She searches the diaries for Pippa and comes up with a couple of mentions. There’s the reference to her presence at the excavation and, a few days later:

Pippa came round. We both know it has to stop but I think neither of us wants to say the word. Pippa talked about leaving Clayton but I don’t think she ever will. She loves the lifestyle – the windmill, the parties, the adoring husband. She couldn’t survive on her own. Does she mean to throw in her lot with me? I’ve never encouraged her to think that we have a future together. I told her that after Karen left I vowed never to marry again. She accepted this at the time but she may think that she can get me to change my mind. I asked (again) if Clayton suspected. She said he didn’t, that he trusts me and would never think that I would betray him. Afterwards, I felt bad about this. Clayton has been good to me, according to his lights, and, whichever way you look at it, I am betraying him. Then I thought that it was odd that she had said that he trusted me, he didn’t think I would betray him. What about Pippa? What about his wife? Didn’t he trust her?

Ruth reads this with, once again, mixed feelings. She finds Dan’s tone a little hard – ‘I’ve never encouraged her to think that we have a future together’ – but at least he had felt some remorse about deceiving Clayton. The part about Pippa is interesting though. Did Clayton trust his wife? Did he know about the affair? And if he had found out, what would he think about the man who had betrayed him, the man he had welcomed into his department, into his life? Would Clayton have been angry? Angry enough to kill?

Did Dan end his relationship with Pippa? Ruth scans the rest of the diary but can find only one other reference to Pippa Henry. Dan is writing about the possibility of organising another dig to explore the area around the temple. He says that Guy and Elaine are keen to help but ‘Pippa thinks that Elaine is dangerous’. That’s all. Was Pippa just prejudiced against Elaine because she knew that she was Dan’s ex-lover or did she know something else about her? Ruth suspects that there are many words that could describe Elaine Morgan but dangerous? It’s an uncomfortable choice. Was Elaine dangerous? To herself? To Dan?

She looks at the time displayed on the side of the screen. Eight o’clock. Where is Cathbad? At least she hasn’t got Thing pacing around, driving her mad. She gets up and pours herself another glass of wine. They’re very small glasses, more like sherry glasses really. She checks her phone. No messages from the wandering warlock. She’s not worried about Cathbad – he’s a grown man and he’s got a bull terrier to protect him – but she does hope he hasn’t decided to stay the night at the cottage. She doesn’t want to be on her own, that’s all. Not with the texter still on the loose and the memory of the hooded figure on the riverbank so clear in her mind. She goes to the front door and looks out. It’s nearly dark outside and the street is deserted. No sign of Sandy’s mythical patrol car. The holiday-making crowds have all gone home. Ruth puts the chain on the front door and goes back into the sitting room.

There is nothing else in the diaries about Pippa or Elaine – or Ruth. The last entry is the one where Dan received a letter from the White Hand containing the names and addresses of his family. The last lines are: I rang Clayton and once again said that we should call the police. He refused. He’s shielding someone. But whom?

Who was Clayton Henry shielding? His wife? Himself? He was scared enough of the White Hand to sanction the removal of the bones to a private laboratory but why won’t he call the police when a member of his department is being threatened? It’s as if the White Hand are moving closer and closer. They write letters, they leave dead birds on Dan’s doorstep, a few days after this last diary entry his house was set on fire. Did they come closer still? Did Dan ever see the cloaked figure standing in the shadows outside his house? Did he ever look into the blackness where the face should be? If so, the diaries aren’t telling.

Ruth is really spooked now. Ladybird, ladybird. Fly away home. Well, she’ll be home tomorrow and she’ll never again go further north than the Wash. Should she check on Kate again? Calm down, she tells herself, it only half-past eight on a summer night. What’s going to happen to you? But, all the same, she thinks she’ll just draw the curtains.

She has just got to the window when the doorbell rings. Ruth smiles with relief. Typical of Cathbad to have forgotten his key. She approaches the door rehearsing her reproaches, just as if she really is his wife. What time do you call this? Why didn’t you ring? Don’t you know we’ve got an early start in the morning?

But it’s not Cathbad standing outside.

It’s the last of the triumvirate. It’s Elaine.

CHAPTER 29

‘I hope you don’t mind me calling round like this,’ says Elaine.

Ruth does mind but Elaine doesn’t actually seem dangerous or deranged. In fact, she looks rather forlorn, standing there in the twilight. In contrast to her glamour at Clayton’s party, she looks distinctly scruffy in faded jeans and an oversized jumper. She also looks very young.

‘Come in,’ says Ruth.

‘I’ve been driving round all day,’ says Elaine. ‘Trying to get up the courage to come and see you.’

Ruth takes Elaine into the sitting room; it seems more formal somehow than the kitchen. It is only when they are sitting on the sofa that Ruth notices her laptop on the coffee table, open at Dan’s diaries. Will Elaine look at the screen? Surely not, but even so Ruth wishes that she could move it. But how can she do this without drawing attention to it?

Elaine, though, seems hardly to notice anything. She sits, huddled in her big jumper, her knees pulled up to her chest.

‘I’m so frightened,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘I’ll make you a nice cup of tea,’ says Ruth, aware how ridiculous this sounds. She hurries out, casually sweeping up the laptop on the way. In the kitchen, she hides the computer in the larder and crashes about with mugs and biscuit tins. She wonders about offering Elaine a drink (she could certainly do with another herself), but, remembering Dan’s diary, thinks it’s safer to stick to tea. It looks as if their conversation is going to be sticky enough without alcohol.

When she goes back into the sitting room, Elaine is still in the same hunched position. Ruth puts a mug in front of her.

‘Here’s some tea. There are biscuits in the tin.’

‘Thank you,’ says Elaine tonelessly. ‘You’re very kind.’

Ruth waits, wrapping her hands round her mug and listening for noises from upstairs. But the only sound in the room is Elaine’s ragged breathing. Ruth wonders if she’s ill.

‘I’m so scared,’ says Elaine, again.

‘Why?’ asks Ruth.

Elaine looks at her. She has very pale blue eyes and blonde eyelashes. It gives her an exotic albino appearance.

‘Guy says you’ve found Daniel’s laptop.’

Ruth thought at the time that her story about the police having the laptop hadn’t convinced Guy. He must have guessed that she would have taken copies of the files. If so, he knows exactly how much she knows. She thinks of her computer, at this moment crammed into the larder next to the cornflakes and teething rusks. Luckily, Elaine doesn’t wait for an answer.

‘If you’ve read his diary, you’ll know all sorts of things about me. I thought I ought to come and set the record straight.’

‘You don’t owe me any explanations,’ says Ruth. She is dreading a heart-to-heart with Dan’s ex-girlfriend. Oh God, why doesn’t Cathbad come back?

Elaine ignores her. She is crying now but makes no attempt to stem the tears; they run, unchecked, down her pale cheeks.

‘I loved Daniel,’ she says. ‘I thought he loved me but he didn’t. I was convenient, I was next door. But when I started to get heavy he dumped me. He could be a cold-blooded bastard, you know.’