Elly Griffiths - The Janus Stone

‘Are you still in touch with him?’

Max looks slightly sheepish. ‘Just Friends Reunited, that sort of thing.’

Ruth loathes Friends Reunited. She has kept in touch with the few people she liked at school and university. As far as she is concerned, the less the rest know about her the better.

‘Come on,’ she says, ‘I’ll show you round.’

The foreman is obviously irritated to find archaeologists under his feet again but he agrees to let Ruth show Max over the site ‘as long as they keep out of the way’. But, when Ruth goes to find the grave under the door, it has disappeared. The black and white tiles have been broken up and the ground is a seething mass of mud. No walls or divisions can be seen, just a level stretch of ploughed-up earth.

The well is still intact. The diggers haven’t got this far but they are looming. Ruth can see their mechanical claws churning up the garden, the vegetable patch, the tree with the swing, the cucumber frame. Soil and rubble pour into the skips. Who knows how many artefacts are there – medieval, Roman, Victorian? All destroyed to make room for seventy-five luxury apartments, each with en-suite bathroom.

Max kneels and looks into the well. ‘Design looks Roman.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Heads have been found in Roman wells haven’t they?’ asks Ruth.

‘Sometimes,’ Max replies cautiously. ‘At Odell in Bedfordshire they found a Roman skull deliberately inserted into the lining of a well. Head cults are more Celtic though. And holy wells were common in medieval times. St Thomas’s well at Windleshaw was said to have sprung up where a priest was beheaded.’

The noise of the diggers is making it hard to speak. Ruth is about to suggest they leave the site when she sees Nelson coming towards them, frowning as he strides through the rubble. She had forgotten about Nelson.

‘Does he follow you everywhere?’ mutters Max.

Nelson, too, seems less than pleased to find that Ruth has company. ‘Long time no see,’ he says drily to Max.

Ruth can’t stand much more of this. ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘let’s get out of here.’

They stop, as if by mutual consent, by the stone archway, still standing although the rest of the front wall has disappeared. Towers, archways, crenellations – all crumbled into dust.

‘Are they leaving the arch?’ asks Max.

‘Yes,’ says Ruth, ‘it’s classy apparently.’

They stand for a minute looking up at the words inscribed in the stone and Ruth sees another figure approaching. A man dressed in clerical black, walking slowly along the boards laid down over the churned-up earth. Father Hennessey. The foreman will have a fit, thinks Ruth.

Father Hennessey approaches and, suddenly, his face is filled with such recognition and delight that Ruth is stunned.

Why on earth is he so pleased to see her? Or is it Nelson he is looking at?

But the priest looks straight past Ruth and Nelson. His blue eyes are full of tears.

‘Martin,’ he says, ‘how good to see you again.’

25 June Ludi Taurii begin

An opportunity presented itself today. The mother had gone out, leaving the child asleep in its bed. It no longer sleeps in a cot but in a bed with bars at the side to stop it falling out. She was worried about leaving the child alone in the house with me but she was in pain from an infected tooth and needed to see the dentist urgently. I assured her smoothly that the child was safe with me, as indeed she will be. As soon as the mother had gone I got my knife and went straight into the room.

She was asleep, her mouth slightly open. She is not an attractive child, whatever the mother says. I turned her over so the neck was exposed. I could see a little pulse there. The perfect place.

To tell you the truth, dear diary, I had slightly been dreading this moment. Would I be struck by Pity, that emasculating emotion? Would I lack the requisite manliness to do the deed? But I am pleased to report that, as I stood above the infant like an avenging angel, I felt no pity at all. Rather a great joy swept over me, a feel of immense power and righteousness . Yes, that was it. I knew beyond any doubt that I was doing the right thing. My arm felt like steel, strong yet flexible. My eyes burned in my skull. I lifted the knife.

Then – oh banality! – the phone rang. Oh, evil modern influence, obtruding on the ancient rituals! Of course, the moment was ruined and I went to answer the infernal machine. It was Them. We chatted quite civilly but they will be back next week. So little time.

Still very hot. The house waits.

At first Ruth does not understand what is happening. She looks from Hennessey to Max and back again, wondering as she does so why Nelson also looks so shell shocked. And it is Nelson who speaks first.

‘Martin,’ he says, ‘ you’re Martin Black?’

Max laughs. A laugh Ruth has never heard before, harsh and slightly wild. ‘Black, Grey,’ he says, ‘what’s the difference?’

And then Ruth remembers. Martin and Elizabeth Black. The two children who had lived at the home and had vanished so mysteriously. Can it really be true? Can Max, who claimed to know nothing about the Woolmarket Street site, actually have lived here once? Is this why he has come back to Norfolk? And if he has kept this secret from her, says another, darker, voice in her ear, what else has he been hiding?

Father Hennessey now comes closer to Max, who has turned deadly white. ‘Martin,’ he says, in a voice choked with emotion, ‘I never thought I’d see you again. My dear boy.’

Max reaches out a hand and touches the priest’s arm. His eyes, too, are full of tears.

‘Father Hennessey,’ he says, ‘I never forgot you.’

‘And Elizabeth?’ It is barely a whisper.

‘She died.’ Max turns his face away.

Nelson’s voice is like a rush of cold air. ‘I think you need to answer a few questions, Mr Grey. Or is it Mr Black?’

‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ says Max defiantly.

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ says Nelson. ‘Now, if you’d accompany me to the station.’

Max looks as if he is about to refuse but then he gives a little shrug and follows Nelson out through the archway. No wonder he knew what the inscription meant, thinks Ruth.

Father Hennessey hesitates and then, with an apologetic glance at Ruth, he hurries after the other men. Ruth is left on her own amongst the diggers.

Late afternoon and Ruth is at home. For the first few hours after the revelation at the building site she had been certain that either Max or Nelson was about to call at any minute. Surely someone was going to tell her what was going on? But as time passed and she fed Flint, made herself a light lunch (and heavy pudding), tidied the sitting room, put the washing on, answered emails and finally settled down to read a dissertation on ‘The Archaeology of Disease’, she had to face the fact that no one was going to think it worth updating her. She is peripheral to this case, the bones expert, the slightly eccentric academic. She is outside the main action. Max had lied to her, probably used her to get news of the Woolmarket Street site. Nelson forgets her the instant that he gets the scent of a breakthrough. The only person who thinks she is central to the case, she thinks bitterly, is the madman who keeps leaving museum exhibits for her to find.

But then, as the birds start gathering over the Saltmarsh for their evening spectacular, thousands of little black dots like iron filings dividing and converging against the sky, Ruth sees a black Range Rover draw up beside her gate. Max.

She goes to the door, uncertain how she feels. On one hand she just wants to know what the hell is going on, on the other she has decidedly mixed feelings about Max Grey. Martin Black, of course, she doesn’t know at all.