The Lantern Men

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘We should keep an eye on all of them,’ she says. ‘It’s the bike race tomorrow.’

  ‘I know,’ says Nelson. ‘We’re going to cheer Laura on.’

  ‘I checked the entries,’ says Judy. ‘Leonard’s in the race as well. I think I should come along too.’

  ‘Good idea,’ says Nelson. ‘OK, Leah. I’m coming. Bloody hell. Who’d be a DCI?’

  ‘Probably not me,’ says Judy.

  ‘Don’t be daft. You’ll be a DCI one day. A bloody good one too.’

  Judy knows that she’s blushing. To cover it up, she says, ‘See you at the bike race.’

  ‘Jesus wept,’ says Nelson, gathering up what looks like a random pile of papers, ‘what a way to spend a Saturday.’

  Chapter 28

  The first person Ruth sees is Nelson. He is with Michelle and George is up on his shoulders. Why do men always carry children in this way? she thinks irritably. Is it to make themselves even taller? Or is it to present their child as a trophy, like a footballer with the FA cup? She pretends not to see him until Kate shouts, ‘Daddy!’

  Ruth always wonders what Kate thinks when she sees Nelson with George. Does she resent the fact that George has his father with him all the time, ready to hoist him on his shoulders at a moment’s notice? If so, Kate never shows it. She’s always pleased to see Nelson but never complains when she has to leave him. Suddenly, this makes Ruth feel sad.

  ‘Hallo, Nelson,’ she says.

  Nelson puts George down and the toddler makes a beeline for Kate, whom he adores. It’s all very complicated.

  Nelson and Frank shake hands.

  ‘The little guy is really growing,’ says Frank. ‘How old is he now? Two?’

  ‘He was two in February,’ says Michelle. She is wearing skinny jeans and a white T-shirt and looks almost like one of the competitors. Ruth doesn’t know Michelle’s exact age, she’s younger than Nelson but not by much. George was definitely a surprise. Sadly there’s not by much sign of Michelle succumbing to middle age and elasticated waists. Suddenly Ruth’s own jeans (not the skinny variety) seem uncomfortably tight.

  ‘Where’s Laura?’ says Ruth.

  ‘Over there.’ Michelle points. Laura is with a group of other riders. She’s wearing a pink lycra top and cycling shorts with stripes down the side. Her hair is in a plait and she’s carrying her helmet. A wave of pure affection washes over Ruth. Yes, it’s complicated all right.

  Kate is playing with George, making him laugh by swinging him round. Suddenly she stops and shouts, ‘Cathbad!’

  It’s almost too much, thinks Ruth. A reunion here, within sight of the Saltmarsh. Ruth, Cathbad and Nelson, the same three people who crossed the marshes one treacherous night ten years ago, trying to save a kidnapped child. Please don’t let Cathbad be wearing his cloak.

  The gods are on her side. Cathbad is disguised as a normal person, wearing shorts and a black T-shirt advertising some obscure band. Michael is with him and he, too, rushes over to Kate. Judy follows, holding Miranda by the hand.

  It’s obvious that Judy is not here purely for the pleasure of watching a cycle race in the sun. Letting Miranda join the other children, she turns to Nelson. ‘Leonard’s over there,’ she says.

  ‘Where?’ says Nelson.

  ‘Talking to Ailsa Britain, wearing all black.’

  Leonard Jenkins, one of the three Lantern Men mentioned by Crissy. Ruth follows the direction of Judy’s pointing finger and sees a middle-aged man holding his bicycle and talking to a woman and two other men. Even from a distance, there seems to be something intense about their conversation. The three musketeers, thinks Ruth. All for one and one for all.

  ‘And that’s Bob Carr,’ says Judy. ‘Leonard told me that they never see each other these days. Well, they certainly seem pretty friendly today.’

  ‘Who’s the other man?’ says Nelson.

  ‘I think it must be Leonard’s husband, Miles.’

  ‘Keep an eye on them,’ says Nelson. ‘When’s the first stop?’

  ‘Burnham Overy Staithe,’ says Judy. ‘There are timing mats at each stage. The riders have stickers with metal chips on the seat posts of their bikes. It’s all very organised.’

  ‘You go to Burnham,’ says Nelson, ‘I’ll go to the next one. Where is it?’

  ‘Wells, then Stiffkey, then Blakeney. It ends in Cley, by the visitor centre.’

  ‘All the fun places. Well, they can’t get up to much on a bike race.’

  Ruth moves away so it doesn’t look as if she’s eavesdropping. They are in the car park of Briarfields, a charming hotel where Ruth once had a meal in the company of six female priests. At one end of the car park is a wooden gate and beyond that, Ruth knows, is a path leading to the dunes. They are only about a mile away from Ruth’s cottage. It’s a hot day and so the race has been scheduled to start at six p.m. when, it is hoped, the temperature will be cooler. It’s still sultry though and Ruth feels too hot in her jeans. God knows what it would be like to cycle in this weather.

  ‘Hallo, Ruth.’

  Ruth turns but can’t at first place the man addressing her. He’s wearing a number, so he must be in the race, but his shorts and T-shirt look more like gardening clothes than race gear. That’s who he is. John Robertson, the gardener at Grey Walls.

  ‘Hallo,’ she says. ‘I didn’t realise that you were a cyclist.’

  ‘I’m not a professional like this lot,’ says John. ‘But I ride my bike everywhere. And I thought it would be a nice route along the coast. Didn’t expect it to be this hot though.’

  ‘It is hot,’ says Ruth. She’s rather thrown by the sudden appearance of John Robertson. She remembers sitting on the veranda in the evening listening to the gardener telling stories of spectral shapes, sacred springs and restless spirits, of green children lost in a forest and ploughmen who discover fairy gold. He has lived at Grey Walls a long time, he must have known Ivor March well. Bob and Leonard too. Ruth thinks of John bending over to talk to Kate. Your daughter’s an artist.

  ‘Five minutes,’ shouts someone through a megaphone.

  ‘I’d better be going,’ says John. ‘Nice to see you again, Ruth.’

  ‘Good luck in the race,’ says Ruth.

  ‘Thanks,’ says John. ‘I’ll need it.’

  Kate is still playing with Michael and Miranda. Judy and Michelle are nearby. Frank is there too. Ruth watches him chatting easily to the two women. Michelle laughs, putting her hand up to her hair.

  Ruth moves closer to the starting line. She can see Laura in her pink top and stripy shorts. The man Judy pointed out as Leonard is just behind her.

  A klaxon sounds and the race is on.

  ‘Good luck, Laura,’ shouts Ruth, surprising herself.

  ‘Is that your stepdaughter?’ says a voice close beside her. Crissy Martin.

  ‘No,’ says Ruth. She’s trying to remember exactly what she told Crissy about Nelson and Frank and her relationship with them. She remembers Crissy calling Frank her husband and the shock it had given her. ‘Laura’s the daughter of a friend,’ she says at last.

  ‘Friends are important,’ says Crissy. She’s giving Ruth her sympathetic stare but Ruth is no longer taken in by the eye contact and the hand on the arm. This is the woman who sent an anonymous letter to Phil, who believes that Ivor March is innocent.

  ‘Yes,’ says Ruth, ‘they are. Did you get my text?’

  ‘About the bones? Yes. I’ve been thinking about it and . . .’ She stops. The woman called Ailsa is walking over, accompanied by the two men. From Judy’s description earlier Ruth thinks they are Bob Carr and Leonard’s husband, whose name she didn’t catch.

  ‘I can’t talk about it now,’ says Crissy. Her voice has an urgency that surprises, and rather frightens, Ruth.

  *

  Nelson doesn’t know why Frank Barker annoys him
so much. Just the sight of him with Ruth and Katie, looking as if he’s the husband of one and father of the other, makes Nelson’s teeth ache. Now he’s chatting away to Michelle, Judy and Cathbad, just like they’re best friends. Everything about Frank grates on him: his grey hair (who does he think he is, George Clooney?), his polo shirt and chinos, his American accent. The little guy is really growing. OK, he is American but it sounds so pretentious. He actually heard Frank call Ruth ‘honey’ once. Michelle always says how charming Frank is and now she’s flicking her hair and laughing at something he’s said, just because he’s said it in that phony accent. Of course, Michelle likes Frank because, if Ruth’s with him, then she can’t have designs on Nelson. In his heart, Nelson knows that he dislikes Frank for the same reason.

  Who is Ruth talking to? Bloody hell, it’s Crissy Martin. All the gang are here today. Except Ivor March and he’s been unavoidably detained by prison. Nelson doesn’t know what the two women are talking about but they look serious, heads together, Ruth frowning in the way she does if she’s trying to work out a forensics problem.

  Michelle glances over and must have seen Nelson glowering because she detaches herself from the adoring group around Frank and comes towards him. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. Were you having a nice time chatting to Frank Sinatra?’

  ‘Frank Sinatra? You’re so old-fashioned, Harry. No one listens to Frank Sinatra any more.’

  But Nelson does. He has a particular fondness for ‘My Way’ and all those clichéd songs about being a bastard and getting away with it. The trouble is that Nelson has never been able to get away with anything. He thinks that it comes of being a youngest child.

  ‘That woman Ruth’s talking to,’ he says. ‘That’s Ivor March’s ex-wife.’

  ‘Really?’ says Michelle. ‘You’d never think it. She looks quite nice. But March’s girlfriend seemed normal too. I suppose you can never tell. Look at George playing with Katie and Michael. He’s so sociable.’

  Nelson looks over to where Katie and Michael are running in and out of the bushes with George at their heels. Miranda is telling them to stop, clearly upset that no one is paying attention to her. Frank looks over but it’s Cathbad who joins the children and initiates a game of grandmother’s footsteps.

  ‘Cathbad should be a nanny,’ he says.

  ‘He is good with kids,’ says Michelle. ‘What are we doing now? Going on to the next stage?’

  ‘I told Judy that we’d go on to Wells,’ says Nelson. ‘I want to keep my eye on Leonard Jenkins.’

  ‘And on our daughter,’ says Michelle.

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Nelson. ‘Of course.’

  *

  ‘Ailsa, darling, have you met Ruth?’ Crissy is employing her best hostess voice. ‘Ruth, this is Ailsa and Bob and Miles. We’ve all come to support Miles’s husband, Leonard, who’s riding in this race.’

  ‘Ruth,’ says Ailsa. ‘Are you the archaeologist?’

  Ruth steels herself for some comment about the recent excavation but Ailsa says, ‘You’re the woman who found the Iron Age body on the Saltmarsh, aren’t you? The lost girl of the marshes.’

  ‘That was ten years ago,’ says Ruth. ‘It was the police who found her but I did the excavation, yes. Not far from here, actually.’

  The girl had indeed been found on the Saltmarsh. The police had initially thought that they had found the body of a missing child but Ruth can never forget the moment when she saw the Iron Age torque that had lain in the grave, the dull sheen of metal, the honeysuckle rope that had tied the victim to the earth.

  ‘Ruth teaches at Cambridge,’ says Crissy.

  ‘Do you know Larry Hanson?’ says Bob, who is a soft-spoken man with grey hair in a Cathbad-like ponytail. ‘He’s a porter at one of the colleges.’

  ‘He works at my college,’ says Ruth. ‘I know him a little.’

  ‘He’s in this race,’ says Bob. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘No,’ says Ruth. ‘I didn’t know.’ She’s surprised, and a little shaken, to think that Larry is here today. He didn’t strike her as a cyclist either.

  ‘John is too,’ says Crissy. ‘My gardener.’

  ‘I know,’ says Ruth. ‘I saw him.’

  It sounds very feudal, thinks Ruth. My gardener, not my friend, or even ‘the man who does the gardening’. It occurs to her that Crissy has always acted a little like the Lady of the Manor.

  Kate detaches herself from the group of children and runs over to Ruth.

  ‘Mum! You said we could go to the beach!’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ says Ruth. ‘Bye, Crissy. Bye.’ She waves a general farewell.

  Crissy inclines her head graciously.

  *

  Laura tries to concentrate, to get into a rhythm. That’s the secret to all exercise, she finds, to focus on what your body is doing. Cathbad says this in his meditation classes too. Be aware of your breathing, empty your mind, let yourself become one with the universe. Maybe this is why she likes exercise – and meditation – so much. It’s a way of escaping. She knows that she won’t forget seeing a man die in front of her three years ago – she actually saw his soul leave his body although no one except Cathbad believes this – but, if she is concentrating on propelling a bike forward, or lifting weights, or doing lengths in the pool, then somehow the memory loses the power to hurt her. She sometimes wonders how her mother copes. After all, Michelle was there too, she knew the man well. But maybe having George has made Mum forget everything else. And, in any case, Laura’s mum was never one for brooding on her emotions. She was always a good person to tell your troubles to because she listened carefully and never tried to solve them. Dad always wanted to sort things out, if necessary by getting your geography teacher fired because he gave you detention, but Mum just listened and then encouraged you to move on, to have a cup of tea, to go for a walk or to the cinema with friends. Is that what Michelle has done? Has she moved on?

  Laura increases her speed. Four riders have pulled ahead and she’s in the chasing group, the peloton it’s called in the Tour de France. Eventually they’ll draw in the four escapees but then others will pull away and the whole thing starts again. It’s surprisingly tactical, another reason Laura enjoys cycling. Laura knows that she won’t win the race but she hopes to do well in her class, age eighteen to thirty. Funny to think that she’s now closer to thirty than eighteen. Some of the older riders are really good. Like Leonard Jenkins, the guy in the glasses who teaches at Cromer Academy. He won a time trial the other week, beating lots of the younger members.

  They are on the coast road now, passing caravan parks and signs for lavender picking. Occasionally, between the caravans and the pubs promising Sunday lunch for a fiver, there’s a tantalising glimpse of the sea. ‘At least you’ll see some nice countryside,’ Mum had said earlier but really you can’t see much when you’re racing. It is pleasant though to smell the sea and feel the sun on your face. It’s humid today, not ideal racing conditions, but there’s a slight breeze on this stretch. Laura is pedalling next to Sasha, a cycling friend who is almost a real friend and that makes it nice and companionable.

  She puts her head down and concentrates on the here and now.

  *

  They go through the gate and take the path over the rough grass towards the dunes. It’s hard going. The afternoon has become hot and airless, the light is hard and almost unreal, throwing every blade of grass into sharp relief. Ruth thinks that there will be thunder before nightfall.

  But, despite the sweaty climb up the shifting sand, it’s always a thrilling moment when you reach the top and then, suddenly, there’s the sea, glittering like a Christmas present. Kate runs forwards, arms outstretched as if she’d like to hug it. She has always loved the sea. According to Cathbad this is because she’s a Scorpio, but Nelson’s a Scorpio too and he views all beaches, except the Golden Mile at Blackpool, with extr
eme distaste. Ruth’s Cancer the Crab but she has never seen a single Cancerian trait that seems to apply to her. Artistic, domesticated, sentimental, emotional. No, no, no and maybe. It is a water sign, though, and Ruth too loves the sea, although she approaches it now in a rather crab-like, tentative way.

  ‘Take your shoes and socks off if you want to paddle,’ she shouts. Too late, a wave splashes over Kate’s favourite pink trainers.

  Frank also approaches warily. In his blue shirt, beige chinos and deck shoes he looks like he belongs on a yacht and not striding across a Norfolk beach. Kate takes off her shoes and socks and Ruth does the same, feeling the familiar firm, wet sand under her toes, enlivened by the occasional razor clam shell. It reminds her of walking across this self-same beach with Erik and Peter years ago. They had been excavating a Bronze Age henge. Erik was the archaeologist in charge and Peter was a volunteer, shortly to become Ruth’s lover. She remembers the moment when they had first seen the henge timbers rising from the earth, Erik falling to his knees in the centre of the sacred circle. The memory is so strong that she can almost see Erik’s shadow on the sand and feel Peter’s hand in hers.

  Ruth and Kate run in and out of the shallow waves. The water is still very cold, it won’t warm up until July, maybe August. Now, in early June, it’s like standing in melted ice. Frank sits on a clump of sea kale and watches them.

  Suddenly Kate stops with her back to the sea and points. ‘Mum, look!’

  Ruth looks. Across the sand dunes and the marshes, spotlit in this strange sunlight, she sees a glint of white. Three cottages standing very close together, like tiny boats on a sea of pale green. Ruth hadn’t realised that they had walked so far.

  ‘Look, Mum! That’s our house.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘Yes, it is.’

  *

  Judy watches the riders go past with something like envy. What must it feel like to be in a pack like this, surrounded by friends and rivals? Judy has never been one for team sports, unless policing counts, but suddenly she wishes that she was wearing a T-shirt with ‘Lynn Wheels’ written on the back surrounded by a stylised bike wheel, that she was shouting ‘keep it up’ to the competitors and handing out fig rolls.