Elly Griffiths - The Stone Circle

First U.S. edition

Copyright 2019 by Elly Griffiths

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Quercus

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Griffiths, Elly, author.

Title: The stone circle / Elly Griffiths.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. | Series: Ruth Galloway mysteries ; 11

Identifiers: LCCN 2019001733 | ISBN 9781328974648 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781328974655 (ebook)

Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

Classification: LCC PR6107.R534 S75 2019 | DDC 823/.92dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001733

Jacket design by Martha Kenned

Jacket photographs: Silas Manhood/ archangel (landscape); Joe Clark / Tetra Images / Corbis (skull)

Author photograph Sara Reeve

v1.0419

For Jane Wood

12 February 2016

DCI Nelson,

Well, here we are again. Truly our end is our beginning. That corpse you buried in your garden, has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? You must have wondered whether I, too, was buried deep in the earth. Oh ye of little faith. You must have known that I would rise again.

You have grown older, Harry. There is grey in your hair and you have known sadness. Joy too but that also can bring anguish. The dark nights of the soul. You could not save Scarlet but you could save the innocent who lies within the stone circle. Believe me, Harry, I want to help.

The year is turning. The shoots rise from the grass. Imbolc is here and we dance under the stars.

Go to the stone circle.

In peace.

DCI Harry Nelson pushes the letter away from him and lets out something that sounds like a groan. The other people in the briefing roomSuperintendent Jo Archer, DS Dave Clough, DS Judy Johnson and DS Tanya Fullerlook at him with expressions ranging from concern to ill-concealed excitement.

Hes back, says Clough.

Bollocks, says Nelson. Hes dead.

Excuse me, says Jo Archer, Super Jo to her admirers. Would someone mind putting me in the picture? Jo Archer has only been at Kings Lynn for a year, taking over from smooth, perma-tanned Gerald Whitcliffe. At first she seemed the embodiment of all Nelsons worst nightmaresholding meetings where everyone is supposed to talk about their feelings, instigating something unspeakable called a group huddlebut recently he has come to view her with a grudging respect. But he doesnt relish the prospect of explaining the significance of the letter to his boss. Shell be far too interested, for one thing.

But no one else seems prepared to speak so Nelson says, in his flattest and most unemotional voice, It must have been twenty years ago now. A child went missing. Lucy Downey. And I started to get letters like this. Full of stuff about Gods and the seasons and mystical crap. Then, ten years on, we found a childs bones on the Saltmarsh. I wasnt sure how old they were so I asked RuthDr Ruth Gallowayto examine them. Those bones were nothing to do with the case, they were Iron Age or something, but I got Ruth to look at the letters. She thought they might be from someone with archaeological knowledge. Anyway, as you know, we found Lucy but another child died. The killer was drowned on the marshes. The letter writer was a Norwegian professor called Erik Anderssen. He died that night too. And this, he points at the letter on the table, reads like one of his.

It sounds like someone who knows you, says Judy. Because it goes on about me being grey and sad? says Nelson. Thanks a lot.

No one says anything. The joys and sorrows of the last few years are imprinted on all of them, even Jo.

After a few seconds, Jo says, Whats this about a stone circle?

God knows, says Nelson. Ive never heard of anything like that. There was that henge thing they found years ago but that was made of wood.

Wasnt the henge thing where you found the murdered child last time? says Jo, revealing slightly more knowledge than she has hitherto admitted to.

Yes, says Nelson. It was on the beach near the Saltmarsh. Nothings left of it now. All the timbers and suchlike are in the museum.

Cathbad says they should have been left where they were, says Judy.

Judys partner, Cathbad, is a druid who first came to the attention of the police when he protested about the removal of the henge timbers. Everyone in the room knows Cathbad so no one thinks this is worth commenting on, although Clough mutters of course he does.

This is probably nothing, says Jo, gesturing at the letter which still lies, becalmed, in the centre of the table. But we should check up the stone circle thing. Nelson, can you ask Ruth if she knows anything about it?

Once again everyone avoids Nelsons eye as he takes the letter and puts it in his pocket.

Ill give her a ring later, he says.

How did you know about the stone circle? says Ruth.

Nelson is taken aback. He has retreated into his office and shut the door for this phone call and now he stands up and starts to pace the room.

What do you mean?

A team from UCL were digging at the original henge site just before Christmas. They think theyve found a second circle.

Is this one made of stone?

No, says Ruth and he hears her switching into a cautious, academic tone. This is wood too. Bog oak like the other one. But theyre calling it the stone circle because a stone cist was found in the centre.

Whats a cist when its at home?

A grave, a coffin.

Nelson stops pacing. A coffin? What was inside? Human skeletal matter, says Ruth. Bones. Were waiting for carbon-14 results.

Nelson knows that carbon-14 results, which tests the level of carbon left in human remains, are useful for dating but are only accurate within a range of about a hundred years.

He doesnt want to give Ruth the chance to explain this again.

Why this sudden interest in the Bronze Age? says Ruth. Ive had a letter, says Nelson.

Theres a silence. Then Ruth says, her voice changing again, What sort of letter?

A bit like the ones I had before. About Lucy and Scarlet. It had some of the same stuff in it.

What do you mean the same stuff?

About corpses sprouting, shoots rising from the earth. Imbolc. The sort of stuff that was in Eriks letters.

But... Nelson can hear the same reactions he witnessed in his colleagues earlier: disbelief, anger, fear. Eriks dead. He certainly looked dead to me when we hauled him out of the water.

I went to his funeral. They burned his body on a Viking boat.

So it cant be him, says Nelson. Its some nutter. What worries me is that its a nutter who knows a bit about me. The letter mentions a stone circle. Thats why I rang.

It cant be this circle. I mean, no one knows about it. Except your archaeologist pals.

Actually, theyve got funding for a new dig, says Ruth. Its starting on Monday. I was planning to drop in for a few hours in the morning.

Its Friday now. Nelson should be getting ready to go home for the weekend. He says, I might drop by myself if Im not too busy. And Id like to show you the letter because, well, you saw the others.

Theres another tiny sliver of silence and Ruth says, Isnt the baby due any day now?

Yes, says Nelson. That might change my plans.

Give Michelle my best, says Ruth.

I will, says Nelson. He wants to say more but Ruth has gone.