Midnight Is a Lonely Place

by Barbara Erskine

  A squall from the sea, hitting the dune face, brought down more sand. The soft, wet mixture of peat and soil swirled in the icy water and slowly the silver torc which lay in the loose grip of Nion’s fleshless fingers sank out of sight once more.

  XXIX

  Standing at the window looking down into the street Bill sighed. He hated London in the rain and this cold, blustery hail was the worst kind of rain. It was too wet to turn to snow and settle, too cold to bear against the face, suitable only for turning the muck and leaves and litter which blew in the gutters into a disgusting soup. He could hear the rainwater gurgling down the gutter near the window. It sounded like a bath emptying and was extremely depressing. He was trying to make up his mind about going to the cottage. He had been looking forward to a break all week. After careful manipulation of his diary he had managed to clear all Monday and half of Tuesday so it could be a long weekend. The best kind. But now the weather looked as though it was doing its best to screw the whole plan. He walked back to his desk and picked up the glass of wine from his blotter – a remnant of yesterday’s party, the bottle retrieved from a fridge on the next floor. It was up to him. He had only himself to please. Did he really want to go flogging up the A12, taking a risk on whether this cold wet rain would turn to snow when he left the outskirts of London? Of course that in itself was tempting. He could think of worse places to be marooned than Redall Farm Cottage in the run up to Christmas, and if he took enough food and booze he could disappear there for several days happily. He walked back to the window, battling with his conscience. He had a tight schedule in the second half of next week. Christmas was getting close and he couldn’t really take the risk of missing any time in the office. He watched two London buses inch past beneath his window, their domed scarlet roofs slick with sleet which for a fraction of a second remained unmelted then turned to water before his eyes and ran in streams down the windows.

  Behind him the phone rang. He paused to drain his glass before going to the desk and lifting the receiver.

  ‘Bill, it’s Jon Bevan.’

  Bill eased himself into his chair with a raised eyebrow. ‘Hi. When did you get back?’

  ‘I’m not back. I fly home tomorrow. Bill, I’m a bit worried. I can’t raise Kate. Her phone is out of order. Do you have the number for the people at the farmhouse?’

  ‘Sure.’ Bill reached for a bulging, shabby filofax, something he was comfortable with only now that they were truly out of fashion. ‘How is it going out there?’

  ‘Not bad. I wanted to check if I would be welcome at Redall.’

  ‘Can’t help you there. I haven’t spoken to anyone there this week.’

  ‘So, you don’t know about the burglary?’

  ‘Burglary!’ Bill frowned, shocked. ‘At the farmhouse?’

  ‘No, at Kate’s cottage. She sounded edgy when I last spoke to her. Almost frightened. It’s been worrying me.’

  ‘Frightened?’ Bill stared at the agitated, circular doodle he had been sketching on the pad in front of him. He added a couple of swirls, and then an eye. ‘I should think so, if she was burgled. Did they take much?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Something she dug up in the sand, that’s all. I’m sure she’s all right. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.’

  Bill laughed. ‘I’m sure there isn’t but I’ll give the Lindseys a ring and check. I was wondering whether I should drive up this evening, funnily enough. I’m not sure though. The weather is pretty bad over here.’

  ‘It’s bad here too.’ In Massachusetts Jon glanced out of his bedroom window at the thick, white snow which whirled across the garden blotting out the view of the maples on the far side of the lawn. ‘I think you should go, Bill. Look, if you do, will you ring me when you’ve seen her? Or get her to ring me from somewhere. Hang on. Let me give you the number here.’

  Bill copied it down. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve spoken to Diana, OK? Don’t worry, old son, I’m sure Kate is all right.’

  He tried her number first. It was, as Jon had said, dead. Then he rang the farmhouse. It was some time before someone picked up the phone.

  ‘Greg?’ Bill had been about to hang up. ‘It’s Bill Norcross. Can I speak to Diana?’

  ‘Sorry. They all appear to be out.’ Greg’s voice was distant. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I just wanted to check what the weather was like your end. I was planning on coming down today.’

  ‘It’s windy and hailing and the forecast is lousy. I should stay tucked up by your fire in London if I were you.’

  ‘Have you seen Kate at all?’

  ‘I have indeed.’ Greg’s voice became even colder.

  ‘Is she all right? Her phone is out of order.’

  ‘She seemed admirably well when last I saw her. Fighting fit, you might say. Did you report it?’

  ‘I’m about to.’

  ‘Good. Well, as soon as it is mended you can ring her and ask her for a weather forecast on the hour, can’t you?’

  Bill frowned. ‘I’ll do that. Thanks, Greg.’ He hung up. The pencil with which he had been doodling snapped in two. He stared down at it in surprise. ‘Bastard,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Bastard.’

  It was nearly two hours after Patrick had left Kate and Alison on their own that Kate, glancing out of the front window saw an ancient vehicle slither to a stop outside. It was driven by a stranger but she saw Diana and Roger climbing out, closely followed by Patrick.

  ‘Thank God,’ she murmured. Alison was lying, wrapped in blankets once more, on the sofa. The girl appeared to be asleep.

  Running to the door Kate pulled it open.

  ‘Where is she?’ Diana’s face was white with strain. She pushed past Kate and went into the living room.

  ‘Hi Mum.’ Alison opened her eyes.

  ‘What happened exactly? Roger paused in the hall and caught Kate’s arm. ‘Sorry, let me introduce you. This is Joe Farnborough. He kindly drove us up here.’

  Kate glanced at the tall, white-haired man who was staring down at her with undisguised curiosity. Catching her eye he grinned, his eyes silver in a tanned weather-beaten face. ‘Young Allie got herself in a spot of bother, has she?’ He asked.

  She shrugged. ‘I think she’ll be fine. But she ought to be at home.’ They followed Diana and Roger in to the living room and found them bending over Alison. Diana was holding her hand. ‘I’m OK, Mum. Honestly.’ The girl looked white and strained but her voice had regained some of its strength and with it its peevishness. ‘Don’t fuss. Just take me home.’

  ‘But what happened, Allie?’ Roger sat down, pushing the blankets aside. ‘Come on, you must tell us.’

  Alison shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. I went out to the grave. I wanted to see it. It was early. It was still dark.’

  ‘You went out when it was still dark!’ Diana repeated, shocked.

  Alison nodded. ‘I don’t know why. It was just something I had to do. I took a torch. The woods were wet and cold and it was very dark and I was scared.’ Her voice trembled. ‘When I got to the cottage I saw that all the lights were on. That made me feel better. I thought I would knock and ask Kate to come with me. But I couldn’t.’ She burst into tears. ‘I wanted to, and I couldn’t.’

  Kate stared at her, appalled. ‘Allie, why not? I would have gone with you.’

  ‘I don’t mean I couldn’t because I didn’t want to. I wanted to, but she wouldn’t let me.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Kate met Roger’s gaze. It was thoughtful; she guessed that Patrick had already told them about Claudia.

  ‘Who wouldn’t let you, Kate?’ Diana asked gently.

  ‘Someone. Her. I don’t know. He wants to stop me, but she wants to tell me something. They’re fighting in my head.’ She put the heels of her hands to her temples, still crying. ‘She wants me to know.’

  ‘She wants you to stop digging up her grave?’ Patrick put in from the doorway. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’

  �
�No.’ Allie sat up. ‘No, that’s the point. She wants me to. She wants me there. She wants me to find … something.’ She lay back again.

  ‘Well, whatever it was that happened, I suggest we get you back home, young lady,’ put in Joe Farnborough from the doorway. ‘I don’t want to hurry you folks, but I must get into town and collect some stuff before this weather gets any worse.’

  ‘Of course, Joe. I’m sorry. It was so good of you to come like this,’ Diana started to bustle. ‘Roger, can you carry her?’

  ‘No need, Mum. I can walk.’ Sniffing miserably, Alison swung her legs over the side of the sofa and stood up.

  Kate watched as she was ushered out of the door and into the back of the Land Rover – a model even more ancient and muddy than the Lindseys’ own. It was Patrick who turned and looked at her. ‘Dad. Can Kate come with us? I don’t think she ought to stay here alone.’

  Roger swung back towards her. ‘Of course. That goes without saying. You must come with us, Kate, my dear. We have got to discuss all this very seriously. And if nothing else, we’ve got to report your phone out of order and get it fixed before you can stay here alone.’ He unhooked her jacket from behind the door and held it out to her.

  Kate closed her eyes in relief. For a moment she had thought they were going off without her and she had known she would not have the strength of will to call after them. The urge to stay in the cottage was as strong as the urge to leave it. Turning back into the room she began to switch off the lights. She closed the doors on the stove and glanced round. The water had begun to seep back across the windowsill under the cloth. At the edge of it she could see a few dark specks of soil and there, in the shadows, something small and white wriggled purposefully towards the edge of the sill. She turned away sharply and grabbed her shoulder bag. As an afterthought she picked up the pile of typescript that sat on her desk, and with it the diskette from her computer. Then she followed Roger outside and banged the front door closed behind her.

  XXX

  Diana had gone downstairs. Alison slid down in her bed. Beside her, out of sight under the duvet was an old, well-worn teddy bear with one ear. All the lights in the room were on.

  A couple of minutes later Greg appeared in the doorway. ‘Are you awake, Allie?’

  She pushed the teddy bear even further down the bed. ‘What?’

  ‘Look. We ought to talk.’ He came in properly and shut the door. Sitting down on the edge of her bed he folded his arms. ‘I know I said we ought to scare her off. Kate, I mean. I know I said a lot of things about her being in the way. And I meant it. She’s a pain.’ He lapsed into silence for a minute, staring thoughtfully down at his feet.

  ‘She was nice to me,’ Alison put in at last. There was none of the usual stridency in her voice.

  ‘What really happened, Allie?’ He looked at her again. ‘Out there. You weren’t just trying to scare her, were you.’

  ‘No.’ Her voice was very small.

  ‘So. What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It can’t have been nothing.’ He put his hand for a moment on the hump of her shoulder beneath the duvet. ‘Come on. You can tell me.’

  ‘It’s the truth. Nothing happened. I didn’t see anything. It was just feelings.’ Her mouth began to tremble. She sat up and defiantly retrieved the teddy, hugging it tightly against her chest. In her dayglo green nightshirt, with her hair all over her face, she looked about six.

  Greg was astonished by the wave of affection which swept over him. ‘What sort of feelings?’ he asked gently.

  She frowned. ‘Fear. Anger. Hate. They all sort of hit me, all jumbled up inside my head in a sort of red whirl. It hurt.’ Her eyes flooded with tears.

  He stared at her but he wasn’t seeing her. He was seeing a short, grey-haired woman in a pale blue puffa jacket which went ill with her high heels. ‘I saw you staggering about … I wondered if you were epileptic or something …’ the voice echoed in his head.

  Under the thick layers of Viyella shirt, lambswool sweater and ancient tweed jacket he could feel the tiptoe of goose flesh up his arms. His mouth had gone dry.

  ‘What is it?’ Her eyes were huge and round, the pupils dilated. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, sweetheart.’ He never called her that. The endearment frightened her even more than the strange preoccupation on his face had done.

  He stood up. ‘Listen, Allie. You must get some sleep. OK? Lie down again and I’ll tuck you in.’ He leaned over as she slid down on the pillows, pulling the duvet up to her chin and patting it with awkward, unaccustomed tenderness. ‘Shall I turn out the lights?’

  ‘No!’

  He glanced at her sharply. The muffled word, filtered through the threadbare fur of the teddy bear, held a note of real terror.

  ‘OK. No sweat.’ He tried to smile. ‘Sleep well, prat.’ That was more like it. More normal. Sort of.

  Downstairs the others were sitting around the fire with mugs of steaming tea. Greg took up position with his back to the inglenook – a speaker addressing a meeting. ‘We have to fill in that excavation. Alison must not go up there again, and I think, personally, that Kate ought to move out of the cottage.’

  ‘So that you can move back in.’ Kate’s words were mild enough, but he saw a hardness in her face which spoke a great deal about her determination to stay, and did he but know it, of her increasing unease in his company.

  He sighed. ‘No. As a matter of fact I have no desire to move back in at the moment. But do you really want to stay there? After everything that has happened? I can’t believe you are getting much work done if you keep being interrupted.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I am working very well at the moment, thank you,’ Kate retorted. ‘And it would be very small-minded of me to resent the time I’ve spent with Alison. She’s a nice, intelligent girl. I’m getting fond of her. I don’t know why she stayed out at the dig like that – I’m sure she will explain when she feels better – but it has not put me off staying at Redall Cottage in any way. Those locks you have put on for me make me feel as though I were living in Fort Knox.’

  ‘I agree about filling in the excavation,’ Roger put in. He leaned back on the sofa comfortably. ‘There has been nothing but trouble since Allie found that place. I suggest we get Joe up there with a bulldozer to flatten it.’

  ‘No!’

  Kate hadn’t realised the word came from her own mouth until she saw everyone staring at her. ‘No,’ she repeated more softly. ‘I don’t think we should do that. It’s an important site. Much better we get in touch with the local archaeological society or the museum or someone quickly and get them out here to see what is really there.’

  ‘I don’t think we want to know what is really there,’ Greg said abruptly. ‘Don’t you agree, Dad? Allie is upset enough as it is.’

  ‘She’s not upset at the idea of it being a grave,’ Kate retorted.

  ‘Excuse me, but I think she is. She may be a brash, tiresome kid on the outside, and she certainly has loads of guts, but inside she is hurting. This whole thing is upsetting her a lot. You’ve seen yourself how it’s stimulated her imagination. It’s bad for her. Ma,’ he appealed to his mother, ‘you must back me up.’

  Diana frowned. She had been listening to the whole exchange in silence. ‘You’re both right in a way. She is obsessed by that place and I don’t think that is good for her, but I don’t think the right answer is to try and bury it. It would still be there and she would know it.’

  Kate nodded. ‘Better to get it excavated properly – a rescue dig can be arranged very quickly, you know. Then we’ll all know the truth.’

  ‘The truth about what?’ Greg’s voice was very quiet. ‘What is it that’s so important we know? I don’t think there is anything there that we need to know about. Nothing at all.’

  XXXI

  The light was strangely cold. In the cool dawn before the sunrise the marsh was laved with a pale veiling of mist which lapped acros
s the grasses and reeds in a silent, muffling shroud.

  Nion stood at the edge of the pool. Bathed, dressed in his finest array, he was ready. Behind him the two priests stood, the tools of their trade openly displayed before them on a wooden altar – a rope, a knife. They waited now, in prayer, respectfully watching his preparations. When the moment came he would tell them.

  He frowned. Why only two priests? He had expected them all, a circle of attendants, not this quiet, almost shabby affair unwitnessed and unsung. Slowly he began the business of preparation. Around his neck he wore two torcs. The great twisted golden torc, the symbol of his royal blood and priesthood, and below it one of carved silver which Claudia herself had given him. He took off the first, pulling the heavy gold over his warm skin, feeling the constriction, swallowing, closing his mind to what was to come. He took the torc in his hands, gently running his fingers across the intricate design on the metal, admiring it for the last time. It was truly a worthy gift to the gods. He held it up above his head, half expecting an early stray beam from the still-hidden sun to catch the gleaming metal. None came. He murmured the words of offering and then hurled it with all his might into the mist-covered water. It was gone before him to the world beyond. Next came the silver. Pulling it from his neck he touched it to his lips, then he hurled it after the first. He turned and gathered up his weapons. Sword, spear, dagger. One by one he raised them in offering, balanced across his palms, and threw them. Beneath the curling white of the mist they sank into the cold brown water and began to settle inexorably into the mud.

  His clothes next. He unfastened his cloak, folding it carefully into as small a bundle as possible, doing it slowly, meticulously, perhaps stretching out the last few moments before the rim of the sun showed above the sea. Pinning the bundle with his cloak pin he hurled it after his weapons. Next came the bag of coins, his leather belt, his armlets, his tunic. Finally he was naked, save for the strip of woven ash bark around his arm, his birthright and his name sign. The cold air played across his skin. He frowned. He would not want the priests to think that his shiver was one of fear. Imperceptibly he straightened his shoulders, his eyes, like theirs, upon the eastern horizon which with every second grew brighter. Behind him he was conscious suddenly that one of the priests had reached to the altar and taken up the garotte. He was winding it onto his hands.