Dying Fall, A (34 page)

‘Found her in Dora’s World. Fast asleep, poor little mite.’

‘Kate!’ Ruth scoops her daughter into her arms, oblivious of anything but the sight, smell and sound of her. She buries her face in Kate’s dark hair.

‘Mum,’ says Kate sleepily.

‘Oh, my baby.’

She hasn’t called him but Nelson is beside her. She thinks he’s crying but she can’t be sure. She hears Tim telling the attendant to start the ride moving again. ‘As quick as you can, don’t go through the whole circuit.’ Screams as the carriages start to move backwards. An ambulance is driving past them through the goggling crowds, but Ruth, holding Kate, can think of nothing else. She is aware that Elaine, too, is crying. The ride screeches to a halt in front of them. Sandy rushes forward and pulls the woman out of her seat. The mask and the wig come off together.

Leaving Ruth staring at the open, friendly face of Sam Elliot.

And, in Norfolk, Judy cries out, loudly enough to wake the baby.

It is the perfect day for a druid’s funeral. The sun has just risen over Pendle Hill and the four robed figures stand, arms raised, as if to lift it higher into the pale blue sky. The main celebrant, a woman named Olga, calls out in a thin but carrying voice:

‘Oh great spirit, Mother and Father of us all, we ask for your blessings on this our ceremony of thanksgiving, and honouring and blessing. We stand at a gateway now. A gateway that each of us must step through at some time in our lives.’

Ruth, standing shivering with Kate in her arms, thinks of the people she knows who have passed through the gateway. Erik, Dan, little Scarlett—the girl whose death really started everything. Are they really just out there, beyond the sunrise, waiting? Cathbad once said something like this to her, that he had travelled to the land between life and death to save Nelson and had seen Erik, guarding the portal to the afterlife. Nelson had dismissed it, of course, but Ruth had thought at the time that he looked rather uncomfortable. She suspects Nelson of having had a near-death experience when he was ill last year. Not that he would ever admit it.

The four druids, Olga explained earlier, represent the four elements: earth, fire, water and air. The ceremony relieves the elements of the responsibility of supporting the dead soul. The druids now chant:

‘Earth my body,

Water my blood,

Air my breath,

Fire my spirit.’

The sun rises higher and a flock of geese flies westwards, towards the sea. Sacred birds, Cathbad had called them, sacred to the Romans and maybe also to the ancient Britons who had worshipped the Raven God.

Olga turns and raises the clay urn. ‘May his soul be immersed in the shining light of the unity that is the Mother and Father of us all.’

She takes a handful of dust and flings it into the air where an obliging gust of wind takes it and sends it spiralling upwards, a second’s transitory glitter before dispersing to the four corners of the earth. One by one, the other druids place their hands into the urn.

‘Earth my body,

Water my blood,

Air my breath,

Fire my spirit.’

Olga offers Ruth the receptacle, but she shakes her head. ‘Want,’ says Kate, but quietly. Ruth is surprised to see not only Nelson, but Tim take a handful of ashes and throw them into the air. She is surprised how much there is but, eventually, Olga turns the urn upside down to show there is nothing left. The four druids come together and bow.

‘Go in peace, our beloved,’ says Olga. ‘From his spirit a pure flame shall rise. Hail and farewell.’

‘Hail and farewell,’ answer the others.

Ruth raises her eyes to the sky, surprised by the sudden sting of tears. The druids are walking down the hill now, Tim, Nelson and the other mourners following behind.

One of the robed figures stops beside Ruth. ‘A beautiful service.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see the birds flying across the sun?’

Ruth looks sceptical. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that it was a sign of something.’

‘Everything’s a sign of something,’ says Cathbad.

Cathbad’s fall to earth had been cushioned by a stall selling giant slush puppies. Tim, racing to the scene, described his horror at seeing Cathbad’s face covered by a virulent crimson liquid that seemed mysteriously to be full of ice.

‘Poor soul,’ said a voice in the crowd. ‘His blood’s frozen from being so high.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Sandy, pushing his way through the throng. ‘It’s one of those bloody silly kids’ drinks.’

Cathbad had opened his eyes, blinking back chunks of strawberry-flavoured ice. ‘Kate?’

‘She’s been found,’ says Tim. ‘Safe and sound.’

‘Thank the gods,’ said Cathbad, closing his eyes again.

The police think that Sam drugged Kate, leading to a heavy sleep behind a giant statue of Dora in Latin America. His threat to throw her from the Big One was an attempt to scare Ruth into dropping her investigation into King Arthur’s bones, but as the police rushed to the Pleasure Beach he must have known that the game was up. Maybe he just wanted one more laugh, waving to Ruth as the roller-coaster began its journey into the sky, grinning behind his Simon Cowell mask. Maybe he was planning to jump himself. Police found a suicide note at his house, alongside instructions on how to look after his dog. Like Pendragon, Sam hadn’t forgotten his faithful familiar. But, unlike Pendragon, Sam hadn’t taken the fateful plunge but had allowed himself to be taken away by the police, where he is currently in the process of convincing them that he’s insane.

‘Perhaps he always was mad,’ said Elaine. ‘It’s hard to tell, isn’t it?’

Sam’s fingerprints were on the paper knife, and that same evening he confessed to the murders of Clayton Henry and Dan Golding. Elaine was in the clear and appeared desperate to talk to Ruth. That first night, Nelson had whisked Ruth and Kate to his mother’s house, where Maureen looked after them, sure that Ruth was frantic with worry about her ‘lovely boyfriend Cuthbert’. Ruth
was
frantic with worry, but once she knew that Cathbad was in no danger (the fall had left him with nothing worse than concussion and two cracked ribs), she felt a kind of mad exultation. Kate was safe. She hadn’t been kidnapped or killed or thrown from the highest rollercoaster in Britain. She was safe with her mother—and her father. That night, Ruth had sat watching Kate as she slept, feeling guilty happiness at the thought that Nelson was sleeping under the same roof. He hadn’t been able to make too much of a fuss of Kate under his mother’s eagle eye (besides, he was on the phone to Sandy for most of the evening), but that didn’t matter. For that one short night, they were all together.

When Ruth drove back to Beach Row the next day, Elaine was waiting for her. Ruth remembered the other time that Elaine had turned up at her door, full of tales of King Arthur. Except that she had left out the most important fact: the identity of Mordred.

‘I didn’t know,’ she said to Ruth, who was trying to contain Thing’s frantic welcome. Nelson had been over the night before to feed the dog and take him for a walk but Thing clearly seemed to feel that he had narrowly escaped abandonment yet again. In fact, it took Ruth several minutes to feed Thing and get Kate settled with juice and her toy cars. By that time, Elaine was already ensconced on the sofa.

‘You must have had some idea,’ said Ruth.

‘I didn’t. Honestly. I thought Guy was the Arch Wizard. I really did. That’s why I was so scared. I didn’t even know that Sam was in the White Hand. I thought he was quite boring actually, always going on about the war and all that. I thought he was just an anorak, quite sweet but dull, you know.’

But what better indication of fascist sympathies, thinks Ruth, than an obsession with the Second World War? After all, hadn’t Sam’s first words to her been about Adolf Hitler? And, when she met him at the library, he had been going to give a talk about the war. It seems, though, that Sam’s interest had gone beyond mere local history. Police had found his house stuffed with Nazi memorabilia, as well as hundreds of books about King Arthur and a rather worried Jack Russell. This, of course, was the dog that Ruth had seen being walked along Beach Row by the blonde woman.

Surprisingly, it seems that Elaine knew, or suspected, about the cross-dressing. ‘Dan said that he’d caught him at it once. He called round unexpectedly and found Sam all tarted up in a dress and high heels. To be honest, I didn’t think too much about it. I mean, each to their own.’ She looked at Ruth earnestly, her face naked and vulnerable, like an actress without make-up. ‘We’ve all got something to hide. I’m sure you’ve heard all about my past.’

Nelson had told Ruth the night before. The young Elaine Morgan had a history of schizophrenia and, at fifteen, had stabbed her mother after a row about homework. A spell in a secure institution had followed, beginning a cycle of mental illness and hospitalisation interspersed with impressive academic achievements. Meeting Guy had proved to be a turning point. He had proved a remarkably stabilising influence, and for the last five years Elaine had lived with him in relative tranquillity—apart from dressing up as Arthurian characters and getting involved with white supremacist groups, of course.

‘We didn’t care about the politics,’ said Elaine. ‘We only cared about Arthur.’

But what about Guy, the man who loved Elaine but was forced to watch her have an affair with his friend and next-door neighbour? Guy was clearly involved with the White Hand, he knew Pendragon well, and he knew that Cathbad had been to Dame Alice’s cottage and found the laptop. Did Sam tell him? Did Guy know that Sam was the Arch Wizard? Ruth thinks not; she thinks that Sam stayed hidden behind the persona of a geeky war enthusiast, always on the outskirts of the group, always in the shadows. She remembers Terry Durkin mentioning Guy that day at CNN Forensics. That was the link, she thinks. Terry must have told Guy about the computer. Terry was probably the only person who knew about Sam and that was because Sam needed him, his man on the inside. The police are charging Terry Durkin with the theft of the computer. As a member of the forensics team, he would have had ample opportunity to remove evidence. Sandy is in ecstasy at the thought of the possible embarrassment to Peter Greengrass. And Terry also helped Sam to switch the bones. Didn’t he say that nothing entered or left CNN Forensics without his knowledge?

How much did Dan know? His diaries showed that he trusted both Guy and Sam. He thought that Clayton was shielding someone but had no idea who. His main concern was that Clayton would find out that he was sleeping with his wife. Not for the first time, Ruth wondered what it was that her old university friend really cared about. Not Elaine certainly. Not Pippa, who hardly merited a few words in his diary. In fact the only person mentioned with any passion was the Raven King himself. King Arthur.

Dan had loved the legend of King Arthur. The discovery of his tomb was the thrill of his life, professionally and personally. But Dan had made a fatal mistake. He must have told his friend Sam, his office mate, about the amazing test results that proved that Arthur, King of the Britons, though born in the north of England, had African DNA and was almost certainly black. This had sealed his fate. Sam says that he had pushed the burning rags through Dan’s doorway himself but the police think that he must have had accomplices, other members of the White Hand. Terry? Other members of the group? Sandy and Tim have still got a lot of work to do, tracking down all the neo-fascists at Pendle.

But Sam must have still had his doubts about Clayton, the man who was in so much financial trouble and who, in the tomb of King Arthur, saw his potential salvation. Didn’t Elaine say, that evening when she turned up at the cottage, that Clayton wanted to carry on with the investigation? And it was Clayton who had summoned Ruth, the so-called bones expert. From the moment that she arrived in Lytham, Ruth realises, she must have been in danger. And Clayton . . . Clayton signed his own death warrant.

It was Sam who sent the text messages: the phone was found in his possession. He must also have been the cloaked figure on the riverbank. Well, his attempts to scare Ruth away almost worked. If it hadn’t been for that last visit to the university and the discovery of Clayton Henry’s body . . .

Elaine told Ruth that she had received a phone call that morning asking her to come to the university for an interview. ‘I’d been applying for jobs as an assistant lecturer but no one seemed to want to employ me.’ She looked at Ruth out of mad blue eyes. ‘I don’t know why.’ So Elaine had dressed in her black interview suit and high heels and arrived at the university to find Clayton dead at his desk. ‘I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I ran around trying to find a place to hide.’ Ruth remembered the ghastly figure at the desk and the footsteps skittering about on the floor above and found herself feeling sorry for Elaine. She might be mad and seriously lacking in judgement, but she didn’t deserve to be framed for murder. Because that must have been what Sam was trying to do, surely? Elaine, with her history, would have been the perfect suspect. If Sandy hadn’t been distracted by Nelson’s frantic phone call, he would probably have charged Elaine on the spot. And she, in her fragile emotional state, might even have confessed. And, if Ruth happened to recall a mysterious blonde woman hanging around her house, wouldn’t that also have pointed to Elaine?

Ruth remembers looking at Elaine as she sat curled up on the sofa. Elaine had thought she was Guinevere and Ruth had once figured her, as her name suggested, as Morgan-le-Fay, but, in reality Elaine was a peripheral figure in the drama. Dan had not loved her and Clayton had not trusted her. Sam had seen her as the perfect scapegoat. Only Guy had stayed loyal, Sir Lancelot to the last. Ruth only hoped that Elaine appreciated him.

Ruth and Cathbad walk through the gate leading to Dame Alice’s cottage. Cathbad has prepared a post-funeral breakfast for all participants. When Ruth agreed to stay a few more days in Lancashire so that she could attend Pendragon’s funeral, she was surprised when Cathbad had announced that he was moving into the cottage. ‘I think it’s what he would have wanted,’ he said. ‘Thing will like it too.’