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‘No. Sadly not. We’ve had barely any visitors since Covid.’
There’s a joke here about hand sanitising but Bradley can’t be bothered to make it.
Ruth and Kate have their picnic in the field opposite the church. Ruth finds some thin Roman bricks half-buried in the soil.
‘I think there must have been a Roman building here once,’ she says. ‘I saw some of these bricks in the walls of St Mary’s.’
‘Mmm,’ says Kate, not listening. She’s lying on her stomach looking at her phone. A skylark sings, somewhere high above.
Ruth is suddenly aware of another, less tuneful, sound.
‘Mum, your phone’s buzzing.’
Ruth locates her mobile underneath her backpack. Nelson.
‘Where are you?’ asks Nelson. ‘I called before but you didn’t answer.’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ says Ruth.
‘Are you at home?’
‘No, Kate and I are having a picnic.’
‘Apicnic?’ says Nelson, as if this is an outlandish, and probably dangerous, custom.
‘We went to see a church near Swaffham,’ says Ruth. ‘I visited it with Cathbad once.’
Like Kate, Nelson catches on quickly. ‘And you thought he might be there?’
‘I thought it was worth a try.’
‘No sign of him, I take it?’
‘A man we met, a custodian, said that a cloaked figure was seen last night. He thought it was probably just the ghost of a monk.’
‘Jesus wept. Do you think it could have been Cathbad? Though, hang on, Judy said he wasn’t wearing his cloak.’
‘It’s worth investigating, I suppose. Have you got any other leads?’
‘Just one from the house-to-house. Cathbad went into a house to make a phone call and said something about a gate.’
‘A gate?’ Ruth looks at the sagging five-bar gate in front of her as if it can give her an answer.
‘That’s all we have. Oh, and Judy said something about a disembodied hand in Ely.’
Ruth laughs. ‘St Etheldreda. I’ve been to visit her with Cathbad.’
‘Figures,’ says Nelson. ‘I’ve sent young Brad round to the church, just in case. At this rate, we’ll have coppers at every church in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. And there are a lot of them.’
‘One for every day of the year in Norfolk,’ says Ruth, quoting an old saying.
‘If you say so,’ says Nelson. His voice changes slightly. ‘Have you thought any more about tomorrow? Father’s Day? About coming to the lunch? I shouldn’t really take any time off but I can’t disappoint the girls.’
Ruth notes, as she has before, that ‘the girls’ means Laura and Rebecca, not Kate.
‘I don’t think we should be there,’ she says. ‘It’s too soon. Anyway, I’ll probably drive to London to see my dad.’
‘OK,’ says Nelson. ‘Maybe I can see you and Katie later?’
