The Janus Stone

The weather stays bright all the way to Swaffham but as Ruth pulls off the A47 (carefully mirror-signal-manoeuvring) dark clouds are scudding across the sky. As she parks on the grass at the foot of the hill, fat raindrops are beginning to fall. She watches as the students run laughing down the slope, holding coats and tarpaulins over their heads. Most disappear into the pub, some bundle into dilapidated cars and drive off in a blur of exhaust smoke. Soon Ruth’s is the only vehicle parked at the bottom of the mound.

‘Is it important, Harry? Otherwise one does rather like leave weekends free for the family.’

‘Oh it’s important, Mr Spens,’ says Nelson grimly. He decides to do away with any introductory niceties. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that your family used to live on Woolmarket Street?’

A slight pause. ‘I assumed you knew.’

‘Never assume, Mr Spens. So, even when a body was discovered on the site, you didn’t think it was worth mentioning that the house was once your family home?’

‘I never lived there. The house and land was leased to the diocese in 1960.’

‘But you still owned it?’

‘Yes. But you were interested in the years when it was a children’s home. The Spens family had nothing to do with the house then.’

‘And now we’re interested in the Spens years,’ says Nelson smoothly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve got evidence that the body was that of a child born in the early to mid-fifties. When would be a good time for me to pop over?’

The rain seems to be slowing down. Ruth, who feels slightly sick after the car journey, decides to take a short walk after all. Just up to the site and back. She gets out of the car, pulling on her yellow sou’wester.

The climb up the hill is hard going and she finds herself staring down at the grass, willing her feet to keep moving. When she gets to the top and looks around her, she realises that the sky is now completely black. Far off, she hears the first faint rumble of thunder.

As she heads towards the main trench she thinks she sees something out of the corner of her eye. She whirls round but there is nothing, just the wind blowing across the coarse grass. But Ruth is sure she saw something – a black shape skirting around the edge of the site. An animal maybe but, for some reason, Ruth feels shaken. She hears Max’s voice. She is meant to haunt crossroads, crossing places, accompanied by her ghost dogs.

Don’t be ridiculous, she tells herself. Hecate’s hounds are hardly going to be lying in wait for you. It was probably a fox or a cat. But, nevertheless, she has a strong urge to go back to her car and drive as far away from the site as she can. It is only the thought of climbing all the way up the hill for nothing that stops her. She’ll just have a quick look in the main trench and go back. Just to say that she’s done something.

The sky murmurs again. Pulling her hood further over her head, Ruth lowers herself into the trench.

Ruth stumbles slightly and almost falls onto the packed earth. Suddenly lightning splits open the sky. Ruth shuts her eyes. When she opens them again, there is a dead baby at her feet.

20th June Festival for Summanus

Last night I had a terrible dream – a snake-faced woman, a man with two faces, a child thrown into the furnace, its flesh melting off, like a plastic doll that has fallen in the fire. I woke drenched in sweat but I was too scared to go back to sleep. I stayed awake, reading Pliny and waiting for dawn to break. Why am I troubled in this way? I have made all the right sacrifices yet it is almost as if the gods are angry.

The weather has got warmer. Yesterday Susan was working in the garden with her sleeves rolled up. I could see her arms, speckled like hens’ eggs, covered with surprisingly thick blonde hairs. I had to reprimand her, of course. I am the Master.

I am tired. Sometimes I just want to lie down and sleep and forget everything. By a sleep to say we end the heartache… Hamlet Act 3, scene 1. To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream.

Ay, there’s the rub.

CHAPTER 19