The Lantern Men

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘No,’ says Chantal, her face darkening. ‘I wouldn’t trust that woman. She was part of it. She befriended Sofie. She would probably never have stayed at Grey Walls if there hadn’t been a woman there. A woman pretending to be all kind and motherly. I hate Crissy. Ailsa too. They enabled Ivor.’

  This might be true, thinks Nelson. Nevertheless, Chantal let a murderer go free to kill again.

  ‘I’ll need you to make a statement,’ he says.

  ‘OK.’ That shrug again. ‘I don’t care about anything now that I’ve found Sofie.’

  *

  ‘I think Ivor guessed,’ says Crissy Morgan, sitting on her veranda, sipping herbal tea like the heroine of one of the films Michelle likes to watch. ‘That’s why he told me about the Lantern Man. He must have suspected Bob all along. And he must have suspected that he’d buried the bodies in garden of The Jolly Boatman. They both used to drink there.’

  ‘It would have been more helpful if he’d told you straight out,’ says Nelson. But, even as he says this, he knows that telling things straight out is not Ivor March’s style.

  ‘That must have been why he wanted Ruth to excavate,’ says Crissy, still musing on March’s perspicacity. ‘He knew that she’d understand about the acid. A mordant, it’s called in printmaking. That means “to bite”.’

  Nelson wishes that he had Bruno with him and that he would bite Crissy, hard. But, if Bruno were here, he’d be rolling over so that Crissy could stroke his stomach. He’s a bad judge of character sometimes.

  ‘And he was right,’ says Crissy. ‘Ruth did work it out.’

  ‘And you told Bob Carr and he tried to kill her.’

  ‘I didn’t mention Ruth’s name. I just asked if he used acid in the process.’

  ‘Carr knew why you were asking,’ says Nelson. ‘He’s not stupid.’ A deranged, psychotic murderer, yes. Stupid, no.

  ‘I never wanted to put Ruth in danger,’ says Crissy, wide-eyed. ‘I love Ruth.’

  Do you, thinks Nelson. He distrusts this new modern trend of saying ‘I love you’ at every opportunity. His daughters sign ‘Love you!’ at the end of texts as if it’s a substitute for ‘goodbye’. But he knows that love is a serious thing. Love is dangerous.

  ‘If Ivor had told you his suspicions about Carr,’ he says, ‘would you have informed the police?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Crissy.

  Nelson doesn’t believe it for a moment. Chantal didn’t tell the police that Bob Carr had killed four women. He feels sure that Crissy too would have kept the information to herself or maybe used it in some tortuous way that would end up complicating things still further. He thinks that Crissy likes to know secrets, likes to sit here in the sunshine, her country house behind her, imagining herself at the centre of a web of tangled relationships and passions. She was the housekeeper, that’s what John had said. And the keeper of much else besides.

  ‘Bob always was strange,’ says Crissy. ‘Ailsa said that, when she was with him, she’d wake up in the night to find him staring at her. He’d put his hands round her neck sometimes too. He said it was something Ivor had told him about. Some erotic game. I think that’s why Ailsa married Leonard, even though she must have known that he was gay. It was to get away from Bob. Ivor must have guessed. Bob used to follow him round like a lapdog.’

  There’s contempt in her voice. Bob Carr did shadow Ivor, thinks Nelson, and that’s how he saw him driving off one night with Sofia’s body in the boot of his car.

  ‘I just knew that Ivor couldn’t have killed them,’ Crissy is saying. ‘He’s a gentleman, he wouldn’t harm a woman.’

  ‘He killed Sofia Novak,’ says Nelson. ‘He confessed to it.’

  Now Crissy really does looked shocked. Her face changes and, to Nelson, it looks as if she has suddenly aged ten years.

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Ask him,’ says Nelson, ‘on your next visit.’ He stands up to leave.

  Crissy remains sitting. In her white dress with her long white hair she looks as if she has been turned to stone.

  ‘Why did he tell you to dig at the Jolly Boatman then?’ she whispers. ‘He must have known that you’d find her.’

  ‘I think he felt guilty,’ says Nelson. And, as he drives away, the stone house growing smaller in his rear-view mirror, he thinks that he does understand part of this case. March might not have been guilty of all the murders but he was guilty of one. He must have known, as Chantal said, that he deserved to suffer. He knew, when he told Ruth to dig in the grounds of the Jolly Boatman, that Sofia’s body would be discovered. He didn’t have to confess though. It was guilt that prompted March to do that. March killed Sofia and Nelson hopes that he serves a long time in prison for his crime. March killed a teenager, a young woman on the very threshold of her life, and he deserves to pay for that. Nelson will never really understand why March did it or why Bob Carr murdered Stacy, Jill, Nicola, Jenny and Heidi.

  But the guilt he does understand.

  *

  ‘We should offer thanks for Ruth’s safe return,’ says Cathbad.

  Ruth and Frank exchange glances. They are sitting in the tiny garden of the Cambridge house, made smaller by the trampoline that fills half the space. This was Frank’s present to Kate on her last birthday. At the time Ruth had thought the gift too big, too much of a commitment to her daughter, but there’s no doubt that Kate loves it. She is bouncing on it now, accompanied by Michael and Miranda. Ruth, Frank, Cathbad and Judy are drinking tea at the rickety wrought-iron table left behind by the previous owners. Is it possible to offer a libation in tea?

  But Cathbad has other plans. ‘It should really be wine,’ he says. ‘Wine is a powerful offering. The gods will be pleased.’ He smiles beatifically at the gathering. Ruth has often noticed that the gods have similar tastes to Cathbad himself.

  ‘We’ve got a bottle of white in the fridge,’ says Frank. He goes into the house. Judy wanders over to the trampoline, where the children are practising forward rolls.

  ‘How are you feeling, Ruth?’ says Cathbad. ‘It must have been a terrifying experience.’

  ‘It was,’ says Ruth, putting her hand up to touch the dressing on her forehead. ‘But today it feels like a dream. Was I really attacked by a madman? Did I really run across the marshes in a storm? Did I really try to fight off a killer with a wooden spoon?’

  ‘You fought him off with your strength and integrity,’ says Cathbad.

  ‘I don’t think it works like that,’ says Ruth. ‘After all, the other women had strength and integrity too. I was just lucky. And, of course, it was really Nelson who saved me.’

  ‘His strength is the strength of ten because his heart is pure,’ says Cathbad. Ruth turns away so that Cathbad won’t see her blushing. What happened after Bob Carr had been taken away could hardly be described as pure. Has Ruth fallen back into the quicksand again after trying so hard to escape? Why doesn’t she feel worse about it?

  Cathbad is giving her one of his uncomfortably understanding looks. To change the subject, Ruth says, ‘It was the strangest thing, when I was running across the Saltmarsh I saw this light, a weird light that kept moving. I followed it and it led me to safety. I thought all those marsh lights were meant to be evil. I heard a bird too. An owl, I think.’

  ‘Swamp gas,’ says Frank, arriving with the bottle and four glasses. ‘Phosphorescence. Dead matter is trapped in the mud and releases methane which mixes with phosphines to create blue light.’

  Cathbad disregards this, as Ruth knew he would. ‘A glowing owl,’ he said. ‘They’re often seen over the marshes. Some say it’s the moon reflecting on their feathers, others that they glow because they eat phosphorescent plants. But an owl is a powerful symbol.’

  ‘I thought owls were bad luck,’ says Ruth, accepting a glass of wine.

  ‘They’re good luck for you,’ says Cathbad, ‘beca
use of your connection to Hecate.’

  Ruth remembers telling Kate that her dæmon would be an owl. She remembers the way the light had seemed friendly, lighting the path to home. She realises that everyone is looking at her.

  ‘To Ruth.’ Cathbad raises his glass.

  ‘To Ruth.’ Frank smiles at her.

  ‘To Ruth.’ Judy winks.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Ruth. The little garden is full of sunlight and the laughter of children. Ruth drinks her wine and thinks about the Saltmarsh.

  Chapter 35

  The good weather lasts all through June. Bob Carr is charged with five murders and for a while the press have a field day. ‘How did Norfolk Police miss the killer?’ ‘Ten mistakes made by the bungling cops’. One paper describes Nelson as Norfolk born and bred, which upsets him almost more than anything. But at least Ivor March doesn’t go free: he is charged with the murder of Sofia Novak and is still incarcerated at HMP Wayland. Chantal Simmonds, née Kiri Novak, has been charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice but she doesn’t seem to care too much. Sofia has been buried in the churchyard at Salthouse and Chantal visits every day. She is also having her garden landscaped by a handsome Serbian called Marko.

  Ruth is grateful that her name has been kept out of the papers. She finishes the term in peace, marking papers late at night while Larry makes his rounds of the court, keys jangling at his waist. Frank continues to talk about summer holidays and, in the evenings, they look at brochures: Corfu, Santorini, the Amalfi Coast, Croatia. Ruth dreams about blue seas and crumbling castles, olive groves, white houses surrounded by cypress trees.

  On Friday 22 June, the day after the longest day, Ruth and Frank go for a meal at their favourite Cambridge restaurant, overlooking the river. Kate is staying the night with Nelson and Michelle, a cause of great excitement, and tomorrow Laura is taking her to London, to see the Tower and Madame Tussauds. Rebecca is meeting them there and Kate has been counting the days, ticking them off on her Redwings horse lover’s calendar. It makes Ruth feel slightly anxious to see time treated in this cavalier manner. She thinks of Nelson’s story about the prisoners rejoicing on New Year’s Eve. She has reached the age when she wants the days to last for ever but, even on the summer solstice, the earth seems to be turning at an alarming rate. She will be fifty next month.

  It’s a lovely evening though. They sit on the terrace having drinks and the swans glide by, luminous and mysterious. They talk about Kate and work and the famous holiday. When they are called to their table, the food is delicious. They drink a bottle of wine and are easy and comfortable together. It is only when they are walking back, across Sheep’s Green, that Frank says, ‘Ruth?’

  Ruth stops. They joked earlier that Cambridge was like Oxford Circus, crowded with tourists and students who don’t want to go home, but now, suddenly, they are on their own. It’s ten o’clock but still not dark, the sky streaked with vapour trails.

  ‘I would go down on my knee,’ says Frank, ‘but they aren’t so good at the moment . . .’

  ‘Frank . . .’

  ‘Will you marry me, Ruth?’

  Dear God, he has the ring there, in a blue velvet case that looks as if it has come from an antiques shop. He is smiling at her. Frank, good-looking, kind, intelligent and responsible. Frank who loves her, and Kate too. Frank, who has offered her the chance of escape.

  And, perceptive as ever, Frank saves her from trying to find the words.

  ‘You’re going back, aren’t you?’ he says. ‘You’re going back to Norfolk.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Ruth.

  Acknowledgements

  Many people have helped with The Lantern Men but I must stress that I have followed their advice only as far as it suits the plot and any subsequent mistakes are mine alone. The first thank you must go to Chris Rushby of Jarrold’s in Norwich for giving me a book called This Hollow Land by Peter Tolhurst. In this treasury of Norfolk folklore I first found the legend of the lantern men. The story grew from there.

  Thanks also to John Sutton who, in the course of many long drives, educated me about bicycles and cycle racing. There is no cycling club called Lynn Wheels, though, and, as far as I know, no race along the north Norfolk coastal path. Thanks to Linzi Harvey at the Natural History Museum for being brilliant on bones as usual, and to police consultant Graham Bartlett for his advice and support. Thanks also to Mary Williams, Associate Dean (Students) for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Portsmouth, for telling me what lecturers get up to in May and June.

  Thanks to Ailsa Britain for taking part in a charity auction to become a character in this book. All proceeds go to CLIC Sargent, the charity supporting teenage cancer sufferers, so a huge thank you to Ailsa and everyone else who took part. Thanks also to my friend John Robertson who made a donation to Shelter in return for featuring in these pages. I hardly need say that the real Ailsa and John bear no resemblance to their fictional counterparts.

  Grey Walls is imaginary but most of the places in the book are real. I’d especially like to thank the podcast Weird Norfolk for all the wonderful stories about this wonderful county. Do listen to their podcasts or follow them on Instagram. The Cley marshes are real, as is the amazing visitor centre. Thanks to David Fieldhouse and the team for making me so welcome there.

  Heartfelt thanks to my publishers Quercus Books and the fantastic Team Elly: Therese Keating, Hannah Robinson, Ella Patel, Laura McKerrell, David Murphy and so many others. I’m so grateful for everything you have done for me and Ruth. Special thanks to my wonderful editor, Jane Wood, who has edited all the Ruth books and knows her as well as I do. Thanks, as always, to the one and only Agent Carter, Rebecca Carter, and all at Janklow and Nesbit. Thanks to Kirby Kim at Janklow US and to Naomi Gibbs and all at HMH. Thanks to all the publishers around the world who publish these books with such dedication and care. Thanks to my crime writer friends for their support and to anyone who has bought or borrowed my books. I appreciate you more than I can say.

  The final thanks must go to my sister, Sheila de Rosa, printmaker extraordinaire, who provided invaluable information on the printing process. Sheila, this book is for you.

  Love and thanks, as ever, to my husband, Andrew, and to our children, Alex and Juliet. And thanks to Gus who, like Flint, cannot resist a keyboard.

  EG 2020

  Who’s Who

  in the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries

  Dr Ruth Galloway

  Profession: forensic archaeologist

  Likes: cats, Bruce Springsteen, bones, books

  Dislikes: gyms, organized religion, shopping

  Ruth Galloway was born in south London and educated at University College London and Southampton University, where she met her mentor Professor Erik Anderssen. In 1997, she participated in Professor Anderssen’s dig on the north Norfolk coast which resulted in the excavation of a Bronze Age henge. Ruth subsequently moved to the area and became Head of Forensic Archaeology at the University of North Norfolk. She lives in an isolated cottage on the edge of the Saltmarsh. In 2007, she was approached by DCI Harry Nelson who wanted her help in identifying bones found buried on the marshes, and her life suddenly got a whole lot more complicated.

  Surprising fact about Ruth: she is fascinated by the London Underground and once attended a fancy dress party as The Angel Islington.

  Harry Nelson

  Profession: Detective Chief Inspector

  Likes: driving fast, solving crimes, his family

  Dislikes: Norfolk, the countryside, management speak, his boss

  Harry Nelson was born in Blackpool. He came to Norfolk in his thirties to lead the Serious Crimes Unit, bringing with him his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Laura and ­Rebecca. Nelson has a loyal team and enjoys his work. He still hankers after the North, though, and has not come to love his adopted county. Nelson thinks of himself as an old-fashioned
policeman and so often clashes with Super­intendent Archer, who is trying to drag the force into the twenty-first century. Nelson is impatient and quick-­tempered but he is capable of being both imaginative and sensitive. He’s also cleverer than he lets on.

  Surprising fact about Nelson: he’s a huge Frank Sinatra fan.

  Michelle Nelson

  Profession: hairdresser

  Likes: her family, exercising, socializing with friends

  Dislikes: dowdiness, confrontation, talking about murder

  Michelle married Nelson when she was twenty-four and he was twenty-six. She was happy with her life in Blackpool – two children, part-time work, her mother nearby – but encouraged Nelson to move to Norfolk for the sake of promotion. Now that her daughters are older she works as a manager for a hair salon. Michelle is beautiful, stylish, hard-working and a dedicated wife and mother. When people see her and Nelson together, their first reaction is usually, ‘What does she see in him?’

  Surprising fact about Michelle: she once played hockey for Blackpool Girls.

  Michael Malone (aka Cathbad)

  Profession: laboratory assistant and druid

  Likes: nature, mythology, walking, following his instincts

  Dislikes: rules, injustice, conventions

  Cathbad was born in Ireland and came to England to study first chemistry then archaeology. He also came under the influence of Erik Anderssen though they found themselves on opposite sides during the henge dig. Cathbad was brought up as a Catholic but he now thinks of himself as a druid and shaman.

  Surprising fact about Cathbad: he can play the accordion.

  Shona Maclean

  Profession: lecturer in English Literature

  Likes: books, wine, parties

  Dislikes: being ignored