15

Caz lives in St Anne’s, the posh part of Lytham where the houses all look as if they are made out of Lego. It’s quite a long walk, but since Cathbad has taken the car to visit Pendragon Ruth has no choice but to stride out with Kate in her pushchair. When Cathbad first asked if he could have the car, Ruth had quite fancied the idea of a long, bracing walk, but when Tuesday morning dawned it was a grey blustery day with the promise of rain in the clouds.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind walking?’ asked Cathbad at breakfast. ‘What if it rains?’

‘It’ll be OK,’ said Ruth heartily. ‘Kate won’t shrink, will she?’

She didn’t want Cathbad to change his plans. She knew he was worried about Pendragon and, besides, she didn’t want to be the sort of pathetic woman who can’t walk for half an hour in the rain. Her own mother has never learnt to drive but Ruth remembers, as a child, accompanying her all over London, on buses and trains sometimes, but usually on foot. ‘Come on, Ruth,’ she’d say. ‘Best foot forward.’ Ruth used to wonder which was the favoured foot, as her mother never specified, but, it has to be said, in those days both feet worked pretty well.

Now, she checks that the rain cover is on the pushchair and sets out, intrepid in her yellow cagoule. It’s not quite the sophisticated image that she wanted to present to Caz but you can’t have everything. Cathbad has already driven off in the Renault. ‘I’ll be back this evening,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Pendragon is OK really. It’s just that he seemed worried, all that business with the gun . . .’

‘He’s got Thing to protect him,’ Ruth pointed out.

‘That dog’s as soft as they come,’ said Cathbad. ‘Still, I’m glad Pen’s got some company. He’s a funny bloke, a bit prone to black moods.’

He’s a druid, Ruth wanted to say, of course he’s odd. He wears white robes and leaves gifts out for a witch who died four hundred years ago. But she didn’t say any of this because, despite being a druid, Cathbad had unblocked the sink that morning. As she trudges along the coast road she thinks about the phrase ‘black moods’. Isn’t there another phrase, about having a black dog on your shoulder? A black dog sounds a bit like a witch’s familiar. She remembers Max once telling her that the Romans sacrificed black animals, particularly dogs, to Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft. Black birds too, she remembers, thinking of the Raven God and the birds’ bones found in the temple at Ribchester. Animals and birds are everywhere in language and mythology, something that probably started as soon as the first primitive man and dog decided to team up together. Cats too. As far back as the Egyptians, cats have been found buried with honour. Ruth thinks of her own familiar, her beloved Flint, now being looked after by Bob Woonunga, a man who believes that the world was created by a sacred rainbow snake. Maybe humans need animals to help them understand the world. Certainly it’s hard to see what else cats do for humans, aside from looking cute and killing the odd mouse. But then, thinks Ruth, pushing her untidy hair back inside her cagoule hood, looking cute has always had too high a value in society.

 

As soon as she sees Caz, Ruth realises that she needn’t have worried about looking good. She’s clearly out of her league. Caz’s whole lifestyle oozes sophistication and laid-back style, from the rambling Victorian house to her beautifully cut jeans and crisp white shirt, to the photogenic offspring seen scattered in photo frames around the house.

‘How old are your children?’ asks Ruth, hanging her wet cagoule on a curly coat stand (it started raining roughly five minutes into her walk).

‘Fifteen, twelve and eight,’ says Caz. ‘Pete’s taken them sailing but they’ll be back after lunch. Pete’s dying to catch up with you.’

Ruth and Kate follow Caz into a dauntingly perfect kitchen, all islands and French windows and retro chrome. There is even a sofa and a piano, displaying a Grade 5 scales book. Ruth feels sunk into inadequacy. Not only has Caz got a fifteen-year-old child (something chronologically possible but, to Ruth, almost miraculous) but she’s got children who play Grade 5 piano and go sailing. Sailing! Who on earth does that on a Tuesday morning?

‘How is Pete?’ she asks. Pete was also at UCL; he studied maths and played rugby. But, even so, he wasn’t a bad bloke.

‘Fine,’ says Caz. ‘Going bald, longing for retirement. Aren’t we all?’

Ruth doesn’t know how to answer that one. She never thinks about retirement, except as a far-off dream involving a lake in Norway. She’s only forty-two, and at this rate she’ll have to carry on working into her seventies to pay for Kate to go to university. Are there really people who retire in their forties?

Caz gets out a basket of toys for Kate and she plays happily on the floor. Caz crouches down next to her, helping her assemble a wooden rail track. The trains are battered and chipped, obviously much-loved family heirlooms.

‘Oh, you are lucky, Ruth,’ says Caz. ‘Having one this age. I’d give anything to go back.’

Ruth takes this with a pinch of salt, looking round Caz’s perfect kitchen. If she had a baby, the house and Caz herself would probably look a bit different. Ruth reckons that those jeans are a size eight.

Caz makes coffee in a professional-looking machine that takes up half her working surface. She gets out carrot cake and animal-shaped biscuits for Kate.

‘So, Ruth,’ she says, perching on a chrome stool that looks like something from Happy Days. ‘What are you doing these days? It seems like ages since I saw you.’

Ruth feels uncomfortable. She’s always acutely aware of how dull her life sounds to others. ‘Oh, not much,’ she says, watching Kate enact a high-speed rail crash. ‘Still working at the university. The head of department’s a bit of a pain but the students are lovely and I get to do a few digs.’

‘How do you manage with Kate?’ asks Caz. ‘Have you got a nanny?’

A nanny? She’s speaking a different language again. ‘No,’ says Ruth, ‘but I’ve got a child-minder. She’s very good. Very flexible.’

‘What about Kate’s father?’’ asks Caz. ‘Are you still with him?’

‘No,’ says Ruth. ‘We were never really together but he does see Kate.’

‘Who was that I spoke to on the phone?’ asks Caz. ‘He sounded nice.’ When Caz rang up to arrange this meeting she had, of course, got Cathbad, who had talked at length about the magical powers of sea air.

‘Cathbad. He’s just a friend.’

Caz looks at her curiously, head on one side, the sun catching the expensive highlights in her short hair. Is my life as alien to her as hers is to me, wonders Ruth. All the same, it’s lovely to see Caz again. Within minutes they are off down memory lane, reminiscing about Dan and university and the day that Roly dressed up as a nun for rag week.

‘Dear Roly,’ says Caz. ‘I haven’t seen him for ages, have you?’

‘No, just cards at Christmas,’ says Ruth. ‘He’s living in Edinburgh now.’

‘Still with Christian?’

‘I think so,’ says Ruth. ‘Do you think Roly knows about Dan?’

‘I don’t suppose so. Why?’

‘Oh, just that Dan mentioned him in the letter he wrote to me. He asked about you, Roly and Val.’

‘Well, that was our group at uni, wasn’t it? The four of us.’

Ruth thinks about the four of them—sardonic Caz, sweet Roly, easy-going Val, earnest Ruth—how is it possible that they have lost touch like this? But Roly is in Scotland and Caz and Val lost to the land of marriage and motherhood. And Dan, Dan who was always too cool for their group, is lost forever.

‘It’s so strange that he wrote to you,’ says Caz. ‘Just before he died.’

‘I know,’ says Ruth. She doesn’t mention her recurring nightmare that Dan is calling for her help, trapped in some nightmare hyperspace between life and death. She thinks of his answerphone message: I’ll get back to you. Promise. She tries to rid herself of the notion that Dan will, in some way, get back to her.

‘It’s been odd,’ she says. ‘Meeting his colleagues. Looking at his archaeology. I keep thinking that I’ll be able to discuss it all with him.’

‘What was the great discovery?’ asks Caz, who is now putting together a gourmet lunch with what looks like superhuman ease. On the floor, Kate slams her trains into each other. She’s as bad a driver as her father.

Ruth hesitates. She has told Caz only that the university wanted her to look at a discovery Dan had made. She considers telling Caz the whole story, about King Arthur, the Raven God, the awful suspicion that Dan was murdered. But then she thinks of the text messages, the fear in Clayton Henry’s face. It’s better for Caz if she doesn’t know.

‘It was a temple,’ she says. ‘On the outskirts of Ribchester.’

‘There’s lots of Roman stuff there,’ says Caz. ‘I took the kids to the museum once.’

‘Yes, it’s a well-known site,’ says Ruth, ‘but this temple’s interesting for a few reasons. It’s in the Roman style but Dan thought it was built after the Romans withdrew from Britain. And it’s dedicated to a god in the form of a raven.’

‘An unkindness of ravens,’ says Caz.

‘What?’

‘That’s the collective noun for ravens,’ says Caz, drizzling oil and shredding basil. ‘Like a murder of crows.’

‘Jesus,’ says Ruth. ‘What is it about these birds?’

‘I don’t like birds,’ says Caz. ‘I think I saw that Hitchcock film at an impressionable age. I don’t like the way they gather on the telegraph lines. It’s as if they’re waiting for something.’

‘I live near a bird sanctuary,’ says Ruth. ‘They’re very beautiful sometimes.’ She thinks about her ex-neighbour, David, who was the warden of the sanctuary. He loved the birds; it was just humans who were the problem.

‘How are you getting on with Dan’s colleagues?’ asks Caz. ‘Are they being helpful?’

Ruth thinks about Guy and Elaine at the barbeque, Elaine’s antipathy and Guy’s bid for ownership. She thinks about Clayton Henry drinking champagne in the rosy hue of the marquee and staring glumly at his tea in the backstreet cafe.

‘They’re an odd bunch,’ she says. ‘The head of department only really cares about making money out of Dan’s find. One of his colleagues was really nice and genuinely devastated about his death. The others seemed a bit . . . I don’t know . . . I wondered how much they really cared about Dan. I was going to ask—were any of them at his funeral?’

Caz pauses, pine nuts in hand. ‘I think so. There was a man and a blonde woman. She seemed very upset. I remember wondering if she was a girlfriend. She didn’t come back to the hotel with the rest of us. I wondered if she didn’t want to meet Dan’s ex-wife.’

Guy and Elaine, thinks Ruth. Or Sam and Elaine. Was Elaine Dan’s girlfriend? It’s possible, she is glamorous enough in a hard-faced way. That might explain her attitude towards Ruth and her rather brittle behaviour at the party. At any rate, she at least had been sad at the funeral. And what about Guy? Where does he fit in? He seemed very close to Elaine, rushing over to comfort her when she was crying. Is he her boyfriend or just a devoted follower?

‘What about the man? What was he like?’

‘Medium height. Sandy hair. He seemed nice.’

Sam Elliot. So neither Guy nor Clayton Henry had been at Dan’s funeral. So much for the whole department being heartbroken. And despite Clayton’s claim that Dan ‘didn’t have an enemy in the world’, the police think that someone murdered him. She decides not to say any of this to Caz.

‘That looks delicious,’ she says. ‘Can I do anything to help?’

 

Sandy McLeod and Harry Nelson are together again. They are Starsky and Hutch, Bodie and Doyle, the Sweeney, the good-looking ones from The Bill. Or rather, they are two middle-aged men driving too fast in a Ford Mondeo. When Sandy asked Nelson if he’d like to go with him to interview Professor Henry from the university, Nelson had jumped at the chance. He wanted to find out what happened to Ruth’s friend and he liked the thought of spending some time with Sandy, but more than anything, he was desperate to get away from Maureen.

‘Asking you to work in your holiday,’ said Maureen. ‘What a cheek.’

‘All part of the job,’ said Nelson, waiting by the door so that he could be away as soon as Sandy drew up outside. The last thing he wanted was for Maureen to lure him in for a cup of tea.

‘You’ll miss our trip to the Trough of Bowland.’

‘I know. I’m that disappointed.’

Michelle looked sceptically at her husband. She had heard him on the phone to Sandy and the word ‘disappointed’ hadn’t come up once.

Now Sandy and Nelson are bowling along the A583 to Kirkham. Nelson approves of Sandy’s driving style. So many young PCs these days have done advanced driving courses and drive like old ladies in hats but Sandy has a fine disregard for speed limits. ‘There’s not a traffic cop in the area would dare pull me in,’ he boasts. Nelson would like to say the same but he’s afraid that the uniforms (like the WPCs) are not as amenable in Norfolk. He is starting to wish that he’d stayed in Blackpool and become a fully fledged rule-breaking chauvinist. The move south has emasculated him.

‘Who’s this bloke we’re going to see?’ he asks as they bounce merrily over a mini roundabout.

‘Head of the history department at the university,’ says Sandy. ‘He was Dan Golding’s boss. He ought to know if there was any funny business going on. Mind you, most of these academic types are on a bloody different planet half the time.’

Nelson thinks of Ruth Galloway, who is definitely an ‘academic type’. Is she on a different planet? It’s true that sometimes their priorities don’t coincide—Ruth has, for example, signed Katie up with a library but hasn’t yet even thought about schools—but, for the most part, Ruth is definitely of this world. What’s more annoying, she’s currently in his part of the world. What the hell is she doing in Lytham? She knows that Dan’s death is being treated as suspicious, how dare she bring Katie anywhere near a murder enquiry? He fumes silently, watching the countryside fly past.

The windmill takes them both by surprise.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Sandy, as they screech to a halt on the gravelled drive. ‘Does he actually live in this thing?’

‘It’s like something from a crazy golf course,’ says Nelson, who played this particular game yesterday with his older sister Grainne and her family.

‘Must be worth a pretty packet,’ says Sandy. ‘How much do these lecturers earn?’

‘Not much,’ says Nelson, thinking of Ruth and her poky cottage on the edge of nowhere. ‘He must be a closet pop star or something.’

But Clayton Henry, who comes bustling bare-footed across the paved courtyard to greet them, doesn’t look like a pop star. True, he is wearing a top which instantly makes Nelson categorise him as ‘eccentric, possibly gay’, but he is also overweight and slightly anxious, rubbing his hands together and laughing loudly at Sandy’s windmill jokes.

Sandy introduces Nelson and Henry says, with a nervous attempt at banter, ‘Two DCIs. I’m honoured.’

‘It’s a special offer,’ says Sandy, deadpan. ‘Buy one, get one free.’

Professor Henry ushers them into the windmill and up what seem to be hundreds of twisty metal steps. Eventually, they reach a room at the very top of the house which Henry describes as his study. To Nelson it looks like something from one of those poncy design programmes that Michelle likes so much. The walls are glass, the floor shiny wood and there is nothing as utilitarian as a desk or an office chair anywhere. Sandy and Nelson sit on low sofas and Henry (to Nelson’s amazement) on what looks like a giant beach ball. ‘It’s for my back,’ he explains, bouncing gently. ‘Ergonomically sound.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ says Sandy. ‘Now, Professor Henry, as I said on the phone, I’d like to ask you a few questions about the late Daniel Golding.’

Nelson admires Sandy’s complete lack of what Judy would call ‘empathetic echoing’. He simply gets out a notebook and barks questions. How long had Professor Henry known Daniel Golding? Five years, ever since he came to work at Pendle. Was he a good archaeologist? Yes, excellent. He could probably have taken a more prestigious job elsewhere but his wife had got a job at Preston University and wanted to move north. (Nelson sympathises with this; it was at Michelle’s insistence that they moved to Norfolk and, deep down, he’s never forgiven her.) Was Golding still married? No, they divorced about three years ago, it was very sad. Girlfriends? Don’t know, but he was a good-looking chap, so it’s possible.

‘Was Daniel Golding popular in the department?’

For the first time, Clayton Henry falters. The ball stops bouncing and seems to deflate slightly.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘He was a lovely man. Everyone liked him.’

‘Could you give me the names of his closest friends?’

‘Look,’ says Henry. ‘What’s all this about? Daniel’s death was a tragedy. There was nothing sinister about it, was there?’

Interesting choice of word, thinks Nelson. Also, by his reckoning, Henry should have asked this question about ten minutes earlier.

Sandy hardly looks up from his notebook. ‘We’re treating his death as suspected murder, Professor Henry.’

‘What?’ For a second, Henry seems to lose his balance and rocks wildly on the ball. His feet scrabble on the floorboards. Nelson looks at him with distaste—in his book bare feet are for women or children.

‘The fire in his house was started deliberately,’ says Sandy.

‘Oh my God.’

‘So we’re interested to know if anyone had a grudge against Golding, either professionally or personally.’

All the bounce has gone out of both Henry and the ball. He stands up and walks quickly round the circular room. Sandy and Nelson both watch him impassively.

Eventually, Henry comes to a halt between the two policemen. He sits heavily on the sofa next to Nelson.

‘I can’t think of anyone who would do this,’ he says. ‘Daniel was very popular, a little reserved perhaps, but a charming, personable man.’

‘Professor Henry,’ says Sandy. ‘In the past Pendle University has had trouble with the extreme right. Is there any chance that Daniel could have been involved with one of these groups?’

Henry laughs. For the first time, he sounds almost natural. ‘Daniel? Never! He was a real Guardian-reading liberal. Like the rest of us in the history department.’ Nelson thinks of Ruth, who also reads the Guardian. He can’t really see the point of newspapers himself, he prefers to get his news from the TV, but Michelle rather likes the Daily Mail.

‘Could these right-wingers have had something against Golding?’ asks Sandy.

‘Why?’

‘Maybe because he was Jewish?’

Henry is silent for a moment, then he says, ‘I don’t know. You can’t put anything past these idiots. But most people didn’t even know Daniel was Jewish. He wasn’t a religious Jew. Didn’t make a song and dance of it.’

‘He didn’t refuse to work on the Sabbath?’ asks Sandy. Nelson doesn’t know if he’s joking or not but Henry takes the question seriously.

‘No. On the contrary. He did most of his digging—archaeology, you know—at the weekends.’

‘Professor Henry,’ says Nelson. ‘Is it true that Daniel Golding had recently made a significant archaeological find?’

Sandy looks at his friend in amazement but Henry answers eagerly.

‘Yes. How did you . . .’

‘I have my sources,’ says Nelson grandly. ‘Was there any controversy linked to this discovery?’

Now Henry really does look worried. He glances from one policeman to the other and then down at his feet. Nelson waits. He knows the power of silence, of leaving a space for the suspect to convict themselves, and is, therefore, rather irritated when Sandy butts in.

‘Answer the question please, Professor Henry. Was there any controversy attached to this archaeological discovery?’

Henry rubs his face with his hand. Eventually he says, in almost a whisper, ‘The right-wing group on campus, they’re racists, idiots, not a brain cell between them. But there’s a sub-group, a kind of secret society. They call themselves the White Hand. They’re obsessed with history, particularly with King Arthur.’

‘King Arthur?’ echoes Sandy.

‘Yes. That’s what Dan thought he had discovered. The tomb of King Arthur.’

Sandy and Nelson look at each other. Sandy says, ‘Isn’t he meant to be buried in Cornwall somewhere?’

‘There are all sorts of legends,’ says Henry. ‘And some link Arthur to this area, to the northern borders. The thing is, this group, they’ve got a special thing about Arthur.’

‘What do you mean, a special thing?’ asks Sandy, sounding impatient. Nelson would have been impatient himself once but his association with Ruth has made him more tolerant.

‘For them he’s the big English hero,’ says Henry, still sounding scared. ‘They call him the White King, the High King. They wouldn’t want him associated with the Romans. They see the Romans as foreigners, invaders. And that’s where Dan uncovered the tomb. At Ribchester, a famous Roman site.’

‘And was Golding aware of any intimidation from the group, the White Hand?’ asks Sandy.

‘I don’t know,’ says Henry miserably. Nelson wonders if he’s telling the truth.

‘Do you know the names of anyone involved with this group?’

‘No,’ says Henry. ‘It’s all deadly secret. They wear masks when they appear in public, on demos and the like.’

‘Would they have known about Daniel Golding’s find?’

Clayton Henry attempts a jocular tone. ‘You know what universities are like. Nothing stays secret for long.’

‘No, I don’t know what universities are like,’ says Sandy. ‘Barely managed CSEs in art and metalwork. So you think that someone in this secret society may have found out that Daniel Golding had discovered the lost tomb of King Arthur?’

‘It’s possible,’ says Clayton Henry miserably.

‘Is it possible that one of these White Hand people killed Daniel Golding?’

‘No,’ says Clayton Henry. ‘I can’t believe that anyone would do that.’

‘You’d better believe it,’ says Sandy brutally. ‘Daniel Golding died of smoke inhalation. The door of his house was locked from the outside.’

Clayton Henry puts a hand over his face. ‘Don’t.’

‘Ever see anyone dead after a fire?’ asks Sandy. ‘Pretty nasty way to die.’

Henry’s shoulders shake. Nelson wonders if he’s going to break down altogether. Sandy, obviously thinking the same thing, moves in for the kill.

‘Professor Henry, do you know anything about Dan Golding’s death?’

Henry says nothing but another voice cuts through the air.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

The two policemen turn as a tall woman stalks into the room, followed by a small fluffy dog. The woman hurries to Clayton Henry’s side and puts her arm round him.

‘It’s all right, Clay. It’s all right.’

The dog, sensing tension, starts barking wildly. Nelson sees Sandy’s foot itching to kick it.

‘What’s going on?’ The woman looks up. Despite being casually dressed in sports clothes, she is extremely attractive, with the sort of classic good looks that need no adornment. Nelson guesses that she’s in her early forties. Is she Henry’s personal assistant? His therapist?

‘I’m Pippa Henry,’ says the vision. ‘Clayton’s wife. Can you please tell me what’s happening here?’

Nelson and Sandy exchange glances. Clearly there’s more to the bare-footed, ball-bouncing Henry than meets the eye. Not only does he live in a Grand Designs show home, he also has a show wife. A show wife who is looking distinctly angry. She scoops up the dog and glares at Sandy.

‘Well?’

‘We’re police officers,’ says Sandy woodenly. ‘Investigating the death of Daniel Golding.’ He shows his warrant card.

‘What’s that got to do with Clay? He was devastated by Dan’s death.’

‘We’re following several lines of enquiry,’ says Sandy.

‘Well, you’ll have to come back another day,’ says Pippa Henry. ‘Unless you want to arrest him, that is. Can’t you see how upset he is? He’s been under a lot of strain lately.’

For a second they glare at each other, the lugubrious policeman and the whippet-slim woman. The dog lets out a single shrill bark. Clayton sobs silently in the background.

‘We’ll come back another day,’ says Sandy.