The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (10 page)

‘Nelson. Look over there.’

One corner of the graveyard is undulating like a bedspread with a sleeping body underneath. The soil has been disturbed and the turf is bare in places.

‘Something’s been dug up here,’ she says.

‘Either that,’ says Nelson, ‘or they’ve just buried a bloody big dog.’

CHAPTER 7

‘No,’ says Sally Blackstock, ‘we haven’t buried any pets there since Rooster died. That was when the children were young.’

‘Haven’t you got a dog now?’ asks Nelson. He has a vague memory of seeing a lead somewhere. Oh yes, it was on one of those scruffy armchairs in the kitchen. He had sat on it.

‘No,’ says Sally. ‘Dear old Beau died in the summer.’

That figures. Nelson doesn’t imagine Sally tidies up very often.

‘What did you do with Beau’s . . . er . . . remains?’ he asks.

‘Oh, the vet cremates them now,’ says Sally. ‘It’s easier all round.’

They are standing in the kitchen garden. When Ruth and Nelson had walked back to the house, they had found Sally there, holding a large cabbage and looking thoughtful. Nelson had introduced Ruth and asked about the pets’ burial ground, explaining that Dr Galloway thought there was evidence of recent ‘digging activity’.

Now Sally points the cabbage’s muddy roots at Ruth. ‘I know you, don’t I? Weren’t you on telly? Doing that show about Mother Hook.’

‘Yes,’ says Ruth, aware of Nelson’s sardonic expression, ‘I was on that programme.’

‘It was with that dishy American, Frank Barker. George and I are big fans of his. Is he nice in real life?’

‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘Very nice.’

‘Leaving the dishy Frank Barker aside,’ says Nelson, ‘do you know of any reason why anyone may have been digging in the pets’ burial ground?’

‘No,’ says Sally. ‘It’s a mystery, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a mystery all right,’ says Nelson as they make their way back over the field. ‘The mystery is how that family keeps going. They’re all living on a different planet.’

‘What about Sally’s children?’ asks Ruth, stepping sideways to avoid a sheep. ‘What are they like?’

‘Son’s a pig farmer. His farm’s on the site of the old airfield. He seems OK. Bit of an upper-class boy playing at working, but OK.’

‘Like Marie Antoinette.’

‘If you say so. I haven’t met the daughter. Apparently she’s an actress.’

‘Do you really think someone from the family dug up Fred’s body? What was it doing in the pets’ burial ground in the first place?’

‘We’ve got to find out if it was Fred’s body that was buried there. Will your excavation do that?’

‘Maybe,’ says Ruth cautiously. ‘We can take soil samples. Find out if there’s any human matter there. And there may well be something in the context. Scraps of uniform, hair, that sort of thing.’

‘You really think there’ll be something left behind?’

‘There’s always something left behind,’ says Ruth.

They have reached the cars. The rain has started again, a thin drizzle that you don’t notice until your hair is completely wet. Ruth looks at Nelson and sees that he has raindrops on his eyelashes. She looks away again.

‘Sally didn’t seem to mind the idea of an excavation on her land, did she?’ says Nelson.

‘No, she seemed quite excited about it.’

‘That’s because she thought your American friend might turn up.’

‘He’s not . . .’ begins Ruth. But Nelson has already got into his car and is backing out with a squeal of tyres and a fine spray of mud. He winds down his window.

‘I’ll wait until you’ve got your car out.’

‘I’ll be OK,’ says Ruth. ‘Don’t worry.’

She half expects him to argue or to make some comment about the car’s decrepitude. But instead he raises his hand in mock salute and he’s gone, driving far too fast in the middle of the road. He has always been terrible at saying goodbye.

Nelson’s car is nowhere in sight by the time that Ruth reaches the roundabout and the turn-off to the university. He is probably halfway back to the station, getting ready to hassle the team about drug dealers from the Far East and teenage hooligans in the marketplace. She is aware that the case of long-dead Frederick Blackstock is not exactly top of his agenda. But something happened on the lonely marshland where the sea comes whispering in over the flat fields. Someone has been digging there fairly recently and someone undoubtedly placed Frederick’s skeleton in the cockpit of the abandoned plane, ready to grin up at Ruth as she brushed the soil away.

Nelson obviously thinks that the Blackstocks are hiding something. He once told Ruth that he could smell murder and, though she had laughed at the time, she thinks that she knows what he means. Even when she is excavating the remains of people who died thousands of years ago, she thinks that she can tell when death had been from unnatural causes. A grave is a footprint of disturbance, that’s what she told Nelson, and she thinks that the disturbance stays in the air – and in the land – for a very long time.

Why did Nelson drive off so suddenly? Was it the mention of Frank Barker? She doesn’t flatter herself that Nelson is jealous of Frank. Why should he be jealous when he’s married to the beautiful Michelle? Any jealousy in their relationship, she thinks wryly, is all one-way. It’s probably more that Frank represents everything Nelson despises. He’s an academic who’s on television. A good-looking American academic who presents history programmes on television. Ruth can’t think of anybody more likely to ignite Nelson’s famous short fuse.

Well, Nelson needn’t worry. She hasn’t heard from Frank since the email ten days ago. As she parks in her slot outside the Natural Sciences building, she thinks that she will bury herself in her work and forget about dead pilots, American TV – and Frank. It’s a busy term and she has plenty to occupy herself. As well as the coursework, there’s the Bronze Age dig and the DNA project. As Phil would say, UNN is finally making its mark in the world.

When she gets to her office and types in her password, she sees that an email has been sent to her university address. It’s from someone called Earl Kennedy, who turns out to be the executive producer of
The History Men: Bringing the Past to Life!
. Earl will be in Norfolk next week for a preliminary meeting to discuss the programme about American airmen. He would be honoured if Ruth could join them with a view to contributing her ideas and possibly appearing on the programme. It’ll be a small meeting, he says. Just himself, the director and the presenter, Frank Barker. Has Ruth possibly come across Frank before?

Ruth sits at her desk staring at her poster of Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford stares back as if he understands.

Nelson drives back to the police station in a bad mood, though he couldn’t have said why. He’d enjoyed the time with Ruth; he likes watching her work and admires her expertise. It had been – what’s the word? – companionable, standing with her looking out over the marshes. There’s never any subtext with Ruth, none of the flirting and game-playing that Michelle and even his daughters go in for. She just talks to you and he likes that. So why is he now storming through the briefing room looking for someone to argue with? Maybe it’s the Blackstocks. They annoy him – the charming Sally and the ineffectual George, not to mention the dotty granddad. Why wasn’t Sally more worried about the discovery in the pets’ burial ground? It’s as if the whole thing is a game to her. Where’s Uncle Fred? Is he in the sea, in the garden or in a plane in Devil’s Hollow? Well, this isn’t
Where’s Wally?
, he tells her in his head, it’s a murder investigation.

Except it isn’t, not really. He’s aware that Whitcliffe doesn’t want him to spend any more money on a cold case. If it weren’t for the American Government, they would never have identified the body in the first place. Unless Ruth uncovers some really compelling forensic evidence, the investigation will stay where it is, stalled, stuck – as Cathbad sometimes says about the marshes – between life and death.

He’s thwarted in his attempt to find someone to bully. Judy and Clough are out on a case and everybody else seems to be at lunch. Tara, his PA, is eating sandwiches at her desk and the desk sergeant is having a long telephone conversation about a missing dog. In the incident room, though, he finds Tim packing his gym bag.

‘Going out?’

Tim looks defensive. ‘No, I’m going to the gym after work. I’ve just bought some shampoo.’ He waves the bottle in front of Nelson.

Tim’s always at the gym. It’s good for a policeman to be fit but there’s something obsessive about Tim’s exercising. He eats healthily too, salads instead of sandwiches and bottled water instead of coke. And the shampoo is one of those poncy brands that includes conditioner. It all makes Nelson a bit suspicious of his sergeant. Maybe he should try to get to know him better.

‘Are you settling in OK in Norfolk?’ he says. ‘Bit different from dear old Blackpool.’

Tim looks surprised. ‘I’ve been here two years.’

‘Got yourself a girlfriend yet?’

Tim turns back to his gym bag. ‘No.’

This is obviously a touchy subject. Better stick to work. ‘I’ve just been to Blackstock Hall,’ he says. ‘Ruth Galloway was looking to see if our pilot could have been buried there.’

‘Really? Did she find anything?’

‘She thinks there’s a distinct possibility that he was buried in the pets’ graveyard.’

‘They’ve got a special graveyard for pets?’

‘It’s the sort of thing the upper classes do. They like their pets more than their children.’

‘Can Ruth be sure?’

‘She’s going to do an excavation, run some more tests.’

‘What do the family say?’

‘The old man’s a bit hostile but his daughter-in-law treats it like one big garden party. She was almost hanging out the bunting for the excavation.’

‘Sounds like fun.’

‘I might send you along,’ says Nelson. ‘See what you get out of them. Sally, the daughter, might take to you.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re young,’ says Nelson gloomily. ‘Mind you, she was drooling over that history bloke, Frank Barker, and he’s ancient.’

‘I haven’t met Frank Barker.’

‘You haven’t missed much.’

‘I’d like to work with Ruth though,’ says Tim. ‘You and she go back a long way, don’t you?’

Now it’s Nelson’s turn to look away. ‘She’s all right. Or she was until she became a TV star. Now let’s get back to work.’

CHAPTER 8

The meeting is at the Le Strange Arms in Hunstanton. It’s a large comfortable hotel, popular for parties and wedding receptions. At the end of the car park there’s a wooden fence and a grassy dune and then you’re on the beach, miles of sand and sea and cloud. Ruth parks her car as near to the edge as she can and breathes in the salty air. It’s a calm, still day but there’s a feeling of expectancy in the air. According to the weather forecast, storms are due at the end of the month. Ruth remembers the strange sensation she had, standing by the family graves at Blackstock Hall, the feeling that the sea was just waiting for its chance to reclaim the land. The tide is out today, the sands are shimmering with secret pools, but Ruth knows that it is out there, a great, surging mass of water, ready to roll in and swallow anything in its path. The tide comes in faster than a galloping horse, Erik used to say, and look at all the myths linking horses and the sea. Kelpies and hippocamps and white manes in the waves. Ruth shakes herself and turns towards the comforting bulk of the hotel. Now is not the time to be thinking of Erik.

The receptionist tells her that the meeting is in the Oak Room but, before he can direct her there, Ruth dives into the ladies to repair her hair and face. She still hasn’t heard from Frank but Earl did say that he’d be at the meeting. She has put on some make-up but when she looks in the mirror, she sees that the lipstick has completely worn off and there’s a streak of mascara on her cheek. She wipes this off with a paper towel and applies more lipstick, a shade called Morning Coffee, given to her by Shona. Is it a good thing to have lips that look like coffee? At least it’s not too bright. Her face looks very pale, almost green, but maybe that’s the lighting. She pulls a comb through her hair and smiles at herself encouragingly. Frank once said that he preferred women to look natural but, in Ruth’s experience, that’s what they say before they run off with an exquisitely made-up bottle blonde.