Midnight is a Lonely Place. Barbara Erskine

      The blast of ice cold wind took her completely by surprise. Whipping the haversack with its precious cargo out of her hands it flung it down the beach as, blinded by flying sand, she tried desperately to catch it. Her broom fell sideways in front of her and was blown away to end up wedged into the shingle at the end of the dune and her cassette player subsided slowly into the loose soil, where it continued to blast out its music into the roar of the wind before the heavy soil depressed the switches on the top and it fell silent.

      The squall had gone almost as soon as it had come. Pushing her hair out of her eyes Alison scrambled out of the hollow and stared up the beach. She could see her haversack, lying in a dayglow heap amongst the tangled seaweed, fifty yards along the tide line. Running to it she caught it to her chest, panting. Then she turned.

      Above the dune the sand was still spinning crazily in a whirling spiral which extended about four feet into the air. For several seconds she watched as it spun out of the hollow and away from her down the beach towards the inlet into the bay. Then as swiftly as it had come, it disappeared.

      She swallowed nervously. This place was getting to her badly. She forced herself to walk back and stared down at the spot where she had been working so peacefully only five minutes before. All her hard efforts had been undone. The sand was piled randomly once more, her broom and spade lying beneath it. Her trowel had gone. Her cassette player was half-buried and silent, her picnic – two chocolate bars and a can of Coke – had fallen into a pool of sea water.

      ‘Shit!’

      She jumped down into the hole. Salvaging her belongings she heaped them on the edge. Switching on the music again she was comforted to hear it blast forth apparently unharmed. The Cure did a great deal to restore her equilibrium. Tearing the wrapper, thankfully intact and seemingly undissolved, off a chocolate bar she began to eat it.

      Two yards to her left, unnoticed and almost invisible in the clay from which it protruded, a human hand, clawed and shrivelled, began, in the cold damp air, the process of disintegration.

      Behind her, a faint shadow hovered over her; when at last she looked up and saw it, it was the size and shape of a man.

       XVI

      Oh, she was beautiful, the mother of his son. He watched her as she lay, propped on her elbow on the far side of the low table picking idly at the figs heaped on the plate before her. Her hair was rich and thick, piled high on her head and held in heavy-plaited coils by four ivory pins. Her skin was creamy, soft; her breasts, heavy, luscious beneath the soft folds of her long tunic. He felt himself tense. They were breasts which had been touched by another man’s hands; another man’s lips. It was strange. The heat of his fury and bitter jealousy was contained utterly by the cloak of ice which had formed inside him. Contained and controlled but not extinguished.

      If he had returned to Rome, to the house of his father, would things have been different? Had he been foolish to accept the gift of land in the first colonia in Claudius’s province of Britain? Colonia Claudia Victricensis which had been Camulodunum. He chewed thoughtfully at a dried fig. The land had brought him wealth, respect, honour – the perfect conclusion to an exemplary military career. But his young wife had been dismayed. She had wanted to return to Rome. She and her sister hated Britain. One of the reasons she had wanted so much to go back had been a man. She thought he did not know, but that man had been the reason for Marcus accepting this distant posting in the first place. He smiled grimly.

      It was only a few months ago that she had changed her mind about Britain, and at once he had begun to suspect.

      Feeling his gaze upon her Claudia looked up at him. Her smile was empty. Cold. A sham. He returned it and he saw doubt in those lovely grey eyes. But only for a moment. She thought she was safe. She thought she was clever. Let her think it. He would bide his time. The moment had to be right. Only her lover would know the real reason for his death, for Marcus could not afford to allow the scandal which would erupt if it became public. Private grief and anger must be contained, must be subservient to the public good. Any flame which might ignite the fire of revolt must be extinguished quietly. There must be no explosion of hate between the native tribes and Rome.

      But in private … He breathed deeply, holding his anger in with iron control. In private, in secret, there would be revenge.

      And his wife’s punishment, afterwards, would last a lifetime, and then through all eternity.

      For a moment Kate had been tempted to make up a thermos of coffee and take it out to the dig to see how things were going but she changed her mind. She had had her morning off. This afternoon, or what was left of it, should be spent in serious work. Besides, Alison would, no doubt, not extend much welcome to any intruders in her private excavation. Perhaps later, Kate would stroll out to the beach for a little fresh air, but not now.

      She had worked solidly for about half an hour when the telephone brought her back to the present. Taking off her glasses she went through to the kitchen to answer it.

      ‘Kate. Hi.’

      ‘Jon?’ The lift of her spirits, the excitement at the sound of his voice after so long was a purely Pavlovian response she told herself sternly, a conditioning, from living with him and loving him. ‘How did you get my number?’

      ‘From Bill.’ For a moment he sounded defensive, then meekly he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

      She smiled. ‘No. I don’t mind. Of course I don’t mind. How is the tour going?’

      ‘OK. Nearly over, thank Christ!’ He sounded tired and depressed. ‘How are you?’

      ‘Fine. Getting a lot of work done.’

      ‘Is the cottage nice?’

      Was he asking out of politeness or did he really care? ‘Yes, it is as a matter of fact. Very nice.’

      ‘Bill says it’s very isolated.’

      ‘It is. It’s a good place to work.’ There was a lump in her throat. Suddenly she was missing him so badly it hurt.

      ‘Good. The money I owe you will soon be on its way, Kate. I’m sorry it’s been so long. Look, I fly to Boston tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll try and ring you from there.’ There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t. For some reason he was tongue-tied. He loved her and he had blown it. ‘Take care.’

      That was all. He had hung up. She stared at the receiver in her hand, feeling suddenly very, very lonely.

      She was too unsettled to go back to work. After only a few minutes’ struggle with her conscience she stood up, threw down her specs and reached for her jacket.

      The beach was deserted, side lit in the falling dusk by the last streaks of sunlight from a bruised sun, going down in a haze behind the estuary. Along the tide line the dunlin were busy, probing the sand with their bills. Far out to sea the mist was waiting, hovering on the horizon, for the dark. There was no sign of Alison.

      Kate stood staring down into the excavation for a long time. The mess of tossed sand and mud, the tangled weed, the shells, all spelt out the intrusion of the sea into the girl’s vision of a Roman grave. There was no sign now of her meticulous digging and brushing of the sand. The vertical lines caused by the cutting edge of her spade had been replaced by a horizontal stratum, the sand intermingled now by long pale streaks of clay and broader wedges of black, the remnants of the three-thousand-year-old peat bog which had covered the river valley here when the sea was still two miles away. Looking down at the mess Kate shivered. She could see the earthenware, lying abandoned in the trench. Alison had not thought that worth collecting for some reason; nor had she gathered up the piece of metal lying on a tussock of uprooted grasses.

      Slipping and sliding Kate scrambled down into the trench herself and picked it up with a frown. It was a dagger.

      She turned