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just accept that Ruth knows her own daughter’s name, even if it does scan better with an ‘ie’ on the end?
    Kate’s little friends include two toddlers, both clients of Sandra’s, who ignore each other and run round bursting balloons, and two older children belonging to a colleague of Ruth’s. The older kids, who are called Daisy and Ben, try to organise the babies but end up playing pass-the-parcel solemnly by themselves. Ben wins a rag doll and hands it silently to his mother.
    Shona, radiant in a pink velvet tunic, sits on the floor with Kate so that people who don’t know her say ‘she’ll make a lovely mother.’ Ruth smiles noncommittally. She has known Shona a long time. They first met on a dig, twelve years ago. It was on this dig that Erik had his finesthour, the discovery of the Bronze Age henge. Cathbad too had been centre stage, organising protests against the removal of the henge to a museum. Shona had sympathised with the protesters, as had Ruth and Erik too, up to a point. But the henge had been removed, and though there is no trace of it now on the shifting sands of the Saltmarsh the repercussions of that summer are still being felt in many people’s lives. Ruth had once felt betrayed by Shona, beautiful Shona who could have any man she wanted, but her need for a friend had been too strong and they managed to repair their relationship. Now Shona is living with Ruth’s boss, Phil, and expecting his baby. She is blissfully happy and so Ruth, who wonders just how her glamorous friend will cope with broken nights, mother-and-toddler groups and endless reruns of
In The Night Garden
, keeps her doubts to herself. Shona does seem good with Kate and maybe she’ll take to motherhood with perfect ease. If so, Ruth must remember to pick up some tips.
    As an entertainer, though, Shona is quite outclassed by Cathbad, who arrives late and promptly leads the children in a wild game of follow-my-leader: over the sofa, up and down the stairs, rampaging through Ruth’s tiny, overgrown garden.
    ‘Does he have children of his own?’ asks one of the toddlers’ mothers, picking her offspring out of a bramble bush.
    ‘One daughter. She must be almost grown up now.’
    ‘He seems very … energetic.’
    ‘He is.’
    ‘How do you know him?’
    ‘He works at the university.’ Ruth doesn’t feel up to going into her whole history with Cathbad. How she first met him on the henge dig, how he reappeared when a child disappeared on the Saltmarsh. How he keeps appearing whenever her life is in danger. How he has appointed himself as unofficial guardian angel, not just to Ruth and Kate, but also to a markedly ungrateful DCI Harry Nelson.
    ‘He’s Kate’s godfather,’ she offers.
    ‘Oh.’ The mother looks relieved, as if Cathbad’s presence has at last been satisfactorily explained. Ruth doesn’t think it’s worth mentioning that Cathbad is also a druid. Thank God he’s not wearing his cloak.
    Cathbad proceeds to eat most of the party food and to initiate a game of throwing quavers in the air. Ruth looks at her watch. Five o’clock. Surely they’ll all be going home soon? She decides to open the wine.
    ‘Not for me,’ says Cathbad, who is performing conjuring tricks with scotch eggs. ‘I’m driving.’
    ‘You’re high on E numbers anyway.’
    ‘Just having fun.’
    ‘It was nice of you to come.’
    Cathbad grins. He has a rather piratical face, dark-skinned, with greying hair in a ponytail. ‘All part of my godfatherly duties. As you know, I’m always on the side of chaos. Tell me, Ruth …’ He lowers his voice. ‘What really happened at the museum yesterday?’
    Ruth is instantly on her guard. As an expert on forensic archaeology she has been involved in three police investigations. Each time, Cathbad managed to get involvedas well, once to devastating effect. She finds it suspicious that he already knows about the death at the museum.
    ‘How do you know about that?’ she asks, rather