Elly Griffiths - The Crossing Places

'Is there?'

'Yes, you always think, if it wasn't for his wife, he'd be with me. You don't have to face up to anything else that might be wrong with the relationship. And it stays exciting. You don't have a chance to get bored.'

'Have you done this before then?' As far as Ruth knows, Liam is Shona's first married lover but she is talking like a veteran of extra-marital affairs. Like Nelson, she thinks cynically.

Shona's face suddenly takes on a closed, watchful expression. She fills up her own glass, splashing wine onto the trendy rush-matting rug.

'Oh, once or twice,' she says, with what sounds like deliberate casualness. 'Before I met you. Now, for heaven's sake drink up Ruth. You're way behind.'

Ruth was right about not being able to sleep. She tries to immerse herself in Rebus but Rebus and Siobhan become, embarrassingly and explicitly, herself and Nelson. She even opens her laptop and starts to work but, although way behind Shona, she has drunk too much to be interested in Mesolithic burial sites. Tombs, burials, bodies, bones, she thinks blurrily, why is archaeology so concerned with death?

She drinks some water, turns over her pillow and determinedly shuts her eyes. A hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, how many flint mines in Norfolk, hope David remembers Flint, hope Flint doesn't kill any rare marsh birds… Sparky's body in its flimsy cardboard coffin… Scarlet's arm hanging down below the tarpaulin… ninety-six, ninety-five… We who were living are now dying… ninety-four, ninety-three… he'll never leave his wife… why has Peter come back, why can't Shona forget about Liam, does Cathbad still love Delilah, why are the Iron Age bodies in a line, why did the line point to Scarlet… ninety-two, ninety-one…

The bleeping of her phone is a welcome relief. She snatches it up gratefully. A text message. The little screen gleams green in the dark. Caller unknown.

I know where you are.

The sky is full of noises. Thumping noises, crackling noises like very large birds hooting and calling. She knows it is daytime because the window is closed. She can't see anything, only hear the noises. She is scared and huddles in the corner of the room, under the blanket.

For a long time He doesn't come and she is hungry and more scared than ever. She finishes her water and looks in the dark for the piece of bread she thinks she dropped a few days ago. She wonders if she will die if he doesn't come to feed her. Maybe he is dead.

He doesn't come for a long time and her mouth is dry and the bucket in the corner starts to smell.

She edges her way around the room, looking for the bread. She can see lights through the sides of the trapdoor and she wants to call out but is afraid to. The stone walls are damp and mossy, smooth when she runs her hands over them. She can reach higher now, almost to the dry bits at the top where the stones are all crumbly like breadcrumbs.

Why can she reach higher? Is she getting bigger?

He says so. Too big, he says. What does that mean? Too big for what?

She reaches as high as she can and pulls at one of the stones. It comes away in her hands, surprising her, making her fall backwards. She sits on the floor and feels the edge of the stone with her thumb. It is sharp, it cuts her. She licks the blood; it tastes like the metal cup she drinks from but it's also salty, odd-tasting, strong. She licks until the blood has gone.

She takes the stone to the corner of the room where there is soil, not floor. She digs a hole and, very carefully, she places the stone in the hole and covers it with earth.

Then she stamps on the soil until it is all smooth again and no-one but her would know that something is buried there.

It is the first time she has had a secret. It tastes good.

Exhaustion finally sends Ruth to sleep at two a.m. For several hours she had just sat there, listening to her heart pounding and looking at the text message. Those few chilling words. Who could have sent it? Is it Him, the letter writer, the murderer? Who knows where she is? Who has her mobile phone number? Must it – and her stomach contracts as if she is about to be sick – must it be someone she knows?

She knows that she has to ring Nelson, but somehow, she doesn't want to call him in the middle of the night.

Yesterday has blurred all the issues. She doesn't want Nelson to think she is hassling him. What is more important, she asks herself sternly, being murdered in your bed or a man getting the wrong idea about you? She wishes her subconscious was more liberated.

She falls asleep and wakes a few hours later, still upright and stiff all over. Her phone has fallen to the floor and, hand trembling, she picks it up. No new messages. Ruth sighs and burrows down inside the bed. Right now, she is so tired that death seems almost an attractive option, to go to sleep and never wake up.

When she wakes again there is proper, yellow daylight outside the window and Shona is standing by her bed holding a cup of tea.

'You have slept well,' she says brightly. 'It's past nine.'

Ruth sips the tea gratefully. It's ages since someone brought her tea in bed. In daylight, sitting in Shona's sunny, tasteful spare room, she no longer feels destined to die a violent death. She feels, in fact, ready to fight. She gets up, showers, and dresses in her toughest, most uncompromising clothes (black suit, white shirt, scary earrings).

Then she goes downstairs ready to kick ass.

She is sitting in her car, ready to drive to work when her phone goes off. Despite her scary earrings, she is absolutely terrified, breathing hard, palms clammy.

'Hi Ruth. It's Nelson.'

'Oh. Nelson. Hello.' For some reason, her heart is still thumping.

'Just wanted you to know, we're releasing Malone tomorrow.'

'You are? Why?'

'Forensic reports have come back and there's none of his DNA on Scarlet. So we're charging him with writing the letters and that's all. He'll come up in court tomorrow and I expect he'll get bail.'.

'Is he still a suspect?'

Nelson laughs humourlessly. 'Well, he's the only one we've got, but we've got nothing that ties him to the murder. We haven't got any reason to keep holding him.'

'What will he do?'

'Well, he can't leave the area. I suspect he'll lie low though. Might even get police protection, what with all the media interest.' Nelson sounds so scornful that, despite herself, Ruth smiles.

'What did the… the post-mortem say?'

'Death was by asphyxiation. Looks like something was shoved in her mouth and she choked on it. Her hands were tied with some sort of plant plaited together.'

'Some sort of plant}'

'Yes, looks like honeysuckle and – you'll like this mistletoe.'

Ruth thinks of the letters and their mention of mistletoe.

Does this mean that the writer was the murderer? Does this mean that it was Cathbad after all? Then she thinks of the ropes that had hauled the henge timbers into place.

Honeysuckle rope. As Peter had remembered.

'Body had been in the ground about six weeks,' Nelson is saying. 'Hard to tell because of the peat. No sign of sexual abuse.'

'That's something,' says Ruth hesitantly.

'Yes,' says Nelson, his voice bitter. 'That's something.

And we'll be able to let the family have the body for burial.

That'll mean a lot to them.' He sighs. Ruth imagines him scowling as he sits at his desk, looking through files, making lists, deliberately not looking at the photo of Scarlet Henderson.

'Any road' – Nelson's voice changes gear, rather jerkily – 'How are you? No more calls from the press, I hope.'

'No, but I had an odd message last night.' Ruth tells him about the text message. She imagines Nelson's eyes shooting heavenwards. How much more trouble is this woman going to cause me?