Cathbad pushes open the door. The lamp has gone out but the moon rides out from behind the clouds, illuminating brick walls, a pile of half-chopped logs and Pendragon’s body hanging from a beam.

Thing starts to howl.

CHAPTER 21

Cathbad backs away. For a second, he just wants to shut the door and pretend that he hasn’t seen the grotesque figure swinging to and fro. It is only the sound of Thing’s desolate howling that brings him to his senses.

‘It’s OK, boy,’ he says, ridiculously, to the dog. Because, if anything is clear, it’s that things are very much not OK.

He approaches the swinging body. Logs lie scattered on the floor. Presumably Pendragon stood on this pile before kicking it away. There seems to be nothing else to stand on. Cathbad takes out his phone and calls for an ambulance while, at the same time, searching for a ladder, a chair, anything. Eventually, he finds an old water butt and pulls it into the shed. The wood is rotten but he manages to balance on the reinforced rim. He takes a sharp knife from his pocket (the possession of which, as Nelson could inform him, renders him liable to a lengthy jail sentence) and cuts through the rope suspending Pendragon from the ceiling. He had intended to catch the body but Pendragon is a big man and his weight, combined with the perilous perch, is enough to send Cathbad crashing to the floor. Cathbad actually falls onto his friend’s body, but even as he scrambles to his feet and starts cutting the rope around Pendragon’s neck, he knows it’s too late. The wizard is dead: Cathbad knew that as soon as he opened the door.

When the paramedics arrive, they find Cathbad kneeling by his friend’s body, the dog at his side. They are very kind and professional, actually covering Cathbad with one of those foil blankets favoured by marathon runners. Pendragon is lifted onto a stretcher and carried into the ambulance which is parked by the gate, its headlights illuminating the rain. They ask if Cathbad wants to accompany them but he thinks that he ought to stay with Thing. ‘We’ll have to inform the police,’ they say, almost sympathetically. Cathbad nods and says that he understands. He has already called the only policeman who matters.

*

Nelson arrives to find Cathbad sitting by the fireplace with Thing on his lap. There is no fire in the grate and the room is freezing. Dream-catchers swing crazily in the draft from the open front door.

‘Is he dead?’ he asks.

‘Yes. The ambulance took him away.’

‘And you found him hanging in a shed at the end of the drive?’

‘Yes. He must have been there all day.’

Nelson rubs his eyes, digesting this. Then he asks, ‘Have you any idea why he did it?’

Cathbad smiles sadly. ‘I’ve got lots of ideas, none of them very edifying. I found a room upstairs with a computer in it.’

‘A computer? I thought this place was still in the Dark Ages.’

‘I think that’s what Pendragon wanted us to think. Anyway, there’s lots on the computer about the White Hand.’

‘Think they had something to do with this?’

‘I don’t know. I only know that he was scared of something and now he’s dead.’

‘It’s enough to be going on with,’ agrees Nelson. ‘I’d better tell Sandy and he can come and pick it up. He’d never forgive me if the local boys got their hands on it. Where is this hidden room?’

Cathbad shows him but he doesn’t show him the memory stick, which is in his pocket next to the illegal knife. He doesn’t know why he is keeping quiet about the find. After all, he told Ruth to tell Nelson about the computer. It’s just that he has a very strong feeling that Ruth ought to see the contents first. And, after all, his instincts have already been proved right once that day.

Nelson looks all round the secret room but is careful not to touch anything. Then he announces that he is going to drive Cathbad back to Lytham. Cathbad doesn’t demur and Nelson, in his turn, says nothing about Thing, who climbs happily into the back seat and breathes down Nelson’s neck all the way home.

*

Ruth is asleep on the sofa when Cathbad gets in. He meant to wake her gently but Thing bounds over and licks her face briskly.

‘What?’ Ruth sits up immediately, rubbing her cheek.

‘Sorry,’ says Cathbad. ‘I brought Thing back with me.’

‘So I see. Why?’

Cathbad explains about Pendragon and about the hidden room and the computer. By now, dawn is breaking and a pink light filters through the curtains. Cathbad makes tea and they sit on the sofa with the dog between them.

‘So you say Dan’s files are all on this memory stick,’ says Ruth.

‘I think so.’

‘Where is it? Did you give it to the police?’

In answer, Cathbad holds out his hand. On his palm is a little silver object shaped like a bullet.

‘Shall I have a look?’ says Ruth, almost in a whisper.

‘I think that’s what he would have wanted,’ says Cathbad seriously.

Ruth puts the memory stick into her laptop and immediately two files pop up. One is called archaeology and this Ruth resolves to explore in depth. The other is titled, simply, ‘Days’. Ruth clicks onto it:

9 May 2010

I’ve found him. I know it’s him. As soon as we moved that last stone and I saw his face, still with the gold circlet around his head, I knew. Guy said, ‘Is there anything inside?’ and I said, ‘It’s Him.’ Stupid, I know, and, afterwards Elaine teased me about it, saying that I was ‘more Martha than Arthur’. Her latest thing is implying that I’m gay, which doesn’t bother me at all. Let her think I am gay if that makes it easier for her.

It was getting dark by the time we had recorded the sarcophagus and skeleton and Clayton suggested that we secure the site and leave the actual excavation until tomorrow. He was right but I hated to leave Arthur there. It was a mild night and we put an awning over him but even so … It didn’t seem right to treat a king that way. God, Elaine is right. I am getting weird. None of us mentioned the White Hand but Clayton suggested, casually, that we took turns to guard the bones. He volunteered to watch until midnight, then I am going to relieve him. Sounds crazy, I know, but I am looking forward to going back and paying my homage to the Raven King.

‘It’s a diary,’ Ruth says.

CHAPTER 22

Both are expecting a summons from Sandy and it comes at nine o’clock in the form of a marked police car at their front door.

‘The neighbours will love this,’ says Ruth, but for once the street is deserted. It’s Friday morning, maybe everyone has gone away for a long weekend. A polite policeman passes on a message from DCI Macleod requesting their presence at the police station.

‘What about my daughter?’ says Ruth. Kate is hiding behind her, staring open-mouthed at the uniformed figures.

‘Bring her too. DCI Macleod said he’d lay on breakfast.’

‘And the dog?’ asks Cathbad.

The policeman looks dubiously at Thing, who puts his head on one side and tries to look sweet.

‘Can’t you leave him here?’

‘It’s a rented house. I don’t like to.’

‘Oh, all right. Bring him too.’

Kate enjoys the drive into Blackpool, making siren noises and waving excitedly at other motorists. Ruth and Cathbad sit in silence. Ruth suddenly feels very tired, not able to cope with Nelson and the famous Sandy Macleod, who is probably Nelson cubed. She wants to sit quietly and read Dan’s diaries. The description of finding King Arthur’s body had moved her. She remembers that thrill of discovery so well. Dan had sounded so happy but there had been ominous overtones too, the mention of the White Hand, of Elaine’s hostility. Less than a month after writing that diary entry, Dan was dead.

At first sight, Sandy Macleod lives up to Ruth’s mental image of ‘Nelson cubed’. He is a large man, not as tall as Nelson but much heavier. His shirt strains across his stomach and the chair creaks when he sits down. His face is pouchy and almost comically mournful, with turned-down eyes and mouth, like one of those cartoons of a smiley face turned upside down. There is something cartoonish about him altogether, from the broad Lancashire accent to the bustling walk with splayed-out feet. But something in his eyes warns Ruth not to underestimate him. He gives her a sharp look too.