The Janus Stone Read online

  Thank God, SH3LLY 40 has turned off to the left and Ruth can see signs for Snettisham and Hunstanton. She’s nearly home. On Radio 4 someone is talking about bereavement: ‘for everything there is a season’. Ruth loves Radio 4 but there are limits. She switches to cassette (her car is too old for a CD player) and the air is filled with Bruce Springsteen’s heartfelt all-American whine. Ruth loves Bruce Springsteen – the open road, the doomed love, the friends called Bobby Joe who’ve fallen on hard times – and no amount of derision is going to make her change her mind. She turns the sound up.

  Ruth is now driving between overhanging trees, the verges rich with cow parsley. In a moment, she knows, the trees will vanish as if by magic and the sea will be in front of her. She never tires of this moment, when the horizon suddenly stretches away into infinity, blue turning to white turning to gold. She drives faster and, when she reaches the caravan site that marks the start of her road home, she stops and gets out of the car, letting the sea breeze blow back her hair.

  Ahead of her are the sand dunes, blown into fantastic shapes by the wind. The tide is out and the sea is barely visible, a line of blue against the grey sand. Seagulls call high above and the red sail of a windsurfer shimmers silently past.

  Without warning, Ruth leans over and is violently sick.

  Norwich Castle, a Victorian icing covering a rich medieval cake, is now a museum. Nelson has been there several times with his daughters. They used to love the dungeons, he remembers, and Laura had a soft spot for the teapot collection. He hasn’t been for years though and as he and his wife Michelle ascend the winding pathway, floodlit and decorated with heraldic banners, he fears the worst. His fears are justified when they are met by serving wenches. The invitation did not mention fancy dress but these girls are very definitely wenches, wearing low-cut, vaguely medieval dresses and sporting frilly caps on their heads. They are proffering trays of champagne and Nelson takes the fullest glass, a fact not wasted on Michelle.

  ‘Trust you to take the biggest,’ she says, accepting a glass of orange juice.

  ‘I’m going to need alcohol to get through this evening,’ says Nelson as they walk up to the heavy wooden doors. ‘You didn’t tell me it was fancy dress.’

  ‘It isn’t.’ Michelle is wearing a silver mini-dress which is definitely not medieval. In fact, Nelson feels that it could do with a bit more material, a train or a crinoline or whatever women wore in those days. She looks good though, he has to admit.

  They enter a circular reception room to be met by more champagne, someone playing the lute, and, most disturbingly, a jester. Nelson takes a step backwards.

  ‘Go on,’ Michelle pushes him from behind.

  ‘There’s a man in tights!’

  ‘So? He won’t kill you.’

  Nelson steps warily into the room, keeping his eye on the jester. He has ignored another danger though, which advances from the opposite direction.

  ‘Ah Harry! And the beautiful Mrs Nelson.’

  It is Whitcliffe, resplendent in a dinner jacket with an open-neck shirt, which he presumably thinks is trendy. He’s also wearing a white scarf. Wanker.

  ‘Hallo, Gerry.’

  Whitcliffe is kissing Michelle’s hand. The jester is hovering hopefully, shaking his bells.

  ‘You didn’t tell me there’d be people dressed up funny,’ says Nelson, his northern accent, always evident in times of stress, coming to the fore.

  ‘It’s a medieval theme,’ says Whitcliffe smoothly. ‘Edward does these things so well.’

  ‘Edward?’

  ‘Edward Spens,’ says Whitcliffe. ‘You remember I told you that Spens and Co are sponsoring this evening.’

  ‘The builders. Yes.’

  ‘Building contractors,’ says a voice behind them.

  Nelson swings round to see a good-looking man of his own age, wearing faultless evening dress. No white scarf or open-neck shirt for him, just a conventional white shirt and black tie, setting off tanned skin and thick dark hair. Nelson dislikes him instantly.

  ‘Edward!’ Whitcliffe obviously doesn’t share this feeling. ‘This is Edward Spens, our host. Edward, this is Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson and his lovely wife, Michelle.’

  Edward Spens looks admiringly at Michelle. ‘I never knew policemen had such beautiful wives, Gerry.’

  ‘It’s a perk of the job,’ says Nelson tightly.

  Whitcliffe, who isn’t married (a cause of much speculation), says nothing. Michelle, who is used to male admiration, flashes a wide but slightly distancing smile.

  ‘Nelson,’ Edward Spens is saying, ‘weren’t you the copper involved in the Saltmarsh affair?’

  ‘Yes.’ Nelson hates talking about his work and he particularly dislikes being called a ‘copper’.

  ‘What a terrible business.’ Spens is looking serious.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, thank God you solved it.’ Spens pats him heartily on the back.

  Thank Ruth Galloway as well, thinks Nelson. But Ruth has always wanted her involvement in the case kept as low-key as possible.

  ‘Luckily cases like that don’t occur very often,’ he says.

  ‘I’ll drink to that!’ Spens pushes another glass of champagne into his hand.

  Nobody has seen Ruth throw up so she simply kicks some dirt over the vomit and gets back in the car. Bruce Springsteen is telling the improbably named Wendy that they are born to run. Ruth backs the car out of the caravan site and heads for home.

  Her cottage is one of three on the edge of the Saltmarsh. One cottage is empty and the other is owned by weekenders who visit less and less now that their children are growing up. The isolation does not bother Ruth. In fact, as she gets out of her car and drinks in the wide expanse of marsh, the distant sand dunes and the far-off murmur of the sea, her enjoyment is enhanced by the thought that this view is hers and hers alone. Smiling she opens her front door.

  Ruth’s ginger cat, Flint, has been lying in wait and now advances, complaining loudly. He has food in his bowl but it is obviously out of the question that he should eat it. He purrs around Ruth’s legs until she gives him a fresh bowlful, heaving slightly at the smell. Then he sniffs it fastidiously and goes out of the cat flap.

  Ruth sits at the table by the window to check her answer-phone messages. One is from her mother asking if Ruth is still coming to stay at the weekend. Her mother always expects Ruth’s plans to change at the last minute, despite the fact that Ruth is actually extremely punctual and reliable. The second message is from her friend Shona, burbling on about her married boyfriend Phil. The third is from Max Grey. Interesting.

  ‘Hi Ruth. Just to say how much I enjoyed our chat. I was just thinking about our body. If the head is missing, that could be evidence of a head-cult. Have you heard of the Lankhills excavations in Winchester? Seven decapitated bodies were found in a Roman cemetery, including a child’s. Could that be what we’ve got here, I wonder? Anyway, speak soon.’

  Ruth thinks how strangely archaeologists speak sometimes. ‘Our body’. The bones found buried under the Roman foundations have become ‘our body’, linking Ruth and Max in some strange, surreal way. They both feel a sense of ownership, even sympathy, towards them. But is this enough reason for Max to leave this message? Did he really just want a cosy chat about decapitated bodies or did he, just possibly, want to talk to her again?

  Ruth sighs. It’s all too complicated for her. Besides, she has other things on her mind. Tomorrow she has to drive to London and tell her mother that’s she’s pregnant.

  ‘So, you see, we’re developing three key sites in the heart of Norwich. The old tannery, the Odeon cinema and the derelict house on Woolmarket Street.’

  ‘Woolmarket Street?’ Whitcliffe cuts in. ‘Didn’t that used to be a children’s home?’

  ‘I believe so, yes,’ says Edward Spens, spreading butter on his roll. ‘Are you a local Norwich boy, Gerry?’

  That explains a lot, thinks Nelson, as Whitcliffe nods. Nelson was bor
n in Blackpool and would be back there like a shot if it wasn’t for Michelle and the girls. It had been Michelle’s idea for him to take the Norfolk job and, deep down, he still resents her for it. The girls don’t like Blackpool; everyone talks funnily and you eat your supper at five o’clock. And it’s too cold for them, although the local girls seem to wear miniskirts all year round.

  They are at the ‘banquet’ stage now; roast pork disguised as suckling pig. Michelle has left most of hers. She is sparkling away at her neighbour, some goon called Leo wearing a pink shirt and ridiculous glasses. Nelson’s neighbour, a regal woman in blue satin, has ignored him completely, which has left him listening to Edward Spens’ relentless sales pitch.

  ‘It’s a family company,’ Spens is saying. ‘Built up by my father, Roderick Spens. Actually it’s Sir Roderick, he was knighted for services to the building trade. Dad’s supposed to be retired but he still comes into the office every day. Tries to tell me how to run things. He’s against me developing the Woolmarket site, for example, but it’s a prime piece of real estate.’ He laughs expansively. Nelson regards him stonily. Real estate. Who does this guy think he is?

  ‘Harry!’ Nelson is aware that his wife is actually speaking to him, twinkling charmingly from across the table.

  ‘Harry. Leo was talking about the Roman settlement that they’ve dug up. The one near Swaffham. I was telling him that we’ve got a friend who’s an archaeologist.’

  Michelle and Ruth, rather to Nelson’s surprise, hit it off immediately. Michelle likes boasting about her intellectual friend. ‘Honestly, she doesn’t care what she looks like.’ Michelle will be delighted to hear that Ruth hasn’t lost any weight.

  ‘Yes,’ says Nelson guardedly, ‘she works at the university.’

  ‘I’m writing a play,’ says Leo earnestly, ‘about the Roman God Janus. The two-faced God. The God of beginnings and endings, of doorways and openings, of the past and the future.’

  Janus. Something is echoing in Nelson’s head but is having trouble fighting through the champagne and the suckling pig. Of course, it was Ruth’s know-all friend, the one from Sussex University. Janus, God of doors and openings.

  And suddenly Nelson realises something else. It is as if he is seeing a film rewound and, in the second viewing, recognising something that was there all the time. He sees Ruth walking towards him, her loose shirt blown flat against her body. She hasn’t lost weight. In fact, she may even have put some on.

  Could Ruth possibly be pregnant? Because, if so, he could be the father.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘What do you mean you’re pregnant? You’re not even married.’

  This is one of the times when Ruth just wants to lift up her head and howl. She has made her disclosure on a Sunday afternoon walk in Castle Wood, hoping that the open-air setting might dissuade her mother from having hysterics. Fat chance.

  ‘You don’t need to be married to have a baby,’ she says.

  Her mother draws herself up to her full height. Like Ruth she is a big woman but majestic rather than fat. She looks like Queen Victoria in M &S slacks.

  ‘I am aware of that, Ruth. What I mean, as you know very well, is that God has ordained marriage for the purpose of having children.’

  Well, she might have guessed that God would come into it somewhere. Ruth’s parents are both Born Again Christians who believe that unless Ruth too is Born Again, she faces a one-way trip to eternal damnation. A location that, at present, seems preferable to Eltham.

  ‘Well I’m not married,’ says Ruth steadily. But the father is, she adds silently. She knows this piece of information will not help matters at all.

  ‘Who’s the father?’ asks her father, rather hoarsely. Ruth looks at him sadly. She usually finds her dad a bit easier than her mother but he seems about to work himself up into Victorian father frenzy.

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘You’d rather not say!’ Ruth’s mother collapses onto a tree stump. ‘Oh, Ruth, how could you?’ She starts to sob, noisily, into a tiny lace handkerchief. Other Sunday walkers look at her curiously as they tramp past. Ruth kneels beside her mother feeling, despite herself, extremely guilty.

  ‘Mum, look, I’m sorry if this has upset you but please try to look at the positive side. You’ll be getting a grandchild. I’ll be having a baby. Isn’t that something to be happy about?’

  ‘Happy about having a bastard grandchild,’ rumbles her father. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  Obviously, thinks Ruth. She must have been out of her mind to assume, for one second, that her parents would be happy at the news. That they would rejoice with her. That they would accept that, while their daughter doesn’t have a partner, she does have a baby and that the baby is, if not planned, desperately wanted. How desperately, Ruth does not like to admit even to herself. All she knows is, the moment when her suspicions crystallised into that thin blue line on her pregnancy kit, her heart went into overdrive. It was as if every heartbreak and disappointment in her life, to say nothing of the traumas of the past few months, had faded into nothingness, leaving only a boundless blue contentment.

  ‘I hope you’ll change your minds,’ is all she says. She stands and helps her mother up from the tree stump.

  ‘We never change our minds about anything,’ says her mother proudly. ‘That’s not the sort of people we are.’

  You can say that again, thinks Ruth. Being Born Again has only increased her parents’ already well-developed sense of infallibility. After all, if God has chosen you, how can you ever be wrong again? About anything. Her parents found God when she was a teenager. Far too late for Ruth, although she had, for a time, accompanied them to services. She has never found God but, then again, she isn’t about to go looking.

  Her father gestures dramatically towards Severndroog Castle in the background.

  ‘Our values don’t change. They haven’t changed since that castle was built in the Middle Ages.’

  Ruth does not add that the castle is, in fact, an eighteenth-century folly or that the Middle Ages were presumably rife with illegitimate babies and unmarried mothers. She only says, ‘Well I hope you’ll feel differently when the baby’s born.’

  Neither of her parents answers but, when they cross Avery Hill Road, Ruth’s father takes her arm in a protective way, as if being pregnant has seriously impaired her traffic sense. This Ruth finds obscurely comforting.

  Sunday afternoon in a King’s Lynn suburb. Cars are being washed, fresh-faced families set out on bike rides, dogs are walked, newspapers are read and the smell of Sunday lunch permeates the air. After his own lunch (roast lamb with vegetarian option for Laura) Nelson announces his intention of mowing the lawn. Michelle says she’ll go to the gym (she’s the only woman in the world who wants to go to the gym on a Sunday afternoon) and Laura says she’ll go too, for a swim. That leaves Nelson and sixteen-year-old Rebecca, who immediately disappears upstairs to plug herself into her iPod and computer. This suits Nelson fine. He wants to be by himself, performing some mundane domestic task. It’s the way he thinks best.

  By the time he has got out the lawnmower, found that it has run out of petrol, fetched the spare can from the boot of his Mercedes, dropped the garage door on his foot, fixed the broken clutch cable and moved Michelle’s washing line, he’s thinking furiously. Is Ruth pregnant? Is it his baby? They spent one night together, back in February, but, at the same time, he knew Ruth was seeing her ex-boyfriend, Peter. It’s possible then that the baby is Peter’s. And what about Erik, Ruth’s old tutor? He always thought Ruth was very close to Erik. Could they have been sleeping together? It’s a funny thing but he thinks of Ruth as somehow existing on a higher plane than most people. The night they slept together had seemed removed from the ordinary motivations of lust and desire, though those had played their part. He and Ruth had come together as equals who had just been through a terrible experience together. It had just seemed… right. The sex, Nelson remembers, had been incredible.

  So
mehow, remembering that sense of rightness, Nelson feels convinced that Ruth did conceive that night. It seems almost preordained. Jesus – he gives the mower a vicious shove – he’s thinking like some crap women’s magazine. It’s highly unlikely that she got pregnant; she was probably using birth control (which was never mentioned; they didn’t talk much). He’s not even sure that she is pregnant. She has probably just put on weight.

  ‘Dad!’

  Rebecca is leaning out of an upstairs window. With her long blonde hair and serious face she looks oddly accusatory, like a Victorian picture of a wronged woman. For one stupid moment Nelson imagines that his daughter knows all about Ruth, is about to tell Michelle…

  ‘Dad. It’s Doug on the phone. He says do you want to go to the pub tonight.’

  Nelson pauses, breathing hard. The smell of mown grass is almost overpowering.

  ‘Thanks, love. Tell him no, I’d rather spend the night in with my family.’

  Rebecca shrugs. ‘Suit yourself. But I think Mum’s going out to the pictures.’

  That evening, as Nelson and his daughters sit in front of an old James Bond film (Michelle has indeed gone to the cinema with a girlfriend), Ruth is mindlessly watching the same movie in her parents’ sitting room. She loathes James Bond, thinks he’s sexist, racist and almost unbearably boring but her parents seem to be enjoying the film (although was there ever anyone less Born Again than James Bond?) and the last thing she wants to do is argue with them. The arguments about her baby have continued, wearily, all afternoon. How could she? Who’s going to look after it when she goes to work? Hasn’t she heard that families need fathers? What’s the poor little mite going to do without a father, without a family, without God? ‘You’ll be its family,’ Ruth said, ‘and you can tell it about God.’ Although, she adds silently, I shall tell it my own version. That God is a made-up fairy tale, like Snow White only nastier.