Midnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine Page A

trouble was, he was missing Kate. He was missing Kate most dreadfully, and the guilt he felt about the way he had treated her had not gone away. The thought made him furious with himself. He had been small-minded, jealous, insecure, unfair. He listed his faults mercilessly. Well, at least now he had a new American contract as good as under his belt and he could begin to pay her back some of the money he owed her. He glanced at his watch again, idly computing what the time was in England. Nine? Ten? Morning anyway. He pulled the phone towards him and began to dial Bill. Somehow he would persuade him to divulge her number. He had to speak to her. He was missing her too much.

XIII
    The tide had turned but the wind still piled the sea in against the north-east-facing coasts of Britain. It filled Redall Bay, all but inundating the low-lying islands which were the abode of so many birds. It washed away a huge section of cliff, six metres long, further up the coast near Wrabness, bringing two oak trees which had been clinging desperately to the edge of what had once been a wood crashing to the sand. Rolling up the beach, it flooded into the hollow near the dune, worried at the soil and began to undermine the face of the excavation.
    Two of the bodies lay on top of each other, the man face down, his face pressed into the seeping wetness of the clay, his head at an angle, bent against his shoulder. The garotte was embedded deep in the strange desiccated blackness which was all that remained of his skin. He was naked save for the strip of tanned tree bark tied about his arm. It was the bark of the ash; the tree which was his totem; the tree for which he had been named – Nion.
    The woman lay across him, hunched, contorted by the agony in which she had died. The fabric of her clothing was strangely intact. In one or two places the colour was still visible, though darkened by the chemical processes of clay and salts and decomposition. And by the blood. Out of sight, beneath her as she lay across the other body was a sword. It was a short sword, but sharp, corroded now to razor thin metal. One of her hands still clasped the hilt. The point was embedded between her ninth and tenth thoracic vertebrae.

XIV
    Kate was stacking the dishes in the sink next morning when she happened to glance out of the window and saw Alison appear from the wood. The girl had a fluorescent green haversack over one shoulder and in her hand she carried a large red radio cassette player. Still exhausted and angry after her disturbed night Kate waited for her to approach the cottage, but Alison veered off the path and headed straight towards the shed.
    Drying her hands Kate went outside. The storms of the night had passed and the day was bright and crisp with only the lightest wind blowing from the south.
    ‘Good morning.’ She stopped behind Alison as the girl groped inside the shed.
    Alison jumped. She turned, her spade in her hand. ‘Hi.’ She did not look pleased to see her.
    ‘I thought you might be going to drop in and say hello,’ Kate said.
    Alison shrugged. ‘I thought I’d get on.’
    ‘Fair enough. But first, haven’t you got some explaining to do about last night?’
    It had not been easy to sleep after the disturbances. Even with the front door locked and bolted and the lights on throughout the house Kate had only dropped off an hour or so before dawn and then her sleep had been restless and light.
    ‘Last night?’ Alison turned back to the shed and retrieved a trowel and a broom.
    ‘It was you who came up to the cottage.’
    ‘Me?’ She had the girl’s full attention at last. ‘I didn’t come up last night. What on earth would I do that for?’
    Kate frowned. The wide eyes looked genuinely puzzled.
    ‘Someone came to the cottage last night. About three in the morning and let themselves in. They must have had a key.’
    ‘Weird.’ Alison shook her head. ‘Did they steal anything?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why did you think it was me?