The Dark Angel

by Elly Griffiths

  Next to her, Rebecca mouths ‘OK?’ Laura nods. She looks up at the altar, imagining that she can see a great bird spreading its wings, as brightly coloured as the flowers below it.

  *

  Ruth and Cathbad are sitting near the back of the church. Seats are by invitation only, and the service is being relayed to the crowd outside over loudspeakers. Ruth and Cathbad are there only because of Judy, who secured them two spaces reserved for the police. They have to sit very close together and Ruth is feeling hot in her black dress. She thinks of Don Tomaso’s funeral and that unbearable sense of oppression, as if the tensions in the church might snap at any minute. This is different. The overwhelming feeling in this church is simply one of sadness. Cathbad is wearing black too and, as usual when out of druid costume, he looks worryingly normal, a grey-haired man in a suit and tie, his face serious as he watches the coffin, with its patriotic covering, being carried to the front of the church. ‘HERO PC DIES SAVING WOMAN’ was the headline in the Daily Express. Of course, Tim wasn’t a PC, he was a DS, and strictly off duty at the time, but the truth never got in the way of a good headline. ‘POLICE OFFICER DIES IN HOUSE SHOOTING’ – that was the more sober offering from The Times. All the papers were agreed though: Tim was a hero and Micky Webb was an out-and-out villain. ‘The callous child killer free to walk the streets,’ in the Mail’s words. None of the papers have guessed at the relationship between Michelle and Tim, though Nelson came in for some between-the-lines sniping: ‘while her husband DCI Harry Nelson was enjoying a solo holiday in Italy . . .’

  Ruth hasn’t seen Nelson since she’s been back, and she doesn’t expect to. She has thrown herself into preparing for the new terms, her own and Kate’s. Phil has been surprisingly fair and her new timetable isn’t as bad as it could have been. Shona, too, is preparing for teaching, and the two of them spent a blissful day buying books in Norwich. Summer is over; it’s September, the time of endings and beginnings. Ruth has visited her father, helped him in the garden and even accompanied him to church. Kate had loved going to the children’s service and dressing up as John the Baptist. Ruth hopes that this was for the theatrical potential of the role alone.

  Now Kate is back at school and adoring year two. ‘We read proper books with chapters,’ she told Ruth at the end of the first day. ‘I’m on the top reading table.’ Ruth is grateful for Kate’s resilience and for her relentless competitiveness. Both will stand her in good stead in life.

  Ruth peers at the front of the church, trying to see Nelson. She really needs glasses for distances now. All she can see is the stained-glass window, showing the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove appearing over the heads of the apostles. Below it are the trestles bearing Tim’s coffin. She thinks of Don Tomaso dying on the steps of his own altar. Saints cause a lot of trouble for the rest of us. Don Tomaso had kept Pompeo’s secret all those years; Ruth finds it hard to think that he would ever have broken the seal of the confessional, yet Angelo had killed the priest to silence him. Now, the grandmothers of Castello degli Angeli will remember Don Tomaso and bring flowers to his church. And, according to Marta, the town will soon have a new priest, a Somalian refugee. There’s a symmetry there somewhere.

  The other night, when she couldn’t sleep, Ruth had watched Angelo’s television programme, I Segreti del Passato, on YouTube. There were no subtitles, so she could only understand about one word in a hundred, but Angelo had smiled out of the screen at her, handsome and slightly raffish in his black shirt, extolling the wonders of the Roman Empire. Yes, they were good at engineering, but so are all fascists. She should have known that it was a bad sign, in Italy, to wear a black shirt. But Angelo hadn’t been a fascist; his grandfather had been a partisan, one of the good guys. Even so, Pompeo Morelli had killed a man and his grandson had followed in his footsteps. Angelo has confessed, according to Valenti, and the police found the missing candlestick from the church, hidden in the well at the Roman site. Ruth remembers Angelo telling Shona that wells had a ritual as well as practical significance to the Romans. It makes sense that this is where he would conceal the murder weapon.

  Elsa had known, Ruth is sure. That’s why she had wept when she said that Angelo had loved Don Tomaso – not out of guilt but out of sorrow – and the knowledge had almost driven her mad. According to Marta, Elsa is still in hospital.

  Ruth thinks again of Micky Webb, whom she has never met; the man responsible for the church full of police officers stifling their tears behind a collective stiff upper lip. He also had an angelic name, Michael. San Michele e Santi Angeli. But, of course, the devil was once an angel too. She thinks of her mother’s gravestone in Eltham Cemetery: At rest with the angels.

  Cathbad, who is also really called Michael, turns to her and says, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s just . . . this is so sad, isn’t it? Such a waste.’

  ‘Who knows what happens in the hereafter?’ says Cathbad. ‘Perhaps we will all meet again some day.’

  It’s a nice thought, thinks Ruth. She just wishes she could believe it – a cosmic dinner party with Tim, her mother, Erik. All the outcast dead eating and drinking together. Would it be rather a sticky affair? What if her mother were sitting next to Marilyn Monroe or a Renaissance Pope, someone of whom she would be sure to disapprove? Still, she’s pretty sure that her mother would have approved of Tim, and Erik, of course, could charm anyone. Perhaps they are all up there, having a merry time, looking down on the living with benevolent pity. She tried to sell a secular version of this idea to Kate last night. ‘Tim lives on because we remember him,’ she had said, ‘just like Grandma lives on because we remember things she said and did.’

  ‘Grandma said I was a sunbeam once,’ said Kate, who was trying to stand on her head.

  ‘There you are then,’ said Ruth, ‘we’ll remember her whenever we see a sunbeam.’ Which is not that often, to be honest, in Norfolk.

  Cathbad takes her hand. ‘Courage, Ruth.’ She is about to reply when the gospel choir, from Tim’s mother’s church, bursts into glorious life above them.

  The words are written on the order of service, which has a picture of Tim in uniform on the cover. Timothy Aloysius Heathfield, 1981–2015.

  Just a closer walk with Thee

  Grant it, Jesus, is my plea

  Daily walking close to Thee

  Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

  It’s a wonderful sound, full-throated and confident, the voices of people who are all convinced that, one day, they will see the face of God.

  ‘Tim was a good man,’ Cathbad had said earlier. ‘A peaceful soul.’

  But Ruth isn’t sure whether Tim really was all that peaceful. She remembers him firing a gun once, and now he has flung himself in front of a bullet to save the woman he loved. She thinks of him more as an errant knight, a gallant figure unsuited to the modern world. What had Tennyson’s Galahad said? ‘My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.’

  The choir is building up to a climax. Next to Ruth, Cathbad is singing lustily.

  When my feeble life is o’er

  Time for me will be no more

  Guide me gently, safely o’er

  To Thy kingdom’s shore, to Thy shore.

  Then the singers take their seats and the vicar begins with more traditional words of mourning and regret: ‘“I am the resurrection and the life,” saith the lord.’

  ‘What is death,’ Cathbad had said once, ‘but a dispersal of matter?’

  Tim’s body has been placed in a wooden coffin, which will soon lie in the earth, marked by a stone cross. ‘The burial is a journey,’ Erik used to say, ‘from flesh to wood to stone.’ But flesh and wood will decay; even stone will crumble. They will change, but they won’t disappear. Everything changes, but nothing is destroyed.

  Ruth stands and sits with the rest of the congregation, listening to Jo read the lesson in a voice which falls just on the right side of theatricality, hearing Tim’s brothers recall h
im with heartbreaking inarticulacy: ‘He was the clever one . . . We used to say he was Mum’s favourite . . . He always wanted to do good in the world.’ Then, finally, the choir are singing – ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ – and the coffin makes its way out of the church. People applaud when it goes past, a surprising, triumphant sound in the ancient church, and one which makes Ruth want to cry all over again. She sees Tim’s mother going by, smiling and wiping her eyes, the brothers, both heavyset with tattoos peeking out from the necks of their formal shirts, weeping like babies. The sisters, more composed, clasping bunches of roses. Jo, in uniform, head held high. Judy, giving Cathbad the ghost of a smile. Then Nelson and Michelle. He is grim-faced, his Italian tan only making him look more saturnine than ever, not looking left or right. Michelle is pale, dressed in loose-fitting black, her hand on Nelson’s arm. How must she be feeling today? Sorrowful at the death of her lover? Happy that she has her husband by her side? How many hours has Ruth spent speculating on Michelle’s emotions? But the woman is an enigma, as ever. Nelson’s daughters are next, arms linked like Jane Austen sisters. Ruth has forgotten how pretty they are: Laura wearing a black dress, her blonde hair tied back in a plait; Rebecca, her dark hair loose, wearing a trouser suit. Laura catches Ruth’s eye as she passes – a cool, calculating stare, as if she knows everything and forgives nothing.

  Outside the church, they watch as the hearse moves away to the private burial. Onlookers throw flowers in its wake. Nelson and his family get into one of the long, black cars and are driven away. Ruth watches from the steps, enjoying the cool breeze and the sun on her face. She’s glad that she’s not going to the interment. It’s probably a tasteless thought to have, but she’s glad that she’s alive.

  ‘Come on, Ruthie,’ says Cathbad. ‘Let’s get back to Hecate. We’ll build a bonfire in the garden. Prepare some libations. Concentrate on the living.’

  It’s an echo of Don Tomaso, the man whom Cathbad surely would have seen as a kindred spirit. In the face of so much sadness, Ruth is grateful for Cathbad’s presence, for his indomitable optimism; so much so that she decides to forgive him for ‘Ruthie’ and ‘Hecate’. She follows him to the car park, switching on her phone, which she had muted for the service. She has one new message.

  ‘Hi, Ruth. It’s Frank. I’m back in England.’

  Acknowledgements

  The Liri Valley, Arpino and, of course, Monte Cassino are all real places, beautiful and rich in history. However Castello degli Angeli and its inhabitants are completely fictional. Fregellae also existed and I’m grateful to Michael Whitehead and Andrew Maxted for taking a research trip to the Archaeological Museum at Ceprano where many relics are held. There was no earthquake in Lazio in 2015 but earthquakes are, sadly, not uncommon in the region.

  Thanks to Dr Linzi Harvey for the information on bones and periosteal infection. As usual, I have adapted this advice to suit the plot and so any subsequent mistakes are mine alone. Thanks also to Luisa Petruccione for checking my Italian phrases. Again, any mistakes are mine.

  Every year I auction a character name to raise money for CLIC Sargent, the charity that helps teenage cancer sufferers. This year the auction was won by Linda Anthony and she features as Cathbad’s old university friend. Many thanks to Linda for bidding and I need hardly say that her fictional namesake is completely imaginary – although she is married to the handsome Paolo. Thanks to Marj Maccallum and Jan Adams for taking part too.

  Thanks, as ever, to my wonderful editor, Jane Wood. It’s hard to believe that this is the tenth Ruth book and Jane has edited all of them, improving them greatly in the process! I’m so grateful to Jane and everyone at Quercus for their unfailing support. Thanks also to my fantastic agent, Rebecca Carter, and all at Janklow and Nesbit. I feel very lucky to work with these incredible people. Many thanks to my American agent, Kirby Kim, everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and all the publishers around the world who produce these books with such love and care.

  I’d also like to thank all the readers who have enjoyed the books. I love corresponding with you on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You don’t know how much I appreciate you, especially on days when the book seems to be going backwards. Special thanks to Clair and Anne Everitt for their support and friendship. Thanks also to all my crime-writing friends, especially the other members of the Crime Quartet: William Shaw, Lesley Thomson and Susan Wilkins. Special thanks to Lesley for Chapter 3.

  Love and thanks always to my husband, Andrew, and our children, Alex and Juliet. This book is for Andy.

  Elly Griffiths

  2018

  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 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-one and he was twenty-three. 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

  Shona is a lecturer at the University of North Norfolk and one of Ruth’s closest friends. They met when they both participated in the henge dig in 1997. On the face of it, Shona seems an unlikely friend for Ruth – she’s outgoing and stunningly beautiful for a start – but the two women share a sense of humour and an interest in books, films and travel. They
also have a lot of history together.

  Surprising fact about Shona: as a child she won several Irish dancing competitions.

  David Clough Profession: Detective Sergeant

  Likes: food, football, beer, his job Dislikes: political correctness, graduate police officers David Clough (‘Cloughie’ to Nelson) was born in Norfolk and joined the force at eighteen. As a youngster he almost followed his elder brother into petty crime, but a chance meeting with a sympathetic policeman led him into a surprisingly successful police career. Clough is a tough, dedicated officer but not without imagination. He admires Nelson, his boss, but has a rather competitive relationship with Sergeant Judy Johnson.

  Surprising fact about Clough: He can quote the ‘you come to me on my daughter’s wedding day’ scene from The Godfather off by heart.

  Judy Johnson Profession: Detective Sergeant Likes: horses, driving, her job Dislikes: girls’ nights out, sexism, being patronised Judy Johnson was born in Norfolk to Irish Catholic parents. She was academic at school but opted to join the police force at eighteen rather than go to university. Judy can seem cautious and steady – she married her boyfriend from school, for example – but she is actually fiercely ambitious. She resents any hint of condescension or sexism which can lead to some fiery exchanges with Clough.

  Surprising fact about Judy: she’s a keen card player and once won an inter-force poker competition.