Read The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths for Free Online Page B

sobbing hysterically. Now they are behaving as if they have just met at a cocktail party.
    ‘I’m Ruth. Thanks again for saving me.’
    He shrugs. ‘That’s OK. Look, we’d better get you home. My car’s over there.’
    In the Land Rover, a blessed oasis of warmth and safety, Ruth feels almost elated. She isn’t dead, she is about to be driven home in comfort and she has the torque in her pocket. She turns to David, who is coaxing the engine into life.
    ‘How did you know the way back? It was amazing, the way you twisted and turned across the marsh.’
    ‘I know this place like the back of my hand,’ says David, putting the car into gear. ‘It’s weird. There are wooden posts sunk into the ground. If you follow them, it leads you on a safe path through the marsh. I don’t know who put them there but, whoever did, they knew the land even better than I do.’
    Ruth stares at him. ‘Wooden posts …’ she whispers.
    Yes. They’re sunk deep into the ground, sometimes half submerged, but if you know where they are they’ll lead you through the treacherous ground, right out to sea.’
    Right out to sea. Right out to the henge. Ruth touches the freezer bag in her pocket but says nothing. Her mind is working furiously.
    ‘What were you doing out on a night like this anyway?’
    asks David as they drive along the Saltmarsh Road. The windscreen wipers are almost buckling under the weight of water.
     
    ‘We found something. Over by the car park. I wanted to take a second look. I know it was stupid.’
    ‘You found something? Something old? You’re an archaeologist, aren’t you?’
    ‘Yes. Some Iron Age bones. I think they might be linked to the henge. Do you remember, ten years ago, when we found the henge?’ She dimly remembers David watching the excavations that summer. How terrible that they haven’t spoken since.
    ‘Yes,’ he says slowly, “I remember. That chap with a pony tail, he was in charge wasn’t he? He was a good bloke. I had a lot of time for him.’
    ‘Yes, he is a good bloke.’ Funnily enough, there is something about David that reminds her of Erik. Perhaps it’s the eyes, used to scanning far horizons.
    ‘So, will there be all sorts of people here again? Druids and students and idiots with cameras?’
    Ruth hesitates. She can tell that David thinks the Saltmarsh should be left to him and the birds. How can she say that she hopes there will be a major excavation, almost certainly involving students and idiots with cameras, if not druids.
    ‘Not necessarily,’ she says at last. ‘It’s very low key at the moment.’
    David grunts. ‘The police were here the other day. What were they after?’
    Ruth is not sure how much she should say. Eventually she says, ‘It was because of the bones, but when they turned out to be prehistoric they lost interest.’
    They have reached Ruth’s blue gate now. David turns to her and smiles for the first time. He has very white teeth.
    How old is he she wonders. Forty? Fifty? Like Erik, he has an ageless quality.
    ‘But you,’ says David, ‘you’re more interested now, aren’t you?’
    Ruth grins. ‘Yes I am.’
    As she opens her front door, the phone is ringing. She knows, beyond any doubt, that it will be Erik.
    ‘Ruthie!’ Erik’s singsong voice echoes across the frozen miles from Norway. ‘What’s all this about a find?’
    ‘Oh Erik,’ says Ruth ecstatically, standing dripping onto the rug. “I think I’ve found your causeway.’
    It is dark but she is used to that. She stretches out a hand to see if she can touch the wall and encounters cold stone.
    No door. There is a trapdoor in the roof but she never knows when that will open. And sometimes it is worse when it does. No use screaming or crying; she has done this many times before and it never helps. Sometimes, though, she likes to shout just to hear her own voice. It sounds different somehow, like a stranger’s voice. Sometimes it’s almost company, this other voice. They have