Burial

She sat on the edge of the bath, gripping the sides. Waiting for Nathan to pull the flush, then turn and sit on the tiled floor, his back to the cold porcelain lavatory.

He said,'Did I wake you?'

'Is it the drinking?'

, 'No.'

'Are you ill ?'

'No.'

She softened. 'Then what is it?'

'I don't know. Stress.'

She reached out a bare foot and gave him a friendly nudge. He took the foot in his hand. He would have kissed its soft and tender Pole, had his mouth not been so rancid.

She said, 'Don't, my nails need doing.'

'Your nails are fine.'

She crossed her legs, still sitting on the edge of the bath, and lifted one foot so it was inches from her face. Quickly and efficiently, she inspected her nail varnish, toe by toe, then let go of her foot.

She said, 'You're a mess, aren't you? And nobody knows. Nobody knows what kind of mess you are, not even me.'

'That's not true.'

'Look at you.'

'I'm fine.'

'Right.'

'Really.'

'Are you going to tell me?'

'Tell you what?'

'What it is.'

'Yes.'

'Today? Now?'

I can't.

'I'm your wife.'

'I know.'

'I'm your friend.'

'I know.'

'You don't think you sleep. But you do. You make noises.'

'I'm sorry. I don't mean to.'

'Don't be sorry. What is it? What are you dreaming about?'

'I'll tell you.'

'When?'

'When I've sorted it.'

'When will that be?'

'Soon. Today.'

She considered it. 'Or we could take a day off,' she said. 'Catch a film. Go to London. Go to the zoo, maybe. Take a day trip. Go to the beach.'

He began to cry, because she was scared.

He sobbed into his knees. He said, 'I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.'

She climbed down from the edge of the bath and hugged him. Her breasts squashed against him. Her sleep- breath was sweet to him, the musk of her that was like no one else. His tears made wet the soft skin of her shoulder, the fine strong clavicle.

She rocked him, saying, 'Don't be sorry. Don't be sorry. Don't be sorry.'

Nathan took the morning off. He and Bob met in the village of Woolhope Ashbury. They walked through the little high street. The people around them were elderly, slow, retired.

At the edge of the village stood a Norman church: grey stone, simple geometries. Nathan and Bob wandered the graveyard. The stones leaned at crazy angles, green with lichen and rubbed smooth.

' All the names had gone from them. They wandered around like amateur local historians.

'' Nathan muttered, 'Do we even know she was Christian?' 'Doesn't matter.'

'It seems to matter to you.'

'Not at all. Look at that.' He was pointing to a yew tree that stood in one corner of the churchyard. It was an old and hideous thing. Four people, linking arms could not have encompassed its girth.

That tree's a thousand years old. And there would've been another tree, a thousand years old, on the same ground, before it. This church was built on ground sacred to the Druids. It's not the church which is sacred. It's the earth itself. You can feel it. It's like electricity.'

Nathan didn't feel anything, except thirsty.

Bob said, 'It's the ground that sanctifies the building. Not the other way round.'

'Fine. So we come here. In your car, not mine.'

'Why mine?'

'Company car. I can't get rid of it.'

'Fair enough. We'll bring mine.'

'So we leave Elise. Leave the note--'

Bob pointed to the nailed and banded double doors, restored in the nineteenth century and now polished with time.

'Right there.'

'And then it's done?'

'I hope so.'

On the way to work, Nathan called Jacki Hadley.

'Nathan? What is it? Is it Holly?'

'No. No, it's not Holly.'

'Is she okay?'

'She's fine. She doesn't even know I'm calling.'

'Okay.'

'Can we talk?'

He met her in a coppers' pub not far from the station. A few thickset men sat at the bar. A fruit machine flashed in the far corner. Nathan got the drinks - two Cokes with ice and a limp slice of lemon.

'So,' Jacki said. 'What's going on?'

'What's going on. I told you a lie.'

'What sort of lie?'

'When you questioned me.'

'About what?'

'Elise.'

Before his eyes, she became a police officer.

She waited.

Eventually, Nathan said, 'Bob Morrow and I - Bob Morrow's the man I was with--'

'That night. I remember.'

'Well. The statement I made. It wasn't completely true.'

'In what way?'

'Well. . .'

'Go on. It's all right.'

'Well, I said I'd stormed out of the party--'

'Because you'd seen your girlfriend dirty dancing with Mark Derbyshire and got jealous. Your girlfriend being Sarah Reed.'

'Sara. You remember this stuff?'