The Crossing Places

Ruth looks back at the police car, which is discreetly waiting in the street. She wonders if the neighbours are watching behind their curtains.

'Ruth!' She swings round to see Peter silhouetted in a rectangle of light. Ruth opens her mouth to tell him about Erik and Shona and to ask him for a place to sleep but, to her intense embarrassment, she starts to cry. Huge, gulping, unromantic sobs.

Peter reaches out and draws her inside. 'It's OK,' he says. 'It's OK.'

And he shuts the door behind them.

CHAPTER 25

'I'm sorry,' says Ruth, sitting down on Peter's sofa. As in all rented houses, the furniture looks the wrong shape for the room. The sofa is mysteriously uncomfortable.

'What's going on?' asks Peter, still stranded in the doorway.

'You'd better sit down,' says Ruth.

She tells him about the letters, about Shona and Erik and, finally, about the match with Erik's handwriting.

'Jesus.' Peter lets out a long sigh. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' says Ruth, 'and Shona admits it. They wrote the letters because they wanted to disrupt the investigation.'

'Why would they want to do that?'

'Because one of Erik's students was accused of murdering a policeman. He was found guilty and committed suicide in jail. He blames Nelson, the policeman in charge of the Scarlet Henderson case.'

'Why?'

'Nelson gave evidence against the student. James Agar, his name was.'

'And the police are now after Erik?'

'Yes, but he seems to have disappeared.'

'What about Shona?'

'She says she doesn't know where he is.'

Peter is silent for a moment and then he looks at Ruth, his face troubled. 'Do they… do the police think that Erik could have murdered the little girl?'

'They think it's a possibility.'

'And what do you think?'

Ruth hesitates before answering. If she is honest, she no longer knows what she thinks. She believed that Erik was omnipotent and that Shona was her friend. Now neither of those things seems to be true.

'I don't know,' she says at last, 'but I think it must be a possibility. The letter writer seemed to leave clues about where Scarlet's body was buried.'

'Could that just be a coincidence?'

Ruth thinks of the cryptic, teasing tone of the letters. 'It could be. The letters hint at all sorts of things. It's easy to read things into them.'

'Why would Erik want to kill her?'

Ruth sighs. 'Who knows? Maybe he thought he needed to make a sacrifice to the Gods.'

'You don't believe that, surely?'

'No I don't. But maybe Erik did.'

Peter is silent once more.

Peter makes omelettes and opens a bottle of red. Ruth eats hungrily. Lunch with Shona seems centuries ago. They both drink a good deal, keen to blot out the evening's revelations.

'You

know,' Peter keeps saying. 'I just can't believe it of Erik. He always seemed a real New Ager to me. Into peace and love and free dope for all. I just can't imagine that he would kill a little girl.'

'But what if he really believed all that stuff – about sacrifices and offerings to the Gods? Maybe he felt he needed to make an offering to appease the Gods for taking the henge away.'

'You're saying that he's mad.'

Ruth is silent, swirling the red wine round in her glass.

'Who are we to say what is mad and what is sane?'

'You're quoting Erik!'

'Yes.' Ruth tucks her feet under her on the sofa. Despite everything, she is beginning to feel very sleepy.

'You loved him didn't you?' says Peter in a different voice.

'What?'

'You loved him. All the time I thought it was me but it was Erik. He was the one you really loved.'

'No,' protests Ruth. 'I did love him, but as a friend. As a teacher, I suppose. I loved Magda too. It was different with you.'

'Was it?' Peter crosses the room and kneels in front of her. 'Was it, Ruth?'

'Yes.'

Peter kisses her and, for a second, she feels herself dissolving into his arms. Would this be so wrong, she asks herself? He is separated from his wife, she is single. Who would they be hurting?

'God, Ruth,' Peter murmurs into her neck, 'I've missed you so much. I love you.'

That does it. Ruth sits up, pushing Peter away. 'No.'

'What?' Peter is beside her on the sofa now, his arms around her.

'You don't love me.'

'I do. It was a mistake, marrying Victoria. You and I were always meant to be together.'

'No, we weren't.'

'Why not?'

Ruth takes a deep breath. It seems very important to get this right. To have one thing that is clear and straight and unambiguous. 'I don't love you,' she says. 'Is it OK if I sleep on the sofa?'

She wakes in the morning to find herself covered with Nelson's jacket and with a duvet. Grey light is streaming in through the thin curtains. The time on her mobile is 07:15. No new messages. Ruth sits up, her head hurts and her eyes feel gritty. How much did she have to drink last night? Two empty bottles lie on the floor. Not much by undergraduate standards perhaps but more than she has drunk for years. She can't even remember going to sleep.

She remembers Peter slamming out of the room after she told him that she didn't love him. He must have come back though, to put the duvet over her. God, she feels sick.

She gets up, intending to find a loo and a shower, but when she opens the door she comes face-to-face with Peter, carrying a cup of tea.

'Thank you,' she says, taking the cup. 'I feel terrible.'

Peter smiles. 'So do I. We're not young anymore, Ruth.

Bathroom's upstairs, by the way. First on the left. Towels in the airing cupboard next door.'

'Thanks,' says Ruth. Perhaps it's not going to be so bad after all.

It's horrible, putting her old clothes on after her shower but at least she is clean. Wrapping her hair in a towel, she goes downstairs. Peter is making toast in the tiny kitchen.

Ruth sits down, trying to think of a subject that will clear the air: something light and non-controversial. Should they talk about the weather, the dig, what's happening in The Archers? She needs something that reminds Peter of his real life, away from Norfolk, of his wife and child.

'Have you got a picture of your little boy?' asks Ruth at last. 'I haven't seen him since he was a baby.'

Peter looks surprised but he gets out his phone, a sleek, black affair, and pushes it across the table to Ruth. 'In there,' he says. 'Under pictures.'

Ruth scrolls down, with difficulty. She hates these tiny phones. They make her feel like a giantess. The first picture is of a smiling, redheaded boy.

'Do you think he looks like me?' asks Peter.

'Yes,' says Ruth, though the photo is so small it's hard to see.

'It's the red hair. In the face he looks more like Victoria.'

Ruth clicks down, trying to find more pictures. All the pictures seem to be of Daniel though she does see one of the Saltmarsh, a tiny grey rectangle. There are no pictures of Victoria.

'What are you going, to do now?' asks Peter, putting toast in front of her.

'Go into work, tidy things up there. Then maybe go away for a bit. See my parents.'

As she says this, she has a sudden vision of the Mil stretching out in front of her, grey and featureless. Her mother will be sure to ask about Peter.

'Blimey. Things must be desperate.'

Ruth smiles, but when she looks at Peter his face is suddenly dark. He looks, for a second, like a stranger.

'Remember Ruth,' he says. 'I know where you are.'

'Is Erik really a suspect?' asks Phil, shutting his office door behind her. 'What's going on, Ruth?'

'I'm not sure,' lies Ruth. 'I just know the police want to talk to him.'

All the way to the university, she has been thinking about Peter's words. I know where you are. Could Peter have sent her those messages? She has never given him her mobile number but it would have been easy enough for him to get it. He could have asked anyone. Erik, Shona, even Phil. But why would Peter want to scare her like that? It doesn't make sense, but one thing is clear – she can trust no-one.