Ruth Galloway, Head of Forensic Archaeology, is already half way to the door of her office in the University of North Norfolk when her desk phone rings, a short, sharp, insistent ring. The archaeologist stops, and slowly turns, staring at the phone, hoping her will alone has the power to silence it.
When the phone rings for a second time, she sighs heavily, striding back to her desk, where she picks up the receiver. "Doctor Galloway's office," she answers wearily, hoping to invoke guilt in the caller.
She expects the caller to be Nelson, crying off his afternoon with Kate. He's meant to be collecting Kate from Sandra's, while she - Ruth - either works late, or spends a couple of quiet hours reacquainting herself with the state of being single and childless. The truth is that Ruth is single, but she is not, and never will again be childless, and nor would she want to be. Kate is a joy and a challenge, and she can also be incredibly stubborn and single-minded, a characteristic she clearly inherits from her father.
Ruth waits for Nelson to offer his excuse - a difficult case, an interview with a suspect, a last minute urgent trip to the garden centre with Michelle, although there's no reason Kate couldn't accompany them to the garden centre. Nelson finds the garden centre boring, but he accompanies Michelle because it makes her happy. Ruth believes that Michelle insists Nelson accompany her to the garden centre to punish him for having had a child with another woman ... a woman who is neither slim, fit, nor beautiful, and whose hair is always a mess, chiefly because she often has to work outside in the elements. Michelle, on the other hand, is everything Ruth is not, including married to Nelson.
"Doctor Galloway?" a woman's voice is saying. "Is that Doctor Galloway?"
"Speaking," Ruth says quickly, trying to place the voice, and failing.
"I don't know if you'll remember me. My name is Ruth Evershed. Eighteen months ago, Harry Pearce and I -"
"St David's Church. The body of the Russian spy," Ruth says quickly, remembering the visit of the two Mi5 spies - the serious and quiet man, and the gentle and kind woman, and how, when she wasn't looking, he would watch the kind woman, his features softening the longer he looked at her. Ruth and Harry. Of course she remembers them. She wonders have they managed to find their way to one another, or are they like her and Nelson, forever on the cusp of something, before sliding back into their familiar roles, the roles fate has carved out for them.
"I ... I don't know how to say this, but .." and Ruth Evershed rattles off an improbable tale of finding human remains in the tunnel just outside the walls of Pickersgill House. Pickersgill House is close to the coast, and barely a stone's throw from St David's Church, where the remains of the young Russian spy had been buried, only to be uncovered by a group of her archaeology students, less than two years after the young Russian's death.
"Have you moved anything?" asks Ruth Galloway.
"Of course not. I took photos with my phone's camera. If you like I can send them to you."
"Thank you. That would help." and she rattles off her mobile phone number to the other Ruth, the analyst from the Home Office.
It appears that she will be working late. Perhaps she should warn Nelson. Perhaps later. She'll wait to see what Ruth Evershed has found in the tunnel beside Pickersgill House.
Nelson has tried calling Michelle, but her phone is turned off. Either she is still at work, or at the gym. Michelle exercises enough for them both, so by his logic, he has no need to exercise, which is fine by him. He speeds through King's Lynn on his way to pick up Katie. While he's not running late, he likes driving fast. Speeding is one of life's simpler pleasures, and just because it's against the law, he's not about to give it up. He believes that being a policeman should have perks, and his chosen perk is to drive at whatever speed he wishes, regardless of the speed limit. While he's had some close shaves, he's never had a serious accident, and his speeding has never hurt anyone.
Sandra, Katie's babysitter - or should it be child minder? - usually hears Nelson's Mercedes take the corner at the end of the street, so by the time he rings the doorbell Katie is packed and ready.
"Hi, Dad," Katie says, offering Nelson direct eye contact. There is nothing shy or retiring about Katie, and Nelson likes that about her.
"Where would you like to go now?" he asks, once he's belted her into her car seat.
"I'd like a swing," she says loudly, "and ice cream." At the words, `ice cream', Katie raises her voice several decibels, but Nelson doesn't mind. Nelson adores his daughters, all three of them, and even at almost five years of age, Katie already has him wrapped around all ten of his fingers.
It is the end of a long and frustrating day, and Harry Pearce has taken an early minute, encouraged by Erin, his Section Chief, who had intimated that with Ruth already in Norfolk, he really should join her. Harry thinks his team members should keep any opinions about his private life to themselves, although he is prepared to admit that Erin is right. He misses Ruth at home, as well as the two or three times a week she visits Thames House, so even before he has finished eating the Indian takeaway he'd picked up on his way home from work, he has decided he needs to join Ruth in Norfolk. Were he to leave it for even another day, he will miss her, and Ruth is likely to be annoyed with him for putting work before her. Having made that same choice continually throughout his marriage to Jane, one would think he'd have learned his lesson.
So, deciding to surprise Ruth in the morning, he sends a quick message to Erin, and then turns off his phone. He doesn't wish to be speaking with anyone, even Ruth. He plans to leave London early the next morning, hopefully reaching Pickersgill House by breakfast. He'll surprise her, and with any luck, Ruth will be pleased to see him.
Norfolk - Tuesday morning, early:
Ruth Evershed is woken early by a sound from outside the house. She is sure she'd heard a vehicle. She'd spent a restless night in the turret room, a small woman alone in a very large bed. That would almost qualify as a title to a novel, or an episode of `Midsomer Murders' - A Small Woman Alone In A Very Large Bed. She must remember to share that one with Harry ... if she's ever to see him again this side of Christmas.
When she hears footsteps on the stone pathway at the front of the house, she grabs her dressing gown, throwing it over her flannel pyjamas, before crossing the floor to the window which overlooks the front yard. There, standing alone, staring up at the house, is a man with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. He wears pale blue jeans with dark blue trainers, over which he wears a flowing purple cloak. Ruth rubs her palms over her eyes, and again looks down at the front yard. He is still there, and he has seen her. He smiles and waves, so Ruth steps away from the window. This is Norfolk, after all. In Norfolk there are tunnels and turret rooms, bones and burials, mists and marshes, abandoned air fields, and crypts in ancient churches. Why not a man in a purple cloak?
Ruth grabs her phone from beside the bed. It's only 7.15 am. What manner of person would be wandering country lanes, dressed in a purple cloak? Ruth knows only one local person well enough to call them at this hour about the apparition outside her window.
"Dr Galloway?"
"Ruth. Please call me Ruth."
"Ruth, I'm so sorry to call you at this hour .."
"I needed to get up for my daughter." She doesn't, but she quite likes this quiet and complex Mi5 analyst, who has been so spooked by finding skeletal bones in the tunnel beside Pickersgill House.
"I'm sorry if this sounds strange, but there's a man in my front yard. He has long, greying hair -"
"Is he wearing a purple cloak?"
"How did you know?"
"Are you Cathbad?" Ruth asks, having thrown on jeans and a t shirt and warm jumper, over which she wears a thick, knee-length, dark green anorak. While the house is warm, it's chilly outside, although the man in the purple cloak appears oblivious to the cold, or to the odd spectacle he makes.
Ruth Galloway had assured Ruth that Cathbad is a friend of hers, and is harmless. She'd promised to call him, asking him to be sensitive to the hour, and the fact that he has turned up at the rental home of a woman on her own.
"I'm sorry to have frightened you," he says warily, before taking a few steps towards her, his hand outstretched. He is relieved when Ruth shakes his hand, and smiles. It's a watery, forced smile, but a smile all the same. He drops her hand, watching her closely. "You're sad," he says gently, "and you're Venus-ruled. A Libran or a Taurus. I lean towards Taurus. Either that, or Venus was well aspected at the time of your birth." Seeing Ruth take a step back, he continues. "But your heart is heavy right now ... isn't it?"
"Dr Galloway tells me you're her friend. I'm Ruth Evershed."
Cathbad nods, saying, "I know." Her very best feature is her striking blue eyes, which sparkle when she smiles. "There are those who find my insights dangerous. My real name is Michael Malone, and I work in the Science Department at the University of North Norfolk. I'm due at work soon, so I thought I'd ... get a sense of the body."
Again Ruth smiles. The Other Ruth had forewarned her of Cathbad's unique ability to sense the unseen. "I take it you're not here to inspect the bones."
"No, but I'd quite like to take a wander along the side of the house. Down there," he says, pointing towards the southern side of the house, where the tunnel joins the cellar.
They stroll together across the grass, and as they draw close to the spot above where the tunnel ends, Cathbad hurries ahead of Ruth, his cloak swirling around his ankles. He stops in a spot which she suspects is directly above the remains, then closes his eyes, flattening his palms, facing them downwards.
"She's right here," he says, "isn't she?"
"She?"
Cathbad opens his eyes, and nods. "She."
"So you know who she is .. was?"
"I can feel her energy, but I don't know the name she used while in physical form. She's telling me she was a tree in a former life." Ruth is about to laugh, until she realises that this man is completely serious. "She's quite .. upset," he continues. "They cut off her head, and it is elsewhere. She can't rest until her head is found."
Ruth thinks he talks rubbish, but she is also intrigued by his theory about the head. There was no sign of a skull on the remains in the tunnel. For one mad moment, she considers the likelihood that Cathbad had killed this woman, but then discards that idea. The bones are not ancient, but nor are they recent. Ruth Galloway has suggested that the skeletal remains may be as old as sixty to one hundred years.
Suddenly, Cathbad begins walking back the way they'd come, so Ruth follows him to a battered car, which he'd parked a little way along the lane. "Thank you for allowing me to read the dead," he says formally. "Most people are closed ... here," he says, placing a hand over his heart, "but not you. You are open, but your heart is hurting right now," and he turns to get into the car, before driving away. Ruth lifts her hand in a half-hearted wave, noticing the flash of purple at the bottom of the driver's side door, where he'd caught his cloak in the car door.
DCI Harry Nelson, or Nelson, as he prefers to be called, really should be at the eight o'clock team meeting, but having received a quick phone call the evening before from Ruth Galloway, the mother of his four-year-old daughter, he'd rather take a drive to Pickersgill House, where he can inspect some old bones. Put bluntly, he'd rather spend a half hour or so with Ruth, than an hour with his team. He can see his team any time.
"Alright, Harry?" his wife, Michelle says, primped and pretty, and ready for her day at the hairdressing salon she manages.
"Champion," he says, smiling up at her. For him, breakfast is usually a quick cup of coffee, and a slice of toast. This morning, a coffee is all he has time for, especially if he's to catch Ruth at Pickersgill House.
Nelson drives at speed along the narrow lane. He's sure he can see Ruth's car just ahead of him, being driven sensibly, commensurate with her role as the mother of a young child ... his young child. Just as he'd planned, he arrives at the house just as Ruth is climbing from her car. When she sees it is him, she nods, but doesn't smile.
"Alright?" he says, joining her as she examines the bizarre facade of Pickersgill House.
"Of course I am," she says, somewhat curtly.
"And Katie?"
"When I last saw Kate, around ..." and Ruth checks her watch, "eighteen minutes ago, she was very much the same as she was when you handed her back to me yesterday."
"Not too much sugar, then?" he asks hopefully. Since Katie had eaten all her ice cream, and quite a lot of his, he'd been worried she'd not sleep, due to sugar overload, and then Ruth would be annoyed with him. It appears she's annoyed with him anyway.
"She slept like the dead." Ruth looks away from him, and shakes her head. "Sorry, bad analogy."
They stroll together towards the door at the side, and nothing more is said. Ruth knows she shouldn't take out her irritation on Nelson, but sometimes the situation they share - where he is married to Michelle, while she has to bring up their daughter alone - overwhelms her with its inequity. There is no love of her life sharing her house and her bed. How can there be when he's married to someone else?
They have almost reached the door when she feels Nelson's fingers grab hers, squeezing them lightly. Needing his support at that moment, Ruth squeezes his fingers in return. She feels him pulling on her hand, turning her to face him. When she looks up into his dark eyes she sees a reflection of the distress she feels.
"I wish things were different, too," he says gently.
"But they're not," she replies, equally as gently. "They're the way they are."
Nelson is about to say more when the door opens, and Ruth Evershed stands there, dressed in jeans and a dark blue jumper. Nelson quickly drops Ruth's hand.
"Ruth ... Nelson," Ruth says, "come in. Our skeleton awaits."
Ruth Evershed holds the torch, while Nelson tries to not get in either woman's way; due to his height, he sits on one of the steps leading from the cellar to the tunnel. He's comfortable around his Ruth, as he likes to think of her, but a woman spook who could pass for a librarian ... you can't get much scarier than that.
"Harry not with you this time?" he asks, knowing his Ruth will be trying to work out the age and time and date to the nearest full moon of the bones half covered by the mud left behind by the tide.
"He's due later this week. He's been held up by work."
"I'm not surprised," Nelson adds, knowing that terrorism seems to have found a permanent place on the streets of London.
"I was right," Ruth Galloway says, standing upright, rubbing the end of her nose with the back of her gloved hand. She looks up at Nelson, and then to where Ruth has turned the torch beam downwards in an attempt to not blind anyone.
"What is it?" Nelson asks, very nearly calling her `love'.
"The skeleton is female, and there's a high probability she's given birth, but the remains will have to be removed and taken to the lab before I can say much more. I suspect that this was not her first burial place."
"Because she's lying straight?" Ruth Evershed suggests.
"And because her skull apears to be missing."
"Might they have lain her out like this, before removing her head?" Ruth can barely believe she's having this conversation.
But before Ruth Galloway has a chance to reply, the three of them turn towards the door, having heard a voice calling. "Ruth? Where are you? You left the bloody front door open."
Harry? It's Harry. Ruth hands the torch to Nelson, brushing past him to greet the man who is shouting to her from the top of the cellar stairs.