Barbara Erskine - Midnight is a Lonely Place

‘I can smell her scent again.’ It had been several minutes before it had been strong enough to register.

‘Yes.’ He had smelt the jasmine too. The tobacco had gone.

‘What shall we do?’

He turned, dusting ash and dried lichen from his hands. ‘What can we do? We wait.’

All the time it felt less strange. He floated up the beach above the water; he could no longer see the grave where he had lain so long. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now that his strength was growing. It was the man on the shore, the tall, dark-haired man, the poet, who had given him the energy. Silently, secretly he had drawn it from him as he stooped over the girl, and the man had not even noticed, preoccupied as he was with his own love and his own loss. His beautiful Claudia was here too. Near at hand. Always with him. Her hatred and her curse had given her strength and between them they were going to find justice at last.

Kate was clinging to Jon’s arm. Strong, independent, clever Kate, his sparring partner, Lady Muck, was clinging to the effete poet like a stupid bimbo. Greg, limping in front beside Constable Garth, glanced over his shoulder again, amazed by the sudden churning in his stomach. Why had she said it was all over between her and this man if she hadn’t meant it? He felt a sudden surge of white hot anger. She was beautiful. Beautiful like Claudia whom he had drawn over and over again without realising it when he was alone at the cottage.

He hunched forward again over his walking stick, trying to control his fury. The wind had dropped completely now, the storm gone as swiftly as it had come. He could feel a new softness in the air. It soothed him a little.

They were unprepared for the sight which greeted them at the cottage. Stopping at the edge of the wood, they peered at what had once been a pretty if overgrown garden and an idyllically sited house. The building stood in a pool of black water which reached halfway up the front door, almost, but not quite, as it had been in the painting which had so upset Kate. Beyond, towards the saltings the sea had encroached on every side, carving new channels through the sand, extending its domain. Already a flock of duck were paddling busily across the muddy water feeding greedily on the debris which floated in slowly spinning mats of vegetation.

‘The grave must be under all that.’ Greg said soberly. None of them had made a move.

‘So. Marcus has won,’ Kate was standing beside him now. ‘We’ll never know what happened.’

Bob Garth was worriedly rubbing the palms of his hands up and down the front of his jacket. ‘Where was the deceased when you left?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Was he on the ground floor?’

‘Oh, no!’ Kate buried her face in her hands.

‘I’ll come with you.’ Greg stepped forward. ‘Kate, you stay here. There’s no need for you to come in.’

The water was swirling around the top of their boots as the two men, followed somewhat reluctantly by Jon, made their way towards the front door. It was several minutes before they reappeared. All three looked grim.

‘The water has been in, I’m afraid, Miss Kennedy.’ Garth had recovered himself sufficiently by the time he reached her. ‘It’s made rather a mess in there. I think you should leave it for now. We’ll wait for the scene-of-crime officer and forensic to have a look round and then they can remove Mr Norcross’s body.’

She nodded. She had no intention of going in.

‘Shall we walk out to the grave? The water is not very deep out there and it’s receding fast.’ Greg had followed Garth to her side. His foot, numbed by the cold, ached dully.

She nodded reluctantly. Her own exhaustion had reached such a peak that she wondered if she would be able to walk another step. Gingerly, she stepped into the thick muddy water, feeling the soles of her boots sliding a little on what had once been a lawn. She glanced at the bush of daphne in the corner. The small pink flowers were still there, free now of ice and snow. On the topmost branch she could see a robin.

The tide was still high. They had no way of seeing where the grave was under the choppy, angry waves. Standing calf-deep in water, Kate turned slowly this way and that. The dunes had shifted. She was disorientated. There were no landmarks now to guide her, only a wide expanse of triumphant water.

Bob Garth shook his head. ‘If there were bodies in the grave there will need to be a coroners’ inquest,’ he said doubtfully.

‘Just what Marcus didn’t want.’ Greg was staring at the water.

Garth regarded him dubiously. He could feel it again out here; the strange certainty that all was not right. The feeling that if he were not careful he would hear or see something which he would rather not know about. ‘Do you really believe all that stuff about ghosts?’ he asked nervously.

Greg threw him a quizzical glance. ‘You would rather believe there was a homicidal maniac loose in the woods?’

‘We are looking for a murderer, Mr Lindsey.’ Garth kept his voice even. ‘I’ll reserve judgement on who he is, for now.’

Greg did not reply. He had felt it now. The lightest brush, tentative, questing, inside his head. Marcus was still searching for a new source of energy. Angrily, he shrugged it off.

They stood looking down at the water in silence. Greg glanced at Kate. She was frowning. Had she felt it too? She looked up abruptly and caught his eye. He could see the uncertainty there; uncertainty and fear.

‘Why don’t we go back to the farmhouse,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here, is there officer? We’ve got to wait for the water to go down.’

Garth nodded. ‘May as well.’ He appeared to notice Kate’s white face for the first time. ‘You’ve all had a bad couple of days out here. You wouldn’t think people could get cut off like this, not in the nineties, would you?’ He began to wade back towards the cottage, relieved to be moving. ‘I’m supposed to seal the door before we leave. If you three would like to walk on ahead, I’ll only be a minute.’

Kate hauled herself in beside Jon and leaned back, closing her eyes. He touched her hand. ‘It’ll soon be over.’

She nodded.

‘What happened to the book? It’s not still in there?’

She gave a weary smile. ‘I’ve got the disk safely. I expect my notes are all right. I left them on the table. Oh, Jon.’ With something like a sob she leaned towards him, her head on his shoulder. He put his arm round her, aware again of Greg’s baleful glance as he turned to look at them. She gave Greg a weak smile. ‘What’s going to happen?’

‘Nothing. The police enquiries will no doubt draw a blank and that will be that. No one will ever mention Alison’s part in this, whatever it was. No one will ever know what happened for sure.’

‘Except us.’ It was a whisper.

‘Except us.’

‘And Marcus will rest in peace now the grave has gone.’

Greg gave a short barking laugh. ‘You think so?’

‘Don’t you?’ Kate gripped Jon’s hand tightly.

‘No. I don’t. He’s still here. I felt him out there.’ Greg stopped and closed his eyes with a sigh. Oh yes, he was still there. And so was she. Somewhere. And they were both hunting; hunting for allies, for power, for the life force of a living being to sustain their hatred. The fact that the grave had disappeared meant nothing. He opened his eyes, staring back mutely at the cottage where Bob Garth was screwing a staple and hasp to the front door. There would be no stopping it now. Battle was joined. The question was, whether he was going to fight them, to stand back and watch, or whether he was going to join in. Behind him, Jon had put his arm around Kate. Did they think he couldn’t see them? He pulled up his collar and folded his arms. It didn’t matter. When it came to rage and jealousy he had a perfect master in Marcus.

Under the water the sand swirled restlessly, turning the encroaching sea the colour of the soil it invaded. The fine suspension danced to the rhythm of the waves, erasing, rearranging, sculpting a new landscape beneath the water. The coast was used to this. The sea was its enemy, ever present, ever waiting, encroaching sometimes millimetres at a time, creeping in snail-like in the soft dawn which succeeded each storm, sometimes leaping angrily on its prey and dragging it out, dismembered, to deposit its spoils on another shore.

As the water seeped deep into the clay, probing, sucking, stirring, the final shreds of leathered skin began to dissolve. Nearby, the golden torc settled more deeply into the silt and came to rest at last upon the tooth of a mammoth, a much earlier victim of the mud of the marsh.

Nion was searching now. Lost. Claudia had gone, following the people and the energy they provided. The beach was deserted. He was lonely again. He felt his anger mount. Was he tied to this place after all? Tied for all eternity? Around him the sea had grown gentle; the water had ceased to attack the land; now it caressed, a lover who had made a long-planned conquest. He had seen them: the woman and the men. The two of them loved her. He had seen the crackle of their hostility, felt its power. So, history repeats itself.

Amused, he waited. They had guessed what had happened here. They knew the Roman’s secret. They hated him, but they feared him too. He was powerful, Marcus Severus Secundus. Powerful and clever, for all his craven terror when he had faced at last the moment of his death.

Anne had made soup when they returned. Cold and shaken they sat around the table gratefully: the taxi driver, the policeman, the poet, the painter, the psychologist and the author. On the sofa Paddy slept on. He had woken once and sat up, putting his head in his hands and rubbing his face. ‘Is it true, about Dad? I didn’t dream it?’ He had looked up pleadingly at Anne.