Elly Griffiths - The Crossing Places

The trees around the car park are blown into a frenzy.

The boarded-up kiosk looms eerily out of the dark, promising ghostly Cornettos and Calippo Shots. Grimly, Nelson gets a rope and a heavy-duty torch out of the boot.

Cathbad hums serenely.

They walk up the gravel track to the first hide. Nelson is in the lead, shining the torch in front of him. He doesn't think of himself as imaginative, but the noise of the wind howling across the marshes is starting to give him the creeps. The thunder rumbling overhead just adds to the cliched horror film atmosphere. Behind him Cathbad sighs with what sounds like happiness.

They pass the first hide and Cathbad pushes in front.

'The path,' he says calmly. 'It's near here.'

Nelson hands him the torch. If they get lost he will kill Cathbad first and arrest him afterwards.

After a few yards, Cathbad veers off the gravel track and starts to head out over the marsh. Despite the torch, it's pitch black. Here and there, Nelson can see glimpses of water, dark and dangerous. It's like walking into the unknown, like one of those ridiculous trust exercises they make you do on police training courses. Except that Nelson doesn't trust Cathbad, not one little bit. Following Ruth across the marshes, even in the daylight, had been difficult enough. It takes all his self-control now not to elbow Cathbad out of the way and insist on turning back to the track.

Suddenly Cathbad stops. 'Here it is,' he murmurs.

Nelson sees him shine the torch onto the ground. A bolt of lightning turns the sky white. Cathbad grins at him.

'Follow me,' he says.

About a mile away, across the black marshland, Ruth holds Lucy in her arms. It feels strange, cuddling this thin, vulnerable body. Ruth doesn't know many teenagers and those she does know are hardly likely to fling their arms around her and sob into her shoulder.

'There, there,' says Ruth in her mythical mother persona. 'It'll be alright. Come on, Lucy.'

But Lucy just cries and cries, her entire body shaken with the force of her sobbing.

'Come on,' Ruth is forced to say at last. 'Come on.

Before he gets back.'

That does the trick alright. Lucy breaks away, her eyes round with fear.

'Is he coming?' she whispers.

'I don't know,' says Ruth. Who knows where Erik is?

Hopefully he is lost out there on the dark marshes but, knowing Erik, he probably has a sea sprite's sixth sense that will allow him to walk unharmed through the storm and arrive just as they are trying to escape. She doesn't say this to Lucy though. Taking advantage of the girl's loosened grip, she propels her gently below the trapdoor.

'I'm going to give you a leg up. You know,' she adds desperately, 'like on a pony.' She has never ridden a pony but she is hoping that Lucy has.

'A pony,' Lucy repeats carefully.

'Yes. I'm going to push you up through that hole and then climb up myself. OK?' she finishes brightly.

Almost imperceptibly, Lucy nods.

'Put your arms up,' says Ruth. Lucy does so. Clearly she is used to obeying orders. In the event Ruth does not give her a leg up, instead she clasps Lucy round the waist and lifts her. It is surprisingly easy. Either Lucy weighs almost nothing or Ruth has developed superhuman strength. To her amazement, Lucy grasps the edge of the trapdoor and deftly swings herself up. Then she peers down at Ruth, her lips curved in something like a smile.

'Well done, Lucy! Well done!' She is so elated that she has almost forgotten that she has still got to get herself up.

Desperately, Ruth looks around for something to climb on. She spots the plastic box of toys and pulls it over to the space below the trapdoor. She stands on top. Still not high enough. So she gets the bucket, tipping its pungent-smelling contents into the corner, and puts it upside-down on top of the box. Now she balances precariously on the bucket. Yes!

She is able to grab the rim of the trapdoor. Then, using every ounce of superhuman strength, she struggles to pull herself up. Her fingers scrabble madly on the hide's wooden floor and, amazingly, she feels something else pulling determinedly at her hand. It is Lucy. Lucy trying to help her.

Whether or not this makes the difference, suddenly her torso is up through the trapdoor. One final heave and her legs are up too. Ruth lies panting on the floor of the hide.

Lucy is watching her. When she leans forward, her voice is again that breathy little whisper.

'Are we going home?'

'Yes.' Ruth struggles to her feet and takes Lucy's hand.

She can hear the rain drumming on the roof but the thunder seems to have stopped. She looks at Lucy's thin, shivering body. How is she ever going to get her home?

Ruth takes off the policeman's jacket and wraps it around Lucy. It comes to below her knees.

'There,' she says in her bright 'mother' voice. 'Now you'll be fine.'

But Lucy is looking beyond her. Staring at the entrance to the hide. She has heard something and now Ruth hears it too. Footsteps. A man's footsteps. Coming quickly towards them.

Purple cloak flying out behind him, Cathbad leads the way across the marshes. Occasionally he stops and shines the torch at the ground and then he turns slightly to the right or left. Nelson follows. He feels his jaw locked with frustration, but he has to admit that, so far, Cathbad hasn't put a foot wrong. On either side of them he can see still water and dark, treacherous marshland but their feet remain on the twisting stony path. Thunder is rolling above them, the rain beats down unmercifully. Nelson is soaked but none of this matters if they find Ruth.

It is so dark that sometimes he almost loses sight of Cathbad, though he is only a few paces in front. Then he sees a glimmer of purple and realises that the old nutter is still there. Once or twice, Cathbad turns to him, grinning manically.

'Cosmic energy,' he says.

Nelson ignores him.

Where the hell is Ruth? And Erik? Whatever possessed Ruth to go running off like that, chasing over the marshes on the worst night of the year? Nelson sighs. When he thinks of Ruth, a kind of reluctant tenderness constricts his throat. He thinks of her lists, her love for her cats, her refusal to drink station coffee, the calm way she can dig through layers of mud and come up with a priceless THE CROSSING PLACES

treasure. He thinks of the way she fed him coffee and listened, the night Scarlet was found. He thinks of her body, actually rather magnificent unclothed, white in the moonlight. He thinks of her at Scarlet's funeral, her eyes red, and of her face when she told him that Erik was the author of the letters. He sighs again, almost a groan. He's not in love with Ruth but somehow she gets to him. If anything happens to her, he will never forgive himself.

Cathbad stops again and Nelson almost bumps into him.

'What's the matter?' He has to shout to be heard above the wind.

'I've lost the path.'

'You're joking!'

Cathbad sweeps the beam of the torch over the ground.

'Some of the posts are submerged…'he mutters. 'I think this is it.'

He takes a step forward and disappears. He doesn't even have time to scream. He just vanishes, swallowed up by the night. Nelson jumps forward and is just in time to catch a handful of cloak. He pulls, the cloak tears, but now he has got hold of Cathbad's arm. Cathbad is up to his neck in the mud and it takes all Nelson's strength to haul him out.

Finally, with a ghastly sucking noise, the marsh relinquishes its prey. Cathbad kneels on the path, head down, panting.

He is completely covered in mud, his cloak in tatters.

Nelson yanks him to his feet. 'Come on, Cathbad, you're not dead yet.' It is the first time he has called Malone by his adopted name, but neither of them notices this.