Dying Fall

language again. ‘No,’ says Ruth, ‘but I’ve got a child-minder. She’s very good. Very flexible.’
    ‘What about Kate’s father?’’ asks Caz. ‘Are you still with him?’
    ‘No,’ says Ruth. ‘We were never really together but he does see Kate.’
    ‘Who was that I spoke to on the phone?’ asks Caz. ‘He sounded nice.’ When Caz rang up to arrange this meeting she had, of course, got Cathbad, who had talked at length about the magical powers of sea air.
    ‘Cathbad. He’s just a friend.’
    Caz looks at her curiously, head on one side, the sun catching the expensive highlights in her short hair. Is my life as alien to her as hers is to me, wonders Ruth. All the same, it’s lovely to see Caz again. Within minutes they are off down memory lane, reminiscing about Dan and university and the day that Roly dressed up as a nun for rag week.
    ‘Dear Roly,’ says Caz. ‘I haven’t seen him for ages, have you?’
    ‘No, just cards at Christmas,’ says Ruth. ‘He’s living in Edinburgh now.’
    ‘Still with Christian?’
    ‘I think so,’ says Ruth. ‘Do you think Roly knows about Dan?’
    ‘I don’t suppose so. Why?’
    ‘Oh, just that Dan mentioned him in the letter he wrote to me. He asked about you, Roly and Val.’
    ‘Well, that was our group at uni, wasn’t it? The four of us.’
    Ruth thinks about the four of them – sardonic Caz, sweet Roly, easy-going Val, earnest Ruth – how is it possible that they have lost touch like this? But Roly is in Scotland and Caz and Val lost to the land of marriage and motherhood. And Dan, Dan who was always too cool for their group, is lost forever.
    ‘It’s so strange that he wrote to you,’ says Caz. ‘Just before he died.’
    ‘I know,’ says Ruth. She doesn’t mention her recurring nightmare that Dan is calling for her help, trapped in some nightmare hyperspace between life and death. She thinks of his answerphone message:
I’ll get back to you. Promise.
She tries to rid herself of the notion that Dan will, in some way, get back to her.
    ‘It’s been odd,’ she says. ‘Meeting his colleagues. Looking at his archaeology. I keep thinking that I’ll be able to discuss it all with him.’
    ‘What was the great discovery?’ asks Caz, who is now putting together a gourmet lunch with what looks like superhuman ease. On the floor, Kate slams her trains into each other. She’s as bad a driver as her father.
    Ruth hesitates. She has told Caz only that the university wanted her to look at a discovery Dan had made. She considers telling Caz the whole story, about King Arthur, the Raven God, the awful suspicion that Dan was murdered. But then she thinks of the text messages, the fear in Clayton Henry’s face. It’s better for Caz if she doesn’t know.
    ‘It was a temple,’ she says. ‘On the outskirts of Ribchester.’
    ‘There’s lots of Roman stuff there,’ says Caz. ‘I took the kids to the museum once.’
    ‘Yes, it’s a well-known site,’ says Ruth, ‘but this temple’s interesting for a few reasons. It’s in the Roman style but Dan thought it was built after the Romans withdrew from Britain. And it’s dedicated to a god in the form of a raven.’
    ‘An unkindness of ravens,’ says Caz.
    ‘What?’
    ‘That’s the collective noun for ravens,’ says Caz, drizzling oil and shredding basil. ‘Like a murder of crows.’
    ‘Jesus,’ says Ruth. ‘What is it about these birds?’
    ‘I don’t like birds,’ says Caz. ‘I think I saw that Hitchcock film at an impressionable age. I don’t like the way they gather on the telegraph lines. It’s as if they’re waiting for something.’
    ‘I live near a bird sanctuary,’ says Ruth. ‘They’re verybeautiful sometimes.’ She thinks about her ex-neighbour, David, who was the warden of the sanctuary. He loved the birds; it was just humans who were the problem.
    ‘How are you getting on with Dan’s colleagues?’ asks Caz. ‘Are they being helpful?’
    Ruth thinks about Guy and Elaine at the barbeque, Elaine’s antipathy and Guy’s bid for ownership. She thinks about Clayton Henry drinking champagne in the rosy hue of the marquee and staring glumly at his tea in the backstreet cafe.
    ‘They’re an odd bunch,’ she says. ‘The head of department only really cares about making money out of Dan’s find. One of his colleagues was really nice and genuinely devastated about his death. The others seemed a bit … I don’t know … I wondered how much they