Ruth takes a deep breath that is almost a sigh. Somehow, she thinks, she had known this all along. 'I'm sorry,' she says. 'Why didn't you tell me before?'
'I don't know.' Peter speaks into the wind so it is hard for her to catch his words. 'I suppose I wanted everything to be like it was before.'
After a few minutes, they turn round and walk back towards the house.
Halfway back, it starts to rain; sharp, horizontal rain that seems to sting their faces. Ruth has her head down and doesn't realise that they have drifted right, northwards, until she sees the hide in front of her. She has never seen this hide before, although she remembers it from the map. It is on a shingle spit, almost at the tide mark. You would need to be an extremely determined bird-watcher, she thinks, to venture this far across the marsh.
'Ruth!'
Blinded by rain, Ruth looks up to see David standing by the hide holding a plastic bag which looks as though it contains litter. She remembers Nelson shouting at his subordinate to bag up the litter from another hide, the first time she met him.
'Hallo,' says Ruth. 'Clearing up?'
'Yes.' David's face is dark. 'They never learn. There are notices everywhere and still they leave their crap all over the place.'
Ruth tuts sympathetically and introduces Peter, who comes forward to shake hands.
'David is the warden of the bird sanctuary,' she says though she does not explain who Peter is.
'Must be an interesting job,' says Peter.
'It is,' says David with sudden animation. 'This is a wonderful place for birds, especially in winter.'
'I came here years ago, for a dig,' says Peter, 'but I've never really got it out of my system. It's so lonely and so peaceful.'
David looks curiously from Ruth to Peter and then he says, 'I saw a police car outside your house, Ruth.'
'Yes,' Ruth sighs. 'You know I'm helping the police with an investigation, with the forensic side.'
'Ruth's cat was killed,' Peter cuts in, to Ruth's annoyance.
'The police think it might be significant.'
Now David looks really shocked. 'Your cat was killed?
How?'
Frowning at Peter, Ruth says shortly, 'Her throat was cut. They think it could be linked to the investigation.'
'My God. How awful!' David makes a gesture as if to touch Ruth's arm but doesn't quite make contact.
'Yes, well, I was upset. I was… fond of her.'
'Of course you were. She was company.' He says it like he knows the importance of company.
'Yes, she was.'
They stand there awkwardly for a few minutes, in the rain, and then Ruth says, 'We'd better be getting back.'
'Yes,' says David, squinting towards the horizon. 'The tide's coming in.'
'I nearly drowned once on these mudflats,' says Peter chattily. 'Got cut off by the tide.'
'Easy to do,' says David. 'The tide comes in faster than a galloping horse, they say.'
'Let's gallop off then,' says Ruth. She is fed up with both of them.
As they trudge away, Peter says, 'Funny chap. Do you know him well?'
'Not really. I've only really spoken to him in the last few months. Which is why' – she glares at Peter – 'I don't want him to know all my business.'
Peter laughs. 'I was only being friendly. Remember that, Ruth? Friendly?'
Ruth is about to retort when her phone rings. For some reason she knows it will be Nelson.
It is a text, short and to the point. Have arrested Malone. His prints on letters. HN.
CHAPTER 15
'We've got to do something,' says Erik. 'The police haven't got a suspect so they're trying to frame Cathbad. We can't let them get away with it.'
'Apparently his fingerprints were on the letters,' says Ruth cautiously.
'Fingerprints, huh! You think they can't fake evidence?
You think they aren't capable of that?'
Ruth says nothing and Erik gets up to pace angrily around the tiny office. They are at the university. Term has started and Ruth has a student consultation in ten minutes.
However, Erik, who has been ranting against the police for the last half hour, shows no sign of leaving.
'What have the letters got to do with anything, anyway?
Writing a letter doesn't make him a murderer. There's nothing that links him to that little girl. Nothing.'
Ruth thinks back to the photo in the Hendersons'
kitchen. She now knows that there is something that links Cathbad to the Hendersons, something definitely tangible.
Does this make him a murderer? His fingerprints were on the letters. Does this make him the author? Ruth thinks about the letters. Cathbad knows about mythology, he knows about archaeology, he is fanatically interested in the Saltmarsh. She has to admit he is a likely candidate. But why would he do it? Is he really capable of killing a little girl and taunting the police with clues? And Lucy Downey?
Could he have killed her too?
'I don't know,' she says, 'I don't know any more than you.'
This isn't quite true. After receiving his text, Ruth rang Nelson. His phone was switched off but he rang her later that evening. Peter had finally gone home and she was once again trying to work.
Nelson sounded excited, almost jubilant. 'Turned out we had his prints on file. He'd been arrested a few times before, demonstrations, that sort of thing. That's why I tested again. We got a match an hour ago. And we've got a link to Scarlet.'
'Does he admit anything?'
'No.' A harsh laugh. 'Says it's all a set-up, wicked police state and all that. But he can't deny he knows the Hendersons: turns out he's the father of the eldest girl.'
'What?
'Yes. He knew Delilah Henderson when she was still at school. He was a student at Manchester, she lived nearby.
They had an affair and the result was Madeleine.
Apparently they lived together for a bit but then she left him for another bloke.'
'Alan Henderson?'
'No, someone else. He came later. Anyway, she left Malone and he claims he hasn't seen her to this day. Had no idea she was living nearby.'
'He must have seen her on the TV. When Scarlet first went missing.'
'Hasn't got a TV. Harmful rays, apparently, polluting the atmosphere. Hasn't got a mobile phone because of the radiation. Nutcase.'
'Do you think he is mad?'
'Don't you believe it. Cunning as a nest of snakes.'
'How long can you hold him?'
'Twenty-four hours. But I'll apply for an extension.'
'Will you tell the press?'
'Not if I can help it.'
But someone did tell them, because that night on the nine o'clock radio news Ruth heard that 'a local man has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of four-year-old Scarlet Henderson.' She had switched on the TV news and, immediately, Nelson's face, dark and forbidding, had filled the screen. 'Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson,' intoned the newsreader, 'who, up to now, has had to admit no progress in the case of little Scarlet
