Free Midnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine Page B

watched as the Land Rover backed round and headed back up the track, the headlights bucking against the trees as it slid between the ruts. In a moment it was out of sight.
    Closing the door and bolting it again she walked back into the living room. As though recognising the hand of a master the woodburner had settled down to produce a satisfyingly hot glow which was already warming the room. She looked round, pleased. Although Roger had gone something of the friendliness he had brought with him had remained; basking in it, she would make herself some supper, read a little, listen to some music, have a hot bath and go to bed early. Tomorrow she would spend the day with Lord Byron.

X
    In the stillness of the night the tide lapped imperceptibly higher along the beach, round the headland and slowly, oh so slowly, into the backwaters of the estuary, licking at the mud, floating strands of trailing grasses and weeds, curling round the toes of sleeping geese and ducks. Rising.
    In the dune the sand had dried. It was brittle, friable, ready to fall. Beneath it, only a centimetre down now, was the clay – clay which was plastic, impervious to air or water, and in the clay was the peat which held preserved the remains of four human bodies.

XI 
    She had been sitting at the word processor for two hours and she had not noticed that it was getting light. Now, arms and shoulders cramped and her head throbbing from her intense concentration, Kate sat back, took off her glasses and, dropping them beside her notes, stared out of the window. The mist had receded to leave a sunrise of breathtaking clarity. The narrow vee of sea visible between the shingle banks from her carefully positioned table glittered with blinding beauty. It was more than anyone could resist; besides, she needed a break. Donning jacket, scarf and boots she pulled open the front door and emerged into an ice cold wind. Looking around she took a deep breath of pure delight. This was a place where Byron himself would have felt at home.
    Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain …
    The beach was still wet from the receding tide as she tramped northwards along it, murmuring the lines from ‘Childe Harold’, her head ducked against the sting of the wind and the glare, her cheeks tingling beneath the whipping strings of hair as they pulled free of her scarf. The words weren’t quite right, of course. This wasn’t an ocean and it was neither all that deep nor dark, but still the mood was right. It was exhilarating. She wanted to jump and run and dance, but the shingle and soft sand precluded all but the most undignified gallop. Stopping at last, exhausted, she turned and began to retrace her steps. With the wind and glare behind her she could slow down and appreciate the different colours and textures of the water: where the sand rose near the surface it was pale green, even yellow. Further out streaks of deep turquoise melded with grey and black and the intense sapphire blue of a child’s painting of the sea. In the distance the shingle gave way to muddy sand and she could see dunlin and redshank at the water’s edge. Save for them she appeared to be the only being alive in the world.
    She came level with the cottage, appreciating from here how sheltered it was behind the shingle banks, only a narrow section of its face visible behind the waving grasses and heaps of sand. In front of her, beyond the dunes, the beach swept away around the corner. There a narrow inlet led into the shallow, muddy waters of Redall Bay with its network of small islands and tidal creeks.
    By the last of the dunes she stopped. Part of it appeared to have fallen onto the sand, and in the hollow on its seaward side there were signs of recent digging. Curious, she walked towards it, her boots slipping in the deep soft mixture of stones and mud and sand. The top section, out of sight of the cottage, had had a neat transverse slice removed from