THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END (13 page)

‘What is it?’ asks Ruth.

‘I don’t know. It just rings a bell somewhere. I think I ought to go to this sheltered accommodation place, talk to the warden. And I’ll ask for an autopsy on Archie Whitcliffe. There’ll be a battle royal with Whitcliffe, mind.’

‘Why? Doesn’t he want to know if his grandfather was murdered?’

It is the first time either of them has used the word ‘murdered’. It doesn’t seem to go with the world of care homes and stairlifts, but Nelson thinks of Archie Whitcliffe’s face when he talked about the blood oath, of Maria’s words: ‘
Lucifer. He said Lucifer.
’ Then, for no reason at all, he thinks of Jack Hastings standing proudly in front of his fireplace whilst his mother knitted placidly in the background. ‘
He never forgot the horror.
’

He turns to Ruth. ‘Whitcliffe’s funny about his family. You know what it’s like in Norfolk. His family have lived in their little village for donkey’s years. Probably intermarried with donkeys by the look of ‘em. Whitcliffe’s proud of his grandfather, thinks of him as a war hero. He was touchy enough about us interviewing him so he won’t want an inquest. He’ll want to bury him properly, coffin, flowers,
black horses, the lot. He won’t want me holding things up, suggesting that the old man was done away with.’

‘Is Whitcliffe the only relative?’ asks Ruth, who has never met Nelson’s boss.

‘No. There’s a whole bunch of grandchildren, according to Archie.’

‘Well, some of them might support you.’

‘It’s possible. Whitcliffe’s talked about a sister. There’s a brother too, I think.’

Nelson frowns at the floor, which is still covered with books and packing cases. Ruth wonders when he’s going to leave. She’d like another few hours of tidying before she has to collect Kate. She suspects Nelson of holding out for a sight of Kate. He’d been most put out to hear that she was at the childminder’s.

Sure enough, when there is a sudden knock on the door, Nelson’s first words are, ‘Is that Katie?’

‘No, she’s still slightly too young to drive herself home,’ says Ruth, getting up. Who can it be? Dieter Eckhart, back with some more Eagle Has Landed stuff? Shona stopping by for a gossip? Cathbad?

But when she opens the door, she is greeted by an elegant woman with short, streaky hair, carrying a suitcase.

‘Ruth!’

‘Tatjana …’ Ruth stammers. ‘I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow.’

‘You didn’t get my text?’

Ruth shakes her head. Her phone is upstairs, buried under a pile of rubbish.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Tatjana, looking back at the taxi, already
performing a clumsy U-turn in the narrow road.

‘It doesn’t matter. Come in.’

Ruth is aware of a dark figure looming in the background. ‘Tatjana,’ she says. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson.’ She doesn’t know why she gave him his full title but she is surprised at the sudden interest on Tatjana’s face.

‘Pleased to meet you, Detective Chief Inspector,’ she says.

‘… it’s a deeply stratified alluvial site in the Paleocoastal tradition, so of
course
we were surprised.’

‘Of course.’ Ruth can’t remember exactly which site they’re talking about. Is this still Arlington Springs Woman? Over the past few hours Tatjana has ranged from the European Palaeolithic to the Beaker people and Civil War sites in Dorset. Ruth thinks they are now on New World archaeology, a subject on which Tatjana turns out to be rather an expert, but Ruth is finding it hard to keep up. She knows she is rather insular about archaeology, preferring British or European sites (Britain was, of course, part of the European landmass only ten thousand years ago) to those in the Americas or the Antipodes.

She is also distracted because she has collected Kate from Sandra’s and the baby, not content to remain snoozing picturesquely in the background, is making a bid for centre stage, cooing and emitting high-pitched yelps like a miniature cheerleader. Ruth thinks she is being rather sweet but she is scared to take her attention off Tatjana for too long. So she sits on the floor with Kate, who is propped up by cushions, occasionally handing her a brightly coloured toy which Kate ignores in favour of chewing the TV remote control. Tatjana has, so far, not looked in Kate’s direction once.

Nelson had stayed only a few minutes, long enough for Tatjana to pronounce him ‘interesting’ which, Ruth discovers, is her highest term of praise.

‘How come you are entertaining a policeman in the afternoon?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows slightly. Ruth hoped she wasn’t blushing.

‘I’m seconded to the Serious Crimes Unit,’ she said, trying to adopt a Serious Crimes face. ‘I help with their investigations sometimes. Forensics, bones, dating, you know.’

‘And is there much serious crime in Norfolk?’ Tatjana still looked amused.

‘You’d be surprised,’ Ruth says. She needs to leave Kate and start supper. As all she has in the fridge are two chicken breasts and a very old tomato (she had planned to go shopping tomorrow), the options are limited. She is going to call it chicken cacciatore and hope for the best. At least Tatjana has brought some Duty Free wine. The problem is that she can’t leave Kate on her own and she doesn’t like to ask Tatjana to keep an eye on her. Eventually she puts Kate into her baby seat and carries the seat into the kitchen. Jesus, there was a time when she could go out of the house any time she wanted; now even a trip to the next room is complicated.

Tatjana follows her, continuing the story of Arlington Springs Woman. Ruth tries to listen, cook, and respond to Kate at the same time. But before long Kate feels ignored and her cheerleader yelps dissolve into full-scale crying. Ruth picks her up and jiggles her up and down, whilst heating a bottle of milk in a saucepan. Tatjana watches from the doorway, glass of wine in hand.

When Ruth is sitting down with Kate (plus bottle) on her
lap, Tatjana asks, in a tone of academic enquiry, ‘So, what about Kate’s father? Is he involved?’

‘He’s married,’ says Ruth shortly.

‘That must be tough.’

‘It’s okay,’ says Ruth, settling Kate more comfortably into the crook of her arm. ‘I wouldn’t want to be married. I like living here on my own.’

‘With Kate.’

‘Yes. With Kate. And Flint.’

Flint had received a much better welcome than Kate. Tatjana had bent down, tickled his chin and told him that he had very fine whiskers. Flint, as was his wont with people who fancied themselves cat lovers, ignored her completely. Perversely, with Nelson, who prefers dogs, Flint is positively skittish, jumping on his lap at every opportunity and shedding hairs over his trousers.

‘It must be lonely here sometimes,’ says Tatjana. ‘Do you have neighbours?’

‘The house next door is empty. The other side are holiday people. They usually come down for a week or two in summer.’

‘And your work at the university. Is it good?’ Perhaps Tatjana is realising that Ruth has contributed very little to the archaeology stories.

‘It’s okay. I like my students. I like teaching. I haven’t done any interesting digs for a while. The last one was a year ago, on the Saltmarsh, with Erik.’

‘I can’t believe that Erik is dead,’ says Tatjana. ‘How did it happen? I always thought he’d live forever.’

‘He died here on the marshes,’ says Ruth. ‘It was dark, the tide was coming in. He drowned.’ She hopes that Tatjana
won’t want to hear the details; she never wants to think about that night again.

‘Dear God.’ Tatjana is silent for a minute. Kate’s eyelids droop, the bottle lolls out of her mouth and a fine stream of milk pours onto Ruth’s arm.

‘Ruth.’ Tatjana sounds pained. ‘Your sleeve.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ says Ruth. ‘She’s nearly asleep. I’ll put her down in a minute.’ She can feel Kate getting heavier and heavier in her arms. It is six o’clock, with any luck she’ll sleep now for a good part of the night.

Tatjana sits opposite, looking at Ruth so intently that she is embarrassed, conscious of the contrast between Tatjana’s sleek clothes and salon-perfect hair and her own crumbled, milk-stained appearance.

‘I look a mess,’ she says, meeting Tatjana’s gaze.

‘You look great,’ says Tatjana. ‘You haven’t changed at all.’

Ruth knows that she has. She is older, fatter and sadder. But she has noticed before that if you don’t do anything to yourself people will assume that you haven’t changed. Also, that you don’t care.

‘I’m forty,’ she says.

Tatjana grimaces. ‘Me too.’ Unexpectedly, she reaches out and touches Kate’s hair. ‘It seems a long time ago, doesn’t it? Bosnia?’

It did, but it also seemed like yesterday. Ruth only has to close her eyes and she sees the hotel, Erik telling stories by candlelight, Tatjana standing in the dark holding a gun. Whatever else, they mustn’t talk about Bosnia.

So she tells Tatjana about the bodies at Broughton Sea’s End.

Tatjana’s son, Jacob, was dead. Ruth was grateful that Tatjana told her this straight out, saving her from making any crass comments like, ‘I didn’t know you had a son, how old is he?’ making things worse and worse, as if they could possibly be worse. In that summer of 1995 Ruth did not know what it was to have a child, and to lose a child … well, that is still unimaginable. She remembers that she sat there, in the shadow of the pine trees, literally stiff with shock. She simply did not know what to say; her life’s experience so far had not prepared her for that moment. Her parents were experts on death and the afterlife, of course. They would have known what to say. ‘We’re praying for you.’ ‘I’m sure he’s in heaven with all the other little angels.’ But Ruth could say none of this. She didn’t believe in God, especially not in a God who could take a child just so that he could have another little angel. What can you say to a girl your own age who has lost her child?

Perhaps fortunately, Tatjana did not seem to expect Ruth to speak. Calmly, almost coldly, she told the story. Tatjana had married young, her husband was another academic and, unusually for a Yugoslavian man of that time, he supported her career. Even now, Ruth remembers the expression on Tatjana’s face when she said the word ‘career’. When Jacob was born, Tatjana continued with her studies, teaching part time at the university. Then, when Jacob was two, she got the chance to study for a PhD at Johns Hopkins University. Encouraged by her husband, Tatjana left Jacob with her parents and went to America. While she was away, all hell broke loose.

‘My husband died very early on. He was in a convoy of
trucks taking the injured out of Mostar. His truck was hit by a grenade. I was trying to arrange for Jacob and my parents to fly out to the US when I heard that their village had been attacked. I couldn’t get news, I was going mad. Eventually I travelled there overland, a nightmare journey. The village was destroyed. As if it had never been.’

‘But do you know for sure that Jacob—’

Tatjana had laughed. A sound that Ruth hopes never to hear again.

‘I tracked down one of the only survivors. She told me that she had seen Jacob and his grandparents shot. The only question remaining is: where is his body?’

She had looked at Ruth in the dappled light from the trees.

‘I must find his body, Ruth. You know what Erik says about needing to find a grave. It’s true. You need to see the dead, to bury them, to mourn them. Otherwise …’ Her voice dropped away. ‘Otherwise you cannot continue to live.’

‘But how can …’ Ruth was miserably aware of how inadequate she sounded. What a poor confidante she was proving. She too lapsed into silence.

‘I don’t know,’ said Tatjana briskly. ‘You know they are moving bodies all the time to try to hide their crimes.’ This was true and it made the archaeologists’ job much more difficult. On some sites it was clear that they were dealing with secondary, sometimes even tertiary, burials, bodies that had been moved several times to avoid detection. Sometimes they could use 3-D imaging to gauge the depth of a grave but often they had to rely on their knowledge of strata and earth movement to tell how many times and how recently
a body had been buried. At other times they just had to guess, to use their ‘archaeologist’s sense’ as Erik put it.

‘I need to make enquiries,’ Tatjana was saying. ‘I can ask everyone we meet about the village and what happened to the bodies. That’s where you can help me, Ruth.’

‘Of course I will.’

‘And,’ Tatjana had said, almost as an afterthought, ‘I know the name of the man who did this. That will be helpful.’

Ruth did not know why but Tatjana told her anyway. ‘So I can kill him.’

The sheltered housing looks rather pleasant in the spring sunshine. The grounds are immaculate, the grass cut in neat deckchair stripes, the beds full of daffodils. The buildings too are attractive, low and red brick, doors and windows freshly painted. Not bad, thinks Nelson approvingly, one day he might have to fix his mum up with something like this. Not yet, though. Maureen Nelson goes mad if anyone mentions the words ‘pensioner’ or ‘sheltered’ or, especially, ‘warden’. Besides, when the time comes, Nelson has two older sisters who will manage the whole thing, complaining all the time about the extra work but scorning any offers of help, especially from him. It’s handy being the youngest sometimes.

Now, Nelson presses the bell marked with the dreaded word ‘warden’, but surely even Maureen wouldn’t disapprove of the charming, soft-spoken man (possibly Irish, like Maureen herself) who ushers him through the double doors and into a ground floor flat.

‘Do you live on site?’ asks Nelson.

‘Yes,’ says the warden, whose name is Kevin Fitzherbert.

‘Lots of places, they say “warden” but it’s just a voice on the end of the phone, not someone living downstairs who’ll come and unblock your sink for you.’

‘Is that what you do? Unblock sinks?’

‘That, and find lost glasses, help people up if they take a tumble, change the channel on the TV – there’s hell to pay if they can’t get
Countdown
– undo jars, post their pools coupons.’

Nelson looks round the room. It is comfortable and extremely neat with a single armchair pushed close to the TV, remote control and folded
Radio Times
on the arm.