Dying Fall

well with someone, thinks Sandy, to work in such close proximity. He couldn’t stand it himself. He likes to have room to spread out. One desk is clear. Sandy presumes this was Golding’s and that someone (who?) has cleared his belongings. The other desk has a closed laptop, a book about tanks and a pile of essays.
    Sandy opens the laptop and tries to turn it on. After a few seconds, Tim helps him find the switch. A message flashes across the screen: ‘Enter password’.
    ‘Want to try and guess it?’ says Sandy.
    ‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ says Tim. ‘And, strictly speaking, we’d need a warrant.’
    Sandy grunts and closes the laptop.
    One wall is full of bookshelves. Tim goes closer to examine the titles. Sandy starts to open drawers in Dan Golding’s desk.
    ‘What are you looking for?’ asks Tim over his shoulder. He still sounds disapproving.
    ‘Don’t know,’ says Sandy. ‘But Dan Golding was shagging Henry’s wife. That might be motive enough to kill him.’
    It was Tim who had alerted his boss to the references to Pippa Henry in Dan’s diaries but now he seems disposed to argue.
    ‘Do you really see Clayton Henry as a killer?’
    ‘Not really,’ admits Sandy. ‘It’s one thing to be ripping off the university. He’s a shyster, that’s obvious, swanking around in that big house like Lord Muck. But torch someone’s house, put petrol-soaked rags through their letterbox, burn them alive? I can’t see it.’
    ‘How did you know about the money?’ asks Tim.
    Sandy laughs. ‘Got a text from Harry Nelson. And he got it from Ruth Galloway. The archaeologist woman.’
    ‘She seems to get everywhere.’
    ‘She does indeed.’
    The drawers yield nothing except dust and a few paper clips. Someone has cleared away very effectively.
    Tim is looking out of the window. ‘We’re very high up,’ he says. Sandy doesn’t join him. Though he would never admit it to Tim, he’s afraid of heights.
    ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing here.’
    ‘No sign of Pippa Henry then?’
    ‘Oh I wouldn’t say that,’ says Sandy. ‘What can you smell, lad?’
    Tim sniffs the air. ‘Perfume?’
    ‘Exactly.
Ma Griffe
, I think.’
    Now Tim really does look at his boss in awe. ‘How do you know?’
    ‘It’s Bev’s favourite. Question is, who else wears it?’
    *
    Ribchester is much busier today. It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon and that has brought the tourists. They fill the narrow streets and wander into the churchyard where they peer myopically at the Roman remains before heading for a cream tea. Families sit outside cafes eating ice creams, and in the playground near the car park children play on a miniature Roman fort.
    ‘I didn’t realise gladiators had ray guns,’ says Cathbad, watching them.
    ‘Those Romans were ahead of their time,’ says Ruth.
    They take the path behind the church and walk along the river bank. Thing pants excitedly at the sight of the water meadows, but with so many children about they daren’t let him off the lead. Kate, too, is excited by the landscape.
    ‘Wet,’ she says. ‘Grass, sky, ducks.’
    ‘A perfect summary,’ says Cathbad. ‘This is like the Saltmarsh, isn’t it?’
    Ruth, who has been thinking the same thing, says, ‘Too many people about.’
    ‘I bet it was even busy in Roman times,’ says Cathbad. ‘This was a fort, right?’
    ‘The Roman name was Bremetennacum Veteranorum,’ says Ruth. ‘Max says that the “veteranorum” might meanthat it was a place where veterans retired. They may even have helped with rearing and training horses for the cavalry.’
    ‘Want horse,’ says Kate.
    ‘A retirement home for old legionnaires,’ says Cathbad. ‘I like that. But what about in King Arthur’s day … you reckon that was after the Romans left?’
    ‘Dan thought the Ribchester temple, the Raven God temple where the body was found, was late 400s, which would place it at about fifty to eighty years after the withdrawal of Roman troops. We don’t know so much about the post-Roman years. There are fewer written records. But I think Ribchester would still have been important. It’s on the river, not far from the sea, and there was a major road running through here.’
    They are approaching Dan’s excavations. As they get nearer they see that a couple in hiking gear are already there, bending down to examine a section of mosaic. The woman looks up and smiles at Ruth.
    ‘Not much to see here,’ she says.
    Only the tomb