The House At Sea’s End

‘What’s all this about?’ protests Nelson.

‘Didn’t you hear? Clara stabbed someone when she was at school. She was expelled.’

‘That was years ago.’

‘And I found these in her bedside cabinet.’

Nelson takes the scissors and turns them over in his hand.

‘Nelson!’ Ruth almost screams. ‘She’s looking after our baby.’

Nelson looks at Ruth, dawning horror in his eyes. ‘We’ve got to get to her,’ he says.

‘We can’t. The coast road is blocked.’

‘I’ll get one of my team. I need my phone.’

He runs back upstairs. Ruth thinks she should get dressed but Nelson is back before she has had time to move.

‘I’ll call Judy. She lives near you.’

‘But how will she get there?’ wails Ruth.

‘She’s got a four-by-four. We tease her about it.’

There is an agonising wait before Judy answers the phone. Ruth hears Nelson’s voice, barking orders as he paces round the room.

‘… Ruth’s place… yes… quick as you can, force entry if necessary… you can phone for back-up but I’m not sure a squad car’ll get through… yes… call me.’

‘Does she think she can make it?’ asks Ruth. She holds onto her arms to stop herself shaking.

‘Yes. The roads are bad but she’s got a pretty tough vehicle. She thinks it’ll take about an hour.’

‘An hour!’

‘Snow’s very deep in places.’

‘Oh, Nelson.’ Ruth collapses onto the bed. ‘Do you think she’ll be okay? Kate?’

Nelson sits next to her. ‘I’m sure she will.’ But his voice sounds shaky.

‘What will I do if anything happens to her?’

‘Nothing will happen to her. She’ll be okay.’

Ruth starts to cry and, after a moment, Nelson takes her in his arms.

Judy almost misses the turning to New Road. The snow makes everything look strange and unfamiliar. She finds herself leaning forward, like an old lady in a Morris Minor. Her headlights make dingy yellow circles in the darkness; twice she’s had to check that they’re actually working. The snow has stopped but the roads are icing over. As she takes the corner, she feels the ground sliding away from her. If she’s killed, it’ll be Nelson’s fault.

But the car’s solid tractor-like wheels hold up well. Judy feels a surge of satisfaction. They’d all laughed at her for buying this car. ‘Go off-road much, do you?’ Clough had scoffed. Clough has been even more obnoxious than usual recently, calling her ‘Bridezilla’ and implying that the wedding plans are taking her mind off the job. Bastard. She wishes she hadn’t invited him now. Besides, he’s totally wrong. She is throwing herself into work to take her mind off the nightmare of dressing in white and saying ‘I do’ in front of hundreds of gawping spectators. Why didn’t she insist on a registry office? Or the Caribbean. The Caribbean would be good.

Anyway, tonight she’s one up on Clough. The boss called her, not him. It’s because of the car, she knows, but that just shows she was right to buy a four-by-four. Sucks to Clough and his flashy Saab. The boss asked her for help and he’ll be eternally grateful for… what exactly? Up to this point, the idea of being the heroine of the hour has taken her mind off the fact that she has no idea what this crisis is all about. Why is it so urgent that she has to drive to Ruth’s house across icy roads, forcing entry if necessary? Is Ruth’s baby in danger? But there’s someone babysitting isn’t there? ‘A girl called Clara,’ Nelson had said tersely. ‘If she gives you any trouble, arrest her.’ ‘What?’ ‘Just do it, Judy, please.’

Please. He’d actually said please. And he’d called her Judy. Usually it’s ‘Johnson’ or ‘you’. A suspicion, which has been fluttering around in Judy’s brain since the naming day ceremony, now flaps its wings once again. Why is Nelson so concerned about Ruth’s baby? Clough told her about the incident at Broughton. The boss falling asleep with the baby in his arms. What if… no, it’s impossible.

New Road is a nightmare. One slip, Judy knows, and she’ll plunge the car down the bank and will probably never be seen again. She grips the steering wheel. She’s a good driver (much to her satisfaction she beat Clough on the police advanced driving course) but this is something else. She crawls forward, listening to the snow crunching beneath her wheels. One lapse of concentration, that’s all it will take.

When she sees it, she thinks at first that she is hallucinating. A dark hooded figure, trudging along at the side of the road. Who on earth would be walking along New Road through foot-high snow? Then she starts to panic. Her head spins with images of mysterious figures that appear beside unwary travellers, of car-crash victims who suddenly materialise on your back seat, grinning through their mangled faces, the third man – the hooded man – Christ on the road to Emmaus. She hears her breath, loud and uneven, filling the car. She checks her driving mirror. Pull yourself together, she tells herself. But the ragged breathing continues.

She is almost level now. What if the vision vanishes into the snow? What if it turns, brandishing an axe?

The figure turns, pulling the hood away from its face. It is Cathbad.

‘I love her so much. I never thought I would love a baby this much.’

‘I know.’ Nelson strokes her hair.

‘What if something happens to her?’

‘It won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

Nelson says nothing. She can feel his heart beating through the thin T-shirt. She shivers.

‘You’re freezing. Get into bed.’

‘Don’t leave me,’ says Ruth.

‘I won’t.’

‘Cathbad!’ Judy winds down the window, with difficulty because it is covered with snow. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Don’t switch off the engine,’ says Cathbad. With a deft movement he opens the door and jumps nimbly into the high vehicle.

‘Are you going to Ruth’s?’ asks Judy, closing the window and edging forward once more.

‘Where else?’ Cathbad is shivering even though, under his cloak, he is sensibly dressed in a parka and combat trousers.

‘She’s not there.’

‘I know.’

‘Then why?’

Cathbad calmly adjusts the seat so he can stretch his legs. ‘I don’t know. I just had this feeling. I rang earlier and I got a bad feeling about the girl who answered the phone.’

‘A bad feeling? Jesus, Cathbad.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘Nelson had a bad feeling about her too.’

‘Ah.’ Cathbad sounds satisfied. ‘So Nelson’s starting to trust his instincts. That’s good.’

‘Is it?’

‘For him, anyway. Careful.’ The car begins to slide.

‘It’s icy here.’

‘The temperature’s dropping.’

No second sight needed there. Judy’s dashboard says minus five degrees. The windscreen wipers scrape against ice. Judy can see only a few yards in front of her face.

‘You were mad to try to walk it,’ she says.

‘There’s a pleasure sure in being mad,’ says Cathbad, ‘that none but madmen know.’

It’s a typical Cathbad answer. Judy decides to ignore it, she needs all her concentration for driving. Cathbad seems perfectly relaxed, humming under his breath. Last year, he was involved in a car chase with the boss. If he can survive that, nothing will faze him. Despite everything, though, Judy is glad to have company. The Saltmarsh, featureless in the dark, is a spooky place. The presence of another human, even one prone to irritatingly gnomic utterances, is indescribably comforting.

Ruth’s cottage seems to come from nowhere. One minute they are crawling along through the unchanging