The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(48)
‘Well, we should go out when this fascinating match is over.’
In the end, they walk over the sand dunes to the sea. The haunted landscape is looking at its best today: the marshes are bright with secret expanses of water and flocks of birds rise up into the pale blue sky.
‘Godforsaken dump,’ mutters Nelson, but his heart isn’t in it.
‘Godforsaken,’ repeats Kate, enjoying the sound of the word.
Ruth misses Cathbad who would surely say something about sacred spaces and liminal zones. But she can’t suggest meeting them for a socially distanced walk because then Judy would see that Nelson is with her.
Kate cheers up at the sight of the sea and runs along the sand, arms outstretched like a toddler pretending to be an aeroplane. Ruth thinks of the moment, twenty-one years ago, when they discovered the timbers of a Bronze Age henge on this same beach. Erik, her mentor and then friend, had fallen to his knees in the centre of the sacred circle. Eleven years later, a child’s body had been found buried in that exact spot.
‘I still think about her,’ says Nelson. ‘Scarlet. Do you?’
Ruth is rather taken aback by this Cathbad-like clairvoyance.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I think about her a lot. She’d be fifteen now.’
Ruth never met Scarlet Henderson in life, but she imagines her now, a laughing teenager, striding along by the water’s edge. Cathbad’s daughter, Maddie, was Scarlet’s half-sister. Ruth wonders how often she conjures this same image.
‘It’s a lonely place,’ says Nelson, looking out towards the sea. ‘A lot of bad memories too. Do you ever think of moving?’
Ruth hesitates. This is dangerous ground, more dangerous than the shifting quicksand of the marsh. ‘Sometimes,’ she says. ‘Now that Kate’s growing up. But I love it here.’
‘I know you do,’ says Nelson, his tone implying that this reflects badly on her judgement.
‘My mum hated it,’ says Ruth. ‘But, when I was going through her belongings, I found a picture of my cottage.’
‘She must have liked it a bit then,’ says Nelson.
‘It was dated 1963,’ says Ruth. ‘That was written on the back, “Dawn 1963”.’
‘It’s a mystery,’ says Nelson. ‘I know you like those.’
‘So do you.’
‘I’m a policeman. I hate mysteries.’
Ruth thinks of the photograph from Peter. The two kittens sitting on her shoulders. Sparky is buried in the back garden. Nelson actually dug the grave. Can she bear to leave those memories behind? And what memories did her mother have of the house, some thirty years before Ruth ever lived there? But, before she can say more, or argue with Nelson – she thinks he likes detection more than he admits – Kate comes galloping over to show them a mermaid’s purse. Concentrate on the present, Ruth tells herself.
Nelson, too, has always imagined this day. What would it be like, in a parallel universe, to be married to Ruth? Restful, is one answer. Ruth doesn’t feel the need to tidy up constantly – she has left Monday’s Guardian on the table all week – and she seems to have no particular agenda for the weekend. Of course, all the places Michelle would frequent – gym, garden centre, shops – are shut but Nelson gets the feeling that they wouldn’t figure in Ruth’s plans anyway. They have a leisurely breakfast, eating bacon sandwiches and drinking coffee. Nelson tries to lure the demon cat with a bacon rind, but the animal simply turns its back on him. Katie laughs so much that orange juice comes out of her nose. Ruth laughs too, and it’s pure joy to hear mother and daughter enjoying themselves so much, even if it is at his expense.
Ruth seems less happy when he settles down to watch the football, as he always does at home. She forces them to go out on a walk, across the dull, flat landscape, pitted with treacherous streams, all the way to the dull, grey sea. Nelson calls it ‘godforsaken’ and Ruth gives him one of her sideways looks. They have quite an interesting talk about Ruth moving house. Although she stamps on the notion, it’s the first time she’s ever admitted that it might be a possibility.
Back at the cottage, Nelson offers to make fish finger sandwiches for lunch and is astounded that Ruth does not stock this essential foodstuff. They have cheese on toast instead. Afterwards, Nelson helps Katie construct a Lego house. He’s forgotten how much he likes this sort of thing, fitting the little grooved bricks together, looking at the baffling Danish instructions, searching for that elusive corner block. He asks Katie what they’re making and she says ‘Hagrid’s hut’ so he’s none the wiser. Ruth sits at the table by the window working on her laptop but Nelson notices her looking over towards him several times. He asks her if she’s had any more sinister messages and she says no. He’ll look into it on Monday. He doesn’t trust Joe McMahon, not one inch. The boy is obviously obsessed with Ruth and now he’s God knows where, plotting God knows what. Nelson does not approve of suspects being where he can’t see them.
Ruth cooks a curry for supper. She does it in a rather haphazard way, with a book propped up on the work surface and Radio 4 tuned to some interminable play about the end of the world, but the curry is surprisingly good. Nelson and Katie wash up (after Nelson spent several futile minutes searching for the dishwasher) and Nelson makes coffee. Then they settle down to watch The Princess Bride. It’s a film Nelson’s daughters loved so, for the first time today, he feels slightly uncomfortable. Katie is sitting very close to him and keeps telling him the plot but, even so, after half a bottle of wine with supper, he feels his eyes starting to close. Ruth, the other side of Katie, is surreptitiously checking her phone. Is she worried about more Grey Lady messages? Or is someone else calling her? That horrendous David from work, perhaps?