The Outcast Dead (13 page)

She thinks about Max now as she takes the turning for New Road. He loved the Saltmarsh, and archaeology – and her, as it turned out. He had even wanted them to have a baby together, a sibling for Kate. But Ruth had ended the relationship last year. When it came down to it, it just wasn’t
enough
, sharing interests, enjoying the same things. Her mother had been horrified. This was the second time that Ruth had ended a relationship with a personable man for the most frivolous of reasons. ‘I just wasn’t in love with him, Mum,’ Ruth said apologetically. ‘Love!’ her mum had responded. ‘What’s love got to do with it? He’d have been a lovely stepfather for little Katie. You’re so selfish sometimes, Ruth.’

Is she selfish, she wonders. She certainly has her life the way she wants it – a job she loves, a daughter she adores, a companion animal to share her home – and she knows that she would find it hard to compromise this existence for any man. Even in her fantasies of Nelson leaving Michelle (which do occur, despite herself), they never progress beyond the first ecstatic love-making. She never thinks about Nelson actually living in the tiny cottage, hogging the bathroom, leaving his giant policeman’s boots on the stairs, wanting to watch the football instead of
Prehistoric Autopsy
. They would kill each other in a week.

The marshlands lie all around her now, the sacred noman’s land that leads to the sea. Looking at the display on
the dashboard, Ruth realises that it’s June twenty-second. The summer solstice was yesterday. At this time of year it’s not unusual to see the flickering lights of bonfires at night, or the hand-held torches of another group of alternative thinkers as they trek over the sands in search of the henge circle. Ruth always thinks of will-o-the-wisps, the spirits of dead children some say, eyes in the darkness. But last night there was nothing. Maybe it’s because Cathbad is no longer here to lead the ritual, scattering libations and wielding the burning brand. Cathbad is far away, perhaps celebrating the solstice with fellow Lancashire druids on top of Pendle Hill. Ruth feels sad. She is also uncomfortably aware that in two days time there will be a significant anniversary of her own. She will be forty-three.

The little house is close now and, as ever, Ruth’s spirits lift at the sight of her blue gate, the trees beyond it bent flat by the winds. She releases Kate from her baby seat and her daughter, in tearing spirits after a refreshing nap, runs into the house in search of Flint.

‘Flinty! Flinty!’

He’ll be hiding under my bed by now, thinks Ruth. She dumps her bag on the sofa and wonders if she can be bothered to cook any supper. Does cheese on toast count as bad mothering? Kate is banging on the back door. She thinks that Flint might be in the garden. Ruth unlocks the door and lets Kate wander out. It’s a safe space, the house is one of a terrace so the only way out is back through the house. Besides the whole garden is just twelve feet
long and contains only uncut grass and a gnarled apple tree. Ruth puts three slices of toast under the grill, one for Kate and two for her. After a second’s thought, she adds another piece. She can hear the seagulls calling from the Saltmarsh and the faint hum of the electric grill. Nothing else. She goes to the back door. A breeze is blowing through the long grass and a single magpie sits in the apple tree. There is no sign of Kate.

Ruth’s heart turns to ice. How can Kate have disappeared? She has only been in the garden two minutes. She must have come back into the house when Ruth’s back was turned. But as Ruth runs upstairs she hears, like an answer-phone message from the past, Delilah’s voice: ‘I only left her for a few minutes. She was playing in the garden.’ Oh, dear God and all the pagan spirits, don’t let anything happen to Kate. She isn’t upstairs. Ruth thunders back through the house in search of her phone. She’ll call the police. Nelson. He’ll come immediately. He loves Kate as much as she does. He’ll find her. Hasn’t he promised that he’ll always look after her?

It’s a few moments before she realises that there’s a man in her kitchen. He’s holding Kate in his arms and the room is full of smoke.

‘Hallo,’ he says. ‘I’m Bob Donaldson. I’m afraid the toast’s burnt.’

At first Ruth doesn’t register the name. Bob? Bob Donaldson? But even as her mind struggles, her body acts quickly. She grabs Kate from the stranger and holds her tightly. Kate wriggles. ‘Down,’ she says, ‘down.’ The man watches with an indulgent smile.

‘Liz Donaldson’s husband,’ he says helpfully.

Liz Donaldson. The woman accused of murdering her son. Delilah’s friend. Cathbad’s cause of the day. Why on earth is her husband in Ruth’s house? She puts Kate down but keeps hold of her hand.

‘How did you get in?’ she asks.

‘I hid in your shed,’ says Bob, as if this is totally reasonable. ‘I climbed through from the neighbour’s garden. The house seemed to be empty.’ Ruth’s neighbours only use their house for occasional weekends. Not for the first time, Ruth curses them for their careless townie ways. But why is this man, who is smiling at her so pleasantly, climbing through gardens and hiding in sheds? Suddenly Ruth feels very alone in the little house on the edge of the
marshes. She wants to ring Nelson. She wants it so badly that she’s surprised that her phone doesn’t start dialling spontaneously. But her phone is in her bag on the sofa. She starts to back away.

‘The thing is,’ Bob is following her. ‘The police are after me.’

‘Really?’ croaks Ruth.

‘They think I killed David. Maddie rang me and warned me that they were after me. Lovely girl, Maddie. They’ve got some stupid Facebook message that apparently proves that I was at the house that day.’

‘Were you at the house that day?’ Ruth echoes rather wildly. She has reached the sofa now and tries, unobtrusively, to reach for her organiser bag. This means letting go of Kate’s hand. Set free, the child bounces away happily.

‘Stay here Kate,’ calls Ruth. She doesn’t want her daughter out of her sight.

‘What a lovely little girl,’ says Bob. ‘I always wanted a daughter but I had three sons. They’re all dead now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Ruth. Her hand is frantically sweeping the sofa. Where is the damn bag?

‘How could they think I killed David?’ Bob’s voice is rising. ‘I loved him. You’ll tell him, won’t you Ruth?’

‘Tell who?’ She is openly searching now. Keys, purse, a tampon, they all come flying out of the various pockets, but her phone is nowhere to be seen.

‘DCI Nelson. Maddie says that you’re very close to him. I want you to tell him that I’m innocent.’

Why does everyone think I’ve got influence with
Nelson, thinks Ruth. And Maddie seems to have inherited her father Cathbad’s talent for interfering. Why can’t they all leave her alone?

Bob comes closer. He puts his hand on Ruth’s arm. She can see the sweat on his face, his eyes are glittering behind his glasses. Should she scream? Who would hear?

But they both jump when Kate speaks loudly and clearly. ‘Dada?’ She has found Ruth’s phone and is clearly having an important conversation.

*

‘She’s so clever,’ says Nelson for what feels like the hundredth time. ‘She actually rang me herself.’

‘It was pure luck,’ says Ruth. ‘She just pressed random buttons.’ She doesn’t like to admit that Nelson’s number, as one of her ‘favourites’, automatically appears on screen when the phone is activated. Nelson, hearing his daughter’s voice and a strange man in the background, had jumped in his car and driven straight round to New Road. He had been rewarded by the sight of his prime suspect sitting on the sofa telling Ruth his life story. Kate had still been playing with the phone (she was having a long conversation with Flint).

Bob hadn’t seemed surprised, or even unduly distressed, at the sight of Nelson.

‘DCI Nelson, we were just talking about you.’

‘Bob Donaldson,’ said Nelson, ‘you’re under arrest for the murder of David Donaldson. Do you understand the nature of the charge?’

‘I didn’t do it,’ said Bob. ‘Ask Ruth. She knows.’

‘I don’t,’ retorted Ruth, grabbing hold of Kate and retrieving her phone.

‘You do not have to say anything,’ intoned Nelson. ‘However, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

‘I didn’t do it,’ said Bob. ‘Tell him, Ruth.’

After a police car has taken Bob away, Ruth makes more toast for a ravenous Kate and she and Nelson sit with their daughter in the kitchen, an uncomfortable parody of a happy family.

‘She’s so clever,’ says Nelson again. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I heard her voice on the phone, clear as a bell.’

‘She is clever,’ says Ruth. ‘She gets it from me.’

Nelson doesn’t rise. He takes a piece of Kate’s toast and asks Ruth how Bob managed to track her down.

‘I think you’ve got Maddie to thank for that,’ says Ruth.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Nelson, when Ruth has explained. ‘Why would she do a thing like that?’

‘I don’t know. She knew Liz, presumably she knew Bob too.’

‘And she’s a friend of Justine’s – the babysitter – that’s how she must have heard that I was on Bob’s tail. She knew that Justine had rung me.’

Ruth doesn’t like to criticise Maddie. She knows that Nelson has endless tolerance where the young are concerned (far less for his fellow adults). Nevertheless, she does feel that Cathbad’s daughter has some explaining to do.

‘Why is she in Norfolk at all?’

‘She wanted to talk to me about the case, the death of David Donaldson. It brought back memories of … of Scarlet.’

Ruth can imagine how this will have affected Nelson, but even so it doesn’t quite ring true for her. Why would Maddie come all the way down from Leeds to harangue Nelson about a case that didn’t concern her at all? OK, it might have reminded her of her sister’s disappearance, but why did she feel that she had to confront Nelson in particular?

‘What’s Maddie like?’ she asks.

Nelson smiles. ‘She’s a bit like her dad. Very intense and other-worldly, talking about energies and negativity and whathaveyou. But in another way she seems very adult. She’s the same age as Rebecca but she seems a lot older. I think she’s had to grow up fast.’

Ruth guesses that Nelson still feels guilty about the events that caused Maddie to grow up too quickly. It’s this guilt which has made him take the girl under his wing. But Ruth must be a nastier person than Nelson because she still feels suspicious. Maddie seems to have infiltrated the Nelson family. Why?

‘How long’s she staying?’ she asks.

‘Just a couple of days,’ says Nelson. ‘She gets on really well with Rebecca.’

‘What does Michelle think?’

Nelson shoots Ruth a look. It’s rare for her to refer to
his wife by name. ‘She likes her,’ he says rather defensively. ‘It’s nice to have the house full again.’

Ruth says nothing. She knows that Nelson misses his daughters when they are away. She feels that she would be only too glad to see the back of two moody adolescents but Nelson is different. He is far more motherly than her.

‘Do you really think that Bob Donaldson killed his baby?’ she asks.

Nelson hesitates before answering. ‘We’ve got information that places him at the scene, he lied about his whereabouts. It doesn’t look good.’

Ruth thinks how like a policeman he sounds, ‘places him at the scene … whereabouts.’ It’s a kind of pompous shorthand. They all do it.

‘He did seem a bit weird,’ she says.

‘Yes, but you’d be surprised how often the weird ones are innocent. It’s the normal-looking ones you’ve got to watch out for.’

Ruth looks at him. ‘Do you still think Liz might be guilty?’

‘No,’ says Nelson. ‘Looks as if she’s in the clear. Especially if he confesses.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ says Nelson again. ‘Sometimes it’s a real relief to tell someone the truth.’

But sometimes people confess to crimes they didn’t commit, thinks Ruth. She doesn’t say this to Nelson. He’s a Catholic, he knows all about the fatal glamour of the confessional. For a few minutes they sit in silence. Nelson
entertains Kate by cutting her toast into shapes, hearts, diamonds and stars. Suddenly he says, not looking at Ruth, ‘Who was the bloke on the film set?’

‘Which bloke?’ says Ruth, though she thinks she knows.

‘Grey-haired. American. Pleased with himself.’

‘Frank Barker,’ says Ruth. ‘He’s a historian. I told you.’

‘Do you know him well?’

Ruth can’t resist saying, ‘I only met him yesterday. I crashed into him.’

Nelson is predictably outraged. ‘I’ll have him for dangerous driving. Katie could have been killed.’

‘I said I wouldn’t press charges,’ said Ruth. ‘No-one was hurt.’.’

‘You need a new car. That thing’s a death trap.’

‘My car’s fine. Don’t fuss, Nelson.’

‘Fuss!’ Nelson looks shocked. ‘I never fuss.’ Ruth forbears to remind him that when she chose Sandra as a childminder Nelson ran no less than three police checks on her. She knows that this excessive concern is his way of compensating for not being able to be a full-time father to Kate. Doesn’t stop it being irritating though.

‘If I make some money from my book I might buy a new car,’ says Ruth.

‘Or if you become a TV star.’

Ruth laughs. ‘Hardly. I’ll probably never hear from them again.’

But Ruth hears from Dani the very next day. They have the Carbon 14 and isotope results and she wants to film Ruth discussing them with Phil and Frank.

‘Just very casual,’ she says. ‘Three professionals together.’

In Ruth’s experience, if you get three archaeology professionals in a room together, violent disagreement usually follows. But she doesn’t say this. She is also furious that Phil has obviously told Dani about the results before sharing them with her.

‘I thought we’d film at the university,’ says Dani. ‘Dreaming spires and all that.’

Has she seen the University of North Norfolk, thinks Ruth. Brideshead, it isn’t. But she says nothing because, deep down, she wants to be filmed dispensing wisdom to Phil and Frank. She wonders if they’ll give her a clipboard to carry.