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‘Maybe,’ says Ruth, deliberately noncommittal. After Nelson has rung off, she lies on her back in the long grass, looking up at the sky.
Chapter 23
Walsingham is surprisingly crowded. It’s as if Covid and social distancing had never happened. There are people sitting outside the pubs and wandering up and down the high street, even though most of the shops only sell religious souvenirs or priests’ vestments. Miranda wants an ice cream so Judy ventures into the Blue Lady Café where religious tomes jostle with cupcakes in the window. She buys them all cones and they walk to the gateway that leads to the abbey grounds.
Nothing much remains of the original building but Judy thinks that the giant archway, standing on its own, connecting earth and sky, is more impressive than any cathedral she’s ever seen. The children and Thing run on ahead and Judy shouts after them to keep Thing on the lead. People tend to be odd around bull terriers.
Judy shows Maddie the small metal plaque in the ground that marks the place where the original Holy House once stood.
‘I think it was built in the eleven hundreds. Ruth would know. A woman called Richeldis had a vision telling her to build a church here.’
‘I remember Cathbad telling me that he saw a vision here too.’
‘Well, he thought he did. He was cat-sitting for a friend in a house by the church and he saw a woman in the graveyard. She was wearing a blue cloak and he thought she was the Virgin Mary.’
‘And was she?’
‘Who knows? But I’m inclined to think she was a woman who got murdered that same night. The team investigated the case but I was on maternity leave with Miranda.’
Another body had been found almost exactly where they are standing, Judy remembers, but she decides not to say this.
‘Do you think he might have come here?’ says Maddie. ‘Cathbad?’
Judy’s glad she’s no longer calling him ‘Dad’. She doesn’t think her emotions could stand it. That morning she had thought that Cathbad might be in Walsingham, following some trail of his own, perhaps hoping to see another vision. But now she knows that he’s not here, amongst these day trippers, these coachloads from parish churches around England. But she has no idea where he can be. Cathbad says that they have a psychic connection, but it doesn’t seem to be working very well at the moment.
‘At least Thing’s had a good walk,’ says Maddie.
On the drive home from Houghton-on-the-Hill Kate gets a message from Isla inviting her to a sleepover that night. Ruth is reluctant. They have to set off early in the morning if they are going to London. Plus, she will have to drive all the way home for Kate’s stuff and then back to Wells. But Kate wants to go, and Ruth can see that it would be more fun than sitting at home watching Ruth worrying about Cathbad. And she’s always keen to foster Kate’s school friendships. So they drive to the Saltmarsh, put together an overnight bag, and navigate the Saturday traffic back along the coast road.
Ruth’s route home takes her past Cathbad’s cottage and, on impulse, she stops and knocks on the door. No answer, not even Thing barking. Maybe this means that Cathbad has been found? But something about the silent house makes Ruth think that this isn’t the case. She waves at a neighbour who is watching anxiously behind her net curtains and walks back to the car.
Back home, she feeds Flint and tries to get on with some marking. But it’s hard to concentrate when the department might not even exist this time next week. Maybe she should update her CV, send it to a few recruitment sites. But the list of long-forgotten O- and A-levels makes her more depressed than ever. She adds her latest book and notes that the publication date was 2017. She should really write another book if she wants a professorship somewhere. The trouble is that she has used up King Arthur, the ghost fields and stone circles. She needs another iconic subject and about six months’ uninterrupted writing time.
She’s distracted by her phone buzzing its way across the table. Unknown caller. Normally Ruth wouldn’t answer but she immediately thinks it’s something to do with Kate. She doesn’t have a number for Isla or her mother. Should she ask for Isla’s number next time or would that be too weird?
‘Hallo?’
‘Hallo, Ruth. It’s Jeanne. Jeanne Hanisko.’
‘Oh. Hallo.’ This is a surprise. Ruth and Jeanne are not really on telephone chatting terms, although they did have an interesting conversation about Anglo-Saxon burial sites in the White Hart after the PhD viva.
‘I heard that Cathbad is missing,’ says Jeanne. ‘Is it true?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid so. Do you know him then?’
‘A little. I’ve met him on a couple of digs. He is rather memorable.’
‘He is.’ And not just because of the cloak.
‘Well, it gave me a bit of a shock because the last time I saw Cathbad it was with Leo Ballard. And I remembered that you were asking about Leo.’
‘Yes, I was. When did you see Cathbad with Leo?’
‘A few years ago. It was a leaving do for one of my colleagues, Emma Thane. Cathbad was there. I think he knew Emma from Manchester, where he’d been one of her graduate students. Anyway, I was talking to Cathbad. He’s really fascinating, isn’t he? We had such a good talk about Morris dancing. Then Leo came over. I think he was a bit drunk. And he was saying that he and Cathbad were great friends, they went back such a long way. Et cetera, et cetera.’
‘Really?’ This wasn’t the impression given to Ruth by either Cathbad or Leo.
‘Cathbad seemed a bit uncomfortable. He kept trying to edge away from Leo. But then Leo said something a bit strange. That’s why I’m calling you today. He said something like, “You can’t escape me, Cathbad. After all, you know where the bodies are buried.”’
