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‘Much better. They’ve given him antibiotics, which has helped a lot. His memory’s still very patchy, though.’
On the TV Harry is being confronted by a three-headed dog. It reminds Ruth of Black Shuck, a spectral hound said to haunt parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. Kate looks up when she sees Judy. ‘Is Uncle Cathbad OK?’
The ‘uncle’ brings unexpected tears to Ruth’s eyes. It’s because I’m tired, she tells herself. Judy gives Kate a hug. ‘He’s going to be fine. He said you were very brave in the mine.’
‘Mum was too,’ says Kate, in the tones of one determined to be fair.
‘She’s always brave,’ says Judy.
Leaving Kate in the company of the boy wizard, Judy and Ruth take their mugs of tea into the garden. Flint emerges from the long grass like a tiger.
‘How do you feel?’ asks Judy. ‘That must have been quite an ordeal.’
‘OK,’ says Ruth. ‘I’m quite bruised from the fall but mostly just relieved to be here. Did you hear that Lucy saved me? Do you know who she is?’
‘The boss told me. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘When I saw her face looking down at me,’ says Ruth, ‘it brought everything back. The thunderstorm. Running across the marshes. Finding the hidden room under the hide.’
‘I was there a few days ago,’ says Judy. ‘Someone had left flowers.’
‘That was probably Lucy. She said that she’d been back to the Saltmarsh. Do you think the flowers were for Scarlet?’
‘I suppose so.’ They are both silent for a moment, thinking of the girl who didn’t leave the marshes alive.
‘Anyway,’ says Judy. ‘I came to tell you that we’ve made an arrest for Emily’s murder. Amber Westbourne, one of her university friends.’
‘Oh my God!’ says Ruth. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Nelson had a brainwave,’ says Judy. ‘It was quite weird actually. He listened to a taped interview about some curling tongs and suddenly you could see the cogs whirring. Cathbad would say that he was acting on his instincts at last.’
Nelson is quite capable of acting on his instincts, thinks Ruth. But at least this explains why he hasn’t been to see her.
‘Amber has confessed,’ says Judy. ‘Apparently she killed Emily because she saw her kissing Leo Ballard.’
‘Bloody hell,’ says Ruth. She thinks of the emaciated figure with his dandelion hair. Why would anyone kill over him? But human motives are often unaccountable. That’s something she’s learnt over the last few years.
‘Nelson and Clough have gone to tell Emily’s parents,’ continues Judy. ‘Trust Cloughie to get in on the action.’
‘Tanya wanted me to give a proper statement,’ says Ruth. ‘I suppose that isn’t so important now.’
‘We’ll still want a statement,’ says Judy. ‘The boss wants to charge Ballard with as many things as possible. He helped cover up the murder. He put Emily’s body in one of the mines and then moved it to the café. Cathbad cried when I told him. I really think he was in love with Emily. He told me that they slept together once.’
Ruth doesn’t admit that she already knows this.
‘Do you know what happened with Cathbad?’ she says. ‘Why did Ballard kidnap him? Me and Kate too?’
‘When Cathbad saw the video of the girl in Ely,’ says Judy, ‘he knew it wasn’t Emily. Something to do with the way she walked. He told Ballard who panicked and trapped Cathbad in the mine. Nelson thinks he did the same to you because you were looking at soil samples. You might have worked out what happened to Emily’s body.’
‘It was hardly a foolproof plan, though,’ says Ruth. ‘Locking us in a mine shaft.’
‘Like I say,’ says Judy, ‘Ballard panicked. I only hope he doesn’t put in a plea of diminished responsibility. Apparently, he’s been behaving oddly for years.’
‘I’ve heard that too,’ says Ruth.
‘Guilt,’ says Judy. ‘It gets them all in the end.’
And they sit in the garden thinking about crime and guilt and the unknowability of the human race. Flint watches them from the apple tree.
