The Janus Stone (13 page)

'Why not?'

Nelson hesitates. Ruth waits for him to say 'because it's a poof's name' but supposes that, even for Nelson, this is a step too far.

'I suppose you think I should call him Harry,' says Ruth.

'Harry? No. Ever since Harry bloody Potter that's been a nightmare. But couldn't you name him after ... What's your dad's name?'

'Ernest.'

'Well, maybe not.'

'I could ask Cathbad.'

'Jesus. He'll want to call him Jupiter Moon Grumbleweed or something. Why not just give the poor kid a normal name. Like Tom.'

'Or Dick. Or Harry.'

She and Nelson are never together very long without arguing, reflects Ruth. But all the same she is happy, almost exhilarated. Talking about the baby, discussing names, has made her pregnancy seem more real than at any time since the first scan. No, it's not the pregnancy that seems real, it's the baby. Or rather, it's the idea that the baby will grow up to be a child, a
person,
someone who will eat Marmite sandwiches, make finger paintings, play football, jump in puddles. She realises that she is grinning.

They are on the ring road now. Nelson is driving too fast as usual. Ruth sometimes thinks he only became a policeman to avoid speeding fines.

But it seems that he also has been thinking. 'It's odd, isn't it,' he says, overtaking a lorry, 'we don't know each other that well, but we're having a baby together.'

'We're not "having a baby together",' says Ruth.

'Yes we are,'

'But we're not "together". You're not going to come to parent-teacher evenings, are you?'

'That's a bit of a way off, Ruth.'

'I just mean, I'm having the baby on my own but you're the father. That's all.'

'Thanks.'

'You should be pleased I'm not making all sorts of demands.'

'You should be pleased I'm not running for the hills.'

The ridiculousness of this exchange makes them both laugh.

'What about your parents?' asks Nelson. 'Are they supportive?' He says this as if he is proud to have thought of such a PC term.

'Not exactly,' says Ruth, 'they're Born Again Christians. They think I'm going to burn in hell.'

'Nice. They might come round when the baby's born though.'

'They might, I suppose.'

'Have you got brothers or sisters?'

Nelson is right, thinks Ruth, it
is
odd that they can be having a baby together when they know nothing about each other's lives. She has no idea if Nelson has brothers or sisters either.

'I've got a brother. He's OK but we're not close. He lives in London.'

'Has he got children?'

'Yes. Two.'

Toby will have cousins. That has never occurred to her before either.

'Are you going to carry on working?' asks Nelson.

'Of course. I've got to support the baby, haven't I?'

'I told you, I want to help.'

'I know, but realistically, if you don't tell Michelle, you're not going to be able to do very much. That's OK though. I don't want help. You can buy him a bicycle or something.'

'His first football.'

'You're not going to insist he supports some ridiculous northern team are you?'

'Blackpool. Of course.'

'What if I want him to support...' She wracks her brain for the most annoying choice. 'Arsenal?'

'Then I'll apply for custody.' After a short silence, Nelson says, 'What will you tell about me? I don't want him growing up not knowing who his father is.'

'I don't know,' says Ruth. 'I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.' But the bridge looks more like a rickety plank across the Niagara Falls. If Michelle doesn't know, how can she possibly tell her baby that Nelson is his father?

They are on the Saltmarsh road now. The tide is in, forming sparkling blue pools between the islands of long grass. Ruth opens her window and breathes in the salty sea smell.

Nelson watches her. 'You love this place, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'Then there's no point in me saying it's an isolated spot to bring up a baby?'

'No.'

Nelson parks outside Ruth's cottage. 'Do you want to come in?' she asks.

He looks awkward. 'I ought to get back. I said I'd take Michelle to the garden centre.'

'Oh, all right.'

Ruth gets out and scrabbles in her bag for her key. Nelson watches her from the car. For some reason, the sight of her standing there on her doorstep in her crumpled shirt, a bandage over her left eye, makes his throat constrict.

'Ruth!' he calls.

She turns.

'Take care.'

She waves and smiles and then, finding her key, disappears into the house.

24th June: Fors Fortuna

It's very hot. Too hot. Last night I slept with only a sheet over me and I was covered in sweat by the morning. She came to me again and I was weak. Perhaps my weakness is why this house is cursed, why nothing grows here but dust and ashes. In the morning I sacrificed again and the entrails were rotten, stinking and putrid. I buried them behind the greenhouse where the grass grows long. The time is near. We cannot escape.

CHAPTER 20

Edward Spens lives in Newmarket Road, a busy thoroughfare on the outskirts of Norwich. This is the land of the seriously rich. The houses are huge, set back from the road and surrounded by trees. So many trees, in fact, that the houses themselves are almost hidden until you come to the end of the driveway and they suddenly appear in all their smug, landscaped glory. Nelson drives slowly up to Edward Spens' house, past a covered swimming pool and a child's play house that looks as if it must have needed planning permission. Sprinklers play on the perfectly manicured lawn, and as he comes to a halt a gardener hurries past carrying emergency plant supplies. Nelson is pleased to see that his dirty Mercedes distinctly lowers the tone.

He is still feeling shell shocked after yesterday's revelation. Well, not exactly revelation, more confirmation. How unlucky can a man be? He has a one-night stand and, hey presto, he's going to be a father again. Other men (he knows this from Cloughie) sleep around all the time with never a whisper of consequences. Why the hell hadn't he used contraception? Why hadn't Ruth? His feelings towards Ruth veer crazily between anger, admiration and a sort of heart-clenching compassion. He admires her for her determination to have the baby and is grateful that she doesn't seem to want anything from him. But he is slightly irritated too. Ruth seems to think that she can just have this baby and bring it up on her own, with the occasional birthday present from him. But he knows, as she doesn't, that parenthood can be a lonely business. He knows that Michelle struggled sometimes, especially when they moved down south, when he was working long hours and she was alone all day with the kids. Ruth will have no one to turn to, except her Jesus-freak parents and that flaky girlfriend of hers. Maybe Cathbad will offer to babysit. That's no life for a son of his.

His son. Contrary to popular belief, Nelson has never been desperate for a son. He has always been delighted with his daughters. He likes their otherness, their ability to disappear behind secret feminine rites, he even likes being outnumbered at home; it's restful somehow ('It's a girl thing, Dad. You wouldn't understand'). A son—now a son brings all sorts of buried emotions to the surface. Nelson was never that close to his father. He was the only boy in the family (he has two older sisters, a pattern that he now sees is going to be repeated) and he realised, early on, that there were expectations attached to the role. Unlike his sisters he wasn't expected to be good; he was expected to be tough, athletic, embarrassed about emotions, passionate about football. And, by and large, Nelson achieved this. He suppressed an early interest in ponies (which had deeply worried his father) and became a football fanatic, playing for the school, and later the county teams. His father had always been there to watch him, yelling incomprehensible advice from the touchline despite the fact that he, Nelson's father, had never actually played the game. He had a withered foot, the result of childhood polio, and walked with a stick. How had this affliction affected his vision of manliness? Was this the reason why he wanted his son to be a sportsman above everything? Nelson never asked him and now it is impossible. His father died when he was fifteen. Archie Nelson never saw his son become a policeman, a career choice which would have delighted him.

Nelson's mother, Maureen, was a much bigger influence. She is a forceful Irishwoman who shouted at her children and sometimes even clouted them. Archie never raised his hand or his voice (except on the touchline). Yet, despite this, Nelson was closer to his mother. They had some epic rows during his teenage years but he also knew that, deep down, Maureen loved him fiercely. Perhaps that's why, even now, he actually prefers the company of women. Oh, he can do the lad stuff all right, he wouldn't be able to survive in the force otherwise. He still plays football and golf, likes a night in the pub, enjoys the camaraderie of police work. But he also likes the company of strong, intelligent women. Which is why he was drawn to Ruth Galloway, which is why he is in this mess today.

Nelson sighs as he parks his car outside the Spens mansion. Having spent Sunday being the perfect husband, he now feels emotionally exhausted. He not only took Michelle to the garden centre but out for a pub lunch afterwards. He has even agreed to go to see some God-awful play with her tonight. Now it's a relief to be able to turn back to business. And Edward Spens won't be able to hide behind his perfect house and double garage. Nelson wants some answers. Why didn't Spens mention from the beginning that his family used to own the house on Woolmarket Street? And is there a dead child that he also forgot to mention? Not in Edward Spens' lifetime perhaps but, sometime during the years that the Spens family lived in the house, a child was killed and buried under the wall, its head thrown into the disused well. That's quite some family secret.

Edward Spens greets Nelson as if he is a long-lost friend. 'Harry! Nice to see you. Come in.' Nelson silently curses Whitcliffe and the circumstances which have led Spens to believe they are on first name terms. All he can do is reply, in his stiffest manner, 'Good morning, Mr Spens.'

'Edward, please.' Spens ushers him through to the kitchen, which is at the back of the house with windows opening onto the garden. Michelle would die of envy if she saw this kitchen, thinks Nelson. Everything is perfect; from the gleaming surfaces, to the yellow roses on the table, to the blue cushions on the wicker sofa (sofas in the kitchen—that would never happen in Blackpool), to the expensive Italian coffee machine chugging away in the corner.

'Coffee?' asks Spens, pulling out a chair for Nelson. 'This machine does a tolerable cappuccino.'

'Just black will be grand, thanks.'

To complete the picture, as Spens busies himself with the coffee, the perfect woman walks in from the garden. A gleam of honey-blonde hair, a flash of blue eyes, a general impression of suntan and scent and expensive clothes and the vision is holding out its hand to Nelson.

'My wife Marion,' says Spens shortly.

Marion wasn't at the medieval party (Nelson doesn't blame her) so this is Nelson's first meeting with Mrs Spens. His first thought is—never trust a man with a beautiful wife. He should know; he has one himself.

'Pleased to meet you,' says Marion Spens. Close up, her face is almost too perfect, the contours too smooth, everything too symmetrical. She looks nervous too, glancing at Edward before she speaks.

'Harry is just here to ask questions about Woolmarket Street,' says Spens heartily.

'They've found a body haven't they?' says Marion with a quick flicker of eyes towards her husband. 'Roddy told me.'

'Roddy?' As far as Nelson knows, the Spens children are called Sebastian and Flora. Typical Newmarket Road names.

'My father, Roderick. Mad keen on history.'

'He said the body could be medieval,' offers Marion.

'I'm afraid it's far more recent than that,' says Nelson. 'I'd like to ask a few questions about your family's ownership of the house.' He is perfectly happy to talk in front of Marion. He has a feeling that she will give more away than her husband. Edward, it seems, has other ideas.

'No problem. Bring your coffee and we'll go through into the study. Excuse us, darling.'

The study is, of course, decorated in leather and dark wood. The bookcase displays pristine hardbacks and well-thumbed paperbacks. The walls are the colour of underdone roast beef.

Spens sits himself behind the desk, Nelson takes what is obviously the visitor's chair. Family photographs grin up at him, on the wall is a picture of a rugby team. Nelson is willing to bet that Spens is in the middle, holding the trophy.

'Well, Harry, this is all very mysterious.'

'Not at all, Mr Spens. Just following a line of enquiry. Your family lived at the house in Woolmarket Street from...'

'From 1850. It was built by my great-great-grandfather Walter Spens.'

'I'm interested in the years between 1949 and 1955. Who would have been living in the house at that time?'

'My grandfather, Christopher Spens, his wife Rosemary and their children Roderick and Annabelle.'

'And Roderick is your father?'

'Sir Roderick. Yes.'

'I'd like to talk to him. Does he live locally?'

Edward pauses, fiddling with an executive toy on the desk. 'Well, actually he lives with us.'

'He does?' Wondering why on earth Spens didn't mention this before, Nelson asks, 'Is he in?'

'I believe so.'

'Could I speak to him?'

'Of course.' But Spens doesn't move. Finally he says, 'My father is in the first stages of senile dementia. He can seem lucid, very lucid, but he gets confused very easily. And when he gets confused he gets ... upset.'

'I understand,' says Nelson, though he doesn't really. He has never met anyone with dementia and can't imagine what it would be like living with someone who is slowly losing their sense of themselves. It makes him see Edward and Marion in a rather different light. 'Must be hard,' he offers.

'Yes,' Spens agrees. 'Hardest on Marion because she's at home more. Sometimes, what with my father and the children ... though we have an au pair, Croatian girl, very good. And Dad keeps himself busy, has the Conservative Association, the Historical Society, still plays bowls. He's a silver surfer too. Better with new technology than I am. He's not an invalid yet.'

The 'yet' hangs on the air because the one thing Nelson does know about dementia is that it is irreversible.

'I'll get him for you,' says Edward. He smiles slightly. 'He'll probably be pleased. He loves talking about the old days.'

This is certainly true though Edward Spens hadn't mentioned that the old days included Ancient Rome, the Counter Reformation and the Crimean War. When he can get a word in, Nelson asks, 'Sir Roderick, do you remember your years at Woolmarket Street?'

'Remember them?' Roderick looks at him sharply from under bushy white eyebrows. 'Of course I do. I remember everything, don't I, Edward?' Edward agrees that he does.

'You would have been, how old?'

'I was born in 1938. I lived at the house until I left for Cambridge, when I was eighteen.'

That makes him seventy, Nelson calculates. No great age these days. His own mother has recently taken up line-dancing at seventy-three. Roderick Spens could be a decade older.

'You lived with your parents?'

'Yes, my father was the Headmaster of St Saviours on Waterloo Road. He taught classics as well.'

'The school's not there any more, is it?'

'No, it closed sometime in the sixties. Great shame. It was an excellent school.'

'Did you go there?'

'Yes, it was my father's school, y'see.' He looks beadily at Nelson as if suspecting a trap. 'My mother wanted me to go to Eton but m'father insisted. His word was law in our house.'

Nelson tries, and fails, to imagine one of his daughters saying the same about him. 'And your sister ... Annabelle. Did she go there too?'

Roderick looks confused. 'Annabelle?'

Edward Spens cuts in. 'It's all right, Dad.' He turns to Nelson. 'My father still gets upset when he talks about her. She died young, you see.'

'How young?' asks Nelson, his antenna up.

'Five or six, I believe.'