Dying Fall

before him. ‘CNN.’
    Tim nods. ‘So Durkin could easily have taken the computer. It was a sealed site but he had access.’
    ‘We’d better go and talk to him,’ says Sandy. ‘Turn up at his house in a marked car. Put the pressure on.’
    Tim sighs, foreseeing an afternoon of reminding his boss of the concept of
habeas corpus
. ‘There’s another thing,’ he says.
    Tim has also been looking at Pendragon’s computer. His emails are mainly to other wizards and subscriptions to homeopathic health sites. His photos are almost all of a white bull terrier. Except one. It is this picture, printed and enlarged, that Tim puts on the desk in front of Sandy.
    ‘What’s this?’
    It’s a photograph of two men wearing white robes. One is large, white-bearded, with a certain presence. The other man is smaller and plumper and seems to be havingtrouble with his long skirts. His face is partly turned away from the camera.
    ‘The taller man’s Norman Smith, alias Pendragon,’ says Tim. ‘But do you recognise the other one?’
    Sandy peers closer. ‘Couple o’ nutters. Bloody hell!’
    ‘Do you recognise him?’
    ‘It’s the bloke in the windmill. Clayton Henry.’

CHAPTER 25
    Ruth meets Cathbad and Kate on the beach. They show her their henge, which is certainly the only such structure on the sands.
    ‘Henge,’ says Kate, jumping up and down, her Hello Kitty hat askew. ‘Henge, henge.’
    ‘It’s positively Bronze Age,’ says Ruth.
    The circle of sand megaliths is attracting attention. People are crowding round and taking photographs. For once Ruth has her camera with her and she kneels down to take a shot. Cathbad and Kate pose proudly by their construction, and seeing them there with the sea in the background reminds her of a similar photograph showing her with Peter and Erik on the Saltmarsh beach. They had just found the henge and Ruth vividly remembers the feeling of excitement and triumph as they stood by the ancient timbers, Erik waving his hat in the air. This would have been what Dan felt when he raised the stone and saw King Arthur’s face looking at him.
    ‘Take it home,’ says Kate.
    ‘No, Hecate,’ says Cathbad. ‘Let the sea take it. That’s what it’s for, an offering to the gods of the sea.’
    Amazingly, this seems to satisfy Kate. Of course, this is what Cathbad had wanted for the original henge, to let the sea come for it rather than preserving the wood in a soulless museum.
    ‘Erik would be proud of you,’ says Ruth.
    Cathbad shoots her a quick look. ‘I still feel his presence, don’t you?’
    ‘No,’ lies Ruth. ‘Let’s go back to the house and get some lunch. Thing will be missing us.’
    Ruth feels rather nervous about having left Thing alone in the cottage but dogs aren’t allowed on the beach in summer. Cathbad agrees that they need to get back and, with one last photograph, they leave the henge to the incoming tide. Kate makes a routine fuss as they pass the posters for the Pleasure Beach.
    ‘Want Dora! Want Dora!’
    ‘We really must take her to Nickelodeon World before we go home,’ says Cathbad.
    ‘I’d rather die,’ says Ruth.
    ‘I’ll take her then.’
    In the car, Ruth tells Cathbad about Clayton and his money troubles.
    ‘We should have guessed,’ says Cathbad. ‘I mean, when you think about his house. And that party. Champagne flowing like water.’
    Well, you drank most of it, thinks Ruth. Aloud, she says, ‘Do you think Clayton knew about the DNA results?’
    ‘Didn’t Dan imply that he’d told someone?’
    ‘Yes. In his diary, he wrote,
I won’t tell anyone except …
’
    ‘Except Clayton?’
    ‘Well, maybe. He was his head of department. It would make sense to tell him.’
    ‘But if Arthur was black it would make even more of a story and make Clayton even more money. If he knew, why didn’t he mention it to you?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ says Ruth. ‘Maybe he was just terrified of the White Hand. Dan thought they had been threatening Clayton.’
    ‘But he also thought Clayton was shielding someone.’ Ruth has told Cathbad what was in Dan’s diaries but she hasn’t let him see the files. It’s one thing for her to read them but Cathbad didn’t know Dan.
    ‘You ought to tell Nelson,’ says Cathbad. ‘About Clayton and the money. It could be something for the police to investigate.’
    ‘I will.’
    ‘Do you really think that Clayton was involved in Dan’s death?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ says Ruth. She is thinking