Dying Fall

‘They were good friends even after …’
    Ruth picks up the cake. She has to resist a temptation to eat it. ‘Even after what?’
    ‘Well, Elaine is Guy’s best friend. I don’t think there’s anything sexual there. They’re more like brother and sister. So when Elaine started seeing Dan …’
    ‘Elaine went out with Dan?’ This would tie in with Elaine’s appearance at Dan’s funeral (in Sam’s company) but Ruth still can’t quite see the two together.
    ‘Yes. They had quite a romance. It was all very intense. But then they broke up and Elaine went back to living with Guy. But, all the time, Dan and Guy – and Elaine too – were working on the dig together. It must have been very difficult sometimes.’
    ‘Why did they break up?’
    ‘I don’t know. I think, from something Dan said that he just didn’t want to get involved in a serious relationship. After all, he hadn’t been divorced long.’
    ‘So Dan was the one who finished it?’
    ‘I think so. Yes.’
    Then Elaine moved back next door. It sounded like some French farce with the same people going in and out of the same doors, but Ruth is sure that it didn’t seem funny at the time. Suddenly, as clear as day, she remembers the 68 bus and Dan’s lips pressed to hers. She wonders whether Elaine was in love with him.
    ‘Did Dan tell you much about the dig?’ she asks.
    ‘At the beginning. He told me about the Raven God and all that. It was exciting because Britain was meant to be Christian at the time, but here was this pagan temple. But the bones … no. He didn’t tell me about them.’
    I wonder why not, thinks Ruth. ‘Have you ever heardanything about any Neo-Nazi groups on campus?’ she asks. ‘Anyone who might have had an interest in the dig?’
    Sam, like Clayton before him, looks uncomfortable. ‘We all know about the far right, but they’re a load of nutters. No one takes them seriously.’
    ‘Have you heard of a group called the White Hand? A sort of splinter group.’
    Sam shakes his head. ‘The White Hand? No, I don’t think so.’
    But Dan was afraid of something, thinks Ruth. And so, apparently, was Guy. After all, he was the one who insisted on taking the bones to the police lab.
    ‘I’ve got to go,’ says Sam, looking at his watch. ‘Nice to meet you again. Do get in touch with Guy, he knows everything about the excavation. After all, he’s the one writing the book now.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Yes. After Dan died, Guy thought that he should write a book about the discovery. As a kind of tribute to Dan. Bye, Ruth. Bye, Kate.’
    He pats Kate on the head and she puts a jammy hand on his back. Ruth hopes he won’t notice.
    ‘Bye bye, Daddy,’ says Signor Tino tenderly.
    *
    As the afternoon draws on, Thing starts to get more and more nervous. He whimpers, he stares at the door, he walks round and round the main room, always coming back to sit at Cathbad’s feet and stare at him fixedly. Cathbad, after eating some bread and cheese from thelarder and drinking another can of Guinness, has decided that the best thing to do is to sit and wait. So he sits in the wizard’s chair by the fire and tries to connect with the energies of the house. After a while he is so successful that he falls asleep. He wakes to find the room much colder and Thing with a paw on his knee, looking up entreatingly.
    ‘OK,’ says Cathbad, ‘you win.’
    He gets up, rubbing his arms to bring the circulation back. He’s wearing a jacket and a jumper but he’s still cold. He wishes he’d brought his cloak, which – as he’s always telling Nelson – is warm and practical as well as being a symbol of his druidical power. To be honest, he could do with a little of that power right now.
    Thing leads him to the foot of the stairs and Cathbad decides to go up and have another look around. There could be an attic somewhere that they had overlooked the first time. The thought of what they might find in such a room sends the first real shivers of fear down his spine.
    Cathbad lights another oil lamp. The house is much darker now, the corners have almost disappeared into the shadows, and it’ll be even darker upstairs, where the windows are small. He decides to search thoroughly, looking for clues. What he’s looking for he doesn’t quite know but he knows something is wrong in the little house; just as Thing knows, his nose pressed to Cathbad’s leg, tail between legs; just as Dame Alice knows, although she’s keeping her own