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Judy is also lost in Middle Earth. When Cathbad was ill, the children found theLord of the Ringsfilms a great comfort. Now they are working their way through them again. Maddie is here too, just as she was in lockdown. In fact, the whole situation seems like a nightmarish case of déjà vu. Judy has to remind herself that Cathbad is not in hospital. He is missing and no one knows where he is.
Judy loved the Tolkien books as a child, but she finds the films rather too heavy on battle sequences. There are, after all, only so many ways that you can kill an orc. As far as she recalls fromTheHobbit, Bilbo spends the whole of the climactic Battle of the Five Armies unconscious. In the three films (three!) that cover that book, there’s a great deal of extraneous slashing, cleaving and writhing. But Judy is grateful for carnage as a babysitter. Leaving all three of Cathbad’s children, and his dog, occupied, she escapes to the kitchen.
Judy pours herself a glass of wine. If Cathbad were here, he’d want them to go out into the garden, lie on the grass and look up at the sky as it eventually darkened and the stars appeared. ‘I believe in God,’ he once told her, ‘except that I now call Him Mother Nature.’ But now Cathbad has left her alone on the summer solstice, to live through this endless day on her own.
Judy has Cathbad’s file with her, the lavender now crushed between the pages of his Last Will and Testament. But she finds that she doesn’t want to read more about Cathbad’s childhood in rural Ireland with Fionnuala and Bridget. Just at this moment, she’s too angry with him. What she needs is work.
Judy opens her trusty notebook. She hasn’t been involved in the Emily Pickering investigation, but she has created a timeline of events, based on Cathbad’s memories and her own deductions. Tucked into the pages is a picture Cathbad found showing three women sitting round a café table. Emily with Peter Webster’s daughters Freya and Gaia. ‘I can’t believe Peter could have killed Emily,’ Cathbad said. ‘He was a peaceful presence, not a talker, interested in history and folklore.’ But how many murderers have been described in similar terms? Quiet. Loner. Introverted. Was Peter Webster a domestic tyrant? Judy scans the girls’ faces for signs of trauma, but they stare blandly back at her. They aren’t that alike, Gaia is taller and more striking, her hair in two buns on the top of her head. Freya’s hair is loose. Judy turns to her timeline.
Friday 22nd March 2002 Emily, Tom, Emad and Amber arrive at Grime’s Graves, Thetford for weekend camping/archaeology trip. Also present: Leo Ballard and Mark Oldbury.
Sunday 24th March 2002 During a final meal around the campfire, a mysterious figure appears from the woods. Cathbad says it was ‘neither male nor female’. Also that it was horned.
Monday 25th March 2002 Camp breaks up. Amber driven tostation by Leo Ballard at approximately 7 a.m. Leo later (11 a.m. approx.) drives Emily to Thetford station. She says she is catching train to Lincoln, a journey which takes approximately 1 hour 30 minutes with one change. Tom and Emad driven back to Cambridge by Mark O.
12.05 p.m. Emily seen at Ely station (25 mins by train from Thetford)
12.07 Emily seen crossing Jubilee Gardens
12.20 Emily seen outside Toppings bookshop
Friday 11th June 2021 Emily’s remains found behind a wall in a King’s Lynn house, formerly the Green Child café.
Angry though she is with her life partner, Judy follows Cathbad’s meditation techniques. She empties her mind and allows the receptive space to fill up with words and images.
What did Emily want? I was never sure.
A horned figure.
A cathedral.
A green child.
Cathbad told her about the Green Children of Woolpit some years ago but Judy fears that she went into listening mode and missed the finer details. She searches for the story in one of Cathbad’s folklore anthologies which are interspersed with his cookery books.
The children were bright green, spoke an unknown language and would only eat broad beans[they remind Judy of Miranda and her various food fads]. The boy was sickly and died but the girl slowly adjusted to her new life. . .
Two children, thinks Judy. There were two of them.
An hour later and Ruth has only just got to the encounter with the trolls. Kate keeps remembering details she has forgotten (like Thorin not helping with the washing up) so progress is slow. But Ruth blesses JRR Tolkien and storytelling in general. Nothing else could have filled this ghastly time. Ruth feels as if her back has become moulded into the rock and her ribs hurt when she speaks. Cathbad has groaned a few times but now he’s ominously silent. Ruth tried to moisten his lips but she didn’t want to waste water. What if he’s dead? But, like the ebb and flow of the tide, she can hear his stertorous breathing. Keep breathing, Cathbad, Ruth tells him, as she is sure she did once before. When Ruth last looked at her phone it was eleven o’clock, but the battery was down to fifteen per cent and she hasn’t dared look again.
But, luckily, the story is in her head and not dependent on light or batteries.
‘The trolls started to build their bonfire to cook and eat Bilbo and his friends. But, before they could light the fire, a mysterious voice said, “What about some tomato ketchup?”’
Kate is chewing the ends of her hair. Ruth can’t see her, but she knows she’s doing it. Now she says, ‘They didn’t have tomato ketchup then.’
‘Humans have always had tomato ketchup. Anyway, the mysterious voice spoke again. . .’
At that moment, Ruth is aware of another sound. If she didn’t know better, she’d think it was an actual mysterious voice. One calling her name.
‘Did you hear that?’ whispers Kate.
‘I think so.’ Ruth starts to crawl forward. She knows that Kate is right behind her. When she reaches the space with the ladder, her legs shake when she tries to stand up. She croaks, ‘Hallo?’ But it’s Kate who shouts, at the top of her youthful lungs, ‘We’re down here! Help!’
There’s a grinding sound and a square of light appears above them. Ruth shields her eyes. It must be night-time now, but the glare of the outside world is still dazzling. A face appears, as if in a halo.
‘Ruth? Is that you?’
