tree lays down a growth ring each year, more in wet years, fewer in dry years. By looking at a graph showing growth patterns, archaeologists can chart the growth fluctuations. This process is called 'wiggle watching' (Peter always used to find this hilarious). Wiggle watching, combined with radiocarbon dating, can tell you the actual year and the actual season when a tree was felled.
Ruth goes to help with the trench where the Iron Age body was discovered. She still has a fellow feeling with this girl who was fed mistletoe and tied down to die. She sees her as somehow linked to Lucy and Scarlet. She can't help thinking that if she solves the riddle of the Iron Age girl she might just throw some light on the deaths of the other two girls.
More than anything though it is wonderful to be digging again. Like the day when she helped Nelson fill in Sparky's grave, it is a relief to forget the heartache and terror and excitement in uncomplicated, physical labour. Ruth settles down to trowelling, getting into a rhythm, ignoring the twinges in her back and concentrating on moving the soil in neat cross-sections. After yesterday's rain the ground is sticky and sodden.
Cathbad eventually left last night after Ruth promised to help clear his name. She would have promised almost anything to get him out of the house, he was giving her the creeps sitting there in his wizard's cloak with his knowing grin. But, despite herself, as she digs, she can't stop his words running on a continuous loop in her head.
I felt sorry for you because you didn't get a look-in, what with his wife and girlfriend both on the dig…
Did Erik and Shona have an affair on the henge dig?
Shona is very gorgeous and Ruth knows that no man is impervious to beauty (look at Nelson with Michelle). But Erik has a beautiful wife of his own, and one, moreover, who seemed to share his interests and enthusiasms. Ruth thinks of Magda, whom she has always liked and admired.
Magda has almost been a surrogate mother, one who won't say threateningly that she is praying for her or buy her an Oxfam goat for Christmas. Magda, with her sea-blue eyes and ash-blonde hair, her voluptuous figure in fisherman's jumpers and faded jeans, her gleam of Nordic jewellery at the neck and wrists. Ruth remembers once reading about the goddess Freya, the patroness of hunters and musicians, with her sacred necklace and persuasive powers and thinking – that's Magda. Easy to imagine Magda, both youthful and ageless, holding the sacred distaff of life, the power of life and death. How could Erik have risked all this for an affair with Shona?
Is she jealous, Ruth asks herself as she trowels and sifts?
Not sexually jealous. She has always known that Erik could never be interested in her, but she had thought that she was special to him. Hadn't he written on the title page of The Shivering Sand, 'To Ruth, my favourite pupil'? But it turns out that she hadn't been his favourite after all.
Ruth digs her trowel into the soil with unnecessary venom, causing a mini landslide and earning her a shocked look from the dreadlocked girl next to her.
'Ruth!'
Eager to be distracted from her buzzing, unpleasant thoughts, Ruth looks up. Standing in the trench, she sees the newcomer from the bottom up: walking boots, waterproof trousers, mud-coloured jacket. David.
David kneels down on the edge of the trench.
'What's going on?' he asks.
Ruth pushes a lock of sweaty hair out of her eyes. 'It's an archaeological dig,' she says. 'We're excavating the Iron Age grave and the causeway.'
'Causeway?'
'Those buried posts you showed me. We think it's a Bronze Age causeway. A kind of pathway possibly leading to the henge.' Ruth looks down, hoping David won't realise that it was she who told the archaeologists about the posts.
But David has other things on his mind. 'Well, mind you don't go near the hide. The furthest one. There's a rare Long Eared Owl nesting there.'
The Long Eared Owl sounds like he made him up but Ruth can see that David is genuinely worried. 'I'm sure we won't go near the hide,' she says soothingly. 'The trenches are all over to the south.'
David stands up, still looking anxious. 'By the way,'
Ruth calls after him, 'thanks for looking after Flint. My cat.' She had meant to get him a box of chocolates or something.
His face is transformed by a sudden smile. 'That's OK,'
he says. 'Any time.'
David is looking over towards the car park. Following his gaze, Ruth sees a familiar dirty Mercedes coming to a halt by the bird sanctuary notice board. Nelson, wearing jeans and a battered Barbour, gets out and strides towards the trench. Unconsciously, Ruth rubs her muddy hands on her trousers and tries to smooth her hair.
'Hello Ruth.' Ruth is fed up with looking up at people.
She heaves herself out of the trench.
'Hello.'
'Bit of a circus, isn't it?' says Nelson, looking round disapprovingly at the archaeologists swarming over the site. The dreadlocked girl chooses this moment to start singing a high-pitched folk song. Nelson winces.
'It's all very organised,' says Ruth. 'Anyway, you gave permission for the dig.'.
'Yes, well, I need all the help I can get.'
'Did you find anything at the henge circle?'
'Not a thing.' Nelson is silent, looking out, past the pegged-out trenches and the neat mounds of soil, towards the sea. He is thinking, she is sure, of the morning when they found Scarlet's body.
"I saw you yesterday,' says Nelson, 'at the funeral.'
'Yes,' says Ruth.
'Good of you to go.'
"I wanted to.'
Nelson looks as if he is going to say something else, but at that moment a familiar lilting voice cuts in. 'Ah, Chief Inspector…' It is Erik.
As far as Ruth knows, this is a promotion for Nelson, but he doesn't offer a correction. He greets Erik fairly cordially, and after a few words with Ruth the two men walk away talking intently. Ruth feels unaccountably irritated.
By
lunchtime she is tired and fed up. She is considering sneaking off back to her cottage for a cup of tea and a hot bath when two slim hands wrap themselves over her eyes.
'Guess who?'
Ruth breaks free. She has recognised the perfume anyhow. Shona.
Shona flops down on the grass next to Ruth. 'Well?' she asks, smiling, 'found anything interesting?'
As usual Shona looks stunning despite (because of?) looking as if she hasn't tried. Her long hair is caught up in a messy bun and she is wearing jeans that make her legs look like pipe-cleaners and a puffy silver jacket which only emphasises her slimness. I'd look like a walking duvet wearing that, thinks Ruth.