Dying Fall

be on their way and there is nothing that Sandy hates more than letting uniforms in on a murder case.
    ‘Who’s your money on?’ he asks as they take the turn for Preston.
    Tim hates being asked this sort of question, especially when he is cutting across three lanes of traffic.
    ‘The Arch Wizard,’ he says, half-joking.
    But Sandy replies seriously, ‘My thoughts exactly. And we know who the Arch Wizard is, don’t we?’
    Tim, who doesn’t, says nothing.
    *
    Nelson is pulling into the university car-park when he gets the call from Clough. He listens as he takes the steps at a run.
    ‘Elaine Morgan, boss. There’s something on her, all right. Conviction as a minor for grievous bodily harm.’
    ‘What did she do?’
    ‘Stabbed her mother.’
    *
    Nelson finds Ruth in the atrium, sitting below a poster of chemical engineering in Chile. She looks pale but manages a rather shaky smile.
    ‘Are you OK, love?’
    ‘Yes. I took them up to the room. The police are in there now. They’re sealing it off.’
    Sandy will go mad if the forensics boys get there before him, thinks Nelson.
    ‘He’s definitely dead then?’ he says.
    ‘Yes. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. It was weird, Nelson.’ She shivers. ‘He looked just like a statue or a waxwork, sitting propped up at his desk with a knife sticking into him.’
    Nelson reaches out a hand to her but doesn’t quite make contact.
    ‘Sandy here yet?’
    Ruth shakes her head. ‘Someone called Peter Greengrass seems to be in charge.’
    ‘Have you seen anyone else? Anyone leaving the building?’
    ‘No.’ She tells him about the footsteps.
    ‘You say they sounded like a woman’s steps?’
    ‘Yes. Someone wearing high heels.’
    Nelson looks around the deserted atrium. He wantsto go up to the crime scene but he knows that he’ll be given short shrift by the forensics team and by Sandy’s nemesis Peter Greengrass. Also, he doesn’t want to leave Ruth on her own. But he hates doing nothing. Comforting witnesses is not one of his strengths; that’s Judy’s job. Not for the first time, he wishes she and Clough were there.
    As he hesitates, the doors crash open and Sandy and Tim erupt onto the scene.
    ‘Where is he?’ barks Sandy.
    ‘Fourth floor,’ says Nelson. ‘The forensics boys are up there.’
    With a furious expletive Sandy charges for the stairs. Tim stays to confer with Ruth.
    ‘Are you all right? Shall I get someone to drive you home?’
    ‘It’s OK. Nelson’s looking after me.’
    Tim gives Nelson a rather doubtful look.
    ‘Has anyone taken a statement?’
    ‘Yes. A policewoman. She was very nice.’
    ‘Can I have a word?’ says Nelson.
    He tells Tim what he has learnt about Elaine Morgan. He can’t help adding, ‘I’d get her and that Guy chap in for questioning.’
    Tim doesn’t betray any annoyance at being told how to do his job. ‘I’ll tell the boss,’ he says. Then he turns and takes the stairs at a run. He must be very fit, thinks Nelson enviously.
    ‘I’ll run you home,’ says Nelson.
    ‘I’m meeting Cathbad in Blackpool,’ says Ruth. Her phone rings. ‘That’ll be him now. He’ll be wondering where I’ve got to.’
    The caller ID says Cathbad but Ruth hardly recognises his voice. ‘Ruth, I’m so sorry. I’ve lost Kate.’

CHAPTER 32
    The world spins. Nelson and the engineering posters blur into one dizzying, whirring kaleidoscope of shape and colour. It’s Kansas, and Dorothy’s house is disappearing into the vortex of the tornado. But Ruth herself sits quite still in the centre of it all.
    ‘What do you mean, you’ve lost her?’
    Cathbad’s voice is high and strained. She thinks dumbly that she hardly knows this person. ‘It was just for a second. We were in Nickelodeon Land and I’d just bought her an ice cream. I turned round for a second to put my wallet back in the backpack and she was gone.’
    The backpack. Ruth had made him take the backpack. ‘There’s more to taking a child out than you know,’ she’d told him bossily. ‘You need drinks, snacks, wet-wipes, spare clothes in case she goes on the log flume.’ If she had let Cathbad look after Kate in his own way – conjuring drinks and snacks from the air – maybe she would still be at his side.
    ‘I’m sure she’s just wandered away,’ Cathbad is saying. ‘I’ve told the Pleasure Beach people. They’re being very good. Apparently kids get lost all the time.’
    But Kate isn’t a ‘kid’. She’s Ruth’s