Nelson grunts. 'Couldn't make head nor tail of it.'
'Well, basically it said it was probably the body of a young girl, between six and ten, pre-pubescent. About two thousand, six hundred years old. We excavated and found three gold torques and some coins.'
'They had coins in the Iron Age?'
'Yes, it was the start of coinage actually. We're going to do another dig in the spring when the weather's better.' She hopes Erik will be able to come over for it.
'Do you think she was murdered?'
Ruth looks at the detective, who is leaning forward across his untidy desk. It seems strange to hear the word 'murdered' on his lips, as if her Iron Age body is suddenly going to form part of his 'enquiries', as if he is planning to bring the perpetrator to justice.
'We don't know,' she admits. 'One strange thing, half her hair was shaved off. We don't know what that means but it may have been part of a ritual killing. There were branches twisted around her arms and legs, willow and hazel, as if she was tied down.'
Nelson smiles, rather grimly. 'Sounds pretty conclusive to me,' he says.
As Nelson escorts her out, he leads her through a room full of people, all working intently, crouched over phones or frowning at computer screens. On the wall is what looks like a roughly drawn mind map, full of arrows and scrawling writing. At the centre of it all is a photograph of a little girl with dark, curly hair and laughing eyes.
'Is that her?' Ruth finds herself whispering.
'That's Scarlet Henderson, yes.'
No-one in the room looks up as they pass through.
Perhaps they are pretending to work hard because the boss is there, but Ruth doesn't think so somehow. At the door she turns and Scarlet Henderson's smiling face looks back at her.
Once home, she pours herself a glass of Shona's wine and puts the file with the letters in front of her. Before she looks at them though, she clicks on her computer and googles Scarlet Henderson. Reference after reference spews onto her screen. Nelson is right, how can she have missed this?
'Heartache of Scarlet's Parents' screams an article from the Telegraph. 'Police Baffled in Henderson Case' says The Times, rather more soberly. Ruth scrolls down the article: 'Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson of the Norfolk Police admitted yesterday that there are no new leads in the case of missing four-year-old Scarlet Henderson. Sightings in Great Yarmouth of a child answering Scarlet's description are said by police to have been ruled out of the enquiry…'
Scarlet's face, poignant in black and white, looks up from the edge of the page. Is she dead, this bright-eyed, smiling child? Ruth doesn't like to think about it but she knows that, sooner or later, she will have to. Somehow she has become involved.
To stave off the moment when she will have to look at the letters, Ruth types 'Lucy Downey' into the search engine. Fewer references this time, Lucy disappeared before the ubiquity of the internet. She is listed, though, on a couple of websites.for missing children and there is an article from the Guardian headed 'Ten Years On, the Never- ending Nightmare'. 'Alice and Tom Downey,' she reads, 'meet me in their neat Norfolk home, full of pictures of the same, smiling five-year-old. Ten years ago, Lucy was sleeping in her bed in this same house when an intruder scaled the garage wall, opened the window and snatched the child while the parents were still sleeping…'
Jesus. Ruth stops reading. Imagine that. Imagine coming to wake your little girl in the morning and finding she wasn't there. Imagine looking under the bed, searching, with increasing panic, downstairs, in the garden, back in the bedroom. Imagine seeing the open window, the curtains (she imagines them pink featuring Disney princesses) blowing in the breeze. Ruth can imagine all this, the hairs lifting on the back of her neck, but she can't imagine what Alice Downey felt, is still feeling, ten years later. To lose your child, to have her spirited away like something from a fairy tale, surely that must be every mother's nightmare.
But Ruth isn't a mother; she is an archaeologist and it is time she got to work. Nelson needs her professional help and professional is what she must be. Closing down the computer, she opens the file containing the letters. First she puts them in date order, rather surprised to find that Nelson has not already done this, and examines the paper and the ink. Ten of the twelve letters seem to be on the same standard printer paper as the Scarlet Henderson letter. This doesn't necessarily mean anything, she tells herself. Nine out of ten people with printers must use this sort of paper. Similarly the typeface looks very ordinary, Times New Roman she thinks. But two of the letters are handwritten on lined paper, the sort that comes from a refill pad, complete with a narrow red margin and holes for filing. The letters are written with a thin felt-tip, what used to be called a 'handwriting pen' when Ruth was at school. The writing itself is legible but untidy and slopes wildly to the left. A man's writing, the expert said. It occurs to her that she hardly ever sees handwriting these days; her students all have laptops, her friends send her emails or texts, she even edits papers on-line. The only handwriting she can recognise is her mother's, which usually comes inside inappropriately sentimental cards. 'To a special daughter on her birthday…'
The handwritten letters come in the middle of the sequence. Ruth puts them back into order and starts to read: November 1997
Nelson,
You are looking for Lucy but you are looking in the wrong places. Look to the sky, the stars, the crossing places. Look at what is silhouetted against the sky. You will find her where the earth meets the sky.
In peace.
December 1997
Nelson,
Lucy is the perfect sacrifice. Like Isaac, like Jesus, she carries the wood for her own crucifixion. Like Isaac and Jesus she is obedient to the father's will.
I would wish you the compliments of the season, make you a wreath of mistletoe, but, in truth, Christmas is merely a modern addition, grafted onto the great winter solstice. The pagan festival was here first, in the short days and long nights. Perhaps I should wish you greetings for St Lucy's day. If only you have eyes to see.
In peace.
January 1998
Dear Detective Inspector Harry Nelson, You see, I am calling you by your full name now. I feel we are old friends, you and I. Just because Nelson had only one eye, it doesn't follow that he couldn't see. 'A man may see how the world goes with no eyes.'
In peace.
January 1998
Dear Harry,
'A little touch of Harry in the night.' How wise Shakespeare was, a shaman for all time. Perhaps it is the wise men – and women – you should be consulting now.
For you still do not look in the right places, the holy places, the other places. You look only where trees flower and springs flow. Look again Harry. Lucy lies deep below the ground but she will rise again. This I promise you.
In peace.
March 1998
Dear Harry,
Spring returns but not my friend. The trees are in bud and the swallows return. For everything there is a season.
Look where the land lies. Look at the cursuses and the causeways.
Ruth stops and reads the last line again. She is so transfixed by the word 'cursuses' that it is a few minutes before she realises that someone is knocking on the door.
Apart from the postman making his surly visits to deliver Amazon parcels, unannounced visitors are almost unheard of. Ruth is irritated to find herself feeling quite nervous as she opens the door.
It is the woman from next door; the weekender who watched her drive off in the police car that morning.
'Oh… hello,' says Ruth.
'Hi!' The woman flashes her a brilliant smile. She is older than Ruth, maybe early fifties, but fantastically well preserved: highlighted hair, tanned skin, honed figure in low-slung jeans.
'I'm Sammy. Sammy from next door. Isn't it ridiculous that we've hardly ever spoken to each other?'
Ruth doesn't think it is ridiculous at all. She spoke to the weekenders when they first bought the house about
