THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END (9 page)

‘And Erik,’ said Tatjana. ‘Do you still see Erik?’

‘Erik’s dead,’ said Ruth. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Erik dead. Dear God.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you, Ruth: What’s your news? Are you married? Children?’

Ruth took a deep breath, watching the flickering green light from the baby monitor. ‘I’m not married but I have a child. A baby.’

Ruth remembers that there was a brief silence before Tatjana said, ‘A baby, well that
is
news. Congratulations, Ruth. A boy or a girl?’

‘A girl. Kate.’

‘Kate.’

Another silence and Ruth could almost hear the years rushing past, a whooshing sound like walking through falling leaves.

‘I’m coming to England,’ said Tatjana at last. ‘I’m giving some lectures at the University of East Anglia. I wondered, could I stay with you? For a week or two?’

Ruth thought a lot of things in that moment: her cottage is a long way from UEA, two weeks is a long time, she would have to tidy the spare room. She thought so long that Tatjana said, ‘Of course, if it’s a problem …’

‘No,’ said Ruth. ‘No problem. It’ll be wonderful to see you again.’

But will it be wonderful, thinks Ruth, searching for the key card to open her office. Seeing Tatjana will bring back a whole slew of memories, not all of them pleasant. For many years afterwards she’d had nightmares about Bosnia. Bones gleaming in the sun, a hotel with endless corridors, door after identical door, grand staircases leading into nothingness, the flames of a bonfire, Tatjana’s face in the darkness.

The last time she saw Tatjana it had been a harrowing occasion. She still thinks about it, wonders if she could have said or done anything differently, if, by some small change, she could have made events turn out another way. She doesn’t know if, even fourteen years later, she’s ready to revisit that scene. She feels too fragile – not enough sleep, too many confrontations with Nelson. But Tatjana is her friend, and over the last year, she’s learnt a lot about friendship. Tatjana must want to see her badly if she’s made so much effort to get in touch. She mustn’t turn her away. She mustn’t let Tatjana down again.

While she is scrabbling in her organiser bag – it has so many zips and pockets that it’s almost impossible to find anything – she notices that the lights are on inside her
office. She pushes open the door and finds Cathbad sitting at her desk, under the poster of Indiana Jones, reading
Alice in Wonderland
.

Although not entirely surprised – Cathbad makes rather a speciality of materialising in unexpected places – Ruth is taken aback to see him there, calm as a Buddha in his lab coat, his long hair in a ponytail, an expression of serene benevolence on his face. Although she sometimes sees Cathbad around the campus (he is a technician in the chemistry department), he rarely comes near the archaeology corridor. He once trained as an archaeologist under Erik and, perhaps for this reason, studiously avoids Phil, Ruth’s boss. Certainly no two men could be less alike than Erik and Phil.

‘Lewis Carroll,’ says Cathbad dreamily, ‘such a visionary.’

‘I thought he was a paedophile.’

‘He was a sad little man who liked the company of young girls. What’s wrong with that?’

‘Ask Nelson.’

Cathbad smiles. To everyone’s surprise, including their own, Cathbad and Nelson get on rather well. Twice they have faced considerable danger together and Cathbad is convinced that Nelson saved his life on one of these occasions. They are bound together by this circumstance, he says, forever. Nelson grunts sceptically when he hears this, but despite a famed intolerance for anything even slightly fey or alternative Nelson finds Cathbad good company. Beneath the New Age trappings is a keen intelligence at work in Cathbad. Nelson sometimes thinks that he would have made a good detective.

‘Nelson sees demons everywhere. How are you, Ruthie?’

Ruth is startled. For one thing, it seems like years since anyone has asked about her rather than Kate. For another – Ruthie? Only Erik ever called Ruth Ruthie.

‘I’m fine. You look different. What is it?’

Cathbad raises a slightly self-conscious hand to his face and Ruth realises.

‘You’ve shaved off your beard.’

For the past few years, Cathbad has sported a black beard, dramatically at odds with his greying hair. Without it he looks younger, more approachable and, to Ruth’s surprise, rather good-looking.

‘Maddy persuaded me.’

Maddy is Cathbad’s teenage daughter. It’s news to Ruth that they’re in contact. ‘Good for Maddy. It’s a distinct improvement.’

Ruth puts her bag on the visitor’s chair and waits for Cathbad to vacate hers. Instead, he smiles up at her, eyes very dark in his clean-shaven face.

‘How’s Hecate?’

‘Kate,’ snaps Ruth. Jesus, why can’t anyone get her name right?

‘I was thinking that it was about time for her naming ceremony.’

Cathbad has appointed himself Kate’s godfather. Ruth quite likes the idea of godparents (anyone turning up with presents is surely a Good Thing) but has refused to have Kate christened because of the little problem of not believing in God. Cathbad, who likes any opportunity to have a party, has suggested a pagan naming ceremony instead. Ruth doesn’t believe in the pagan gods either but at least
Cathbad’s plans don’t involve a church. A picnic on the beach was his last suggestion.

‘Bit cold on the beach,’ she says now.

‘We could have a bonfire.’ Cathbad loves bonfires. He says they are libations for the gods but Nelson is convinced that he is a closet arsonist.

‘You’re not going to start sacrificing goats, are you?’

Cathbad looks hurt. ‘Of course not. It’s a very simple ceremony. We’re just going to show Kate to the gods, that’s all.’

‘Still sounds a bit Wicker Man.’

‘Forget the gods. Just see it as a party to welcome Kate to the world.’

‘That sounds okay, I suppose.’

‘Great. I’ll organise it. Shall we say Thursday week? Are you going to invite your parents?’

‘I don’t think a pagan naming ceremony will be quite their thing somehow.’

‘Are you sure? What about Shona?’

‘She’ll come.’ Shona loves a party almost as much as Cathbad does, and despite a Catholic upbringing she is definitely on the side of the pagans.

‘You’ll have to invite Phil too,’ says Ruth mischievously. ‘They’re together now.’

‘In that case I will invite him,’ says Cathbad with dignity. ‘Even though I find him a rather negative spiritual presence.’

It’s mutual, Ruth wants to tell him. But she doesn’t. Despite everything, she quite likes the idea of a party for Kate. She gives in and sits in the visitor’s chair. Good old Cathbad. He’s been a real support to her over the first few months of Kate’s life. He deserves to be a godparent.

Cathbad’s next words, though, wipe the indulgent smile from Ruth’s face.

‘We’ll have to have Nelson.’

‘Why?’ asks Ruth warily.

Cathbad looks at her blandly. One of the most irritating things about him is that you never quite know what he’s thinking.

‘I see Nelson as a sort of spiritual father to Kate.’

‘Do you?’ Ruth’s heart is beating fast but she keeps her face still.

‘He can be a Guardian. Someone to watch over her.’

‘Nelson’s a Catholic. He wouldn’t come to a pagan ceremony.’

‘He’s not hung up on ritual. He’d come. I’m sure of it.’

That’s what Ruth’s afraid of.

‘We must invite his wife too,’ she says.

‘I’ve only met her once,’ says Cathbad, ‘but she seems a beautiful soul.’

‘She’s very pretty,’ says Ruth drily.

‘I meant spiritually beautiful,’ says Cathbad. Ruth isn’t convinced. For all his high-flown spirituality, Cathbad is susceptible to good-looking women.

‘All right,’ says Ruth. ‘We’ll have a party and a bonfire. Invite all the beautiful people.’

Cathbad smiles and, long after he has left and Ruth is preparing for her tutorial, she still seems to see the smile lingering in the air, like the grin on the face of Lewis Carroll’s famous cat.

A week later Ruth gets the results of the isotope analysis. She rings Nelson immediately but is told, importantly, that he is out ‘on police business’. His mobile phone is switched off so she leaves a message and waits impatiently, looking down at the data in front of her, tapping her phone against her teeth. When it rings, she jumps a mile.

‘Ruth?’ It’s Ted.

‘Hi, Ted. What’s up?’

‘We’ve found something on the beach.’

‘What?’

‘Some barrels.’

‘Barrels?’

‘Old oil barrels. They might be linked to the bodies we found. Do you want to come and have a look?’

Ruth hesitates. Nelson could be hours and she doesn’t feel ready to settle down to any other work. She has no tutorials this afternoon and doesn’t have to collect Kate until five. And she’s intrigued; how could some old oil barrels be linked to the six skeletons?

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I’ll come over.’

Ted is waiting for her by the cliff path. It’s a beautiful afternoon; sunny but cold, with no wind. The tide is out and the shallow rock pools are a bright, unearthly blue. Ted is rubbing his hands together with what looks like glee but could just be an attempt to get the circulation back.

‘This way.’

He leads the way past the jutting headland and onto the next beach. To get there they have to climb over the remains of the old sea wall and Ruth is soon out of breath. Ted rushes on ahead, bounding over the slippery rocks like a goat. Is there such a thing as a sea goat? Ruth pauses on the highest part of the wall, getting her breath back and enjoying the view. In front of her is a perfect picture-postcard bay – white sand, blue sky, seagulls calling – a desert island courtesy of Radio 4. Ted’s footprints in the wet sand are like Man Friday’s. Ruth could almost believe that no-one has ever been on this beach before. Although it is only a few miles from resorts like Cromer, this coastline is remote and hard to reach. The cliffs are high and there are no paths or steps. And there’s always the danger of being cut off by the tide. The cliffs are dangerous too, full of caves and fissures, overhanging precariously in places. The only creatures at home here are the birds – hundreds of them – nesting on the sheer rock face. Despite living near a bird sanctuary, Ruth is not fond of birds.

A tiny figure on the deserted beach, Craig is clearing away sand with a shovel. He looks like an illustration of an impossible task, one of the labours of Hercules or a punishment in the Underworld.

Another, less classical, allusion comes into Ruth’s head, inspired perhaps by Cathbad’s championing of Lewis Carroll:

The Walrus and the Carpenter

Were walking close at hand.

They wept like anything to see

Such quantities of sand.

‘If only this were cleared away,’

They said, ‘it would be grand.’

Ruth climbs down from the wall and walks carefully over the rock pools towards the beach. As she gets closer, she sees that, in fact, Craig is clearing the sand away from a large object – several large objects – that lie half-buried at the foot of the cliff. Closer still, she sees that they are oil barrels, orange with rust and studded with limpets.

Craig is red in the face from his exertions. He greets Ruth and Ted with ‘Just the three of them, I think.’

‘What are they doing here?’ asks Ruth, bending close to examine the corroded metal. ‘It’s such an isolated place. Miles from anywhere.’

‘I used to come birds-nesting here as a child,’ says Craig. ‘We actually used to climb up without ropes or anything. Madness really. The cliffs are eighty foot high in places.’

‘I used to go in for extreme archaeology,’ says Ted. ‘Went into these caves once in the cliffs on the Firth of Clyde. Thirty metres down and full of giant spiders.’

‘Fascinating,’ says Ruth. She has no time for extreme archaeology, which seems to her to abandon the most sacred precepts of the subject – time, patience and care – in favour
of laddish thrill seeking. ‘Why do you think they could be linked to the bodies?

‘Take a look inside,’ says Ted.

The nearest barrel has a hole in its side, leaving a wickedly jagged edge. Peering gingerly inside, Ruth smells a heady mix of petrol and the sea. She gags. The barrel is half-full of stones which have either fallen from the cliffs or been swept in by the tide, but the smell is still all-pervasive. The second barrel is also open to the elements and inside, under the stones and beach debris, Ruth can see something whitish. The third barrel, as Ted says, is still sealed.

She puts on protective gloves and reaches inside the second barrel. The stones are tightly packed, a mixture of chalk and flint, with a stray crab leg or two thrown in for good measure (probably dropped there by seagulls). Ruth reaches down as far as she can and manages to get a hold of the something white. She pulls.

‘Let me help,’ says Ted.

Together, they drag out a wad of cotton fibres, once white but now stained grey and yellow, smelling strongly of rotten eggs.

Ruth almost chokes again. She takes a deep breath. ‘It looks like—’

‘The stuff we found buried with the bodies,’ says Ted. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘The barrel’s full of it,’ says Craig. ‘It stinks to high heaven.’

‘Could be something dead in the bottom of the barrel,’ says Ruth. ‘A fish maybe?’

‘Nah,’ says Ted sniffing knowledgeably. ‘That’s sulphur, that is.’

Sulphur. The word has an ominous sound. Sulphur and brimstone. The devil dancing in front of a yellow fire. Ruth shakes her head irritably. Her parents are big experts on the devil but she doesn’t expect him to come invading her thoughts like this. Especially as he is something else she doesn’t believe in.

The third barrel is still sealed. Ruth pushes at it experimentally; it doesn’t budge but there is a faint sloshing sound.

‘Think it’s full of petrol,’ says Ted.

‘Petrol?’

‘Yeah, the beach stinks of petrol.’

Ruth realises that this is true. Petrol must have leaked copiously from the first barrel so that the whole area smells like a garage forecourt. Looking down she sees that the sand is black with oil.