Max is, in fact, sitting in a dinghy. With the ease of long practice, he ties the boat to the landing stage and scrambles ashore.
‘I think Roderick Spens has kidnapped Ruth,’ he says. ‘I went to the site this morning. I though she might be there, to see the Janus Stone, but it was deserted. I was going to ring you but I got a call from the boatyard to say that someone had taken the Lady Annabelle. An elderly man. He was loading something heavy on board. They thought it was suspicious.’
‘Did they say where he was going?’ asks Cathbad.
Max looks dubiously at Cathbad, whose purple cloak is wet and muddy from the trek along the river bank.
‘Cathbad’s helping with the enquiry,’ says Nelson brusquely. ‘We need to know Ruth’s whereabouts. We think she’s in serious danger.’
Max still looks suspicious but he answers quickly enough, ‘They said he was asking about the height of Potter Heigham Bridge.’
Nelson and Cathbad look at him blankly.
‘It’s a bridge over the Thurne,’ says Max. ‘Very low. Lots of boats get stuck. If they’re going that way, I think they’re heading for Horsey Mere. The Spens family have got a cottage there.’
More blank looks.
‘It’s a little-known stretch of waterway,’ says Max, ‘on the North Rivers.’
‘Which way will he go?’ asks Nelson.
Max points to the fork in the water. ‘If he’s going to the North Rivers, he’ll go that way. Along the Yare to Yarmouth.’
‘Can we catch him at Yarmouth?’
Max looks at his watch. ‘The boatyard said he went past at four o’clock. He’ll be through Yarmouth by now.’
Nelson looks at his watch. It is half past seven.
‘Can we catch them by road?’ he asks. ‘I drive fast.’
Max shakes his head. ‘Our best bet is to try to get to Potter Heigham before them. He’ll have to take the canopy off the boat before it can get under the bridge. That’ll slow them down a bit.’
‘Let’s go then,’ says Nelson.
The boat is moving. The rocking motion becomes unpleasantly violent and Ruth is afraid that she will be sick. She can’t be sick. She needs to escape from this lunatic with his frightening Victorian language and his terrifyingly modern knife. He killed his own child, now he wants to kill her baby. Well Ruth is not about to let that happen.
If she can just get across to the other side of the boat, she can reach the kitchen cabinet where there are sure to be knives and other sharp implements. It’s so close, just an arm’s length away. If she can get herself free, she thinks she should be a match for Roderick Spens, knife and all.
Gingerly, she rolls over so that her legs, tied tightly together, are on the floor. Then, without warning, she is hit by a wave of nausea so intense that she knows she must be sick. It is awful having her hands tied behind her back because she can’t move her hair out of the way. All she can do is tilt her head as far away as possible so that the vomit doesn’t land on her feet. She continues to retch feebly until her stomach is empty and then she lies back on the bench with her eyes shut. She hopes that Roderick hasn’t heard her but the noise of the engine is surprisingly loud. She realises that they must be travelling fast. If so, that might be a good thing. It might alert the river police, other sailors, anyone.
She lies still, listening. Above the engine noise, she can hear Sir Roderick singing snatches of opera. Nutcase. Slowly she slides her legs over again and tries to stand. Another spasm of nausea grips her stomach but she isn’t sick again. She waits, breathing hard, and then, holding on to the edge of the table behind her, starts to hop towards the knives.
They find Sir Roderick’s car by the boatyard. This is hardly difficult as it is a maroon Rolls Royce with the licence plate SPENS2.
‘Jesus,’ says Nelson. ‘He was hardly travelling incognito.’
‘He’s not supposed to drive at all,’ says Max. ‘Edward says he has Alzheimer’s.’
‘Edward is wrong,’ Nelson tells him.
Max chews his lip. ‘Even so, Sir Roderick has always been strange. When we were at university, Edward used to mention his father doing odd things. Being obsessed with certain Roman gods, offering sacrifices and such like. He once broke into Fishbourne Roman Palace and started strewing herbs and flowers around. Edward used to worry about him.’
‘With good reason,’ says Nelson. ‘I’ll get some uniforms down to look at the car. I’ll call the river police too.’
‘They’re going to the North Rivers,’ says Max.
‘So?’
‘The river police don’t cover the North Rivers. There’s a ranger but they’ve only got one car and they don’t work at night.’
‘Jesus.’ Nelson raises his eyes to the heavens and curses the day that he ever heard of Norfolk, the river, or Ruth Galloway. Max watches him narrowly. ‘Come on,’ he says at last, ‘we’ve got to get to Potter Heigham before they do.’
Three hops and she’s there. She leans against the sink, feeling ill and faint. Her head aches, presumably where Roderick whacked it with his ‘perfectly serviceable’ torch. Probably right on the spot where she hit it once before, when Roderick left a model foetus in the trench as a ‘warning’. If she gets out of this alive, she swears she is going to kill him.
Opening the sink drawer with no hands will be the next problem. She looks around for anything sharp left lying around but everything is irritatingly tidy. Damn Max and his anal archaeologist habits. Where is Max anyhow? How come Roderick has got his boat? The truly dreadful thought, which has been hovering at the back of her mind for hours, now pops, fully formed, to the surface. What if Max is in league with Sir Roderick? After all, Max and Edward Spens were friends at university. Max could easily have helped Roderick leave those grisly offerings at the site. Max could even have given him the idea. He is another classicist, another fan of the Roman gods. He knows all about Hecate, all about Janus and Nemesis and the rest of the bad guys. Could Max really be plotting to kill her?
No, it can’t be true. Max came back because he was drawn to the place where he had lived with Elizabeth. No. She mustn’t let herself think like that. Roderick must be acting alone. He is mad enough, God knows.
But where is Max?
The drawer has an obligingly protruding handle. Ruth bends down and takes it firmly between her teeth. Then she pulls. It’s surprising how much it hurts but the drawer opens and inside Ruth can see at least three sharp knives, one with wonderful serrated edges. She turns round, trying to get her bound hands into the drawer.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ says a voice behind her.
When they reach the car, mist descends. Literally, one minute they can see the car parked precariously on the river bank, see Reedham behind them and the unmade-up road in front and the next, nothing. Just thick white fog, billowing up in clouds from the water, leaving them, seemingly, alone in the world.
‘River mist,’ says Max. ‘Comes down in seconds.’
‘This will make it easier for Spens to avoid detection,’ says Nelson.
Max nods. ‘You can’t see a thing on the river in a fog like this.’
‘Is it safe to drive a boat?’
‘You don’t drive a boat.’
Nelson snorts impatiently and Max hurries on to say, ‘No. When visibility’s this poor, you shouldn’t be on the water at all.’
There is a silence where they all think of Roderick – old, unpractised, almost certainly mad – sailing, in a thick fog, towards a low bridge and dangerous waters, with Ruth on board.
‘Come on,’ says Nelson. ‘We’ve got to catch him.’