The Janus Stone

The girls hardly look up as the cloaked figure passes through the sitting room. They are deeply involved in some rubbish involving American high school pupils, loud rock music and vampires. Nelson and Cathbad talk in the kitchen, amongst Michelle’s gleaming work surfaces and the cork-board groaning with invitations, shopping lists and school timetables. It seems almost impossible that evil should come here, into this sunny family room, but they both know that it has; they both feel its shadow.

‘I went to her cottage,’ Cathbad is saying. ‘It’s completely deserted.’

‘The university?’

‘No one there. Her office is locked.’

Nelson picks up Ruth’s phone. His was the last number she dialled. He looks at his own phone, six missed calls from Judy Johnson and, before that, one from Ruth Galloway.

It is a shock when his phone rings again. Judy Johnson.

‘Johnson. What is it?’

‘Roderick Spens sir. I think he was the father.’

‘What?’

‘Sister Immaculata. I thought the baby was Sir Christopher’s but now I think it was Roderick’s. He would have been about fourteen or fifteen when it was conceived. Sister Immaculata, Orla, would have been twenty.’

‘She had an affair with a fourteen-year-old?’

‘I think so. Sister Immaculata said he called her his Jocasta. Jocasta was the mother of Oedipus.’

‘Classical scholar, are you now?’

‘I looked it up.’

‘Have you confronted this Sister Immaculata?’

‘She’s too ill to speak to me.’

Nelson remembers Dr Patel saying that Sir Roderick’s mind was ‘remarkably sharp’. He remembers that, when Ruth texted to say that she was expecting a girl and he had rung her back, Sir Roderick had actually been in his office, dithering about and pretending to be a sweet little old man.

‘Are you still there, sir?’

‘Yes. Good work, Judy. Keep trying to see the nun. I’ll call you later.’

He clicks off the phone. Cathbad leans forward and Nelson sees not the fey Druid but the scientist, the man who would, incredibly enough, have made rather a good policeman.

‘Nelson,’ he says. ‘I think Max Grey has kidnapped Ruth.’

30th June Day of Aestas

I hadn’t expected this. Socrates may favour dialogue but I don’t. The last thing I needed was a chat with the infant. Apart from anything else, my time was limited. The maids would be back at midday and the mother could come in at any moment.

Then I had a brainwave. ‘Keep quiet,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

I bent over the bed. I had hoped she was asleep but she wasn’t. Her eyes were open and she looked at me.

She obeyed my order, even putting her finger to her lips. I’m obviously born to command. In fact, I think I’ve got quite a gift with children.

‘Lie still,’ I said. And I pulled the knife out of my pocket.

I raised the knife. She laughed. Sacrilege! I lowered the knife slightly and looked at her. Then she started to cry.

CHAPTER 32

When Ruth opens her eyes it is still dark. She is not scared at first. Instead she feels rather sleepy, soothing memories rocking to and fro in her head: picnicking with her mother and brother in Castle Wood, listening to the radio with her dad, floating in the sea, hair streaming back amongst the seaweed, sleeping on a beach in the sun. Even when she realises that she is, in fact, lying tied up on a narrow bed, she is not immediately filled with terror. The pleasant memories persist along with the gentle rocking motion. Then, as if in an effort to rouse her, the baby in her womb kicks. Ruth is suddenly wide awake, struggling to sit upright. Her hands are tied behind her back so this is a difficult feat, but she manages it. By her head there is a small round window but through it she can see only grey and green, merging and separating like colours in a kaleidoscope. The whole thing is so horribly like a dream that she actually closes her eyes again and wills herself to wake up. But when she opens her eyes it is all still there, the rope (now digging painfully into her wrists), the window onto nothingness, the strange seesawing movement.