Midnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine Page B

table in the corner on which the lamp stood and pulling out the drawer she laid them both in it. Closing it firmly she turned the key.
    Auditory hallucination is a condition engendered by various states of mind and various physical conditions. She had read about it in one of Anne’s books. But which one of them, if any, applied to her? Picking up the bottle of Scotch she walked through into the kitchen and firmly closed the door behind her. The first thing she could do was restore her blood sugar levels to normal. Perhaps a cooked lunch would dispel whatever it was which was causing this to happen.
    She was sitting at the small kitchen table, with a book propped up before her, eating baked beans on toast covered in melted cheese, when there was a loud knock at the front door. Pushing her plate away reluctantly she went to open it.
    A girl stood on the doorstep, dressed in jeans and a bright blue anorak, her blonde pony-tailed hair blowing wildly in the wind.
    ‘I’ve come to tell you to keep away from my dig.’ The green eyes were furious, the face unsmiling. ‘Mum says you’ve been poking around in the dune. Well don’t. Just because you’ve rented this place it doesn’t give you any right to go poking around in other people’s affairs. Keep away from it.’ The young face was pale and strained. Her headache had been worse this morning, too bad to go to school, too bad to get up until Diana had told her what was happening out at the dune.
    ‘You must be Alison.’ Kate raised an eyebrow but, firmly suppressing the angry response which was her automatic reaction to the girl’s rudeness, she merely said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interfere in your excavation. Of course I won’t go near it again if you’d rather I didn’t.’
    ‘Please don’t.’ Alison scowled.
    ‘You’ve told the museum about your finds, I gather.’
    ‘I’m going to soon.’ The girl’s chin was set determinedly. She was very like her elder brother, Kate decided suddenly. They were a good-looking family, but obviously not noted for their charm. ‘I’m writing it up first and taking photos and things.’
    ‘Good.’ Kate smiled. ‘That’s exactly the right thing to do.’ She took a step back, about to shut the door but Alison still stood there, hands in pockets, obviously wanting to say something else. ‘Are you really a writer?’ It came out at last.
    ‘Yes,’ Kate smiled. ‘I am.’
    ‘And you’re writing about Byron, Dad said.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘So, why did you come here?’
    ‘I wanted somewhere quiet so that I could concentrate on my work.’
    ‘And you know about history and things.’
    Kate nodded. ‘A bit. I studied history at university.’
    ‘So you know about the Romans.’
    ‘A bit, as I said. I gather they came here.’
    ‘And there were people here even before that.’ Alison’s brow wrinkled slightly. ‘The Trinovantes lived in Essex before the Romans came. That’s a Roman grave.’ She nodded her head in the general direction of the beach.
    ‘A grave?’ Kate frowned. ‘What makes you think that?’
    Marcus. The thought had come unbidden and as swiftly it had gone. Marcus Severus’s grave was found in somewhere called Stanway, which, she had seen on the diagrammatic map near his statue, was on the far side of Colchester, some twenty miles away.
    ‘I just know.’
    Kate looked at the girl, disquieted. ‘Alison, when you’ve got some time, would you show me your dig? Show me properly. Explain what you’ve done – the digging looks very professional – and tell me what you’ve found.’
    ‘You really want to know?’
    ‘I do. Not to interfere. I’m interested.’
    ‘OK. Do you want to come now?’
    With a moment’s regretful thought about her baked beans and her book Kate nodded. ‘Hold on. I’ll get my jacket and boots.’
    The tide had receded a long way when they stood together side by side on the edge of the hollow looking at the excavated side of the dune. The