The Janus Stone

Ruth wanders away. She feels tired and wishes there was somewhere to sit down. Another five months of this! At least the baby seems to have suffered no adverse effects from that terrible night on the Lady Annabelle. Ruth has had a checkup and another scan and the baby was fine, dancing happily in the grey clouds of Ruth’s womb. ‘A large baby,’ the technician had said. Typical. Nelson gets her pregnant with a giant baby and then buggers off. She will definitely insist that she supports Arsenal.

Ruth herself has recovered rather more slowly. She still can’t shake the idea that she killed Roderick Spens. In her dreams, she sees herself pulling the trigger and Roderick’s face disintegrating in a horrific shower of blood and bone. The actual events, with Roderick falling almost in slow motion, the wooden rail splintering and the long wait before the body hit the water, seem less real than the nightmare. She didn’t kill him but she wanted to. And this, she knows, is the reality. She knows that she would have killed a man to save herself and to save her baby.

‘Ruth!’ She looks up to see Max approaching. So far he has been circulating, showing the ability to schmooze required of any successful archaeologist (one reason, perhaps, why Ruth will never reach the top in the profession). He has chatted heartily with Phil, hand in hand with a glowing Shona (the deadline of the final examiners’ meeting is still a month away), grasped the hands of all the volunteers and spent an intense fifteen minutes with the local press. He will go far, there’s no doubt about it.

Ruth has been happy to watch Max from a distance. The last thing she wants is to talk to the press – or to Phil. Her own relationship with Max, the bond she feels with him, has been strengthened by Max’s appearance on that fateful night. It was Max who turned up in the police car to tell Ruth that he, Cathbad and Nelson had been following her in an electric boat. He told her about Nelson’s kamikaze dive into the water. ‘When he thought you were hurt, he just went crazy.’ They had looked at each other and Ruth knew that Max knew that Nelson was the father of her baby. Neither of them said anything though. Max held Ruth’s hand all the way to the hospital.

Now he is smiling. The dig has been successful. He will be going back to Sussex to write up the results. Even the Lady Annabelle has been saved and Edward has offered him the use of the boat whenever he wants. Somehow he doesn’t think Ruth will be joining him on board.

‘It’s a great party,’ says Ruth.

‘You know what party animals archaeologists are.’

Ruth looks over to where two earnest women are discussing Roman pottery, and smiles.

‘Let me know when the hard drugs start circulating.’

‘I’ve got something to show you,’ says Max.

Ruth looks at him warily. She feels that she has had enough surprises to last her a lifetime. But Max is smiling and the party is going on all round them. Surely the underworld is far away.

Max takes her hand and leads her to his car. The front window is slightly open and on the back seat is a large black dog. When the dog sees them it goes mad with delight, wagging its entire back end. It is a slim, slinky animal with a whiskery, smiling face. Ruth finds herself smiling back.

‘Do you remember the breathing you heard on the site? I said I thought it might be a dog?’ asks Max, leaning in to pat the now delirious dog. ‘Well, this is her. She’s a stray, been hanging round the site for weeks, so I thought I’d take her in.’

‘A dog is for life…’ says Ruth, pointing to the car sticker.

‘Well, exactly. And I think I need some company.’ Max’s face darkens momentarily but lightens when the dog leaps through the window and flings herself on him.

‘She wants to join the party,’ says Ruth, who is thinking that the dog is more gregarious than she is. A party animal.

‘I’d better put her on the lead,’ says Max. ‘She might get overexcited with so many people about.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Claudia.’ Max grins. ‘It’s a suitably Roman name and she does have claws, as I know to my cost.’

Ruth pats the leaping, wriggling dog. ‘Will you have room for her in Brighton?’

‘Yes, I’ve got a garden and I’m looking forward to long walks on the seafront. It’ll keep me fit.’

He looks pretty fit already but Ruth does not say this. Max hands her Claudia’s lead (slightly to her alarm) and rustles around in the boot of the Range Rover.

‘I’ve got something for you.’

He emerges with a carrier bag which he hands to Ruth.

‘What…?’

‘Look inside.’

Ruth looks and sees another dog. A stuffed one this time, rather battered by the years, but still smiling.

‘Elizabeth’s dog,’ says Max, rather thickly. ‘She called it Wolfie. I thought your baby should have it. It’s ridiculous me keeping it, after all.’

Ruth looks from the stuffed dog to Max, holding Claudia on the lead, and her eyes suddenly fill with tears.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’m very honoured.’