Dying Fall

Well, his attempts to scare Ruth away almost worked. If it hadn’t been for that last visit to the university and the discovery of Clayton Henry’s body …
    Elaine told Ruth that she had received a phone call that morning asking her to come to the university for an interview. ‘I’d been applying for jobs as an assistant lecturer but no one seemed to want to employ me.’ She looked at Ruth out of mad blue eyes. ‘I don’t know why.’ So Elaine had dressed in her black interview suit and high heels and arrived at the university to find Clayton dead at his desk. ‘I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I ran around trying to find a place to hide.’ Ruth remembered the ghastly figure at the desk and the footsteps skittering about on the floor above and found herself feeling sorry for Elaine. She might be mad and seriously lacking in judgement, but she didn’t deserve to be framed for murder. Because that must have been what Sam was trying to do, surely? Elaine, with her history, would have been the perfect suspect. If Sandy hadn’t been distracted by Nelson’s frantic phone call, he would probably have charged Elaine on the spot. And she, in her fragile emotional state, might even have confessed. And, if Ruth happened to recall a mysterious blonde woman hangingaround her house, wouldn’t that also have pointed to Elaine?
    Ruth remembers looking at Elaine as she sat curled up on the sofa. Elaine had thought she was Guinevere and Ruth had once figured her, as her name suggested, as Morgan-le-Fay, but, in reality Elaine was a peripheral figure in the drama. Dan had not loved her and Clayton had not trusted her. Sam had seen her as the perfect scapegoat. Only Guy had stayed loyal, Sir Lancelot to the last. Ruth only hoped that Elaine appreciated him.
    *
    Ruth and Cathbad walk through the gate leading to Dame Alice’s cottage. Cathbad has prepared a post-funeral breakfast for all participants. When Ruth agreed to stay a few more days in Lancashire so that she could attend Pendragon’s funeral, she was surprised when Cathbad had announced that he was moving into the cottage. ‘I think it’s what he would have wanted,’ he said. ‘Thing will like it too.’
    ‘Why can’t you stay in Lytham with us?’ Ruth grumbled. The events at the Pleasure Beach had proved to her that, however unsatisfactory he was as a babysitter, Cathbad really loved Kate. After all, he was prepared to risk his life to save her. Nelson might call him a bloody fool but Ruth feels rather in awe of her friend. Would she have climbed nearly two hundred feet to save her baby? Well, yes, she would have tried, but the amazing thing is that Cathbad had nearly succeeded. ‘He looked like sodding Spider-Man up there,’ Sandy had said, andCathbad’s feat had even made the later editions of the local papers. ‘Spider-Man’s Climb To Save Tot,’ said one, ignoring the fact that the tot was several hundred yards away and fast asleep at the time. ‘Superman to the rescue,’ read another. Cathbad claimed not to have seen any of the headlines but Ruth suspected that he was rather enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame. So why was he proposing to abandon them in favour of a deserted (probably haunted) cottage?
    ‘I can’t explain,’ he had said. ‘I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.’
    Ruth understands this. After all, she had been the one to take Judy’s hysterical phone call, received as Ruth and Kate accompanied Cathbad to the hospital.
    ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Judy had shrieked. ‘Cathbad’s dead.’
    It was several minutes before Ruth could convince her that Cathbad, though injured, was still alive. Judy had only calmed down when Ruth had held the phone to Cathbad’s ear and he had croaked a feeble, ‘Not dead yet, sweetheart.’ Sweetheart. For some reason that had brought tears to Ruth’s eyes. But how had Judy known? ‘We have a strong psychic connection,’ said Cathbad, when they discussed it later. Despite everything, he looked rather pleased with himself.
    ‘I think she really loves you,’ Ruth had said.
    ‘I love her,’ said Cathbad. ‘But that’s not enough, is it?’
    Is it enough, thought Ruth, looking at Cathbad as he lay in his hospital bed with Kate at his feet, playing happily with a ‘Nil by Mouth’ sign. Is it?
    Two days later, Ruth received a late-night phone call.
    ‘What is it?’ she asked, seeing the name on her phone. She was exhausted, having spent another action-packed day with Caz at