Midnight is a Lonely Place

XI

She had been sitting at the word processor for two hours and she had not noticed that it was getting light. Now, arms and shoulders cramped and her head throbbing from her intense concentration, Kate sat back, took off her glasses and, dropping them beside her notes, stared out of the window. The mist had receded to leave a sunrise of breathtaking clarity. The narrow vee of sea visible between the shingle banks from her carefully positioned table glittered with blinding beauty. It was more than anyone could resist; besides, she needed a break. Donning jacket, scarf and boots she pulled open the front door and emerged into an ice cold wind. Looking around she took a deep breath of pure delight. This was a place where Byron himself would have felt at home.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain…

The beach was still wet from the receding tide as she tramped northwards along it, murmuring the lines from ‘Childe Harold’, her head ducked against the sting of the wind and the glare, her cheeks tingling beneath the whipping strings of hair as they pulled free of her scarf. The words weren’t quite right, of course. This wasn’t an ocean and it was neither all that deep nor dark, but still the mood was right. It was exhilarating. She wanted to jump and run and dance, but the shingle and soft sand precluded all but the most undignified gallop. Stopping at last, exhausted, she turned and began to retrace her steps. With the wind and glare behind her she could slow down and appreciate the different colours and textures of the water: where the sand rose near the surface it was pale green, even yellow. Further out streaks of deep turquoise melded with grey and black and the intense sapphire blue of a child’s painting of the sea. In the distance the shingle gave way to muddy sand and she could see dunlin and redshank at the water’s edge. Save for them she appeared to be the only being alive in the world.

She came level with the cottage, appreciating from here how sheltered it was behind the shingle banks, only a narrow section of its face visible behind the waving grasses and heaps of sand. In front of her, beyond the dunes, the beach swept away around the corner. There a narrow inlet led into the shallow, muddy waters of Redall Bay with its network of small islands and tidal creeks.

By the last of the dunes she stopped. Part of it appeared to have fallen onto the sand, and in the hollow on its seaward side there were signs of recent digging. Curious, she walked towards it, her boots slipping in the deep soft mixture of stones and mud and sand. The top section, out of sight of the cottage, had had a neat transverse slice removed from it. About ten feet long and two feet deep the interlocking grasses had been sectioned away and below it the sand had been scooped loosely into piles. Jumping down into the hollow she stared at the exposed wall of the dune. The resulting scar in the sand looked too regular and neat to be the result of a child’s game; and it had certainly not been caused by the tide, although further along the cut had been lengthened and randomly enlarged by a muddy landslip where tell-tale strands of weed and a scattering of whelk shells betrayed a recent high tide propelled by an easterly wind.

Intrigued, Kate ran her hand lightly over the sand face. Who had been digging here, and why? Was it something to do with sea defences? She turned and looked back at the beach. The receding tide looked gentle and benevolent now, but she was under no illusions about the force it could muster if wind and moon were right.

She was about to scramble out of the hollow to resume her walk when her eye was caught by something shiny sticking out of the sand. It looked like a piece of pottery. She picked it up and examined it, then, frowning, she looked at it more closely. It was thin, fine, red, decorated with a raised pattern and it looked very like the Samian ware she had seen in the museum only yesterday. But that was impossible. She turned and surveyed the sand face again. Was this some sort of abandoned excavation? She stared down at the piece of pottery in her hand almost guiltily. Perhaps she shouldn’t have touched it. On the other hand it had been lying in the loose spoil, obviously overlooked. With another high tide it would have been buried and lost. Pulling her scarf off her hair she wrapped the piece carefully and put it reverently in her pocket, then she turned and examined the exposed sand again. It was in a very crumbly state. The lightest touch dislodged another shower of soil. A few feet to her left she spotted something dark protruding from it. Cautiously she touched it. Metal. Scraping at the sand with her fingers she tried to see what it was without disturbing it. The narrow twisted neck of metal stuck out at right angles from the sand. She must ask the Lindseys. They would know who had been excavating here, and why they had stopped. She eyed the piece of metal longingly. If she touched it and it was of archaeological interest then she might be destroying valuable evidence – on the other hand another tide might remove it even more irrevocably. As she was standing there, trying to make up her mind what to do, a small crack appeared of its own accord in the top of the dune. As she watched a lump of wet sand broke away and fell at her feet. A minute later another six-inch section fell, taking the metal object with it. She bent and picked it up. Twisted, corroded, the metal was heavy and cold in her hand. She could not begin to guess what metal it was. Not gold certainly. Bronze, perhaps, or even silver. She examined it in excitement and awe. In all probability she was the first person to touch it for over a thousand years – perhaps two, perhaps more. It was a torc.

MY LOVE

The voice in her head had spoken so loudly she thought it was real. Dropping the torc she put her hands to her ears, looking round.

There was no one there. An oystercatcher was plodding slowly along the tide line near her, dipping its beak into the sand.

She could feel her heart beginning to hammer in her ears again, as it had in the woods in the dark the night before. Taking a deep breath she bent and picked up the piece of twisted metal, then she scrambled out of the hollow. She stared round, her arm across her eyes to hold back her streaming hair, loose now she had removed the scarf. There was still no one in any direction as far as she could see. Besides the voice had been inside her own head.

Taking a deep breath she turned towards the cottage. Get a grip on yourself, Kennedy. You’re imagining things, she told herself sternly. Too much fresh air, that’s your trouble.

The panic had gone almost as soon as it had come. Out here in broad daylight, in the brilliant sunshine and the light, tossing wind with birds patrolling unconcerned along the tide line, her moment of terror seemed absurd. It was imagination, that was all. A visit to the museum, a new preoccupation with Boudicca and the events of nineteen hundred years ago, together with the isolated situation and already she was having hallucinations. Strong coffee would soon sort that out.

Slightly faster than she would normally have walked she retraced her steps towards the cottage. Only once did she look back. There in the dazzle off the sea a sand devil whirled in the hollow where she had been standing. She watched it for a moment. It looked almost like a figure. Then it disappeared.

Letting herself in out of the wind, she shook her hair back from her face and putting her finds down on the kitchen table she put the kettle on even before she removed her jacket and boots. While the kettle was boiling she went to the phone but there was no answer from the Lindseys.

Picking up her coffee and her two artifacts she carried them through into the living room and put them down on her work table. Automatically she turned on the word processor. Waiting for it to summon up her programme she picked up the torc and examined it again. It was large – large enough to go around the neck of a full grown man at a guess, and still heavy in spite of, or perhaps because of, its corrosion. She stared at it for a long time then carefully she placed it on the windowsill before sitting down before her keyboard.

When she next looked up it was nearly one o’clock.

This time Diana was in when she phoned. Her query about the digging on the beach was greeted by a moment of embarrassed silence. ‘You were there this morning, you say?’ she asked cautiously.

‘I was walking on the beach.’

‘Of course. I think the place you’re talking about is where my daughter has been doing some digging. It’s for an archaeological project at school. It’s not a designated site of any kind.’

‘I see.’ Kate frowned. She could hear the defensiveness in the other woman’s voice. ‘It’s just that there seemed to be signs of some kind of ancient usage -’ Her eyes strayed towards the doorway into the hall. She couldn’t see the windowsill where her finds were lying. ‘I felt that probably someone qualified ought to take a look at it. It could be an important site.’

‘I think you’ll find Alison has that in hand. It’s her project entirely, Kate.’ Diana’s voice took on an unaccustomed firmness. ‘Please leave it to her.’

And keep your nose out! Kate muttered as she put down the phone. She wandered back into the sitting room and stood looking down at the metal torc. If Alison was going to inform the museum then that was fine. She would show them her two trophies at the same time. She picked up the piece of twisted metal and examined it once more. It was badly corroded and bent, but the basic design of intertwined strands of metal wire was clearly visible. She scratched at it cautiously with her fingernail. A pale gleam appeared. She hesitated, then she scratched at it again, this time harder. The faint scratch showed a distinctly silvery sparkle. It was silver. She was holding a silver torc.

I CURSE YOU, MARCUS SEVERUS, FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE HERE THIS DAY

The voice was so sudden and so loud she dropped the torc onto the table. Frantically she shook her head. The sound had been inside her ears; it came from her brain. From her head. From her soul. Frightened she stared round the room. Then taking a deep breath she picked up the twisted metal again. It was very cold beneath her fingers. As cold as it had been when she first picked it out of the wet sand.

‘This is stupid.’ She said the words out loud, and her own voice sounded light and insubstantial in the empty room. She carried the torc and the piece of pottery to the small table in the corner on which the lamp stood and pulling out the drawer she laid them both in it. Closing it firmly she turned the key.

Auditory hallucination is a condition engendered by various states of mind and various physical conditions. She had read about it in one of Anne’s books. But which one of them, if any, applied to her? Picking up the bottle of Scotch she walked through into the kitchen and firmly closed the door behind her. The first thing she could do was restore her blood sugar levels to normal. Perhaps a cooked lunch would dispel whatever it was which was causing this to happen.

She was sitting at the small kitchen table, with a book propped up before her, eating baked beans on toast covered in melted cheese, when there was a loud knock at the front door. Pushing her plate away reluctantly she went to open it.

A girl stood on the doorstep, dressed in jeans and a bright blue anorak, her blonde pony-tailed hair blowing wildly in the wind.

‘I’ve come to tell you to keep away from my dig.’ The green eyes were furious, the face unsmiling. ‘Mum says you’ve been poking around in the dune. Well don’t. Just because you’ve rented this place it doesn’t give you any right to go poking around in other people’s affairs. Keep away from it.’ The young face was pale and strained. Her headache had been worse this morning, too bad to go to school, too bad to get up until Diana had told her what was happening out at the dune.

‘You must be Alison.’ Kate raised an eyebrow but, firmly suppressing the angry response which was her automatic reaction to the girl’s rudeness, she merely said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interfere in your excavation. Of course I won’t go near it again if you’d rather I didn’t.’

‘Please don’t.’ Alison scowled.

‘You’ve told the museum about your finds, I gather.’

‘I’m going to soon.’ The girl’s chin was set determinedly. She was very like her elder brother, Kate decided suddenly. They were a good-looking family, but obviously not noted for their charm. ‘I’m writing it up first and taking photos and things.’

‘Good.’ Kate smiled. ‘That’s exactly the right thing to do.’ She took a step back, about to shut the door but Alison still stood there, hands in pockets, obviously wanting to say something else. ‘Are you really a writer?’ It came out at last.

‘Yes,’ Kate smiled. ‘I am.’

‘And you’re writing about Byron, Dad said.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So, why did you come here?’

‘I wanted somewhere quiet so that I could concentrate on my work.’

‘And you know about history and things.’

Kate nodded. ‘A bit. I studied history at university.’

‘So you know about the Romans.’

‘A bit, as I said. I gather they came here.’

‘And there were people here even before that.’ Alison’s brow wrinkled slightly. ‘The Trinovantes lived in Essex before the Romans came. That’s a Roman grave.’ She nodded her head in the general direction of the beach.

‘A grave?’ Kate frowned. ‘What makes you think that?’

Marcus. The thought had come unbidden and as swiftly it had gone. Marcus Severus’s grave was found in somewhere called Stanway, which, she had seen on the diagrammatic map near his statue, was on the far side of Colchester, some twenty miles away.

‘I just know.’

Kate looked at the girl, disquieted. ‘Alison, when you’ve got some time, would you show me your dig? Show me properly. Explain what you’ve done – the digging looks very professional – and tell me what you’ve found.’

‘You really want to know?’

‘I do. Not to interfere. I’m interested.’

‘OK. Do you want to come now?’

With a moment’s regretful thought about her baked beans and her book Kate nodded. ‘Hold on. I’ll get my jacket and boots.’

The tide had receded a long way when they stood together side by side on the edge of the hollow looking at the excavated side of the dune. The wind was whipping the sand into little eddies which whispered amongst the thin dry grasses and the sun had gone, hidden behind huge threatening clouds. ‘I found some bits of pottery – shards, they’re called, and some metal objects,’ Alison said slowly. ‘They’re at home. I’ll show you when you come to supper if you like.’

‘I would like.’ Kate glanced at the girl. She did not seem to be showing any eagerness to jump down into the hollow. ‘How did you know where to dig?’

‘The sea started it. Half the dune collapsed. Then I began to find things.’

‘What made you think it was a Roman grave?’

‘That’s where you find things. In graves. There was a villa on our neighbour’s farm. It’s under his field, very near us, and there was a Roman road to the village and another to the other side of Redall Bay.’

‘Was there?’ Kate was fascinated. ‘Can we go down into the hollow? It’ll be out of the wind and you can show me exactly how you’ve been sectioning the soil.’

Alison seemed reluctant, but after a moment she jumped down into the soft sand and approached the exposed face where she had been working. ‘I’ve been very careful not to disturb anything. The trouble is the sand just falls away. You can’t stop it. The wind and the sea erode this coast all the time. Even houses fall over the edge a bit further along from here, at Redall Point.’ She raised her hand gently to the sand, and then drew back without touching it. ‘I’ve left my tools in your log shed.’

‘Oh, I wondered who the spade belonged to.’ Kate pushed her hair out of her eyes and reaching into her pocket for her glasses squinted more closely at the surface of the dune in front of her. ‘Look, do you see? Here, and here. There’s a change in texture. The sand is more glutinous. It’s stronger. I think there’s an outcrop of clay and peat of some sort. You may have more luck excavating that. It won’t crumble so easily.’

‘No.’ Alison took a step forward and examined the place Kate was pointing to. Then she shivered. Her headache had returned with a vengeance. ‘It’s too cold to work today. I think I’ll go home now.’ She turned away. As they scrambled out of the hollow into the full force of the wind again Kate saw the girl glance over her shoulder at the spot where they had been standing. There was an unhappy frown on her face as if she had seen something which puzzled her.

It was only after Kate had watched Alison disappear up the track through the woods and had let herself once more into the cottage that she realised that she had not said a word about her own finds. She walked back into the kitchen and looked with regret down at her plate. Then she scraped the congealed mess into the waste bin and put the kettle on. She had wasted enough time already today. Forget Alison Lindsey and her Roman grave. This afternoon she must go back to the world of the cold, bleak Aberdeen lodgings where the young George Gordon was learning the bible, and a lot more besides, at his nurse’s knee.

Her eyes glued to the screen of her lap top Kate did not notice the room growing dark. Her fingers were cramped; her arms stiff and heavy and there was a cold spot somewhere between her shoulder blades which had begun to hurt quite badly. Taking off her glasses, she stretched her hands out in front of her and wriggled her fingers painfully. The fire had died again and the room was icy. Climbing stiffly to her feet she went through the now routine acts of lighting, filling and closing the stove and stood for a moment staring down at the blackened glass of the little doors. She had done it on automatic pilot, her thoughts still with Catherine Gordon and May Grey and their volatile confusing relationships with the boy in their charge, relationships which would leave him scarred for life.

Satisfied at some subconscious level that the fire would now catch and warm her she went back to the table and, sitting down she began to read through the afternoon’s work.

May the gods of all eternity curse you, Marcus Severus, and bring your putrid body and your rotten soul to judgement for what you have done here this day…

She stared at the words blankly. She did not remember writing them. She hadn’t written them. They appeared in the text suddenly, arbitrarily, half way through a description of eighteenth-century Aberdeen.

Pushing her chair back she stood up abruptly, conscious that her hands were shaking. Turning away from the screen she went back to the stove. Opening the doors she knelt in front of it and held out her hands, trying to warm them. It’s just a phrase that’s been whirling round in my head. I must have read it somewhere and it’s somehow lodged in my brain and I typed it out. Idiot. Idiot.

Her eyes went unwillingly to the table drawer. For several minutes she tried to resist the urge to go over to it, then, giving up, she rose and went to switch on the lamp.

Picking up the torc she took it back to the fire and, sitting down on the floor in front of the blaze she turned the piece of metal over and over in her hand. She was no expert, no archaeologist, but she knew enough to be fairly certain that this was a Celtic ornament; almost certainly silver and therefore once the property of a wealthy man; a man not a woman, judging by its weight and size. It was certainly not Roman, whatever Alison thought. So it did not belong to Marcus Severus. Had not belonged, she corrected herself at once. So, whose was it? What was it doing buried in the sand on the edge of Redall Bay? The British tribes who opposed Rome had been Celts. The Celtic world, which today is linked in the popular mind purely to Wales and Scotland and Ireland and Brittany, once covered the whole of Britain – the whole of Europe. East Anglia had been as Celtic as Gwynedd or Galloway. It had been the Saxon invasions that had overridden their traces in folk memory.

She sat back, leaning against the sofa, drawing her knees up, the metal in her hands. It was warm now. The places where she had rubbed and scratched it glinted faintly in the firelight. She closed her eyes. This part of the country – this part of Essex – had been as Alison said the land of the Trinovantes, the tribe who had joined Boudicca and the Iceni in their revolt against Rome. Disillusioned and cheated by their Roman overlords in Colchester, they had not hesitated in rising up against the foreign oppressor. Had this torc belonged to one of them? A highborn Celtic lord? A prince? Was that his burial mound out there on the beach, lashed by the winter sea?

And what had Marcus Severus Secundus to do with him?

The sound of hail rattling against the window made her look up. It had grown quite dark outside. The lamplight reflected in the glass and suddenly the room felt very cold. She glanced at the fire. With the doors open the stove had consumed the logs she had thrown on earlier. Only ash remained. Rising to her feet she put the torc back into its drawer, closed and locked it, then she went to the window and, shading her eyes against the reflection she looked out. The glass was cold against her forehead. Cold and hard. The evening was totally black. Against the rattle of the rain and the howl of the wind she thought she could hear the crash of waves on the beach. With a shudder she stepped back and drew the curtains across. Then for the third time that day she built up the fire.

She awoke in the early hours with a start. Her bedroom was very cold. The wind had risen and she could hear the sea clearly now. The waves crashing on the beach, the rush and rattle of shingle, and from the other side of the cottage – the western side – the thrash and creak of trees.

She peered across the room. She had left the landing light on – a relic of that old fear of the dark – and she could see the outline of the door, the comforting wedge shape of light. For a minute she lay there staring at it, then she reached for the bedside lamp. Propped against the pillows, huddled beneath the blankets with her book and her glasses she felt warm and safe. She half relished the battering of the storm.

A stronger than usual gust of wind flung itself against the window and she heard the groan and rattle of the glass and suddenly she was aware of the smell of wet earth. Bitter sweet, cloying, pervasive, it filled the bedroom. It was the smell of gardens, of newly-dug flower beds, of ancient woodlands.

Groping for her dressing gown she reached for her slippers and padded across the room. Opening the door fully she peered out onto the landing. It was ice cold out there and unbelievably draughty. Frowning she went towards the stairs and looked down.

The front door stood wide open.

For a moment she stood transfixed. It was the wind. It must have been the wind, but the front door was on the sheltered side of the house. She ran down the stairs and threw the door shut. She had bolted it. Surely she had bolted it the night before? Sliding the bolt hard home she turned the key in the lock as well.

The kitchen and the living room doors stood open, the rooms beyond, dark. She glanced at them with sudden misgiving. Supposing it wasn’t the wind that had thrown the door open? Supposing it was a burglar?

Come on, Kennedy. Who would burgle this place? She went to the kitchen door and switched on the light. The room was empty, just as she had left it a few hours earlier, her dishes stacked in the sink, the kettle still – she put her hand on the metal and saw it cloud fractionally beneath her palm – a little warm. Switching it on she turned and went back to the hall. Immediately the smell of earth grew stronger. She paused for a moment, sniffing. The front door was shut and the smell should have lessened, but now it seemed to be coming from the living room.

It was as she put out her hand to the light switch that she realised that there was someone in the room. Her mouth went dry. She held her breath, listening, aware that the other person was doing the same thing, painfully conscious that she was standing silhouetted against the bright light of the hall.

It was a woman.

She wasn’t sure how she knew; she could see no one, but suddenly her terror wasn’t quite so sharp. ‘Alison?’ Her voice sounded ridiculously loud and shrill. ‘Alison, is that you? What are you doing here?’ She found the light switch, clicked it on and stared round, her heart hammering under her ribs. There was no one there. The windows were closed, the curtains drawn as she had left them the night before and the woodburner was glowing quietly in its hearth, nicely banked – this time it would last easily until morning. But if the fire was alight, and the glass behind the door of the stove glowing, why was the room so deadly cold and where was the strange smell coming from? Biting her lip, she stared round again, before going cautiously into the room and looking quickly behind the sofa, behind the chairs, in the corners, even behind the curtains. All was as it should be.

It was a last minute thought to check the drawer where she had put the torc.

The lamp was no longer central on the table. Had she pushed it to one side like that, so it overhung the edge? So that one small push would have sent it toppling to the ground? She put her hand to the handle of the drawer and then drew back. The knob was covered in earth. Wet, rain-soaked earth. Cautiously, with two fingers, she pulled open the drawer. The torc and the piece of pottery were still there. They did not appear to have been touched.

So it was Alison. She had suspected Kate’s theft and come back for her treasure. She probably had a key to the cottage. Hearing Kate moving about upstairs she had lost her nerve and run away. Shaking her head angrily, Kate wiped the handle of the drawer and pushed it closed. She gave one final look around the room and walked to the door.

She was about to switch off the light when she became aware of another scent in the room beyond the smell of the wet earth. It was rich, feminine, musky. The scent a sophisticated woman would wear. She gave a wry smile. Perhaps even rude, boisterous, teenage girls showed signs from time to time of one day growing up.