Dying Fall

peace with Dame Alice’s spirit. And now this happens!’
    ‘You think his death had something to do with Dame Alice?’
    Gary laughs uneasily. ‘No.
I
don’t think it. I don’t believe in any of that stuff. But folk round here will believe it. They’ll think the old lady got him in the end.’
    Cathbad doesn’t quite buy the agent’s protestations. He thinks that Gary is the type that believes everythingand nothing. But he’s not concerned with Gary right now. He’s seeing himself living in Dame Alice’s cottage with Thing, tending the herb garden and walking on the high hills at dawn. He likes the north; there’s something clear and honest about it that appeals to him. And, if Judy doesn’t want him in her life, he can’t keep hanging on in Norfolk hoping for a glimpse of her and the baby. Far better to make a clean break. He can always find work as a lab assistant and, if he’s careful, Pendragon’s legacy will last for some time.
    ‘If you did find a tenant,’ he says, ‘I suppose the rent would be quite low.’
    *
    Tim comes back from the forensic data recovery company full of news. This is another private company, much used by the police and much resented by Sandy. After his last visit (when Sandy asked one of the analysts, ‘Do you do this because you can’t get a girlfriend?’) it has been tacitly agreed that Tim should handle communication with the outfit. Today’s visit seems to have been a success. Tim is not a demonstrative person but he is positively beaming as he looks round the door of his boss’s office.
    ‘Glad someone’s got something to smile about,’ says Sandy.
    ‘They’ve tracked down the University Pals website,’ says Tim. ‘You know, the emails that were sent to Ruth Galloway and Dan Golding.’
    ‘Well? Don’t keep us in suspense. Who sent them?’
    ‘Clayton Henry.’
    Sandy whistles. ‘Did he now? Why, I wonder?’
    ‘Could just have been fishing in the dark,’ says Tim. ‘Pardon the pun.’ Sandy looks blank and Tim wonders if he has forgotten the whole phishing/fishing conversation. He hasn’t; he just thinks that Tim is being a tosser.
    ‘What I mean,’ says Tim hastily, ‘is that Clayton might have known that he would need Ruth Galloway’s identity at some later point, to find information about the bones. He could just have been trying to see what he could pick up.’
    ‘But how did he know that Golding had contacted Galloway in the first place?’
    Tim shrugs. ‘He must known that they were at university together. It wouldn’t be difficult to work out if he knew where and when Golding was at university. And he would have known all that from the University Pals information.’
    ‘He must have known there was something unusual about the bones,’ says Sandy, ‘something Golding hadn’t told him.’
    ‘Do you think that Henry switched the bones?’ asks Tim. ‘With Terry Durkin’s help?’
    ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ muses Sandy. ‘Why get Dr Galloway up here if he’d removed the original bones? He must have known that she’d spot the switch. She’s the expert, after all. And without the bones he wouldn’t have his big story. No chance of making megabucks and getting himself out of shit creek.’
    ‘Then who did switch them?’ says Tim. ‘And where are they now?’
    ‘Don’t know,’ says Sandy. ‘But Clayton Henry’s afraid of someone, and if we find out who my guess is we’ve got our killer.’
    ‘You don’t think it’s Henry himself then?’
    ‘I had his wife in just now.’
    ‘Pippa? Really? What did she want?’
    ‘To tell me about her affair with Golding. How it wasn’t really her fault because she’s had a hard life.’
    ‘And has she had a hard life?’
    ‘Well her first husband turned out to be gay.’
    Tim often wonders if Sandy thinks he’s gay because he wears aftershave and plays tennis. But his boss’s face is inscrutable.
    ‘That surprises me,’ he says.
    ‘Does it?’ says Sandy. ‘It doesn’t me. Do you remember when we looked at the ex-Pendle students arrested for racist or homophobic behaviour?’
    ‘Yes,’ says Tim, though he clearly doesn’t remember them as well as Sandy.
    ‘Do you remember the woman? Philippa Moore? Arrested for using offensive language at a gay rights march.’
    ‘Philippa … Pippa … do you think that was her?’
    ‘Oh, it was her, all right. I’ve been looking her up. She’s written a few letters to papers complaining about gay men who marry innocent