“Doesn’t look as though anyone’s lived here for years, and no sign of anyone sleeping rough,” she informed Strike, emerging from the other side of the cottage.

Strike, who had just lit a cigarette, made no answer. He was staring down into a large hollow in the woodland floor, around twenty feet square, bordered with trees and full of nettles, tangled thorn and towering weeds.

“Would you call that a dell?” he asked her.

Robin peered down into the basin-like indentation.

“I’d say it’s more like a dell than anything else we’ve passed,” she said.

“‘He strangled the kid and they buried it, down in the dell by our dad’s house,’” quoted Strike.

“I’ll have a look,” said Robin. “You stay here.”

“No,” said Strike, raising a hand to stop her, “you’re not going to find anything—”

But Robin was already sliding her way down the steep edges of the “dell,” the thorns snagging at her jeans as she descended.

It was extremely difficult to move around once she reached the bottom. Nettles came up almost to her waist and she held up her hands to avoid scratches and stings. Milk parsley and wood avens speckled the dark green with white and yellow. The long thorny branches of wild roses curled like barbed wire everywhere she trod.

“Watch yourself,” said Strike, feeling impotent as he watched her struggle along, scratching or stinging herself at every other step.

“I’m fine,” said Robin, peering at the ground beneath the wild vegetation. If anything had been buried here, it had long since been covered by plants, and digging would be a very difficult business. She said as much to Strike, as she bent low to see what lay underneath a dense patch of bramble.

“Doubt Kinvara would be happy with us digging, anyway,” said Strike, and as he said it, he remembered Billy’s words: She wouldn’t let me dig, but she’d let you.

“Wait,” said Robin, sounding tense.

In spite of the fact that he knew perfectly well she could not have found anything, Strike tensed.

“What?”

“There’s something in there,” said Robin, moving her head from side to side, the better to see into a thick patch of nettles, right in the center of the dell.

“Oh God.”

“What?” Strike repeated. Although far higher up than her, he could make out nothing whatsoever in the nettle patch. “What can you see?”

“I don’t know… I might be imagining it.” She hesitated. “You haven’t got gloves, I suppose?”

“No. Robin, don’t—”

But she had already walked into the patch of nettles, her hands raised, stamping them down at the base wherever she could, flattening them as much as possible. Strike saw her bend over and pull something out of the ground. Straightening up, she stood quite still, her red-gold head bowed over whatever she had found, until Strike said impatiently:

“What is it?”

Her hair fell away from a face that looked pale against the morass of dark green in which she stood, as she held up a small, wooden cross.

“No, stay there,” she ordered him, as he moved automatically towards the edge of the dell to help her climb out. “I’m fine.”

She was, in fact, covered in scratches and nettle stings, but deciding that a few more would hardly count, Robin pushed her way more forcefully out of the dell, using her hands to pull herself up the steep sides until she came close enough for Strike to reach out a hand and help her the last few feet.

“Thanks,” she said breathlessly.

“Looks like it’s been there years,” she said, rubbing earth from the bottom, which was pointed, the better to stick into the ground. The wood was damp and stained.

“Something was written on it,” said Strike, taking it from her and squinting at the slimy surface.

“Where?” said Robin. Her hair grazed his cheek as they stood close beside each other, staring at the very faint residue of what looked like felt tip, long since washed away by rain and dew.

“That looks like a kid’s writing,” said Robin quietly.

“That’s an ‘S,’” said Strike, “and at the end… is that a ‘g’ or a ‘y’?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Robin.

They stood in silence, contemplating the cross, until the faint, echoing barks of Rattenbury the Norfolk terrier pierced their reverie.

“We’re still on Kinvara’s property,” said Robin nervously.

“Yeah,” said Strike, keeping hold of the cross as he began to lumber back the way they had come, teeth gritted against the pain in his leg. “Let’s find a pub. I’m starving.”

44

But there are so many sorts of white horses in this world, Mrs. Helseth…

Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm

“Of course,” said Robin, as they drove towards the village, “a cross sticking out of the ground doesn’t mean there’s anything buried beneath it.”

“True,” said Strike, who had needed most of his breath on the return walk for the frequent obscenities he uttered as he stumbled and skidded on the forest floor, “but it makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Robin said nothing. Her hands on the steering wheel were covered in nettle stings that prickled and burned.

The country inn they reached five minutes later was the very image of picture-postcard England, a white, timbered building with leaded bay windows, moss-covered slates on the roof and climbing red roses around the door. A beer garden with parasols completed the picture. Robin turned the Land Rover into the small car park opposite.

“This is getting stupid,” muttered Strike, who had left the cross on the dashboard and was now climbing out of the car, staring at the pub.

“What is?” asked Robin, coming around the back of the car to join him.

“It’s called the White Horse.”

“After the one up the hill,” said Robin, as they set off across the road together. “Look at the sign.”

Painted on the board atop a wooden pole was the strange chalk figure they had seen earlier.

“The pub where I met Jimmy Knight the first time was called the White Horse, too,” said Strike.

“The White Horse,” said Robin, as they walked up the steps into the beer garden, Strike’s limp now more pronounced than ever, “is one of the ten most popular pub names in Britain. I read it in some article. Quick, those people are leaving—grab their table, I’ll get the drinks.”

The low-ceilinged pub was busy inside. Robin headed first for the Ladies where she stripped off her jacket, tied it around her waist and washed her smarting hands. She wished that she had managed to find dock leaves on the journey back from Steda Cottage, but most of her attention on the return walk had been given to Strike who had nearly fallen twice more and hobbled on looking furious with himself, repelling offers of assistance with bad grace and leaning heavily on the walking stick she had fashioned from a branch.

The mirror showed Robin that she was disheveled and grubby compared to the prosperous middle-aged people she had just seen in the bar, but being in a hurry to return to Strike and review the morning’s activities, she merely dragged a brush through her hair, wiped a green stain off her neck and returned to queue for drinks.