The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (15 page)

Maybe this is why Tim has never married. Maybe this is why he’s now in love with a married woman who shows no signs of leaving her husband. Tim left a message for Michelle (he uses a different phone for her, a subterfuge that always makes him feel faintly sick) asking her to meet him at the gym. She hasn’t answered yet.

Tim met Michelle when Nelson invited him for Sunday lunch soon after he first came down from Lancashire. Then he had thought her the perfect wife, beautiful, supportive, also a cracking cook. But she had been Nelson’s, inseparable from him. Then he began to see her at the gym, started to hear rumours about the perfect marriage. The story at the station was that the boss had had an affair with Ruth Galloway and that her child was his. Judy and Clough were annoyingly tight-lipped about the whole thing, even when Tim asked them directly. Still, the idea that there might be cracks in the golden edifice gave Tim the courage to ask Michelle to join him for a coffee in the cafe at the sports club. Over the next few months coffee became lunch and then, daringly, dinner. By the time that Tim first kissed her, by the old quay at night, he felt as if he had been in love with her for ever.

She hadn’t kissed him back. She’d given a gasp and pushed him away. Then she’d run back to her car. He’d heard her high heels skittering over the bridge and wondered if she’d ever speak to him again. But the next day, at the gym (neither of them would ever consider missing a day, whatever the circumstances), she’d explained that she hadn’t responded because she was scared.

‘Of what?’

‘Of myself. I don’t want to have an affair with you, Tim.’

He’d been surprised – almost shocked – that she’d come out with it like that.

‘Harry hasn’t always been faithful,’ she’d said, her pale face luminously beautiful in the harsh light of the cafe. ‘But my marriage is important to me.’

‘I understand,’ said Tim. He did. His dad had run off when Blessing was a baby and Tim hasn’t seen him for more than ten years. When he gets married, he wants it to last, to be perfect. Which is probably why he’s still single at thirty-two.

‘I love Harry,’ she said. ‘But it’s difficult.’

‘What’s difficult?’

‘Because I think I love you too.’

That had been the beginning of it. The beginning of kisses in the car park, of meetings at the gym (the exquisite agony of sharing a jacuzzi or watching her take a pool-side shower), of lunches where they talked endlessly about ‘the situation’ without ever getting nearer to a solution. They have been seeing each other for over a year and still haven’t slept together.

Now, though, when Tim sees her car parked outside the gym he feels a rush of almost pure pleasure. His life has become infinitely more complicated since meeting Michelle and he really can’t imagine the whole thing ending well but there’s no doubt that he loves her. Sometimes he finds himself jogging through The Walks in King’s Lynn first thing in the morning shouting her name to the rough sleepers and astonished pigeons.

CHAPTER 13

Blickling Hall is a beautiful redbrick mansion, rather like Blackstock Hall in appearance, but without its general air of decay. And while the Blackstocks are surrounded by depressed-looking sheep, Blickling Hall is set within manicured lawns surrounded by dark yew hedges and bordered by exquisite flowers. There’s also a moat (now empty), a walled garden and a ghost. A portrait in the gallery bears the inscription
Anna Bolena hic nata 1507
(Anne Boleyn born here 1507), though historians tend to be sniffy about the date, and a carriage containing the headless queen is meant to draw up to the gates when the moon is full. But there’s no carriage bowling along the gravel drive when Ruth pays her visit. In any case, she is concerned with the Hall’s more recent history. During the Second World War, Blickling Hall was requisitioned by the officers from RAF Oulton and there’s a small museum on site dedicated to Air Force history.

Ruth had intended to be at the Hall by mid afternoon but she was held up by a seemingly endless syllabus meeting, chaired (of course) by Phil. She had rung the historian, Dr Raymond Alder, and he had been most understanding. ‘Just come when you can.’ Sandra, too, had been quite happy to keep Kate for a few more hours. Even so, Ruth can’t suppress a feeling of unease as she drives between the yew hedges at four o’clock. It’s already almost dark and, somewhere in the house, a clock is telling the hour in sonorous tones.

‘Dr Galloway.’ A tall man in jeans and a black jumper comes striding towards her.

‘Dr Alder?’

‘Ray, please.’

‘It’s very good of you to see me,’ says Ruth, trying to smooth her crumpled cardigan at the back. She feels sweaty and untidy after a day’s teaching. But it’s cold in the courtyard and she’s already wishing that she’d got her coat out of the boot. Ray seems impervious to the temperature.

‘I’m delighted that someone from the university is taking an interest,’ he says. ‘I contacted Phil Trent recently but he never got back to me.’

That figures. Phil once told Ruth that the trouble with the Second World War is that it ‘isn’t sexy’.

Rather to Ruth’s disappointment, Ray leads her away from the Hall towards an outhouse. It’s an impressive building in its way, with gable ends and fluted stonework, but Anne Boleyn’s ghost is certainly not going to walk here. Inside, it’s a barn-like space, white-painted, with a gallery running around three sides. They climb the open staircase and at the top there’s an exhibition of patchwork – jewelled colours against the white – and a trestle table.

‘I’ve sorted out some photographs for you,’ says Ray, pointing towards the table.

Ruth leans over to look. The faded pictures show huge aeroplanes with men standing on stepladders to reach the propellers, sprawled on the wings doing repair work or just grinning beside the monstrous creatures, dwarfed by the great khaki wings.

‘They were B24s and B17s,’ says Ray. ‘The B17s were the famous Flying Fortresses.’

Ruth is looking at the men. They are wearing overalls and leather jackets, flying goggles still perched on their heads. They are laughing and gesticulating, as if the killing machines behind them are nothing more than a backdrop. Two men are holding up a sign saying ‘Lucky Bastards Club’.

‘If you completed thirty missions, you were part of the Lucky Bastards Club,’ says Ray. ‘Not many did.’

‘The man I’m interested in, Fred Blackstock, flew in a B17,’ says Ruth. ‘He was a tail gunner.’

Ray pushes a diagram towards her. ‘The B17s had a ten-man crew. Pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, navigator, flight engineer, radio operator, two waist gunners, a ball turret gunner and a tail gunner. The tail gunner was most important defensively because they had to guard against attacks coming from behind them. It was incredibly dangerous. They were reckoned to have a one in four chance of completing a tour of duty.’

‘Fred’s plane went down over the sea,’ says Ruth. ‘Is there any way he could have survived?’

‘I’ve looked it up,’ says Ray, reaching for a ledger. ‘B17
Shamrock
, shot down on the sixth of September, 1944, no survivors. The tail gunner did have an emergency exit below the horizontal stabiliser but very few of them managed to use it.’

‘Where was it shot down?’ asks Ruth. ‘Is there any way he could have got out through the emergency exit and swum ashore?’

Ray looks at her curiously. ‘Well, according to records, the
Shamrock
was only about twenty minutes from home when it came down. Lockwell Heath is unusual because it’s on the north coast. Most US bases were further south. I suppose someone could have reached the shore. Why?’

Ruth doesn’t know if she should but, in the end, she tells Ray the whole story, how Fred Blackstock’s body came to be found in a single-seater plane which crashed during a thunderstorm a week after the B17’s demise.

Ray shakes his head. ‘It’s impossible. If Fred was trained as a tail gunner, he wouldn’t have been able to fly one of those light reconnaissance crafts.’

‘I know,’ says Ruth. ‘The body must have been put there later.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Ruth.

Ray still looks curious but refrains from asking any more questions. Instead he takes another photograph from a manila envelope.

‘I thought the family might like to have this,’ he said. ‘I had a copy made. That’s
Shamrock
.
’

In the picture, the plane’s massive wings seem almost benign, sheltering the crew that stands in their shadow. On the cockpit is a crudely drawn shamrock and the words ‘The Luck of the Irish’.

‘The pilot was called Sean Fitzgerald,’ says Ray. ‘That’s probably where the Irish bit came in. I think this one must be Fred. The tail gunner normally stands at the end.’

Ruth peers at the picture. It’s hard to tell for sure but the tall dark figure looks very like the man in the picture Sally showed her a few days ago. She looks at the men standing confidently in the Norfolk field, miles away from home with death staring them in the face. Their luck ran out, she thinks, and feels the tears prickling behind her eyelids.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I think the family would love to have this.’

Driving home, she thinks that Fred’s daughter must have arrived from America by now. The funeral is on Sunday. What if she drops in at Blackstock Hall and shows her the photograph? It’s on the way to Sandra’s house; it would only take a few minutes. She’s aware that she’s doing what Nelson calls ‘amateur sleuthing’, that she wants to see the family’s reaction to the picture, but she tells herself that she’s just doing a good deed, something to make up for the distress she caused Old George over the pets’ burial ground.

She starts to have doubts as soon as she knocks on the front door. It’s nearly six now. What if they’re all having a jolly family meal? The sound of her knock echoes through the house but no one appears. Ruth starts to back away.

‘Yes?’ A woman is standing at the door. Not Sally but an elderly woman dressed in a black uniform and a white apron.

‘I just dropped in to see Mrs Blackstock,’ says Ruth.

‘This way,’ says the woman. Is she actually a maid?

‘If I’ve come at an inconvenient time . . .’

‘This way.’

Ruth follows the woman along the panelled corridor. Then, to her horror, the woman flings open a door and announces, ‘A visitor for Mrs Blackstock.’

She is in a dining room.

It’s a vast space, more suited to a state banquet than a cosy family supper. The room is lit by candles and Ruth sees a long polished table and, most disconcerting of all, a full house of Blackstocks. They are all standing with their glasses raised, apparently frozen in the middle of making a toast. Through the gloom, Ruth sees Sally and her husband, Old George at the end of the table, two younger people and an older man and woman. The woman looks straight at Ruth with an expression of polite interest.

‘Ruth!’ exclaims Sally.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Ruth backs towards the door. ‘I had no idea that you were in the middle of eating.’

Old George ignores her. His eyes are glittering. Is it madness or the candlelight? He raises his glass.

‘To Fred,’ he says.

The Blackstocks raise their glasses. The flickering light glitters on silver and cut glass.

‘To Fred,’ they reply.

CHAPTER 14

Ruth is surprised at how moving she finds the funeral service. Fred’s coffin, covered with the Stars and Stripes, is carried into the church by six RAF men in dress uniform, their gold braid and polished boots somehow shocking in the dim light of the church. Father Tom preaches about peace and reconciliation and the choir sings ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’. Outside, as the wind blows the poplars into a frenzy, a lone piper plays at the graveside.

One of the soldiers takes the flag and folds it in a complicated way, ending with a neat triangle of cloth, which he hands to Nell. Ruth, who met Nell briefly last night, thinks that she looks very moved. Nell’s husband, Blake, who Ruth recalls as one of the figures around the dining table, takes her arm reassuringly. Blake is wrapped in an immense black coat with a red scarf tied tightly round his throat. Ruth remembers him complaining last night about how cold England is. Next to the American couple, Ruth sees Old George scowling underneath a wide-brimmed trilby. Sally and Young George are on either side of the old man, and behind them are Chaz and Cassandra. Ruth met Sally’s children last night too and once again is struck by their glamour. Cassandra is pure Anna Karenina in a short black coat and fur hat, Chaz darkly handsome, his black hair falling onto his velvet collar.