Ruth Galloway (27 page)

‘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.

‘What's going on?' repeats Phil, obviously trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘The police have been here looking for Erik. We had your friend Shona from the English department here earlier. She was very distraught.'

Ruth can just imagine Shona sobbing picturesquely on Phil's shoulder. Maybe he's next on her married lecturers list.

‘They surely can't' – Phil lowers his voice dramatically – ‘
suspect
him?'

‘I don't know,' says Ruth wearily. ‘Look Phil, I've got a favour to ask you. The police think I should get away for a few days and I was thinking of going to my parents in London. Is it OK if I have a few days off? I've only got one lecture and a tutorial this week.'

But Phil is still staring at her, wide-eyed. ‘Do they think you're in danger? From Erik?'

‘I'm sorry, Phil,' says Ruth, ‘I can't say any more. Is it OK if I have the time off?'

‘Of course,' says Phil. Then, ‘Can I ask you something, Ruth?'

‘Yes,' says Ruth warily.

‘Why are you wearing a policeman's jacket?'

*

She had meant to leave early but it's getting dark by the time she reaches the Saltmarsh. All at once there seemed to be so many things to do: cancelling her lecture, arranging for Phil to take her tutorial on Animal Remains in Wetland Archaeology, ringing her parents to warn them of her arrival, avoiding Shona's increasingly desperate messages. Then, in the middle of it all, Nelson had rung.

‘Ruth. You OK?'

‘Fine.'

‘Judy said she took you to a friend's house last night. I don't want you to do that again. I want you in a safe house.'

‘I'm going to my parents. In London.'

A pause.

‘Good. That's good.' He sounded distracted; she could almost hear him shuffling through papers as he talked.

‘Have you found Erik yet?' she asked.

‘No. He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. But we'll get him. We've got people watching the guest house, his girlfriend's house, the university. There's an alert at all the airports.'

‘What about Cathbad's place?'

‘Oh, we've thought of that. I paid a visit to friend Malone this morning. Says he hasn't seen Anderssen for days but we're watching him too.'

‘Must be expensive, all this surveillance.'

And Nelson had laughed hollowly. ‘It'll be worth it if we catch him.'

Ruth had taken a taxi to the police station to pick up her car but she hadn't seen Nelson. The desk sergeant had told her that he was out ‘following up on information received'. She wondered if that meant he had found Erik. She had almost left Nelson's jacket for him at the police station but something made her keep it with her. The jacket reminded her of Nelson and, in some strange way, made her feel braver. Besides, it was very warm.

As she turns into New Road it is four o'clock. Ominous grey clouds are gathering over the sea. A storm is on its way. The wind has suddenly dropped and the air is heavy with expectancy. There is a livid yellow line on the horizon and even the birds are still.

As she lets herself into her house, Flint greets her hysterically. God, she had forgotten him last night. In the kitchen he has tipped over his biscuits and torn a hole in the cardboard. He looks at her balefully as she fills up his bowl. She'll have to take him with her to her parents. She can't face asking David again and she doesn't know how long she'll be away. She goes up to the attic to get his travelling basket and, as she does so, she hears the first distant rumble of thunder.

She packs quickly, throwing in tops and trousers and jumpers. No point in worrying about what to take, her mother will criticise it all anyway. Ruth is still wearing the jacket. She'll tell her mother that policeman chic is all the rage in Norfolk. She adds a detective novel and her laptop. She might as well try to get some work done. She drags her suitcase onto the landing, knocking over the cardboard
cut-out of Bones as she does so. Beam me up Scotty. Pushing Bones aside, she hurries downstairs. Five o'clock.

Damn, it will be midnight before she gets to London at this rate. And the roads will be hell. She looks out of the window. It is pitch black now and the wind has started up again. Her gate is swinging wildly to and fro as if an invisible child is playing on it. Hastily, she grabs Flint and shoves him (protesting) into the cat basket. She must hurry up.

And yet, despite everything, she finds herself going to her desk for one last look at the Iron Age torque which started the whole thing. She doesn't know why she does this. She should have given the torque to Phil to put with the other finds but, for some reason, she can't bear to let it go.

It gleams dully in her hand, the twisted metal somehow both sinister and beautiful. Why was it put into the grave? To show the status of the dead girl or as an offering to the gods of the underworld and of the crossing places – the gods who guard the entry onto the marshlands?

For a full minute, Ruth stands there, weighing the heavy gold object in her hand.

Then a voice says informatively, ‘Around seventy
BC
, I think. The time of the Iceni.'

It is Erik.

Ruth swings round, heart hammering. At the same moment a particularly violent blast of wind throws itself against the house. The storm has arrived.

‘A rough night,' says Erik in a conversational voice. He is wearing a black raincoat and is carrying an umbrella which has obviously just blown inside out. He throws the umbrella aside and steps forward, smiling.

‘Erik,' she says stupidly.

‘Hello Ruth,' says Erik. ‘Did you think I would leave without saying goodbye?'

Erik takes a step closer. He's still smiling but his blue eyes are cold. As cold as the North Sea.

‘The police are looking for you,' says Ruth.

‘I know,' he smiles. ‘But they won't look here.'

Why hadn't Nelson thought to guard this house, thinks Ruth in despair. But he thinks she is safely on her way to her parents. There's no-one to help her. She starts to back towards the door.

‘What's wrong, Ruthie? Don't you trust me?'

‘No.'

‘I didn't kill them, you know.' He picks up the torque and examines it closely. ‘I didn't kill those little girls. I'm not a Nix. I'm not an evil sea spirit. I'm just Erik.'

His voice is as hypnotic as ever. Ruth shakes her head to clear it. She mustn't be taken in.

‘You wrote the letters. The letters told me where to find Scarlet.'

‘Rubbish,' says Erik. ‘You twisted the facts to suit your theory just as all academics do.'

‘Aren't you an academic?'

‘Me?' Erik smiles. ‘No. I am a teller of tales. A weaver of mysteries.'

He is, she understands suddenly, quite mad.

Slowly, she moves towards the door. Her hand is touching the handle. Then Flint, realising that he is about to be left behind in his cat basket, sets up an unearthly yowl. Erik starts and jumps towards Ruth. What he means to do she doesn't know, but one look at his eyes decides her. She throws herself through the door and out into the night.

The wind is so strong that she can hardly stay upright. It is coming directly from the sea, racing across the marshes, flattening everything in its path. Rain beats against her face, trying to force her back to Erik but she stumbles on. At last she reaches her car. Her trusty, rusty Renault. Madly, she scrabbles at the door.

‘Looking for these?' She looks round and there is Erik holding up her car keys. He is still smiling. With his white hair flattened by the rain, he looks like a wizard. Not a comfortable Harry Potter wizard but a creature from the wind and the rain. An elemental.

Ruth runs. She darts across New Road, jumps over the ditch – already full of rushing water – that leads to the marshes and sets out into the dark.

‘Ruth!' She can hear Erik behind her. He too is across the ditch and she can hear him stumbling over the coarse
grass and low bushes. Ruth stumbles too, falling heavily on the muddy ground, grazing her hands on loose stones. But she keeps going, panting, gasping, weaving through the stunted trees, with no idea where she's going except that she must escape from Erik. He will kill her, she knows. He'll kill her just as he killed those two little girls. For no reason. For the reason that he is mad.

She can hear him behind her. Despite his age, he's fit, much fitter than her. But desperation drives her on. She falls into a shallow stream and knows she must be getting near the tidal salt marshes. The wind is even louder now and the rain stings her face. She stops. Where is Erik? She can't hear anything now except the wind.

Exhausted, she sinks down on the ground. It is soft and reed stalks brush against her face. Where is the sea? She mustn't wander onto the mudflats or that will be the end of her. The tide comes in like a galloping horse, David said. It is easy to imagine wildly galloping hooves in the noise of the wind, the white horses of the waves storming in across the marshes. She crouches amongst the reeds, trying to gather her wits about her. She must ring Nelson, get help, but, as she scrambles for her mobile, she realises that she has packed it in her bag. The wind screams around her and in the background she hears another, even more sinister, noise. A roaring, rushing, relentless sound.

She is lost on the Saltmarsh and the tide is coming in.

Nelson's mood is dark as he drives back to the station. The so-called ‘information received' has turned out to be a load of bollocks. A man answering Erik Anderssen's description had been spotted at a King's Lynn pub. But when Nelson arrived at the pub it turned out to be folk music night, which meant that every man in the place answered to Erik Anderssen's description, grey pony-tail, smug expression and all.

He glowers out at the rain as he edges through the Sunday night traffic. Then he thinks, sod it, and puts on his siren. The traffic parts for him in a way that he never ceases to find satisfying as he heads back to the station.

Christ, he hopes Ruth is OK. Still, she should be safely on her way to London now. Not that he thinks Erik will try to contact her. Privately, he's sure that he has already left the country, leapt on a late flight last night and is happily on the way to … where's a place in Norway? Oslo, that's it. He'll be sitting in a café in Oslo now, drinking whatever Norwegians drink and laughing his bearded head off.

The desk sergeant tells him that Ruth collected her car an hour ago. Nelson frowns. That's too late for his liking. Whatever was she doing, hanging about all day? He'd spoken to her at lunchtime, she should have left straight away.

At his office door he is stopped by a WPC. He doesn't know her name but he composes his face into something like a smile. She is young (they get younger all the time) and looks nervous.

‘Er … there's someone to see you, Detective Chief Inspector.'

‘Yes?' he says encouragingly.

‘He's in your office. He wouldn't leave a name.'

Why the hell hadn't he been stopped downstairs, thinks Nelson irritably. He pushes open the door and the first thing he sees is a swirl of purple cloak. He shuts the door behind him, very quickly indeed.

Cathbad is sitting, quite at his ease, on Nelson's side of the desk. He had his feet, encased in muddy trainers, actually on the desk. Nelson can see mud on one of his beautiful clean ‘to do' lists.

‘Get your feet off my desk!' he bellows.

‘You really must watch that anger, Detective Chief Inspector,' says Cathbad. ‘I'm sure you must have Aries rising.' But he takes his feet off the desk.

‘Now get out of my chair,' says Nelson, breathing heavily.

‘We own nothing in this world,' counters Cathbad, getting up fairly quickly all the same.

‘Did you just come here to spout New Age rubbish at me?'

‘No,' says Cathbad calmly. ‘I've come to give you some information about Erik Anderssen. I thought I would bring the news in person so I slipped out when your two … er … guards were otherwise occupied.'

Nelson's hands clench into fists as he thinks of the officers
sent to watch Cathbad. They've made a fine job of surveillance. What the hell were they doing? Sheltering in their car probably, unwilling to face a cold night on the beach in Blakeney. Goons!

‘What information? If you've come to tell me he's at a folk music gig you're wasting your breath.'

Cathbad ignores this. ‘Erik telephoned me an hour ago. He told me that he was on his way to see Ruth Galloway.'

Nelson's heart starts to beat faster but he forces himself to speak calmly. ‘Why are you so keen to help the police all of a sudden?'

‘I dislike the police,' says Cathbad loftily, ‘but I abhor all forms of violence. Erik sounded distinctly violent to me. I think your friend Doctor Galloway could be in danger.'

*

Ruth lies in the reed bed, listening to the roar of the tide and the howling of the wind and thinks, what the hell am I going to do now? She can't go back to the house and every moment that she stays on the Saltmarsh adds to the danger. Soon the tide will come in and she has no idea if she is already on the tidal mudflats. But Ruth has no intention of cowering in the mud, waiting to die. She has to find a way out; at any rate she may as well run as lie here waiting for Erik to catch her. She starts to zigzag through the reeds, head down against the wind.