Her phone bleeps. Probably Cathbad, wondering where they are. Kate runs up to her and Ruth hoists her onto her hip, clicking on Messages with her free hand.

But it’s not Cathbad. It’s her mystery friend again.

‘If u know what’s good for you,’ runs the text, ‘stay away from the bones.’

Ruth stands still for so long that Kate becomes bored and scrambles down. Is this message from someone who was at the party? Someone who, only a few hours ago, she was chatting to by the bouncy castle? How many people know that she’s going to see the bones on Monday? What is the mystery about Dan’s discovery? Something or someone is responsible for Dan’s fears, Clayton’s bluster, maybe even Elaine’s tears. But what or who? She knows she should ring Nelson. Someone is threatening her and, by implication, Kate. But she shrinks from Nelson knowing that she has followed him to Lancashire. The texter is probably just a nutcase. None of the preening figures at the barbeque struck her as dangerous exactly. Nevertheless, she shivers in the mild evening air and, gathering up her daughter, walks home without looking back.

CHAPTER 13

Sunday in Lytham has a beguiling, Fifties feel to it. Cathbad, Ruth and Kate stroll in the park, eating ice creams and watching the world go by. Pensioners are playing bowls and children are shrieking from the swings. They walk past brilliantly clashing flowerbeds and a curious metal fountain in the shape of a man holding what looks like a rake.

‘Funny, isn’t it,’ Cathbad says. ‘Sunday has a different atmosphere from other days, even if you don’t go to church.’

‘I know what you mean,’ says Ruth. She has noticed this herself, even in her house where the only sign of the Lord’s Day is the omnibus edition of The Archers. She thinks of her parents, who will often spend all of Sunday in church. It seemed a joyless thing to her when she was growing up, but lately, she has been thinking more charitably about her parents’ faith. It keeps them off the streets at any rate.

‘Did you go to church as a child?’ she asks Cathbad as they stop at a cafe overlooking the bowling green. Cathbad orders tea for himself and Ruth. He still looks slightly delicate after yesterday. Ruth wipes Kate’s face and hands. She even has ice cream on her neck.

‘Of course I did,’ he says. ‘I was brought up in Ireland and we all went to Mass every Sunday.’

‘I’d forgotten you were Irish,’ says Ruth. The tea comes in a proper pot with thick china cups.

‘I’m Celtic through and through,’ says Cathbad. After a pause he says, ‘She was a great character, my mammy. I wish you could have met her. I thought of her when Pendragon was telling us about Dame Alice.’

‘Why?’ asks Ruth, surprised. Kate, who loves the word, repeats ‘Pendragon’ in a whisper.

Cathbad grins. ‘In olden days Mam would have been called a witch. Oh, she was a good Catholic but she thought you could mix praying to the Virgin with making spells and no harm done. Everyone knew if you had a problem Bridget Malone was the person you went to.’

‘Is she still alive?’ asks Ruth. It’s funny but she has never thought of asking Cathbad about his family. She has never really thought of him as having a family.

‘No.’ Cathbad looks away, towards the white-coated figures on the green. ‘She died when I was sixteen.’

‘What about your dad?’

‘I never knew him. Mam never talked about him. Of course, that was a real scandal in our village, Bridget Malone having a baby with no man in sight. But she toughed it out, never said a word about it, just went about her business as usual. My gran was a big support to her, I know. She was another amazing woman. I lived with her after Mam died – before I went away to college.’

No wonder you like the company of women, thinks Ruth. She knew that Cathbad did a chemistry degree (presumably in Ireland) and then went on to study archaeology at Manchester under Erik. At some point he acquired a daughter. Beyond that, he is a blank. Almost as if he is the semi-mystical figure he pretends to be.

‘All kinds of families work, don’t they?’ she says now, very much wanting to believe it. ‘Not just the traditional kind.’

‘They sure do,’ says Cathbad. ‘Look at us. Mother, child and passing warlock, having a whale of a time. Why don’t we go into Blackpool this afternoon?’

*

Nelson’s mother, like Cathbad’s before her, is at Mass. She always enjoys sung Mass on a Sunday although her enjoyment is usually expressed in running criticism of the choir, the flowers and, most of all, the priest. Father David, a nervous and sincere young man, is a convert and so, to Maureen, deeply suspect. ‘Not a cradle Catholic,’ she told Michelle in a piercing whisper before the service started. ‘Not really one of us.’ In Maureen’s mind Father David compares very badly to his predecessor Father Damian, of whom Maureen always talks as if he’s gone to his blessed reward. He is, in fact, drying out in a clinic in Ireland.

Today, though, Maureen’s enjoyment is marred, not only by Father David’s suspiciously Protestant sermon, but by the fact that she doesn’t have her son at her side. It’s a rare treat for her, showing off her son and his decorative wife to her fellow worshippers. But today Nelson has refused to play ball. He has a complicated relationship with his baptismal faith. On one hand he has an almost fearful dread that it’s all true, on the other he loathes the whole flower-arranging, Cafod-collecting apparatus of his mother’s church. His refusal to attend had quickly escalated into a row, ending with Maureen storming off with Michelle in tow, warning Nelson that he would soon burn in hell. ‘I’ll see you there,’ Nelson had growled.

Harry has been strange this holiday, thinks Maureen as she bows her head piously at the elevation of the Host. Every homecoming is always marked by a series of pyrotechnic rows. Maureen quite looks forward to them, to be honest. Harry has always been short-tempered but his mother and sisters are more than a match for him. This time, though, he seems different. Quieter, sadder. A couple of times Maureen has caught him on his own, staring out of the window. Even as a child Harry was never one for sitting and staring; he always liked to be doing things, playing football, going out on his bike with his friends, driving his mother demented. Of course he has been sick. Maureen remembers that awful journey to Norfolk last November, how she had prayed all the way for Harry to survive that terrifying mystery illness, the bargains she had made with God, cheerfully offering to die in his place. She had meant it too. In fact, when Harry had miraculously pulled through, she had half expected to be taken up to heaven on the spot. And does he seem grateful for this devotion? No. He skulks around with a face like thunder, disappearing off to see his old police friends, refusing to accompany his mother to Holy Mass. He doesn’t deserve to have such a mother and such a wife. He really doesn’t.

Now Maureen prays angrily for her favourite child. Please, God, let him see the error of his arrogant ways. Keep him safe, Lord, and let him realise his many blessings. At the sign of peace she holds Michelle’s hand tightly. Though she doesn’t know why, she suddenly feels very protective towards her daughter-in-law.

‘Peace be with you, my darling,’ she says huskily.

‘Thank you,’ says Michelle, who can never remember what she’s meant to say in return.

*

The beach is beautiful. The tide is out and the sand stretches for miles beyond the piers, the sea only a blue haze in the distance. Kate falls in love with the donkeys and clamours to go on one. This is a relief as, when they parked the car, she had seen a poster with Dora the Explorer on it and has been demanding Dora every since. The poster is advertising the Pleasure Beach, where there is apparently something called ‘Nickelodeon World’ starring giant cartoon characters, as well as a selection of truly terrifying rides. The biggest of these, a roller-coaster called the Big One, dominates the Blackpool skyline. It is higher than the seagulls, a nightmare railway track in the sky, swooping downwards in an almost vertical death plunge. Never, Ruth vows, never will I go on that thing. Cathbad thinks it looks great.