The Stone Circle: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 11

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘Only 1,000 steps to go!’ exhorts her Fitbit chummily. ‘You’re in it to win it!!!’

  *

  ‘You want me to interview Shona Maclean?’ says Judy.

  ‘Not interview exactly,’ says Nelson. ‘Just ask her a few questions. After all, she was involved the last time.’

  ‘She wasn’t charged though.’

  ‘No, but I’m pretty sure that she helped Erik Anderssen with the letters. All that stuff from Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot. After all, Shona teaches English literature. Ruth says there’s an Eliot quote in this one too.’

  ‘Do you really think Shona could have something to do with the new letter? Why would she want to upset you? She’s Ruth’s friend. They went on holiday together last year.’

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ says Nelson. ‘I don’t think Shona is necessarily involved but she might have some idea who’s behind it. Erik Anderssen’s son is running the dig on the Saltmarsh.’

  ‘Is he?’ Judy wonders why Nelson hadn’t mentioned this earlier. She has only the vaguest memory of Erik although she was there when they pulled his body out of the water.

  ‘He’s called Leif,’ says Nelson, with distaste.

  ‘It’s a Norwegian name,’ says Judy. ‘Is he an archaeologist?’

  ‘Apparently so. Pretty pleased with himself too.’

  ‘Do you think he could have written this new letter?’

  ‘It’s a bit of a coincidence that they both turn up at the same time. And there are things in the letter that were never in the public domain.’

  ‘There are always leaks though. Maddie says that the local press know everything that goes on here.’

  Madeleine, Cathbad’s eldest daughter, is currently working on the local newspaper, the Chronicle. Maddie’s mother was Cathbad’s ex-girlfriend Delilah, who later married Alan and had three children, the youngest of them being Scarlet Henderson, the little girl whose body was found on the marshes ten years ago. Maddie has always felt that the King’s Lynn police wasted too much time suspecting Scarlet’s family of her abduction and murder and so she has strong opinions about police malpractice. But then Maddie has strong opinions about everything. It’s one reason why Judy is glad that she’s living in digs and not with her and Cathbad.

  ‘Maybe,’ says Nelson, ‘but there are a few too many links for my liking. They found one of those witch stones on the site. It was buried next to the bones.’

  ‘Do you think it’s connected to your Jack Valentine parcel?’

  ‘I don’t know. It seems a pretty big coincidence, although Ruth says these stones are fairly common.’

  ‘They are. Cathbad’s got a collection. We keep them by the door because that’s supposed to mean good luck.’

  ‘You don’t surprise me. But why would this Leif write to me or send me a stone in a paper bag? Just to make trouble? It doesn’t make sense. That’s why I want you to talk to Shona. Find out if she knows anything. But subtly, mind. We don’t want her claiming police harassment.’

  ‘You know her better than me. You should talk to her.’

  ‘You’ll do it better,’ says Nelson. ‘I’d just put her back up. And Cloughie and Tanya would be even worse.’

  ‘She’d probably love to be interrogated by Cloughie.’

  ‘I don’t want to give her the chance to flirt or get on the defensive,’ says Nelson. ‘Just a nice woman-to-woman chat.’ He says this like it’s a new language.

  ‘That’s sexist,’ says Judy, but she picks up her bag all the same.

  ‘Is it?’ says Nelson. ‘But I said woman not girl.’

  ‘You’re learning,’ says Judy. Very slowly, she adds to herself.

  *

  Nelson follows Judy downstairs and stops for a word with Tom Henty. To his surprise, Tom comes up with a name at once.

  ‘Margaret Lacey,’ he says. ‘Aged twelve. Went missing in 1981. The year Charles and Diana got married.’

  ‘How do you remember that?’

  ‘You always remember the ones that weren’t found, don’t you?’ Tom looks at him and Nelson finds himself nodding. He will never forget Lucy Downey or Scarlet Henderson. The lost girls.

  ‘What do you remember about Margaret?’

  ‘It was a street party for the Royal Wedding. That’s why I remember the year. Margaret and her friend had been at the party in Lynn. They wandered off and no one thought much of it. Later, Margaret’s mother – Kathy, Kelly, one of those names – went looking for her and turns out she hadn’t been seen for hours, since she parted company with her friend by the quay. There was a massive police hunt but Margaret was never found.’

  ‘Anyone charged?’

  ‘No, there was a lot of suspicion of the parents, particularly the father, but no charges. There was the usual local weirdo but he had an alibi, as I remember. The case was reviewed in 1991, just before you arrived, but there were no new leads.’

  ‘Tell me about the weirdo,’ says Nelson. ‘Did he have form?’

  ‘Not really. A few cautions for prowling. This was before all this porn on computers malarkey. No, he was just a nutter who liked collecting stuff from the beach. The Stone Man, they called him.’

  Chapter 6

  Shona is surprised, but not displeased, to see Judy.

  ‘No one ever comes to see me now that I’m part-time,’ she says, clearing some books off a chair so Judy can sit down. ‘Or were you looking for Ruth?’

  ‘No,’ says Judy. ‘I wanted a quick word with you.’

  Shona’s office is similar in size to Ruth’s but it’s far less functional. There are throws over the chairs and a jar of spring flowers on the table. There are pictures too, a poster of woman drowning in flowers (Ophelia?) and several playbills in tasteful colours, which make the room seem more like a student bedsit than a lecturer’s office. Even Shona’s books are cosier than Ruth’s, the orange spines of the Penguin classics and several shelves of leather-bound volumes. Judy fixes her eyes on the playbill over Shona’s head. Women Beware Women.

  Shona offers coffee – she even has a cafetière and proper cups – but Judy refuses politely. They exchange a few remarks about their children. Shona’s son, Louis, is almost the same age as Judy’s Michael. Then Judy says, ‘I wanted to see you because DCI Nelson has received a letter.’

  Shona is still smiling but Judy thinks that she has suddenly become very still.

  ‘A letter?’ she says.

  ‘Yes. An anonymous letter. But the thing is it seems very similar to the ones Nelson received ten years ago, when Scarlet Henderson went missing.’

  Shona says nothing. It was Judy who had questioned her about the letters and about the disappearance of Erik. Judy knows that they are both thinking about this now. Nelson was wrong; she is the very worst person to have this conversation.

  ‘The first letters were written by Erik Anderssen, weren’t they?’ she says, after a pause.

  Shona looks like she’s going to deny this but then she shrugs and says, ‘Yes.’

  ‘With your help?’

  ‘I supplied a few literary references.’

  ‘And you were in a relationship with Anderssen?’

  ‘Years ago,’ says Shona. ‘When we were working on the henge dig. I was a volunteer. That’s when I first met Cathbad.’ She looks at Judy. There’s a definite challenge in her gaze. Is Shona implying that Cathbad had fancied her too? It’s probably true; Shona is very beautiful, even if she is several years older than Judy. Cathbad’s age, in fact.

  ‘I was just wondering,’ says Judy, trying to sound like this is a cosy ‘woman-to-woman’ chat, ‘whether you had any idea who could have written this new letter. Some old friend or colleague of Erik’s perhaps?’

  ‘His son’s working on the new dig,’ says Shona. ‘Ruth told me.’

  ‘Do you know him, the son?’ Judy doesn’t want to let on that she knows his name.

  ‘No,’ says Shona. ‘I never met any of Erik’s family. Apart from his wife, of course.’ Her voice is flat.
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  ‘Well if you do think of anything,’ says Judy, ‘can you let me know?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Shona. ‘Anything to help the police.’

  Judy does not like her tone.

  *

  Ruth is packing her bag. She supposes she should stay late as she missed most of the morning but she’s damned if she’s going to. Besides, she needs to pick Kate up from Sandra’s. She hasn’t got any lectures or seminars tomorrow which is why she will be free to excavate the body found on the Saltmarsh. Even so, she bets that Phil will make a thing of it. Or, worse, turn up.

  She glances out of her window. It’s only five o’clock but already nearly dark. Hard to believe that the clocks will go forward next month. The artificial lake, grubby and often litter-strewn in the daylight, looks attractive in this light, lit by the mushroom-shaped lights around its circumference. As Ruth watches, a man strides along the lakeside path, holding a child by the hand, another child walking behind him, occasionally patting a mushroom. It’s rare to see children on campus and Ruth looks more closely before realising that she knows this family. It’s Cathbad with Michael and Miranda. What’s he doing here? Meeting his old colleagues in the chemistry department? As Ruth watches, another man approaches. He, like Cathbad, has long hair in a ponytail. The two men embrace warmly and the newcomer bends down to talk to Miranda. Michael, as ever, remains slightly aloof.

  Ruth stands back from her window but she continues to watch. She wonders why Cathbad didn’t tell her that he and Leif Anderssen are obviously close friends.

  *

  By the time Nelson gets back to his office, Tanya has put the Margaret Lacey file on his desk. Nelson reads through it quickly, noting dates and names. On 29 July 1981, Margaret Lacey, aged twelve, attended a street party near her home in King’s Lynn. At some point during the afternoon she slipped away with her friend, Kim Jennings. Margaret’s mother, Karen Lacey, reported her missing at eight o’clock that evening. Margaret had last been seen with Kim in front of the Custom House by the quay. According to one witness the two girls had been arguing but Kim insisted that they had parted amicably. Margaret had wanted to see the Punch and Judy man in the Tuesday Market Place and walked off in that direction. Kim went back to the street party. A massive police search started that night, combing the streets that were, presumably, still full of monarchist revellers. Frogmen searched the river and sniffer dogs tracked as far as South Wootton. The investigation, as far as Nelson could see, focused on the parents, Karen and Bob. There were two older children, Annie who had been fourteen at the time of Margaret’s disappearance and Luke, who had been fifteen. Bob, who was a plasterer, was known to have a temper but he swore he’d never laid a hand on any of his children. He had been drinking in the pub most of the day, until alerted by Karen at about seven. There were several witnesses who claimed to have been with Bob but Nelson knows that drinking companions do not make good alibis. It would probably have been possible for Bob to have slipped out for an hour without anyone being much the wiser.

  John Mostyn, the so-called Stone Man, emerged as a suspect quite early on, because of his previous convictions. He had also been seen talking to Margaret and Kim earlier in the day, ‘showing them some pebbles he’d found on the beach’. But John had spent most of the day looking after his wheelchair-bound mother, Heidi, and she gave him a firm alibi. Some schoolfriends said that Margaret had talked about a boyfriend in London but this proved to be a false trail. Despite numerous appeals, Margaret was never seen again.

  Nelson stares down at the file, now furry at the edges with age. Nelson was fourteen in 1981. They’d had street parties in Blackpool too but his mother had disapproved of them for some long-forgotten sectarian reason. Nelson remembers his mother and his sisters watching the wedding on television but he and his father had escaped to the park. They’d played football, he remembers, one against one, until some local lads had joined them. Come to think of it, that might have been the last time he’d had a kick-around with his dad. Archie Nelson had been an enthusiastic supporter of his son’s schoolboy footballing career but he wasn’t much of a player himself, childhood polio having left him with one leg shorter than the other. And, a year after the Royal Wedding, Archie was dead from a heart attack. It’s an odd feeling. Nelson would have been only two years older than Margaret. He could have played football with her older brother, hung around on street corners with her big sister. Where are the family now? He emails Tanya and the answer comes back immediately. Bob Lacey died of cancer two years ago but Karen is still alive. She divorced Bob soon after Margaret’s disappearance, married again and has two sons with her new husband. Margaret’s sister Annie is married with children and lives in Lynn. Luke lives in London. John Mostyn is seventy and still lives in the house where he once cared for his mother.

  Are they Margaret’s bones that have been discovered buried on the Saltmarsh? Dental records should make identification possible even if they don’t have DNA. At least this will give the family some closure, some remains to bury.

  Nelson has left a message for his old sergeant Freddie Burnett. He suspects that Freddie is out on the golf course but, when he gets a call back, it transpires that Freddie is on holiday in Tenerife. ‘Bit of winter sun,’ says his old colleague, his voice mellow with vitamin D. ‘You should try it.’

  ‘Maybe I will one day,’ says Nelson though he can’t think of anything worse than a week of golf, cocktails and after-dinner entertainment. He tells Freddie why he is calling.

  ‘Margaret Lacey,’ says Freddie. ‘Well, well, well.’

  ‘Do you remember the case?’

  ‘Very well. I was pretty sure who killed the poor girl too.’

  ‘The father?’

  ‘No, the prowler. John Mostyn.’

  ‘He had an alibi.’

  ‘His mother. She would have sworn black was white for him. No, Mostyn was the type. He was always hanging round the little girls. Pervert. Him and his pebble collection. If I had my way, I’d castrate the lot of them.’

  Nelson tries to stop Freddie before he gets going on one of his crime and punishment diatribes.

  ‘Well, if it is Margaret,’ he says, ‘we can reopen the case. There have been lots of advances in forensics since the eighties. We might still get the perpetrator.’

  ‘I bloody hope so,’ says Freddie. As Nelson is saying goodbye and wishing Freddie and his wife a pleasant holiday, his phone buzzes. It’s Laura.

  ‘Dad, you’d better come home. Mum says her contractions have started.’

  Chapter 7

  Laura meets Nelson at the door. She has her jacket on and car keys in her hand.

  ‘Thank God you’re here, Dad. Mum keeps saying that there’s plenty of time but I don’t think there is.’

  Michelle is in the sitting room. She looks quite calm but she is staring intensely at the coffee table in front of her. Bruno is watching anxiously and there’s an overnight bag by the door.

  ‘Come on, love,’ says Nelson. ‘Time to get going.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ says Michelle, not shifting her gaze. ‘Contractions are still fifteen minutes apart.’

  Nelson has such a strong attack of déjà vu that he almost feels dizzy. He and Michelle leaving their house in Blackpool in the middle of the night, Michelle in the early stages of labour with Laura, neither of them knowing what to do, Nelson breaking all the speed limits on the way. Laura had been born in a cubicle in A&E, there being no time to get to the maternity ward. Rebecca had taken her time, almost ten hours of Nelson pacing and questioning and absent-mindedly eating the ham sandwiches he had made for Michelle. Now Laura is a grown woman who is, even now, texting her sister in Brighton.

  ‘Rebecca says hurry up. She wants to meet George.’

  ‘We all do,’ says Nelson. ‘Come on, love.’ He helps Michelle to her feet and they walk slowly out of the room, Michelle already doing her breathing, shallow pants that make Bruno cock his head with interest.

  ‘Shall I come with you?’
says Laura.

  ‘No,’ says Nelson. ‘You stay and look after Bruno. I’ll ring you as soon as there’s any news. Don’t worry.’

  ‘I won’t,’ says Laura, worriedly.

  He puts the blue light on the car and they are at the hospital in ten minutes. They go up to the labour ward where the midwife seems to spend an inordinate amount of time asking Michelle useless questions. The contractions are obviously closer now and lasting longer. Still the midwife writes slowly on her pad, stopping to answer an orderly’s question about the birthing pool.

  ‘We need to hurry up,’ he says. ‘The baby will be here any minute.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Nelson,’ says the midwife, ‘we’ve got plenty of time yet.’

  ‘It’s DCI,’ growls Nelson. Preoccupied as she is, Michelle finds time to give him a look.

  *

  ‘Michelle’s in labour,’ says Judy, reading Nelson’s text.

  ‘We should pray to Hecate,’ says Cathbad. They are in the café at the University of North Norfolk. Leif is buying the coffee and, from what Judy can see, vast amounts of chocolate for the children.

  ‘I thought Hecate was the goddess of witchcraft,’ says Judy.

  ‘Childbirth too.’

  ‘That figures.’ Sometimes Judy thinks that she would quite like another child (if she could stand another M name) but can’t bring herself to go through pregnancy again. Besides, she wants to take her Inspector exam soon. She watches Miranda skipping along beside Leif as he manoeuvres his tray towards them. Miranda seems to have taken to Leif, which is unusual because the only adults she really likes are her parents. Actually, sometimes just her father.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you knew Leif?’ says Judy.

  ‘You didn’t ask,’ says Cathbad.

  Judy is used to answers like this – seemingly frank but actually frustratingly enigmatic – by now. ‘I told you about the letter,’ she says. She feels rather guilty about this. ‘You could have told me that you were in touch with Erik’s son.’

  ‘I wasn’t in touch with him then,’ says Cathbad. ‘He only emailed me today. I’ve met him once before, years ago, when he was still a student. And I wanted you to meet him. That’s why I suggested meeting here, at the university.’