The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (13 page)

‘Your mother’s a wonderful woman,’ he says. ‘She’s always got a plan. Now she thinks we can let rooms to the film people.’

‘I don’t know why you agreed to the film,’ says Chaz. He too is watching the digger as if transfixed.

‘Mum thought it would be good publicity for the Hall,’ says George. ‘Besides, it’ll be good to see Nell again.’

‘Sounds as if you fancied her a bit.’

George laughs. ‘I was madly in love but she was fourteen years older than me, all smoky eyes and shimmering limbs. She was very sweet to me though. Used to take me out in her sports car. Even took me up to London to see a show.
Hello, Dolly!
I’ve never forgotten it.’

‘Have you spoken to her recently?’

‘She rang the other day to talk about the funeral service. She sounded just the same but she must be over seventy now.’

‘Is she married?’

‘Yes, with children and grandchildren. She’s bringing her husband with her. He’s called Blake and he’s a university lecturer.’

Chaz groans. ‘Sounds like fun.’

‘Oh, Cassie can talk to him. She’s good at that sort of thing.’

‘Yes, she’s the clever one,’ agrees Chaz.

They watch the digger for a few more minutes. It reminds Chaz of days when they used to go fishing together. The hours of companionable silence which stretch so far that talking becomes almost a physical effort.

This time George breaks the surface. ‘It’s madness really,’ he says. ‘Building on a flood plain like this. The tide used to come up this high when I was a boy.’

‘Let’s hope that a really high tide comes and washes away Edward Spens’s horrid little hen houses,’ says Chaz.

‘Don’t wish for that,’ says George. ‘It’s a frightening thing, the sea in an angry mood.’

‘Is Mum still keen on having a party after the funeral?’ says Chaz.

‘A wake, she calls it,’ says George. ‘I just wish she hadn’t invited that policeman.’

‘What policeman?’

‘The one who came asking questions about Fred. Mum’s invited him to the service and to the party afterwards. He’s bringing an archaeologist with him.’

‘An archaeologist?’

‘Yes. I told you. They were looking in the grounds of the Hall to see if Fred could have been buried there. They don’t think he was in the plane all that time, you see.’

‘You didn’t tell me that archaeologists were involved.’

‘Didn’t I? Well, this woman seems fairly pleasant. Ruth Something, she’s called. But we don’t really want her sniffing round the place, asking lots of questions. It might upset Dad.’

‘He’s been fine recently though, hasn’t he? Hasn’t had one of his funny turns in years.’

‘I know. But we don’t want to rock the boat, do we?’

Chaz looks at his father. ‘No, we don’t want to do that.’

Behind them, the digger plunges its teeth into the earth.

CHAPTER 10

Nelson drives home feeling frustrated with Whitcliffe and the Norfolk police in general. Why couldn’t he be in Blackpool, investigating real crimes with his old mate Sandy Macleod? There are too many bloody bodies buried in Norfolk, that’s what. ‘It’s what I love about Norfolk,’ Ruth had said once. ‘The layers and layers of history under your feet.’ But, just at this moment, Nelson longs for a straightforward smash-and-grab, a mugging (no one badly hurt, of course), a drugs kingpin hunted down to his lair. Something that doesn’t involve all this pussyfooting about, all this
diplomacy
. Even the word had a slippery
Guardian
-reader sound that he distrusts. Why should he have to share his crime scene with Whitcliffe and a bunch of Yanks blathering on about the war? A war which, Nelson thinks savagely, they didn’t enter until bloody half-time.

He knows that his hostility to the TV crew has something to do with Ruth. He may not be prone to self-reflection but he does acknowledge that much. He had been surprised when Ruth proved a TV success in
Women Who Kill
. It’s not that he doesn’t know how good she is. Sometimes, when he’s watching her work, he feels an admiration and a pride that take him by surprise. It’s more that he thinks of Ruth as a very private person, living in her isolated house, always alone or with Katie, totally absorbed in her work. It was a shock to see her on the screen, to share her with so many other people. And, most of all, it was a shock to find himself sharing her with Frank Barker.

Nelson takes the turning for home. He knows that he has no excuse for resenting Frank or anyone else in Ruth’s life. He made his decision; he elected to stay with Michelle and their daughters. It’s none of his business if Ruth has another relationship. In fact, if he were a nice person, he should be pleased for her. Frank is single (he checked) and is clearly eligible in every way. But Nelson has often examined his conscience (it comes of being brought up as a Catholic) and has come to the gloomy conclusion that he’s not a very nice person. He feels jealous. He wants Ruth and Katie for himself, waiting for him in that little house on the edge of the marshes. But he does at least acknowledge that he has no right to think this way.

He cheers himself up by imagining the supper that Michelle will be preparing. His mother, Maureen, often refers to Michelle as a ‘proper old-fashioned wife’ and, while this description never ceases to irritate him (coming, as it does, from a woman who squashed her own husband as flat as a piece of lasagne), he has to admit that there is some truth in it. Michelle has a full-time job as the manager of a hairdressing salon but she does almost invariably produce a hot meal at the end of the day. She also favours high heels and make-up and has never once changed a plug. Nelson smiles as he negotiates the familiar streets, remembering that time when, in his absence, Michelle asked a neighbour if he could mend the fuse on her hair straighteners. The neighbour had, of course, been only too pleased. Men are usually happy to help Michelle.

But Michelle’s car isn’t in the drive. And when Nelson opens the front door, he isn’t greeted by the homely smell of shepherd’s pie but by a slightly musty silence. He still can’t get used to this. His daughters have both left home now but he expects them to be here, watching American crap on the TV and making themselves complicated snacks involving tacos and grated cheese. As he stands in the hallway, curiously unwilling to go further into the house, his phone pings. A text from his wife.

Mtg at work. Will be bit late. Sorry!

The message ends with three kisses and a sad face.

‘We have to stop this,’ says Michelle.

‘Stop what?’ says Tim, rather sulkily. ‘We haven’t done anything yet.’

‘You know what I mean.’

They are sitting in Tim’s car, which is parked by the beach at Cley next the Sea. The recent rain has flooded parts of the car park and this, combined with the incoming tide, makes Tim feel as if he is surrounded by water. It makes him feel uneasy. And now Michelle is doing the whole hair-twisting, I’m-a-terrible-person thing.

‘We can’t keep seeing each other,’ she says.

‘We can’t stop seeing each other,’ says Tim. ‘You’re my boss’s wife. We’re going to see each other sometimes.’

His voice is harsh and Michelle’s eyes fill with tears. He moves to comfort her, despite knowing that this is the most dangerous thing he can do. She leans against him, burying her face in his shirt. He kisses her ear, her cheek, her neck and then the whole thing is starting again.

‘I love you,’ he says. She doesn’t say it back but then he doesn’t expect her to. Instead she twists her head so that her lips meet his.

CHAPTER 11

Ruth is rather surprised to receive a warm welcome from Sally Blackstock when she arrives at the Hall for the excavation. Families are not normally delighted to have their gardens dug up by a forensic archaeologist on the hunt for signs of illicit burial. But Sally is all smiles and invites Ruth in for a coffee ‘before the hard work starts’. It’s a cold day with the wind bowling merrily over the flat fields, so Ruth says yes.

In the kitchen, she finds Judy and Tim also drinking coffee.

‘The boss’ll be here soon,’ says Tim as soon as he sees Ruth. ‘He got tied up on another case.’

Ruth doesn’t like to think that ‘where’s Nelson?’ is written all over her face. Even if this is, in fact, what she was thinking.

‘I’m sure we can get on without him,’ she says. ‘How are you, Judy?’

‘Fine,’ says Judy, adjusting her position in the rocking chair. ‘Uncomfortable.’

‘Shouldn’t still be working,’ says a voice in the background. It’s an elderly man in a green cardigan. Ruth guesses that this must be the grandfather, the one who raised objections about Nelson’s questioning.

Sally says, without turning round from her coffee-making, ‘Ruth, this is my father-in-law, George Blackstock. Dad, this is Ruth, the archaeologist I was telling you about.’

‘Another girl,’ says George. ‘Why are all the jobs going to girls these days?’ He slaps Tim – suddenly and unexpectedly – on the back. ‘What are you doing about it, lad?’

Tim chokes and tries to mutter something about all being equal now.

‘Bet it’s not like that where you come from,’ says George.

‘I was born in Essex,’ says Tim. Ruth has noticed before that he always meets racist comments with absolute calm. She thinks it must be a way of hiding anger.

‘So was I,’ says Sally. ‘I’m an Essex girl at heart. I was a nurse in London when I met George. All this was a real culture shock for me.’

She laughs gaily but Ruth imagines that, whichever part of Essex Sally calls home, it won’t feature in the TV programme
The Only Way Is Essex
. Sally’s pink-and-white face has clearly never seen a spray-tan in its life.

George sits opposite Ruth at the table. She is beginning to find his intense stare rather intimidating. Maybe it’s his eyebrows, which are alarmingly long and shaggy.

‘So you’re digging up our pets’ burial ground, are you?’ he says.

‘I’m going to be working in that area, yes,’ says Ruth.

‘Absolute sacrilege,’ says George. ‘Buried a lot of faithful friends there: Kipper, Max, Nero, Trumpeter, Bingo, Charlie, Jethro. They deserve to lie in peace, don’t you think?’

‘I’ll be very careful,’ says Ruth, slightly dazed by the string of names. Is it normal for a family to go through so many dogs? ‘I’ll try not to disturb existing graves. It’s pretty clear where there’s been recent activity.’

‘Recent activity,’ George mimics her voice. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Dad.’ Sally puts her hand on his shoulder. ‘We’ve talked about this. It’ll be fine.’

Ruth expects the old man to turn on his daughter-in-law but instead he lapses into a rather sulky silence, glaring at Ruth from under the jutting hedgerow of hair. Ruth has had enough.

‘We should make a start,’ she says. ‘I need to photograph the site and mark up a grid before we do any digging. And it gets dark early these days.’

Nelson turns up just as Ruth, at her sweatiest and most mud-stained, is getting down to the first layer of chalk. A young policeman has been sent to help with the spadework but Ruth can never resist getting her hands dirty. She is sifting through the topsoil when she becomes aware of a brusque voice asking Tim if she (Ruth) has found anything yet. She can’t hear Tim’s reply but his tone sounds soothing. She grits her teeth. Nelson always expects archaeologists to turn up vital evidence after digging for two minutes. It takes time, she always tells him. Just like police work takes time.

As a matter of fact, she is already certain that digging has taken place in this area. The soil is looser, for one thing, less compact, as if it has been disturbed fairly recently. The layers are also confused, chalk and soil mixed together. There’s a flattened area of vegetation nearby which looks as if it could have been the place where earth from the grave was piled up before being replaced. The soil in the trench is also richer, darker and more organic-looking than the earth in the surrounding area (exposed in the vegetable patch, for example). This could point to something organic having been buried here. Often, with burials in open ground, scavenging animals will take away body parts or even move the corpse altogether, but Ruth believes that this body was protected in some way, covered by a shroud or tarpaulin. There are some animal bones but these are only to be expected. She puts them aside as respectfully as possible. Luckily Old George isn’t watching. Presumably he has stayed in the house.