Ruth Galloway (28 page)

A mighty crack of thunder almost throws her off her feet. It's a deafening, industrial sound, like two express trains colliding. Immediately, another lightning blast turns the sky white. Christ, the storm must be right overhead. Is she going to be struck by lightning? Another explosion of thunder sends her, instinctively, down amongst the reeds
with her arms over her head. She is lying in a shallow stream. This is dangerous. Water conducts electricity, doesn't it? She can't even remember if she is wearing rubber soles. She edges forward on her stomach. This is how she imagines the First World War; face down in the mud while mortar shells explode into the sky. And this is no-man's-land alright. Hand over hand, she crawls slowly forward.

*

Jaw clenched, Nelson drives like a maniac towards the Saltmarsh. Next to him, humming softly, sits Cathbad. There is no-one whose company Nelson desires less, but there are two important reasons why Cathbad is currently occupying the passenger seat of Nelson's Mercedes. One, he claims to know the Saltmarsh ‘like the back of his hand', and two, Nelson does not trust him to be out of his sight for a second.

Clough and Judy are following in a marked police car. Both cars have their sirens blaring but there is little traffic as they scorch through the country lanes. The storm, raging unnoticed above them, has driven everyone inside.

At New Road, Nelson recognises Ruth's car and his breathing eases a little. Then he sees the open door swinging in the wind and he feels his heart contract. When he enters the sitting room, however, his heart almost jumps out of his chest. Because the room is filled with a terrible, unearthly wailing. He stops dead and Cathbad cannons into the back of him.

To Nelson's eternal shame it is Cathbad who notices the cat basket and goes to rescue Flint.

‘Go free, little cat,' he murmurs vaguely. Flint doesn't
need telling twice. Tail fluffed up in outrage, he disappears through the open front door. Nelson hopes that he hasn't gone forever. He doesn't want another of Ruth's cats meeting a sticky end.

By the time Clough and Judy arrive, Nelson has already searched the tiny cottage. There is no sign of Erik or Ruth though a packed suitcase sits by the door and a broken umbrella, like a prehistoric bird, has been thrown onto the floor. Cathbad is examining a crumbled piece of metal which was lying on the table.

‘What's that?' asks Nelson.

‘Looks like an Iron Age torque,' replies Cathbad. ‘Full of magic.'

Nelson loses interest immediately. ‘They can't have gone far,' he says. ‘Johnson, Clough, go and ask the neighbours if they heard anything. Radio for some dogs and an armed response team. You and me' – he grasps Cathbad's arm – ‘we're going for a little walk on the Saltmarsh.'

*

Bent double, Ruth is running across the Saltmarsh. Falling headlong into muddy streams, clawing herself out, tasting blood in her mouth, getting up again and falling again, this time into a pond about a foot deep. Spluttering, she staggers to her feet. The marsh is full of water like this, some stretches several feet wide. She retraces her steps, finds some firmer ground and starts running again.

On she runs; she has lost a shoe and her trousers are ripped to pieces. Thank God though for the police jacket, which has, at least, kept her top half dry. She must keep going, she owes it to Nelson if no-one else. It really would finish his career if another body was found on the marshes.
She pulls the coat more tightly round her and, as she does so, she feels a faint, a very faint, glow of courage, as if it is being transferred to her via the coat. Nelson wouldn't be scared by a bit of wind and rain, now would he?

But where is Nelson? And, more to the point, where is Erik? She stops, tries to listen but she can hear only the wind and the rain and the thunder.
What the thunder said
. Isn't that T.S. Eliot? For a second she thinks of the letters, of Erik and Shona quoting T.S. Eliot to taunt Nelson. She can believe this, though it makes her sad, but does she really believe that Erik killed Scarlet Henderson? Does she really believe that he would kill her? Trust no-one, she tells herself, staggering onwards over the uneven ground. Trust no-one but yourself.

Then she hears a sound which makes her heart stop. A voice like no human voice she has ever heard. It is as if the dead themselves are calling her. Three calls, low and even, the last shuddering away into silence. What the hell was that?

The call comes again, this time from very close by. For no reason that she knows, she starts to move towards it and suddenly finds herself facing a solid wall.

She can't believe it at first. But it is, unmistakably, a wall. Gingerly, she puts out a hand to touch it. No, it isn't a mirage. It is a solid wall, wood, made of rough boards nailed together.

Of course, it's the hide! She has reached the hide. She almost laughs out loud in her relief. This must be the furthest hide, the one where she and Peter met David that day. But that hide, she remembers, is above the tidal mark. She is safe. She can shelter inside until the storm passes. Oh, thank God for bird watchers.

Half-drunk with relief, she staggers into the hut. It's open on one side so it doesn't offer brilliant shelter but it's a great deal better than nothing. It is wonderful to be out of the wind and the rain. Her face aches as if she has been repeatedly slapped and her ears are still ringing. She rests her head against the rough wood wall and closes her eyes. It's crazy but she could almost go to sleep.

Outside the storm is still raging but she has almost become used to it. Now the wind sounds like children's voices calling. How sad they sound, like the cries of sailors lost at sea, like the will o'the wisps searching the world for comfort and warmth. Ruth shivers. She mustn't get spooked now and start thinking about Erik's fireside tales. About the long green fingers reaching up out of the water, about the undead creatures roaming the night, about the drowned cities, the church bells ringing deep below the sea …

She jumps. She has heard a cry coming from beneath her feet. She listens again. For a moment, the storm is still and she hears it again. Unmistakably a human voice. ‘Help me! Help me!'

Stupidly Ruth looks at the wooden floor of the hide. It is covered by a carpet of rush matting. She tears at the carpet. It is obviously pinned down but comes away after the third or fourth tug. Below are floorboards and a trapdoor. Why on earth would there be a trapdoor in a bird-watching hide? And there is the voice again. Calling from beneath the floor.

Hardly knowing what she is doing, Ruth bends down and puts her face to the trapdoor.

‘Who's there?' she calls.

There is a silence and then a voice answers, ‘It's me.'

The simplicity of this response strikes Ruth to the heart. It presupposes that Ruth knows the owner of the voice. And, almost at once, she feels as if she does.

‘Don't worry,' she shouts, ‘I'm coming.'

There is a bolt on the trapdoor. It slides back easily as if it is used regularly. Ruth opens the door and peers down in the darkness. At the same time a flash of lightning illuminates the surroundings.

A face looks back up at her. A girl, a teenager perhaps, painfully thin with long, matted hair. She's wearing a man's jumper and tattered trousers and has a blanket round her shoulders.

‘What are you doing here?' asks Ruth stupidly.

The girl just shakes her head. Her eyes are huge, her skin grey with pallor.

‘What's your name?' asks Ruth.

But, all of a sudden, she knows.

‘Lucy,' she says gently. ‘You're Lucy, aren't you?'

Judy and Clough report that there is no response from either of Ruth's neighbours.

‘Houses look shut up, Sir.' Nelson tells them to stay and wait for the dog handlers. He will search on the Saltmarsh.

‘In this?' says Clough, gesturing towards the dark expanse of the marsh, where the trees are almost blown flat by the wind. ‘You'll never find them.'

‘There's quicksand,' says Judy, as a particularly savage blast almost knocks her off her feet. ‘And the tide comes in really quickly. I used to live around here. It's not safe.'

‘I know a way,' says Cathbad.

They all look at him. His cloak is flying out in the wind, his eyes are bright. Somehow he doesn't look quite as ridiculous as usual.

‘There's a hidden way,' Cathbad goes on. ‘I discovered it ten years ago. It's a sort of shingle spit. It leads from the lowest hide right up to the henge circle. Solid ground all the way.'

That must have been the path Ruth took to find Scarlet's body, thinks Nelson. ‘Can you find it in the dark?' he asks.

‘Trust me,' says Cathbad.

Which none of them finds very reassuring.

*

The sound of her name seems to have a devastating effect on the girl. She starts to cry loudly. A child crying rather than a teenage girl.

‘Let me out!' she sobs. ‘Oh please, let me out.'

‘I will,' says Ruth grimly.

She reaches down and grabs the girl's arm. It feels brittle, as if it might snap. Then she hauls but she is not strong enough to take the girl's weight, skinny as she is. Oh, why hadn't she kept going to the gym?

‘I'm coming down,' she says at last. ‘Then I'll give you a leg up.'

The girl backs away but Ruth is determined. She jumps in through the trapdoor and falls heavily onto the concrete floor below. The girl is standing against the opposite wall, her teeth bared like an animal at bay. In her hand she holds a stone. A flint, decides Ruth, giving it a sharp, professional look. A sharp one.

Ruth tries a smile. ‘Hello,' she says. ‘Hello Lucy. I'm Ruth.'

The girl lets out a small, frightened sound but doesn't move.

Ruth looks around. She is in a small, square, underground dungeon. Looking up, she sees the trapdoor in the ceiling, and a barred window which also has a wooden cover. The room is empty apart from a low bed, a bucket and a plastic box which seems to contain a baby's toys. The walls and the floor are all concrete, rough in places, and there is moisture running down the walls. The whole place smells of damp and urine and fear.

My God, thinks Ruth in horror, has Erik really kept her a prisoner all this time? What about when he was in
Norway? Cathbad, that must be the answer. This is the link between Erik and Cathbad. Cathbad is his jailer.

And now they must escape. Ruth turns to the girl, who is still cowering against the wall.

‘Come on.' She holds out her hand again. ‘I'm going to help you get out of here.'

But the girl, Lucy, just whimpers and shakes her head.

‘Come on, Lucy,' says Ruth, trying to keep her voice as calm and gentle as possible. Trying to make it sound as if they have all the time in the world and there isn't a madman on their trail and a raging tempest outside. ‘Come on. I'll take you home. You'd like to go home, wouldn't you, Lucy? See your mum and dad?'

She'd expected Lucy to react to the words mum and dad but the girl is still looking terrified. Ruth edges slowly towards her, dredging her mind for every soothing platitude she can think of.

‘There, there. It's OK. Don't worry. It'll be alright.'

What were some of the meaningless things her mother used to say to her? Annoying little catchphrases but nevertheless as soothing as a cup of cocoa when you can't sleep. Ruth has never had children so it is her own childhood she must conjure up. Remember the days when her mother was not just someone who annoyed her on the phone, but the most important person in the world. The litany of motherhood.

‘Don't worry. No use crying over spilt milk. Never get well if you pick it. Tears before bedtime. Tomorrow's another day. All's well that ends well. It's just a phase. Don't cry. It's darkest before dawn.'

And, as if the last words are the magic spell that releases
the princess from the tower, Lucy throws herself into Ruth's arms.

*

Nelson drives Cathbad to the car park in silence. The only sounds are the overloaded windscreen wipers swishing to and fro and Nelson's fingers drumming impatiently on the steering wheel. Perhaps fortunately for his continued well-being, Cathbad does not comment on this typically Scorpio impatience.

The trees around the car park are blown into a frenzy. The boarded-up kiosk looms eerily out of the dark, promising ghostly Cornettos and Calippo Shots. Grimly, Nelson gets a rope and a heavy-duty torch out of the boot. Cathbad hums serenely.

They walk up the gravel track to the first hide. Nelson is in the lead, shining the torch in front of him. He doesn't think of himself as imaginative, but the noise of the wind howling across the marshes is starting to give him the creeps. The thunder rumbling overhead just adds to the clichéd horror film atmosphere. Behind him Cathbad sighs with what sounds like happiness.

They pass the first hide and Cathbad pushes in front.

‘The path,' he says calmly. ‘It's near here.'

Nelson hands him the torch. If they get lost he will kill Cathbad first and arrest him afterwards.

After a few yards, Cathbad veers off the gravel track and starts to head out over the marsh. Despite the torch, it's pitch black. Here and there, Nelson can see glimpses of water, dark and dangerous. It's like walking into the unknown, like one of those ridiculous trust exercises they make you do on police training courses. Except that
Nelson doesn't trust Cathbad, not one little bit. Following Ruth across the marshes, even in the daylight, had been difficult enough. It takes all his self-control now not to elbow Cathbad out of the way and insist on turning back to the track.

Suddenly Cathbad stops. ‘Here it is,' he murmurs. Nelson sees him shine the torch onto the ground. A bolt of lightning turns the sky white. Cathbad grins at him. ‘Follow me,' he says.

*

About a mile away, across the black marshland, Ruth holds Lucy in her arms. It feels strange, cuddling this thin, vulnerable body. Ruth doesn't know many teenagers and those she does know are hardly likely to fling their arms around her and sob into her shoulder.