‘And a bike,’ says Judy, pointing. ‘An old one, not a racer.’
‘I’ve been tracking Ruth’s phone,’ says Nelson. ‘Katie must have linked it to mine. Clever little thing.’
‘What does it show?’ asks Judy.
‘Not much. She’s in the middle of the marsh somewhere. Bloody green all round.’
‘And he could have planted her phone somewhere to put us off the track,’ says Clough. ‘Like he did with Laura.’
‘Who?’ says Judy. ‘Bob Carr?’
‘It’s possible,’ says Nelson. ‘He was one of the so-called Lantern Men. Anyhow, the priority now is to find Ruth.’ He looks at his phone. ‘This way.’
The blue dot that is Ruth seems to be fairly near them. Nelson prides himself on knowing his compass points but actually marches several steps in the wrong direction before rectifying his mistake. Neither Clough or Judy says anything.
The phone takes Nelson along a gravel path with reeds high on either side. Ahead is a small wooden hut and within it, apparently, the blue dot. Nelson is there in an instant. There’s no door and, inside, just a window with a wooden bench below it and a poster describing various birds. But there, in the middle of the muddy wooden floor, is a mobile phone.
Nelson snatches it up. He knows immediately what the passcode will be. Katie’s birthday. 011108. The last text message was one to Laura, Won’t be long xx. There are several missed calls from ‘Nelson’.
Judy is examining the floor which is a mess of footprints. Nelson should probably have been watching where he put his feet.
‘Boss,’ says Judy, crouching down. Her voice is quiet but Nelson knows that she’s found something important.
‘What is it?’
‘Blood.’
*
Ruth stares at the man, almost too tired to go further.
‘It was harder to kill you,’ he says. ‘Perhaps because you’re so much bigger than the others.’
Great, that’s all Ruth needs. Insults about her weight.
‘You don’t want to kill me,’ she says, trying for a rational, soothing tone. Dig deep, Ruth.
‘I do,’ says the man. ‘Because you guessed. You asked Crissy about the acid. I use it in my printmaking, you see. That’s why it was on the bones.’
That was the thing that had been bothering Ruth ever since she had excavated the bodies in the pub garden. The porous, cracked appearance of the bones was the result of acid damage. Phil had just assumed that this was due to unexpected acidity in the soil but Ruth was puzzled by the fact that only two of the bodies were affected. After reading Phil’s notes Ruth had texted Crissy to ask if any of the Grey Walls artists used acid in their work. Crissy hadn’t replied but she must also have shown the text to Bob Carr, the printmaker, who is now trying to kill Ruth.
‘Phil Trent didn’t guess,’ says Bob. ‘I looked through his report and, even though he spotted the anomaly, he didn’t make the connection. Just kept waffling on about soil pH.’
‘You were the person who attacked Phil,’ says Ruth. ‘You took his laptop.’
‘I just wanted the notes,’ says Bob, as if this is perfectly normal behaviour. ‘I didn’t know that he’d have a heart attack.’
‘You killed all those women,’ says Ruth. Her clothes are drenched, blood and rainwater are running down her face, she feels as if she’s been put through a mangle, but she has a vague idea that she should keep him talking. She doesn’t feel as if she could walk another step.
‘Not Sofia,’ says the man. Bob. ‘I wouldn’t have killed her. She was so young, just a child really.’ He sounds almost self-righteous. ‘But I knew Ivor had killed her and I knew where he’d buried her too. That’s what gave me the idea.’
‘Why?’ says Ruth. She should just turn and run but she’s no idea where she is. The grey, drenched marshes are all around them, visibility has shrunk to a few metres. Ruth has the crazy idea that Nelson will come and save her but Nelson has no idea where she is. She thinks that she’s crying, tears mixing with blood and rain.
‘I was saving them,’ says Bob. ‘Saving them from themselves. They were so beautiful. So tall, blonde and beautiful. Too good for this world. And then Leonard took Ailsa from me. I realised that this was my mission. To be like the lantern men. To save women from the evil that’s in this world.’
There are many things Ruth could say. Saving people doesn’t usually include murdering them. The lantern men were deceivers, evil spirits, they weren’t cold-blooded killers. Instead she says, as loudly as she can, pointing behind Bob’s head, ‘Look!’
He looks. Ruth turns and runs.
*
‘Look at this,’ says Judy. On the wooden floor there’s a metal file with a long handle. There’s a definite blood smear on one edge.
‘Looks like something a printmaker might use,’ says Judy. ‘I remember all the equipment in Bob Carr’s studio. I wondered at the time if he was strong enough to use it. But he’s obviously stronger than he looks. Fitter too, if he’s ridden his bike all the way here.’
‘We have to find Ruth,’ says Nelson. He can feel his heart beating as if it is outside his body. Ruth is somewhere out there in the storm, injured, perhaps badly. He goes to the door and sees Clough kneeling in the mud. He is soaked, his dark hair plastered to his head and Nelson is pretty sure that he’s in the same state. Only Judy has the sense to be wearing waterproofs.
‘Someone’s fallen here,’ says Clough.
Nelson looks down. The gravel has stopped and here it’s just earth. Earth that seems to be stirred into a quagmire.
‘There’s a handprint,’ says Clough. ‘Looks like someone was trying to break a fall.’
Nelson imagines Ruth staggering and falling, wounded and terrified, a murderer close beside or behind her. He has to find her. Where are they? He seems to remember that, from here, one path leads to the sea and the other, via a circuitous and treacherous route, to Ruth’s cottage.
‘You go that way,’ he says to Clough. ‘I’ll take this path.’
‘We should stay together,’ says Judy.
‘No,’ says Nelson. ‘You stay here in case they come back. Radio for back-up. I’m going on.’
He runs along the path, wishing he was fitter, wishing that he wasn’t fifty. It’s still light but the rain makes it impossible to see anything. One foot off the path and you can find yourself in water or, worse, quicksand. He remembers taking this route with Cathbad years ago. One moment Cathbad had been next to him, the next he had just disappeared. Nelson had hauled him out of the mire, had saved his life, according to Cathbad. Well, today there’s no one to save Nelson. He must tread carefully.
*
Ruth runs into the rain. Compass points are important for archaeologists. ‘The most important thing is the direction,’ Erik used to say. Christians are buried with their feet towards the east. In China dying is called ‘going west’. Churches often face towards the east and baptismal fonts are placed by the north door, the door into the world. The Egyptian pyramids were mapped according to cardinal points. East is rebirth and renewal, according to Cathbad, the west is autumn, winter and harvest.
But Ruth has no idea where she is going. She thinks that she can smell the sea which means that she is going away from the hide, the car park and safety and into the unknown. But, then again, Bob has probably made his way back to the hide. At any rate, he doesn’t seem to be following her. Ruth thinks of the game that Cathbad was playing with the children earlier. Grandmother’s footsteps. She always found it rather scary as a child. You look round and your pursuer is right behind you, breathing down your neck. Is that what will happen with Bob? Will he suddenly appear, hands reaching out for her? Hands that have already killed at least four women.
Ruth stops. The rain is directly in her face and she seems to remember that the storm was coming from the sea. She puts her ha
nd to her head and it comes away red with blood. She needs help, quickly. Should she turn round? The lightning flashes, silently this time, illuminating the grey marsh leading to the grey sea. She is lost in the liminal zone between life and death. ‘Help me, Erik,’ she whispers.
Then she hears something. A low, sonorous call that sounds somehow familiar. She remembers tales told by Cathbad and Erik, of the souls of lost children calling from the sea, of nixes and sea sprites and sirens singing unwary sailors to their doom. That sound again. Is it the call of a bird? It’s very near now.
Then she sees the light, a flickering unsteady orb, the same height as a lantern carried in a human hand. It’s moving in front of her, bobbing and swaying. The bird calls again. Ruth thinks of Jenny’s story, of the lantern men leading you to your death. But, for some reason, this manifestation seems comforting, like a lighted window on a dark night.
She steps forward, following the light.
*
Nelson hears the sound too. It strikes a chord in his memory. Something that has to do with that terrible chase on the marshes, with finding a lost child and seeing a man drown in front of his eyes. He stops, momentarily disorientated. Then it comes again, an undulating note that seems to reverberate in the air.
Nelson moves forward, hardly knowing whether he is following the strange cry or not. He just knows that he has to get to Ruth. He thinks of Jenny’s story, of following the light across the marshes. He hears John Robertson’s voice. They say that you must never whistle on a dark night or the lantern men will hear you. The rain is falling so heavily that he can hardly see a few yards in front of him. He stops again to look at his phone, trying to keep it under cover of his jacket. All he can see is a pulsating blue dot in the middle of a sea of green, with the real sea a blue void to the north. He clicks onto Ruth’s phone, abandoned back in the hide. At least that is some way away and he isn’t going round in circles. He keeps walking, trying to move away from the blue and towards the tiny yellow road that represents civilisation. He prays that Ruth has gone this way too and not stumbled into a stream or the treacherous quicksand. ‘Hang on, Ruth,’ he tells her, ‘I’m coming.’
*
The light is always just ahead, illuminating the long grass interspersed with dark water. Occasionally Ruth treads in a shallow stream but, on the whole, the ground remains miraculously firm beneath her feet. She’s exhausted now, sick and unsteady, but she carries on, putting one foot in front of the other, trusting in whatever is leading her. Then, suddenly, the glowing orb disappears and Ruth is staring at a tarmacked road and three small white houses.
She is home.
Ruth runs up to Ed and Sam’s house and batters on the door. No answer. She realises that their smart Audi is missing. They must be out, they’ve probably gone for a meal somewhere, escaping the bad weather. But there is her own house, her dear familiar house. She puts her hand in her jeans pocket and there’s the cat key ring. It’s like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The door into the walled garden. Eat me. Drink me.
She has to push the door because it often sticks in wet weather but then she’s inside, in her own sitting room. Some of her books are still on the shelves, though she took most of them with her to Frank’s, but there’s her blue sofa with a new throw over it to impress the tenants, there’s her John Sell Cotman print, her woodcut of trees in winter, the table where she used to sit to mark essays and dream about Nelson. Ruth locks the front door and then goes into her kitchen. It’s unnaturally tidy but she finds a tea towel, wets it and puts it to her head. There aren’t that many mirrors in the cottage but there’s one in the downstairs loo, decorated with seashells in a fit of Cancerian creativity. Ruth examines her reflection. She looks completely mad, drenched, covered in mud and blood, eyes staring. There’s a cut on her hairline. It’s still bleeding sluggishly but doesn’t look too deep. She presses the tea towel to it again and goes into the kitchen and puts the kettle on. She will have a cup of tea in her own kitchen. Despite everything, it feels wonderful to be back in the cottage. Perhaps she is a true Cancerian after all. She’ll drink the tea and then she’ll work out how to ring the police. There’s no landline at the cottage any more. ‘Tenants don’t expect it,’ said the agency. Maybe Sam and Ed will be back soon. She looks at the clock over the cooker, always covered with a film of grease. It’s only nine o’clock. It feels like midnight.
She makes her tea and goes back into the sitting room. A crack of thunder makes her jump but it seems to be moving further away. She wishes that Flint was with her, kneading the sofa and shedding hairs over her. She drinks her tea and puts her head back on the throw. Surely now’s the time for a panic attack but Ruth is surprised to find that she’s completely calm. In fact she’s nearly asleep. That must be the effect of the head wound. She should try to stay awake. The rain batters against the window, Ruth’s head drops.
Suddenly she’s wide awake. The rain seems to have stopped but there’s another sound.
Someone is rattling the door handle.
Chapter 33
Ruth freezes. The rattling continues. She can see the handle pressing down and this evidence of an unseen hand scares her more than ever. She stands up, dropping the blood-soaked towel. Thank God she locked the door. What about the back door? The cottages are terraced, with Ruth’s in the middle, but it would be easy to climb through the gardens, especially as both neighbours are out and Ruth is, as ever, completely in her own.
She makes her way slowly into the kitchen and tries the handle of the stable-type door that leads into the garden. Locked and bolted. She stands in the kitchen, listening. It’s horribly quiet. The rain and the thunder seem to have stopped completely. She can hear her breathing, shallow and ragged. She hears Cathbad’s voice again, ‘in for four, out for eight’. She tries it and it does calm her. She can see her Phillips radio on the window ledge. It had been a wrench to leave it behind but Frank had bought her a new one for her Cambridge study. If only she could hear the soothing tones of Radio Four. What would be on now? The News, perhaps, Corrie Corfield making even the Brexit negotiations sound comforting. Ruth edges towards the radio just as a window shatters and she hears the unmistakable sound of someone climbing in. Ruth looks round wildly and grabs a wooden spoon hanging from a rack. Fantastic, she tells herself, what are you going to do? Stir him to death? But the feel of the wood in her hand steadies her. Wood is life, Erik used to say, stone is death.
The kitchen door is kicked open and Bob stands there, wild-eyed and terrifying. But he’s breathing deeply too and Ruth can see cuts on his hands. He’s unarmed, surely she can escape. She makes a dash for the back door but Bob grabs her arm as she passes. He’s far stronger than he looks, she knows that now. Ruth hits at him with the spoon but he hardly notices. He has her pinned to the floor now. She can smell him, sweat and turpentine.
‘Looks like I’m going to have to kill you here,’ he says, his face close to hers. ‘It’s not how I like to do things, but still.’
‘Oh no you don’t, sunshine,’ says a voice. The next minute Bob has been pulled away and Nelson has knocked him to the ground. Bob struggles up and Nelson hits him again.
‘Nelson!’ shouts Ruth, half in relief, half in warning.
Nelson stops. Bob is lying at his feet, one eye blackened. He looks as if he’s unconscious.
‘Don’t kill him,’ says Ruth.
‘All right,’ says Nelson, ‘if you say so.’ He takes out his phone and barks a few words, then he says, ‘Have you got any rope?’
‘Haven’t you got handcuffs in your pocket?’ says Ruth. She feels strangely light-headed and euphoric.
‘No,’ says Nelson, who is bending over Bob, ‘get some rope.’ From the kitchen, Ruth hears Nelson reading Bob his rights. ‘Robert Carr, I’m arresting you for the attempted murder of Ruth Galloway . . .’ It sounds like something from a TV show but it’s happening here, in Ruth’s cottage. She finds some g
reen garden twine and presents it to Nelson who rolls his eyes but uses it to tie Bob’s hands together. Bob is lying face down on the rug but he seems to be alive, making slight groaning sounds. Ruth moves backwards until her legs hit a chair and she sits down. Her head is swimming but she still has that sense of unreality, as if this is all happening to someone else. She has to tell herself: someone has just tried to kill me. It’s so absurd that she almost wants to laugh.
Judy and Clough appear before Nelson has finished his efficient-looking knots. Was he a boy scout? Ruth bets that he was.
Clough and Nelson get Bob onto his feet. Judy comes over to give Ruth a hug. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ says Ruth. She is pretty sure that she’s grinning foolishly. ‘Fine. Never better.’
Judy gives her a concerned glance. ‘You ought to get that head wound checked out.’
‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ says Nelson. ‘You take Carr to the station. How did you get here?’
‘Clough’s car.’
‘Good. Leave me your keys and I’ll drive yours back.’
Judy looks like she wants to say more but she hands Nelson her car keys.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she says to Ruth.
‘I’m fine,’ says Ruth. ‘Nelson will call an ambulance.’
‘OK then.’ Judy and Clough manhandle Bob to the door. He looks pathetic now, shuffling along, his grey hair loose and stringy. Did he really kill all those women? It seems impossible.
When the door shuts behind them, Nelson comes over to Ruth.
‘Let me see your head,’ he says. He pushes her hair back gently and she can feel his hands on her forehead.
‘It’s not too bad,’ he says. ‘Looks clean enough.’
‘I’m fine,’ says Ruth.
‘So you keep saying,’ says Nelson. He kneels down in front of her. Ruth looks at the top of his head. His hair is really very grey now. She has an insane desire to stroke it. She realises that she is stroking it.
The Lantern Men Page 26