She heard him laugh. ‘I’m on my way.’
It was scarcely fifteen minutes later that she saw the headlights of the Land Rover appear from the trees. Roger climbed out. ‘Greg’s away for a day or two. I’ll give him a good bollocking when he gets back. He was supposed to show you how everything works.’
‘He must have forgotten. I had so much stuff to bring in.’ She closed the door behind him and led the way into the living room. She had put the whisky bottle on the table with two glasses. She poured, then she watched as he knelt before the stove and pulled the doors open. ‘Start with a good blaze, like this,’ he instructed. Magically a fire appeared beneath his thin hands. ‘Then put on one or two of the logs. Like so.’ He pushed two huge logs into the small cavity and miraculously they fitted. Then he closed the doors. ‘Now, leave it for a while with the dampers open like this. Once the fire has caught properly – about two-thirds of the way down that glass, I should say – we close them tight. The secret is to get it burning slowly and steadily and then to cut off as much air as possible. You have to stack the logs in really tight last thing – that’s an art you must practise I’m afraid, but you’ll soon get the hang of it. It keeps this place really snug once it’s working properly.’
He took the glass she offered him and sat down in one of the armchairs, gazing round the room. ‘You’ve made it look very comfortable.’
The tall, thin man sprawling in the chair in his shabby cords and old tweed jacket was so reassuring and normal that Kate found the wave of nervous loneliness which had hit her earlier was receding fast. ‘I gather your son used to live here. I’m sorry my coming here has upset him,’ she said as she sat down opposite him.
‘He’s no business to be upset.’ For a moment a shadow passed across Roger’s face. ‘He knows we need the money. Sorry if that sounds crude, but it’s a fact of life. And it’s nice for us to have a congenial neighbour.’ He smiled comfortably. ‘As you’ve gathered, it’s fairly isolated up here. And to that end, Diana has instructed me to ask if you would like to come and have some supper with us on Wednesday. We quite understand if you’d rather not because you are working, but – ’
‘I should love to.’ She replied so quickly she surprised even herself. ‘I shall look forward to it immensely.’
‘Good.’ His smile was expansive, deepening the network of wrinkles around his eyes. ‘You’ll have the pleasure or otherwise of meeting our other two children, Allie and Patrick.’ Draining his glass he stood up. ‘If there’s nothing else I suppose I’d better go home. Di will have supper ready soon.’
Stay, she wanted to say. Please, stay and talk to me. She liked his presence in the room. It was comforting. Solid. And safe. She said nothing. Smiling, she showed him to the door. ‘I’ll report back on my success or otherwise with the stove when I see you.’
‘Do that.’
She watched as the Land Rover backed round and headed back up the track, the headlights bucking against the trees as it slid between the ruts. In a moment it was out of sight.
Closing the door and bolting it again she walked back into the living room. As though recognising the hand of a master the woodburner had settled down to produce a satisfyingly hot glow which was already warming the room. She looked round, pleased. Although Roger had gone something of the friendliness he had brought with him had remained; basking in it, she would make herself some supper, read a little, listen to some music, have a hot bath and go to bed early. Tomorrow she would spend the day with Lord Byron.
X
In the stillness of the night the tide lapped imperceptibly higher along the beach, round the headland and slowly, oh so slowly, into the backwaters of the estuary, licking at the mud, floating strands of trailing grasses and weeds, curling round the toes of sleeping geese and ducks. Rising.
In the dune the sand had dried. It was brittle, friable, ready to fall. Beneath it, only a centimetre down now, was the clay – clay which was plastic, impervious to air or water, and in the clay was the peat which held preserved the remains of four human bodies.
XI
She had been sitting at the word processor for two hours and she had not noticed that it was getting light. Now, arms and shoulders cramped and her head throbbing from her intense concentration, Kate sat back, took off her glasses and, dropping them beside her notes, stared out of the window. The mist had receded to leave a sunrise of breathtaking clarity. The narrow vee of sea visible between the shingle banks from her carefully positioned table glittered with blinding beauty. It was more than anyone could resist; besides, she needed a break. Donning jacket, scarf and boots she pulled open the front door and emerged into an ice cold wind. Looking around she took a deep breath of pure delight. This was a place where Byron himself would have felt at home.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain…
The beach was still wet from the receding tide as she tramped northwards along it, murmuring the lines from ‘Childe Harold’, her head ducked against the sting of the wind and the glare, her cheeks tingling beneath the whipping strings of hair as they pulled free of her scarf. The words weren’t quite right, of course. This wasn’t an ocean and it was neither all that deep nor dark, but still the mood was right. It was exhilarating. She wanted to jump and run and dance, but the shingle and soft sand precluded all but the most undignified gallop. Stopping at last, exhausted, she turned and began to retrace her steps. With the wind and glare behind her she could slow down and appreciate the different colours and textures of the water: where the sand rose near the surface it was pale green, even yellow. Further out streaks of deep turquoise melded with grey and black and the intense sapphire blue of a child’s painting of the sea. In the distance the shingle gave way to muddy sand and she could see dunlin and redshank at the water’s edge. Save for them she appeared to be the only being alive in the world.
She came level with the cottage, appreciating from here how sheltered it was behind the shingle banks, only a narrow section of its face visible behind the waving grasses and heaps of sand. In front of her, beyond the dunes, the beach swept away around the corner. There a narrow inlet led into the shallow, muddy waters of Redall Bay with its network of small islands and tidal creeks.
By the last of the dunes she stopped. Part of it appeared to have fallen onto the sand, and in the hollow on its seaward side there were signs of recent digging. Curious, she walked towards it, her boots slipping in the deep soft mixture of stones and mud and sand. The top section, out of sight of the cottage, had had a neat transverse slice removed from it. About ten feet long and two feet deep the interlocking grasses had been sectioned away and below it the sand had been scooped loosely into piles. Jumping down into the hollow she stared at the exposed wall of the dune. The resulting scar in the sand looked too regular and neat to be the result of a child’s game; and it had certainly not been caused by the tide, although further along the cut had been lengthened and randomly enlarged by a muddy landslip where tell-tale strands of weed and a scattering of whelk shells betrayed a recent high tide propelled by an easterly wind.
Intrigued, Kate ran her hand lightly over the sand face. Who had been digging here, and why? Was it something to do with sea defences? She turned and looked back at the beach. The receding tide looked gentle and benevolent now, but she was under no illusions about the force it could muster if wind and moon were right.
She was about to scramble out of the hollow to resume her walk when her eye was caught by something shiny sticking out of the sand. It looked like a piece of pottery. She picked it up and examined it, then, frowning, she looked at it more closely. It was thin, fine, red, decorated with a raised pattern and it looked very like the Samian ware she had seen in the museum only yesterday. But that was impossible. She turned and surveyed the sand face again. Was this some sort of abandoned excavation? She stared down at the piece of pottery in her hand almost guiltily. Perhaps she shouldn’t have touched it. On the other hand it had been lying in the loose spoil, obviously overlooked. With another high tide it would have been buried and lost. Pulling her scarf off her hair she wrapped the piece carefully and put it reverently in her pocket, then she turned and examined the exposed sand again. It was in a very crumbly state. The lightest touch dislodged another shower of soil. A few feet to her left she spotted something dark protruding from it. Cautiously she touched it. Metal. Scraping at the sand with her fingers she tried
