The Stone Circle: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 11

by Elly Griffiths

  Judy thinks of Kim saying, ‘She looked so beautiful, she really did.’ The adult Kim also seemed remarkably lacking in bitterness. Is she happy, running her shop full of quartz and seahorses? Judy hopes so.

  ‘What about Margaret’s parents?’ asks Judy. ‘What were they like?’

  Again, Carol seems to hesitate for a second. ‘I didn’t know them very well. It’s not like a primary school, where you see people at the school gate. Her mother came to a parents’ evening once. I thought she seemed a nice woman, she’d had little formal education herself but she was keen for her children to do well. And they have. I hear Luke’s an accountant in the city.’

  ‘Really?’ says Judy, not adding that Tanya is probably interviewing Luke Lacey at this moment.

  ‘Annie too,’ says Carol. ‘She’s a paediatric nurse.’ She laughs. ‘I try to keep up with my ex-pupils.’

  ‘What about Margaret’s father, Bob?’ asks Judy.

  ‘I never met him,’ says Carol, ‘but I saw him on TV a few times after Margaret went missing. He seemed utterly devastated.’

  ‘What do you think happened to Margaret? ‘ asks Judy.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Carol, with a certain headteacherly sharpness in her voice, ‘I’m not a detective. The police and the press at the time seemed determined to pin it on Bob or on that poor simple man who collected stones.’

  Is ‘simple’ a PC term? wonders Judy. It’s the adjective Annie used too. She decides to take a risk. ‘John Mostyn, the so-called Stone Man, has been found dead in suspicious circumstances,’ she says. ‘That’s classified information for the present.’

  Carol opens her eyes wide. ‘Does this mean he did kill Margaret?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ says Judy. ‘We don’t know anything at the moment but it certainly seems as if his death might be linked to Margaret’s.’

  ‘I never thought he did it,’ says Carol. ‘The Stone Man. It was just the strong ganging up on the weak. You see enough of that in the playground.’

  Judy thinks of the press crowding round the police station when they sense a story. That feels like bullying too sometimes. But, then again, the police have to be accountable. As do schools.

  ‘At the time,’ she says, ‘what did you think had happened to Margaret?’

  Carol thinks for a moment, adjusting a glass ornament on her desk that is so horrible that it must have been a present from a pupil.

  ‘I think I thought it was an accident,’ she says at last. ‘That she fell into the river or something. I found it hard to believe that someone could have deliberately taken her and killed her. I still find it hard.’

  Sadly, Judy finds it all too easy to believe.

  *

  It’s getting dark by the time that Ruth leaves the university. She’s left it a bit late, catching up with marking, and now she’s anxious to get to the childminder’s before the agreed pick-up time of five thirty. Not that Sandra minds if she’s late, it’s more that Ruth will feel that she has failed at one of her many daily mother tests (test one: don’t get caught with a lover in your bed). As she fumbles for her new-fangled Renault key a voice behind her says, ‘Ruth?’

  Ruth jumps and drops her keys.

  A tall figure emerges from the shadow of the trees and picks them up. It’s Leif.

  ‘Sorry to startle you,’ he says. ‘I wondered if I could have a word. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.’

  ‘I need to collect my daughter now,’ says Ruth. ‘Can we do it another time?’

  ‘Could I come with you?’ says Leif. ‘I came by bike.’ Ruth sees that he’s carrying a bulky bag presumably containing a fold-away bicycle.

  ‘All right,’ she says, slightly ungraciously. ‘I can drop you off in Lynn.’ She doesn’t want to turn up at Sandra’s with a long-haired Viking in tow.

  Leif puts the bike in the boot and gets into the passenger seat. Ruth drives through the darkening campus, the mushroom lights coming on around the lake. There’s a party in the students’ union tonight. You can see posters for it all over the place. ‘Spring has Sprung. Let’s celebrate!’ The student equivalent of Imbolc.

  Ruth asks about the dig. Leif says that they are getting on well and are hoping to be able to commission a facial reconstruction of the woman whose skeleton was found in the cist. He knows a fantastic archaeologist sculptor in Sweden. ‘He’s called Oscar Nilsson,’ he says, ‘and he has a gift for conveying the actual character of the person. It’s so important to have a face, then people can form a relationship.’ Ruth shudders, thinking of faceless things, voices in the dark, hands reaching from the sea. There’s something about Leif’s presence that seems to disquiet her.

  This feeling is reinforced when, a few minutes later, Leif says, ‘I wanted to talk to you about my father.’

  ‘Did you?’ says Ruth, concentrating on one of the many roundabouts on the way to King’s Lynn.

  ‘When Dad died he left a letter for me,’ says Leif. ‘A lot of it was personal. We weren’t that close. My parents were free spirits and that’s not always easy for the children. But, in the letter Dad said that he was proud that I’d decided to become an archaeologist. He said that, if I could, I should come to north Norfolk to look at the henge circle. He also said that I should get to know you. He was very fond of you. My mother was too.’

  ‘I was fond of them both,’ says Ruth. Her mouth feels dry. She had once been very fond of Erik and Magda. She had stayed with them in Norway, sitting in the hot tub under the stars, taking the universe apart and putting it back in a different shape. They were her mentors, her idealised parents. She had thought that Erik and Magda had the perfect relationship, equals, friends and lovers, something to be aspired to and emulated. But it turned out that this too was not what it seemed. Both Magda and Erik had other lovers. Erik had a long-standing affair with Shona, something neither of them had shared with Ruth. And then there were the letters. When Ruth had first recognised Erik’s handwriting on the pages, it was as if a monstrous shadow had fallen on their relationship. It meant that the Erik she knew – wise, compassionate, almost magical in his intuitive powers – was only ever an illusion.

  ‘He said something though that I didn’t understand,’ Leif is saying. ‘He said . . .’ Leif takes a letter from an inside pocket and reads aloud, ‘“If you do make contact with Ruthie, tell her I’m sorry and that I loved her. Perhaps you will dance with the stone wedding party and pour a libation on the earth for me.”’

  For several minutes and several roundabouts Ruth can’t speak. Tell her I’m sorry and that I loved her. This must have been written long before her last encounter with Erik but it’s as if he knew everything: about Scarlet, about Lucy, even about his own terrible death on the marshes. It’s as if Erik has given her his blessing from beyond the grave. He was the only person who ever called her Ruthie, although Cathbad sometimes does it to wind her up.

  ‘What does he mean by the stone wedding party?’ asks Leif. ‘I think I have translated that correctly.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Ruth. ‘When he was my tutor at university, Erik was always saying things that I didn’t understand. It meant that he wanted us to look them up, to find out for ourselves.’

  ‘Will you look this one up?’ says Leif. ‘I’d like to make a libation to my father.’

  ‘I will,’ says Ruth. It sounds like an oath. Or a wedding vow.

  *

  Judy too finds someone waiting for her. Maddie is leaning against Judy’s red Fiat, ostentatiously making notes.

  ‘Have you been to see Carol Dunne?’ she says. ‘She used to teach Margaret, didn’t she?’

  ‘Why are you following me?’ says Judy. She is tired and wants to go home.

  ‘You can’t think that Mostyn killed Margaret if you’re still interviewing people.’

  ‘I can’t discuss the investigation with you,’ says Judy. ‘You’ve got your exclusive for tomorrow.’

  ‘Who do you think killed John Mostyn?’ Maddie gives he
r an enchanting smile, head on one side.

  ‘I can’t possibly answer questions like that,’ says Judy, getting into the car. ‘Do you want a lift home? Come for supper if you like. Cathbad’s got one of his evening classes tonight but the kids would love to see you.’

  ‘You’re all right,’ says Maddie vaguely. ‘I’ve got some things to do. Tell them I’ll see them soon.’

  But, as Judy drives away, Maddie is still standing by the school gate, apparently deep in thought.

  Chapter 20

  It goes against the grain on the first day of a murder investigation, but Nelson leaves the station at five thirty. He’s been at work for twelve solid hours but he still feels that he should be there all night, directing operations, moving arrows on a map like a plotter in a Second World War film. But, realistically, there’s nothing more that he can do until he has the forensics results. The crime scene is sealed and he’s had officers making house-to-house enquiries all day. Tomorrow Mostyn’s identity will be in the papers and the link to Margaret will be public. The forensics on Margaret’s remains, particularly on the rope, may well point to her killer. If that turns out to be John Mostyn, then the dead can bury the dead. It’s a chilling phrase, thinks Nelson. Margaret’s funeral is set for next week.

  Bruno is still with the dog walker so the house is quiet when he gets in. Michelle is in the sitting room with George; he’s sleeping in his Moses basket and she is watching one of those programmes where people buy a house in Tuscany and then seem surprised that everyone there speaks Italian.

  ‘Hallo, love.’ Nelson kisses her. ‘Good day?’

  ‘Yes, I saw Star. You know, the girl I met at the mother and baby group.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ says Nelson, rifling through the post. ‘Where’s Laura?’

  ‘Out at an evening class.’

  ‘What’s she studying? Isn’t training to be a teacher enough for her?’

  ‘She did tell me but I can’t remember. My memory’s terrible these days.’

  Nelson bends over the basket to look at George. After all his fears, it’s a ridiculous relief to be able to recognise himself in the little face. He can’t stop himself picking up the sleeping baby and cuddling him, inhaling his sweetly pungent smell.

  ‘Don’t wake him up,’ says Michelle. ‘I met Star’s mother today too.’

  ‘Did you?’ says Nelson, putting George down. He wonders if Laura has made anything for supper. He really should learn to cook. It’s bad enough being dependent on your wife, somehow shameful to expect your daughter to look after you. He bets that smarmy Frank is a gourmet chef, the sort who talks about parmesan shavings and drizzling olive oil.

  ‘She’s Margaret’s sister,’ says Michelle.

  ‘Who is?’ says Nelson, who is lost in a pleasant fantasy involving deporting Frank.

  ‘Star’s mother. She’s called Annie and she was Margaret’s sister. The dead girl. Your dead girl.’

  His dead girl. The trouble is, that’s what it feels like.

  ‘I’ve never met the sister,’ he says. ‘What’s she like? It’s odd to think of her being old enough to be a grandmother. This is tough on the family. You know the original chief suspect has been found dead? That’s why I left so early this morning.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Michelle. ‘I think Annie mentioned that. She seemed very upset when she came in. She knew who I was immediately.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything about the case?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about the case,’ says Michelle. ‘But Judy and Dave arrived just as I was leaving. I suppose they wanted to talk to Annie about this man’s murder.’

  ‘Yes, they were going to speak to all the immediate members of the family. Just to warn them, because it’ll be in the papers tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s horrible for them,’ says Michelle. ‘Having the past raked up like that.’ The press coverage of Tim’s death had concentrated almost exclusively on the ‘dead hero’ angle but, even so, Nelson knows that it was almost unbearable for Michelle. For him too, come to that. He wants to say something, to reassure Michelle that the past horrors are behind them but, whilst he is still thinking of the words, she gets up and smiles at him. ‘Are you hungry? There’s some pasta sauce. Laura made a big batch and froze it. It’s got Quorn in it but you can’t taste that really.’

  *

  Laura is lying on the floor. There’s a skylight in the ceiling and through it she can see stars and wisps of clouds.

  ‘Lose yourself in the universe,’ says a voice that seems to come, not from beside her, but from somewhere in the ether.

  Laura closes her eyes and tries to hang on to her mantra but it’s difficult in the dusty community centre with the traffic noise outside and the Italian Culture Class singing ‘Funiculì Funiculà’ in the next room. Last year, in the autumn before it got too cold, Cathbad took them into the woods at Sandringham and they had gazed up at the trees and it really was possible to feel part of the natural world and yet apart from it, both unthinking and yet deeply conscious. Cathbad says that you can meditate anywhere but she must be an undeveloped soul because, tonight, she can’t stop thinking about that day’s uni assignment, about George and Mum, worrying about whether Dad’s collected Bruno from doggy day care. She tries again with her own personal mantra, listing amino acids in alphabetical order. Alanine, arginine, asparagine . . .

  ‘Be aware of your breath,’ says Cathbad. ‘Be aware of the sensation of breathing. May everyone be happy. May everyone be free from misery. May no one ever be separated from their happiness.’

  Usually his voice has a hypnotic effect on Laura but today she’s not really feeling it. She opens her eyes and sees Star in lotus position, palms upwards, apparently at one with the universe. A feeling of entirely unspiritual irritation washes over Laura, like a dirty tide. She sits up. The two other members of the group, Malcolm and Felicity, are also fidgeting. Perhaps the Italian folk songs are too much for them too. It’s possible that even Cathbad feels it because he finishes the class a few minutes early, bowing in a slightly ironical ‘namaste’.

  ‘Are you all right, Laura?’ he says as she rolls up her mat.

  ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘No. I don’t know.’ There’s never any point lying to Cathbad. ‘I’m just a bit distracted.’ Cathbad knows her parents, of course, but he’d never dream of asking if things were all right at home. Now, he says, ‘Sometimes distractions are a way of pointing us in a certain direction. Maybe give some attention to those thoughts.’

  ‘They’re just trivial things,’ says Laura. ‘Like what I should have for dinner.’ She thinks about food a lot, mainly about how to avoid eating it.

  ‘Food is never trivial,’ says Cathbad. Bloody Star is hanging about with a question about mindfulness so Laura shouts a general goodbye and heads for the door.

  There’s a man outside, standing in the little lobby with the fire extinguisher and the posters for long-forgotten fun runs. He’s tall and muscular with golden-blond hair in a ponytail. He looks a bit like Thor in the Marvel films and is as out of place in this environment as if he were a real Norse god.

  ‘Excuse me.’ He has a faint foreign accent. ‘Is this where Michael Malone, Cathbad, teaches?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Laura. ‘He’s in there.’ She finds herself wishing that she wasn’t wearing her oldest leggings, slightly frayed where Bruno tugged them out of the linen basket.

  ‘Thank you,’ says the man. ‘My name is Leif.’

  ‘Mine’s Laura.’

  ‘A beautiful name.’

  Laura has never liked her name. It’s too old-fashioned and has, to her mind, a slightly whiny sound, like the twang of a country and western guitar. In fact she was given the name because Michelle liked the song ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’. But now she smiles and tosses her hair for all she’s worth.

  ‘Thank you. It’s Laura Nelson actually.’

  Now he can track her down if he wants to.

  *

  Ruth is at her computer, Kate is
asleep upstairs and Flint is out on a night-time excursion. Outside her window the marshes are dark and silent and Ruth is looking up stories about the devil. Googling ‘stone wedding party’ brings up a variety of folklore and fairy tales, usually involving Saturday night revels that go on into the Sabbath. They remind Ruth of all-night parties at UCL. But the version that catches Ruth’s eye involves the standing stones at Stanton Drew in Somerset. Stanton Drew is an impressive megalithic stone circle (actually three circles in total) and there is an appropriate legend linked to the site. There was said to have been a wedding at Stanton Drew, date unspecified but in that dusty era that Ruth sometimes ironically describes to her students as ‘yore’. At the wedding party a mysterious fiddler, dressed in black, appeared and offered to play all night. The wedding guests danced, the music becoming more frenzied, until dawn broke on the Sunday morning and the fiddler, who was, of course, the devil, vanished in a puff of smoke leaving a circle of strangely shaped stones. The three largest are known locally as the bride, groom and preacher and there is a further group that is meant to represent the musicians. Frankly, it sounds just Erik’s sort of place. Cathbad’s too. The word Drew is apparently derived from the Celtic word for druid. Ruth is especially interested to learn that a geophysical survey in 1998 showed a series of concentric post-hole rings outside the main circle. So this site may once have been surrounded by a palisade of timber. Like Seahenge. Like Erik’s henge.

  Ruth stares at her laptop screen where the stones, misshapen and dark with lichen, do seem to be acquiring sinister proportions. Is this where Erik wanted her to go? Ruth remembers Erik once saying that the human journey is one from flesh to wood to stone. From the living body to the wood of the coffin to the stone of the grave. Maybe this is why there are so many myths and legends about petrification. Ruth thinks of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of Kate’s favourite books. The White Witch turned her enemies to stone until Aslan breathed on them and brought them to life. There’s too much overt Christian symbolism in the story for Ruth’s liking but there’s no doubt that this is a powerful scene; a room that was once full of statues suddenly teeming with life, lions roaring, giants wielding clubs, Mr Tumnus embracing Lucy. In Greek mythology, Medusa was famous for turning her enemies to stone, and then there’s the basilisk, immortalised for a new generation by J. K. Rowling in the Harry Potter books, whose gaze is also meant to petrify, in both senses. Nearer to home there’s the Lincoln imp, a mischievous creature that is said to have darted around the cathedral throwing things until an angel turned it to stone where it remains to this day, grinning from the wall. There is something primal about the thought that soft flesh becomes hard stone, dead but also everlasting.