She tiptoed through his garden and glanced back to check that he hadn’t arrived and gone in through the front door, not realising that she was there. But no, the place was still deserted. Then she spotted a group of people walking up across the lawns towards the barns. She frowned. There were a lot of them – a couple of dozen or so. They paused outside Steve and Rosemary’s, then they began to break up. Most were finding their way back to the cars which had been parked outside The Summer Barn; some were heading round the back towards the garage area, and four, no, five of them were heading towards the Lloyds’. She screwed up her eyes. Yes, Zoë and Ken were there and the other couple staying with them, and another man. She ran forward a few steps. It was Leo.
‘Hello, Jade.’ Amanda saw her first. ‘Are you going to join us for lunch?’ She glanced at Zoë. ‘Does she know what’s happened?’ she mouthed.
Zoë shrugged. ‘Leo, will you stay? Please. Tell Jade that Jackson has had to go away.’
It seemed wrong to resume their plans, to activate the smouldering barbecue, to fetch the food from the fridge and bring out the glasses, but all the other participants in the morning’s activities had gone now and what else was there to do? Rosemary had been stabilised at the scene of the accident and flown to hospital. Steve and Bill Turtill, who had driven back from a meeting with his solicitor, had followed in a police car. Jackson had been arrested and that meant that Jade was, technically at least, alone. Leo sat with her on the wall at the edge of the terrace and spoke to her quietly. ‘We’ve rung your mum and dad, Jade. They will be here soon.’
Her face was white and pinched and she was strangely silent. ‘I saw the helicopter. It went right over The Old Forge,’ she said at last. ‘Will Rosemary die?’
‘We hope not.’ He shook his head. ‘She has had a very bad head injury but she was breathing again when they took her to hospital.’
‘And Jackson did it?’
‘He didn’t mean to, Jade. He wanted to scare them, that’s all.’
‘He’ll go to prison, won’t he?’ She seemed matter-of-fact about it rather than worried.
‘I don’t know. It was an accident, but he shouldn’t have been driving when he had been drinking.’
‘It was only a tractor.’
‘A tractor is a very dangerous thing if you’re not in proper control of it.’ He looked up as John approached with a glass of Pimm’s and another of squash for Jade. John sat on the wall next to him. ‘Did you hear what Rosemary said when they put her in the ’copter?’ he murmured.
Leo shook his head. ‘I thought she was out cold.’
‘She was, but she seemed to be trying to say something about you.’
‘Me?’
‘You would know what to do with the sword.’
‘Sword?’
John nodded. ‘Zoë, you heard her, didn’t you?’
Zoë glanced at Ken and then came over. ‘She was delirious, John. I don’t think it meant anything. But yes, she said Leo several times and what sounded like sword.’ She shivered. ‘I wish someone would let us know how she is.’
‘Bill is going to ring Penny when he hears and she will tell us.’ Ken had followed Zoë over. He glared at Leo. ‘I gather you spent the night with my wife.’
Jade slid off the wall where she had been sitting next to Leo, swinging her legs. ‘Why? Why did you spend the night with her?’ she yelled at Leo. She pummelled him on the chest with her fists. ‘If you had stayed here none of this would have happened!’
‘Jade, love –’ Amanda went over and put her arm round Jade’s thin shoulders but the girl threw her off.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she snapped. She turned to Zoë and glared at her. ‘It’s no good. Something awful is going to happen to you too. I’ve put a spell on you and there is nothing you can do about it. You are going to die, just like Rosemary!’ With a sob she turned and ran away from them, heading towards home.
‘Leave her.’ Amanda put out her hand and grabbed Leo’s arm as he began to follow her. ‘It’s all been an awful shock for her. Give her a bit of time. If her parents are coming they are the ones to look after her.’
Leo subsided onto the wall and nodded. ‘Poor kid.’ He glanced at Zoë. ‘Don’t let her frighten you.’
Zoë gave a faint smile. ‘I’m not.’
‘I think it’s time you left,’ Ken said, meeting Leo’s eye. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Ken!’ Zoë protested, but Leo stood up.
‘You are probably right.’ He winked at Zoë. ‘You know where I am.’ Seconds later he had vaulted the low wall and was striding across the grass.
Zoë turned and walked into the house. No one followed her. She went through the kitchen and into the great room half-expecting to feel it ringing with the shockwaves of what had happened but there was nothing.
She ran upstairs and into her and Ken’s bedroom and stood looking round. It felt different; uneasy. Had the wretched child been in there? She stooped and picked up the cotton bag lying on the floor near the bed. Where had that come from? Jade? Or Ken? She threw it down on the chair. She walked into the bathroom and washed her face, then she went over to the window and looked down at the other three standing awkwardly round the barbecue. They weren’t talking. Amanda was turning the sausages with the tongs while the two men appeared to have abandoned the Pimm’s in favour of bottles of lager. She turned away with a sigh and threw herself down on the bed, unaware of the sinister object which had been placed beneath it. In minutes she had drifted off to sleep.
When she woke it was dark. She lay still, aware only that she had had the strangest dream: she was pregnant, heavily pregnant, and she could feel the baby moving inside her. Her hand went to her belly and she stroked it sleepily. It was completely flat. Her hand fell away and for a moment she found she was fighting the most enormous disappointment. She lay gazing round the bedroom blindly, battling with her tears; it was several minutes before she levered herself out of bed and turned on the light. It was just after seven. She had slept for hours.
Leaning over the banisters she could see that the lights were on and the TV was playing quietly in the corner. There was no sign of the others. She changed quickly into jeans and a thick sweater and ran down the stairs. The whole place seemed deserted. Then she spotted the note.
Hi Zoë, so sorry about everything that has happened. Don’t know where Ken is. John and I have talked and we thought it was probably better if we gave you some space so we are heading home. I will ring you tomorrow.
Lots of love, Manda.
PS in your shoes I would climb aboard the lugger!!
Zoë smiled in spite of herself. Did that last cryptic comment mean what she thought it meant? She looked round again. So, where was Ken? Suddenly she didn’t want to know.
She grabbed the torch out of the drawer, reached up and turned off the master switch for the floodlights, then she opened the door.
Picking her way across the grass, she headed for the hedge which separated their garden from that of The Threshing Barn next door. She glanced up at the Formbys’. All the lights there were off. The Watts’s car was outside The Summer Barn and the lights there were on behind the drawn curtains, so at least Jade wasn’t alone. She wondered what had happened to Jackson. She hoped Rosemary was OK. Following the beam of her torch she went towards the gap in the hedge and it was then that she spotted the long metal shape lying half hidden under the leaves. She paused and trained the beam on it, then she squatted down and reached out to pick it up. She knew at once what it was. A sword.
The sword.
Leo laid it reverently on his worktop and reached for a magnifying glass from one of the shelves. He had locked the door after she came in and drawn the blinds. ‘We don’t want any more small eyes peering in at the windows, making trouble,’ he said. He pointed at a stool and she perched on it obediently.
‘It is a sword, isn’t it?’ she said after a long silence.
He was carefully examining the blade in front of him. It was rusted and corroded but the basic sword shape was clear to see. ‘I can see carving here and traces of inlay on the hilt,’ he breathed. ‘This is, or was, exquisite workmanship.’
‘Is it like the ones they found at Sutton Hoo?’ she whispered.
‘It might be. My guess is that it came from the burial mound out there; and that it is a burial mound with a pretty rich and important guy buried in it.’ He laid down the magnifying glass and looked at her. ‘How on earth did it get into your hedge?’
‘Rosemary? She mentioned a sword. And she mentioned you, Leo. She said you would know what to do with it. As they were putting her into the air ambulance.’ She shrugged. ‘Do you think she found it when she was poking round in Dead Man’s Field? Either that or she saw it in her hedge and recognised it. Perhaps someone else had hidden it there. Perhaps they meant to come back for it.’
‘Jackson?’
‘Maybe. Or one of the walkers this afternoon.’ She leaned forward and touched it tentatively with a finger.
There was another long silence. Leo reached for his magnifying glass again. ‘This shouldn’t have been removed from wherever it was found. It is probably unbelievably valuable. It needs research. It needs restoration.’
She gave a faint smile. ‘And let me guess. You’re the man to do it, right?’
He laughed. ‘I would love to, in theory.’ He shook his head. ‘But this is very specialised work. And I would need a proper forge. Something I don’t intend to have ever again. And a laboratory of some sort, I would think. No, I fear we are going to have to hand this over to the experts.’
With a sigh he stood up and walked across to the window. ‘It’s so dark out there. The whole place is deserted.’
‘Not quite. Sharon and Jeff seem to be back, thank goodness. Poor things. What a catastrophe to come back to.’
Picking up a paper bag from the worktop he put it on the table. ‘Doughnuts,’ he said, sitting down. ‘I bought them this morning and forgot all about them. Have one.’ He bent over the sword again. Zoë rummaged in the bag and took one out. She was ravenous, she realised.
‘I had a call from Bill, just before you came,’ Leo said suddenly. ‘Steve rang him from the hospital.’
‘And?’
‘Rosemary is in intensive care. She is in a coma and will almost certainly need brain surgery.’
‘Oh God.’ Zoë looked up at him. She put down the doughnut. ‘Supposing she doesn’t make it?’
He shook his head sadly. ‘Let’s hope for the best. That’s all we can do.’
Flecks of rust and soil had crumbled off the sword as it lay on the table and there was a litter of dead leaves and dried plant stalks lying around it as Leo lifted the sword up, turned it gently over and began to examine the other side. Zoë watched as he picked up the magnifying glass again. He held the blade angled so that the light from the lamp caught it. ‘It’s hard to see, but there are inscriptions on the blade; the pommel is in better condition. It is clearer here.’ He squinted as he looked more closely. ‘It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.’
‘So, it is very old?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He lifted his head and smiled at her. ‘I am pretty sure it is Anglo-Saxon. It’s pattern welded. That means the blade is made in a particular way; it made them very strong. And these are runes. I’ve seen enough of them in the museums – and at Sutton Hoo, of course. I don’t know how one dates it, but it must be at least a thousand years old.’
They both sat and stared at it. ‘I would so love to keep this, just for a while. Do some research on it myself,’ Leo went on. There was a wistful note in his voice.
‘It can’t have just been lost, so it must have been buried with its owner,’ Zoë said at last. ‘Do you think he was a king?’
Leo shrugged. ‘I doubt it. There is only one burial mound down there, as far as we know, isn’t there? And it isn’t very large. It couldn’t have had a boat in it. Could it?’ He looked at her again and smiled.
‘No, but it could be to do with that ghost ship, couldn’t it?’ Zoë replied after another pause. ‘Oh, Leo, it might be all tied up in some way.’
As she looked down at the sword, the phone in her pocket chimed. She pulled it out and glanced at it. ‘It’s from Ken. He’s not coming back tonight,’ she said.
‘Does he say why?’
‘The project he’s working on in Ipswich; apparently they phoned him and asked him to go over there urgently.’
‘Do you believe him?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But it means you can stay here.’
For a moment they held each other’s gaze, then she smiled. ‘Yes, please.’ She switched off the phone.
‘Excellent.’ He grinned.
They both looked down at the sword again. Zoë could see the remains of the engravings now her eyes were getting used to interpreting the corroded blade with its nodules and grooves and ragged edges.
‘It seems awful for it to be taken away from the man who owned it. It must have been his most treasured possession.’ She sighed. ‘I am always a bit sad when I see things in museums which have been removed from graves. It seems wrong to treat somewhere sacred as if it were a treasure hoard.’
He nodded. ‘It has always been that way. Remember Egypt? The tombs in the Valley of the Kings were robbed as often as not by the very men who dug them.’
‘It doesn’t mean we have to rob this one, though, does it?’
He held her gaze and after a moment, he laughed. ‘Are you suggesting we take this back? Rebury it?’ He looked back at the sword. ‘It is so special. Imagine how it looked when it was new,’ he said. There was a touch of awe in his voice. ‘I wonder if that would be the right thing, to rebury it?’
‘I think so.’ She nodded. ‘Have you got a camera? You can take lots of photos of it for your research, but I think it ought to go back with its owner.’ She gave a sudden quick shiver. ‘It feels wrong to have taken it away. I think that’s what Rosemary meant.’ She reached out to it again, then withdrew her hand without touching it. ‘Supposing it is cursed, Leo. Supposing anyone who touches it is cursed?’
He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Is there a reason you are saying that? Can you feel something?’
‘I don’t know.’ For a moment she looked almost miserable. ‘Yes, I suppose I can.’