The Stone Circle: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 11

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘Yes, Maddie – my daughter with Delilah – is twenty-four. I’ve got two younger children with my partner, Judy. Michael is six and Miranda is three.’

  ‘You are blessed.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ says Cathbad, making Freya laugh by hiding his face behind his cloak.

  The waiter brings their drinks. Cathbad and Ruth have ordered sandwiches too. Leif gets out a Tupperware box of mixed seeds.

  ‘Still eating healthily?’ says Magda.

  ‘Yes,’ says Leif, sounding slightly like a sulky teenager. ‘Chia seeds are high in iron and magnesium.’

  Magda has asked the waiter to bring a mug of hot water. Now she puts a bottle of milk in it to warm up. Ruth thinks of the missing baby in King’s Lynn, the mother longing to hold her baby and care for it, as Magda is doing now. She knows that Nelson, Judy and Clough will be working flat out but she hopes that Judy will tell Cathbad if the baby is found.

  ‘Your baby’s father,’ says Magda to Ruth with a smile, taking Freya from Cathbad and settling her in the crook of her arm before giving her the bottle. ‘It’s the policeman, isn’t it?’

  Ruth is not expecting this Erik-like sixth sense. ‘Yes,’ she says, rather stiffly. ‘His name’s Harry Nelson. He’s a detective chief inspector.’

  ‘DCI Nelson?’ says Leif. ‘I met him yesterday.’

  ‘Did you?’ says Ruth.

  ‘Yes,’ says Leif. ‘I know the girl, you see. The one whose baby went missing.’

  ‘Her name’s Star,’ says Cathbad.

  ‘I don’t think Nelson cares much for me,’ says Leif. ‘But then, I am living with his daughter.’

  ‘You’re living with Laura?’ says Ruth. She thinks of the furious girl in ripped jeans. She supposes that Laura left home after Nelson’s revelation but somehow she doesn’t like to think of Laura living with Leif.

  Perhaps Cathbad feels the same because he says, ‘I think Laura’s in a vulnerable state just now.’

  ‘Sure she is,’ says Leif. ‘I’m counselling her.’

  He smiles at Ruth and Ruth suddenly sees the other side of the Viking; not the adventurer but the destroyer, the raider who invades Anglo-Saxon settlements and carries off their womenfolk.

  She supposes that Leif himself is a message from Erik.

  *

  Michelle feels slightly nervous as Star’s mother ushers her into the sitting room. She thought long and hard about bringing George. Would the sight of him cheer and distract Star? Or would he be a reminder of the missing Ava, his almost-twin? On balance she decided to leave him behind with her mum but now she feels his absence acutely. Is it possible that she’s only known this baby for twenty-odd days? Now she feels lost without him. Besides, George would have given them something to talk about.

  Star is on the sofa. When she sees Michelle she bursts into tears. Michelle puts her arms round her. ‘There, there. It’ll be all right.’ This, at least, she can do. Memories of comforting the girls when they were young. Broken toys, grazed knees and – later on – arguments with friends and the unfathomable strangeness of boys. She knows what to say for all of it. Which is to say, she says nothing. ‘There, there,’ she says, patting Star’s back. ‘There, there.’

  Eventually Star hiccups and pulls away, wiping her eyes on what looks like one of Ava’s muslin cloths. Star’s mother, Annie, offers tea which Michelle accepts because she thinks drinking something might be good for Star. She thinks that Annie looks almost as traumatised as her daughter. She can only imagine how she’d feel if this happened to one of her girls and their mythical offspring.

  ‘I met your husband yesterday,’ says Star, still hiccupping slightly. ‘He’s very nice.’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ says Michelle. ‘And he’s very good at his job. He’ll find Ava. He’s done it before.’

  ‘With Judy’s baby? She told me. She’s nice too.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘Oh, Michelle.’ The tears start again, welling in Star’s blue eyes and falling unchecked down her face. ‘I just miss her so much. She’s my baby. She needs me.’

  ‘That’s why you have to stay calm,’ says Michelle. ‘For Ava’s sake. She’ll need you when she comes home. She’ll need her mum.’

  Looking towards the door, Michelle sees that Annie hasn’t left the room. She’s standing in the doorway and she, too, has tears running down her cheeks. Go to your daughter, Michelle wants to say. Comfort her. We all need our mothers to comfort us sometimes. But they stay frozen in their positions, Star on the sofa with Michelle beside her, Annie in the doorway. They all jump when there’s a knock on the door. Annie goes to answer it and comes back with Judy.

  ‘No news,’ she says immediately. ‘I’m sorry.’ She sits on the other side of Star.

  ‘Hi, Michelle.’

  ‘Hallo, Judy.’

  They sit on the sofa in silence whilst, in the background, a clock chimes the hour. Three o’clock.

  *

  Nelson is feeling the frustration of being left at the station while the action goes on elsewhere. He leaves a message for Laura and asks her to ring him back but he’s not really surprised when she doesn’t. At half past three he gets a message from Mike Halloran, who is in charge of Forensics.

  ‘We’ve got something from the search team,’ he says. ‘It may or may not be significant.’

  This is a typical Mike phrase.

  ‘What is it?’ says Nelson.

  ‘A piece of brown paper caught on the hedge outside the house on Ferry Road. Looks like it might be from a bag. You know, the sort you find in greengrocers sometimes.’

  ‘A brown paper bag?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Nelson thinks of the bag containing the witch stone that was left on his doorstep. Greetings from Jack Valentine. But they had been sure that John Mostyn had been Nelson’s mysterious Valentine. After all, he was from east Norfolk and he collected stones. The handwriting, of course, had been impossible to match. Could this possibly be linked? He can hear Tom Henty’s slow voice now: Then there’s Snatch Valentine . . . Present on the doorstep with a string attached. Child goes to grab the parcel but the string moves it just out of reach. Child chases the present until it’s out of sight. Child is never seen again.

  But, then again, it could just be part of a paper bag, one that had once held oranges or apples, blown by the wind onto the Simmondses’ hedge.

  ‘The hedge is quite overgrown,’ Mike is saying, ‘and it’s the side near the road. It’s possible that this bag got caught there while someone was trying to manoeuvre themselves into their car.’

  ‘Themselves or something else. A baby in a baby seat perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps. We’ll check it for prints, of course. Pity it’s not bigger.’

  It’s a pity we haven’t got any more evidence, thinks Nelson. It’s a pity we haven’t got CCTV of someone abducting Ava. It’s a pity we haven’t found her. He thanks Mike and tells him to keep him informed.

  Putting down the phone, Nelson paces round the office. He wants to drive to Leif’s apartment and confront him but he’s worried that the confrontation will end with Nelson, not Leif, being charged with assault. Better to speak to Laura first. Or should he ask Michelle to ring her? He texts Michelle but she doesn’t reply. Then he remembers that Michelle is going to visit Star this afternoon. Well, he hopes that she can be some comfort to the poor girl.

  Maybe he should call in on Star too? Check in with Judy, reassure the family that they’re doing all they can. He picks up his jacket and phone but, as he does so, the internal line rings. ‘Someone to see you, DCI Nelson. Her name’s Rita Smith. She says it’s about the Ava Simmonds case.’

  The name means nothing to Nelson but he’s willing to meet the devil himself if he’ll help him find Ava. A few minutes later a middle-aged woman comes into the room, clutching a large handbag and smiling serenely.

  ‘I’m Madame Rita,’ she says. ‘You consulted me when Michael Foster went missing. I spoke to a nice policeman called Clough.’<
br />
  Oh Christ, it’s the medium. They had only consulted her last time because Cathbad had insisted. Nelson remembers that Clough had been sure that she’d given him vital information although he remains unconvinced.

  ‘I haven’t got much time,’ he says.

  ‘No, none of us have got much time,’ says Madame Rita. ‘Not on this earth anyhow. But I was able to help last time so I’ve asked my spirit guide if he can see Ava.’

  ‘And can he?’

  ‘Yes. She’s with lots of other motherless children.’

  Despite himself, Nelson’s skin prickles. ‘What do you mean? Is she dead?’

  ‘Bless you, no.’ Madame Rita gives a chuckle. ‘She’s alive and she’s not far away.’

  ‘Any ideas as to where she might actually be?’

  ‘As I said to Sergeant Clough five years ago, the spirits don’t deal in addresses. If you can bring me something that belongs to Ava, I might be able to feel her spirit more powerfully.’

  And Nelson finds himself promising to get one of Ava’s possessions to give to the medium.

  *

  Outside the café it’s almost dark and the fog is thicker, adding its own visual effects of smoky vapour and lowering grey cloud. Ruth and Cathbad walk ahead across the fields while Leif follows with his mother and her baby. They are looking for the Cove, the name given to the three megaliths said to depict the bride, groom and pastor. The waiter at the café told them that the stones were in the grounds of the pub, appropriately named the Druid’s Arms. In fact they are lying between the church and the pub, glowing slightly in the dusk, reminding Ruth of the phosphorescence that she sometimes sees on the marshes late at night.

  One of the stones looks like a petrified golf flag, a vertical post with a protrusion at the top. The other is vaguely triangular and the third is lying horizontal on the grass.

  ‘That’s the preacher,’ says Cathbad.

  ‘Why’s he lying down?’ says Ruth. Her breath billows around her like the fog.

  ‘Maybe he’s drunk,’ says Cathbad, waving a hand towards the pub. The bench seats, complete with holes for umbrellas, are only a few metres away.

  ‘These stones are older than the circle,’ says Leif, appearing out of the gloom. ‘It’s thought they might have formed the portal to a tomb.’

  ‘They found a burial chamber under here, didn’t they?’ says Ruth, keen to show that she too has done some research. ‘There was a study in 2009.’

  ‘And, in the seventeenth century, when some of the stones fell,’ says Leif, ‘human remains were found buried underneath.’

  ‘Were there any grave goods?’ asks Magda. She is clutching Freya to her chest but her tone is very much that of the archaeologist.

  ‘A strange round object,’ says Leif, ‘described as being like a large horse bell.’

  ‘Maybe it was like Victorians having bells in their coffins,’ says Cathbad, ‘in case they got buried alive.’

  Ruth shivers. This conversation, carried out in the ghostly fog, seems unsuitable for the day’s purpose. But, then again, Erik enjoyed a chat about the undead as much as the next archaeologist. She can’t help thinking of the burial chamber which is, presumably, directly beneath their feet.

  Magda too seems to be remembering why they’re there. From her capacious nappy bag she produces a bottle of red wine. Bull’s Blood.

  ‘For the libation,’ she says.

  Instinctively, they all look towards Cathbad and he rises to the occasion.

  ‘Spirits of the other world,’ he says, raising his arms. ‘We ask you to receive our offering. Just as water, when poured on barren earth, causes seeds to germinate and flower, may this wine restore the spirit of our dead husband, father and friend, Erik Anderssen. Though you are gone from our sight, Erik, you are never forgotten. May your ship carry you safely to Valhalla. Rest in peace and rise in glory.’

  Like most of Cathbad’s incantations, this is a mixture of pagan and Christian, with a bit of Norse mythology thrown in for good measure, but it’s curiously effective. Cathbad takes the bottle and, from a height, pours wine onto the grass.

  ‘Rest in peace,’ echoes Leif, ‘and rise in glory.’

  ‘Farewell, dear Erik,’ says Magda, holding Freya high above her head. ‘May the rainbow bridge carry you to Asgard.’ The baby starts to cry and Ruth doesn’t blame her. They are all looking at her expectantly.

  ‘Goodbye, Erik,’ she says. It’s the best she can do.

  ‘We should all drink of the wine,’ says Leif, taking an enthusiastic swig of Bull’s Blood.

  ‘I can’t,’ says Cathbad. ‘I’m driving.’

  Ruth is grateful for this piece of non-druidical common sense.

  *

  Nelson drives over to Star’s house, knowing that he has seized on a pretext to visit the crime scene, for that is what the house in Ferry Road has become. He’s clutching at straws and he knows it but there was something about Madame Rita’s demeanour that means that he cannot entirely dismiss her as a crank. She believed what she was saying, that much was obvious, and in the face of such certainty Nelson felt his scepticism start to waver. He feels the same when he’s in Cathbad’s company sometimes. Doubting Thomas, he remembers, was only convinced that Jesus had come back from the dead when he put his hands into his open wounds. He is not going to wait until he sees blood. Oh ye of little faith.

  It’s almost dark and raining hard by the time that he gets to Ferry Road. He can just see the search team at the end of the street, their blue overalls almost invisible in the hazy light. They are concentrating on the path down to the river. Please don’t let Ava be in the water. What did Madame Rita say? She’s with lots of other motherless children. That must, at least, rule out the river.

  When he approaches the house he sees Judy in the porch looking at her phone.

  ‘Hallo, Johnson. What’s the news?’

  ‘Nothing. Star’s in a pretty bad way. Michelle came round earlier. She was really good with her. Got her to eat something and have a shower. That’s more than her mother or I could do.’

  Michelle, Nelson thinks, was always good when the girls were upset. She usually suggested something practical: have a shower, go for a walk, drink some water. It might not have solved the problem but it gave them something to do. He must get Michelle to talk to Laura again.

  ‘Any news from the search teams?’ asks Judy.

  ‘You heard about the brown paper bag?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Halloran’s team found a piece of paper on the hedge here, outside the house. They think it was from a brown paper bag.’

  ‘Like the Jack Valentine bag?’

  ‘That was my first thought but we mustn’t jump to conclusions. Besides, we were sure that John Mostyn was Jack Valentine.’

  ‘I know,’ says Judy. ‘It’s just that I’m so desperate for a lead. I’m clutching at straws. Though a drinking straw would be good. It would have DNA on it.’

  ‘I’m the same,’ says Nelson. ‘That medium woman came in again. Madame Rita. And I found myself agreeing to see her.’

  ‘Really?’ says Judy. ‘Madame Rita gave us a clue about Michael, didn’t she?’

  ‘Cloughie always thought so but it was all so vague. It was the same this time.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said that Ava was alive and that she was with other motherless children.’

  ‘Other motherless children? Ava isn’t motherless.’

  ‘These people always talk in riddles. Madame Rita wants a possession of Ava’s so that she can feel her spirit more powerfully.’ He puts ironical quotation marks round these words but Judy seems to take them seriously.

  ‘I’ll pop in and get something.’

  ‘Why are you out here anyway?’ says Nelson. ‘Poor signal?’

  ‘No, I wanted to ring Cathbad. He’s gone gallivanting off somewhere with Leif and Ruth and now his phone is switched off.’

  ‘Cathbad’s gone somewhere with Ruth? And Lei
f Anderssen?’ Nelson’s antenna are on full alert. ‘Where have they gone?’

  ‘To see some stone circle in Somerset.’

  ‘Is Katie with them?’

  ‘No, she’s at school. I think she’s going on a sleepover tonight. My parents are looking after Michael and Miranda.’

  But Nelson has already got out his phone. ‘Call me,’ he texts Ruth.

  *

  It’s completely dark by the time they start the drive home. The fog is thicker too. As they drive through the country roads it’s as if the outside world has vanished, reminding Ruth of the road across the Saltmarsh. This time Ruth is in the front seat while Leif lounges in the back, scrolling through his phone, still slightly in his teenager persona.

  Ruth is unaccountably tired (after all, she’s been in the car most of the day). She closes her eyes but forces herself to reopen them. Cathbad might need a co-driver. Looking in the passenger-side mirror she sees Leif has fallen asleep, his handsome head thrown back, like a lion at rest. The motorway is a relief; lights and signposts and the reassuring presence of other cars. All of them, Ruth imagines, on their way home. Ruth and Cathbad chat about Stanton Drew and the symbolism of circles. ‘A circle is totality, wholeness, perfection,’ says Cathbad. ‘Think of a zero. It symbolises eternity.’ ‘Or nothingness,’ says Ruth. Kate once asked her if nought was a number. Maybe she was thinking of something altogether more profound than number bonds.

  Just outside Bristol the rain starts. The windscreen wipers slick back and forth, barely coping with the torrent. Cathbad starts to hum under his breath so Ruth knows he is nervous. It’s dark now but the mist is still there, billowing around them like dry ice. They join the M4, hardly able to see a few metres in front of them, lorries passing them in a sheet of spray.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ says Leif, waking up. ‘Some weather, eh?’

  No one answers and he goes back to sleep. Cathbad leans forward, concentrating on the road ahead. Ruth tries to keep up a flow of calming chat but, eventually, she too falls silent. Then, just before Peterborough, they see a red sign flashing in front of them. ‘Road closed.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ says Ruth.