The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (18 page)

Nelson leant over to talk to Cassandra. ‘Miss Blackstock, did you get a chance to look at your attacker?’

‘No.’ Cassandra’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Like I said, he jumped on me from behind.’

‘He knocked you to the ground. Is that right?’

‘Detective Inspector!’ exploded Young George. ‘She’s in no condition to answer your questions.’

‘Just trying to get a picture of events,’ said Nelson. ‘The first few minutes are vital in any investigation. My sergeant and I will go out and check the grounds now.’

Cassandra reached out a trembling hand to Clough. ‘Don’t send him away. I feel much safer when he’s here.’

So that was how Nelson had ended up searching the grounds on his own. The wind was even stronger now and he found himself bending almost double as he stepped out from the shelter of the kitchen garden. It was pitch black away from the lights of the house but, out towards the sea, there was a faint light, a sort of phosphorescence that glimmered and flickered. He could hear the waves too, a roaring, angry sound. Nelson shone his torch on the gravestones and on the stone cross. It was too dark to see anything else. As he made his way back towards the house, he saw two of the American film people standing in the pets’ graveyard rhapsodising about the scenery, oblivious to the gathering storm.

Nelson shone his torch at them.

‘There’s been a serious assault,’ he said. ‘No one’s to leave the house.’

Now Nelson is trying to maintain some sort of order at the house. Cassandra has been taken away by ambulance and Sally has gone with her. ‘Goodbye,’ she said to Clough, raising her eyes to his face. ‘And thank you.’ ‘It was nothing,’ said Clough. ‘Take care of yourself, darling.’ Darling! That was hardly the way for a police officer to talk to a member of the public but Nelson hadn’t felt up to rebuking the hero of the hour.

Nelson gathers everyone together in the drawing room. Cathbad and his druid friend are there, both looking intrigued. Nelson is relieved that they refrain from mentioning bad energies or ancient curses or any of that new-age crap. They had been out in the grounds too; Hazel communing with the storm (his words) and Cathbad, rather more prosaically, ringing Judy. Mobile phones have a lot to answer for, thinks Nelson. Because of the weak signal up at the house, everyone seemed to be in the grounds ringing or texting. Cassandra had just received a text when she was attacked. Who knows how many other calls and texts were made in the course of the evening? He himself had made two calls while he was outside, one to Michelle to tell her that he might be late and one to his daughter Rebecca to remind her to get her MOT booked. Both calls had gone straight to answerphone.

Sally and her husband, together with the American woman, Nell, had been talking to Nelson when the alleged attack took place. Blake Goodheart claimed to have popped upstairs ‘to fetch a warmer sweater’. He’s certainly wearing a heavy-looking jumper but Nelson can’t remember what he had on earlier. He’ll have to check. The grandfather hadn’t stirred from his chair by the fire where he had been chatting to two of Cassandra’s actor friends – Syd and Eddy (both women). Ruth and Frank had, of course, been having their cosy chat in the hall. What had they been talking about, he wonders. They hadn’t sat together in church (he had checked) and afterwards, at the graveside, Ruth seemed to be deliberately keeping apart from all the other mourners. She had been wearing her impartial professional face. Nelson recognised it immediately.

Nelson questions the two Americans, Earl and Paul. They are both very polite and call him ‘sir’ a lot but Nelson can’t rid himself of the impression that they view the afternoon’s events as a cute English ritual, like croquet or high tea. Earl says that they had walked around the house with Cassandra and that she had then shown them the marshes and the old graves. She had then excused herself to make a telephone call (another one!) and the two men had wandered into the pets’ burial ground, where they had become embroiled in a passionate argument about shooting schedules. Had they heard a scream? No, but the wind was so goddamned loud it was hard to hear anything. In that case, why stand out in it chatting about timetables, thinks Nelson, but he doesn’t say this aloud. It is hard to think of the TV men as suspects, although (as he often says to his team) everyone is a suspect until proved otherwise. Assume nothing.

He goes into the hallway to make a call to the hospital. Of course he can’t get a signal. This bloody house, it’s conspiring against him. He steps outside the front door and is rewarded by two wavery bars, enough to get through to A and E. Cassandra has been examined. She has a head wound and slight concussion. She’s having some stitches and then she’ll be discharged. He goes back into the house to pass on this news.

‘Shall I go to the hospital and bring her back?’ asks Clough.

‘I’m sure the Blackstocks can stretch to a taxi,’ says Nelson.

‘Nelson,’ says a voice behind them. It’s Ruth. Clough melts away tactfully.

Ruth looks tired, thinks Nelson. She’s wearing a black dress which makes her look slimmer than usual. He wonders if she wore it for the funeral or for her American friend’s benefit. At least there’s no sign of him.

‘I need to talk to you,’ says Ruth. ‘But quickly because I have to get back to Kate.’

‘Of course.’ Nelson is galvanised instantly. They sit on the wooden bench recently occupied by Ruth and Frank.

‘When you searched the grounds,’ says Ruth, ‘did you see anyone hanging around?’

‘Nobody except for your TV pals,’ says Nelson.

‘They’re not my pals,’ says Ruth. ‘But did you see someone else, a man with a long grey beard, leaning on a staff?’

‘Who’s this?’ says Nelson. ‘Old Father Time?’

Ruth ignores this. ‘I saw this man at the church,’ she says. ‘And a bit later, I saw him in the grounds. Then I heard that Cassandra had been hit over the head and I thought maybe it was the kind of blow you’d get from a wooden staff.’

Nelson is interested now. ‘Can you give me a full description of the man?’ he says. ‘Did anyone else see him?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Ruth, ‘but Blake Goodheart definitely saw him. You know, Nell’s husband. He said he was like the Ancient Mariner.’

‘Wasn’t he the bloke who killed a seagull?’

‘An albatross, yes. It brought him a lot of bad luck.’

‘This family doesn’t exactly need more bad luck,’ says Nelson. ‘You’d better be getting home now. I’ll take a statement tomorrow. Is Clara looking after Katie?’

‘No,’ says Ruth in what he recognises as her patient voice, ‘I’ve left her home alone with an Indian takeaway. Of course she’s with Clara. But I want to get back before it gets too late.’

‘Well, drive carefully,’ says Nelson. ‘The wind’s getting up.’

The wind is certainly fierce now. Ruth’s little car wobbles to and fro as she turns onto the exposed A149, driving past the golf links and the beginning of the marshes. Ruth clenches her hands on the wheel, trying to keep the car steady. The rain has started too, huge drenching waves of it that seem to be flung against the car by some malevolent hand. Ruth switches on Radio 4 for comfort but it’s a dramatisation of
Wuthering Heights
, and after a few minutes of desolate moorland and doomed love, Ruth turns it off again. I cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul. That’s all very well, Ruth tells Cathy, but sometimes you just have to.

She’s so happy to see the signpost for New Road. Nearly home, back to Kate and safety. But, as she turns onto the road over the marshes, she is hit by a wind so strong that she struggles to keep the car on the road. She mustn’t go over the edge, there are ditches on both sides of the road; if she goes over, she’ll be killed or, at best, stranded until morning. The rain is so heavy now that the windscreen wipers can’t cope and Ruth is driving almost blind. There’s a dull roaring in the distance. Is that the wind or the sea? She thinks of sea sprites and nixes and the ghosts of dead children singing under the sea. She thinks of old Mrs Blackstock saying that the sea would get her in the end. Presumably she’s out there too, wailing in the darkness, whitened bones and hair like green seaweed. Ruth realises that she’s almost crying as she wrenches the steering wheel back. Oh God, just let her get home safely.

And then – oh, thank you, God – there’s the light from her cottage. The bushes opposite are bent almost flat and, as she parks her car, she sees a slate come crashing down from the roof.

Clara opens the door before she has a chance to knock.

‘Thank God you’re back,’ she says. ‘I was starting to get worried.’

‘How’s Kate?’

‘She’s fine. She’s had her bath and we’re just watching
A Hundred and One Dalmatians
before bedtime.’

Of course, it’s only seven o’clock. Ruth feels as if she’s been out all night. She sits on the sofa next to Kate, pink and glowing in her Dora the Explorer pyjamas.

‘Hallo, sweetheart.’

Kate points at the screen. ‘They get home in time,’ she says. Recently Kate has developed a worry about being in time for things. Ruth doesn’t know where this fear has come from. Sandra always collects Kate from school punctually and, if Ruth has been late at the childminder’s a few times, Kate can hardly remember that, can she? She’s particularly worried about getting home in time for Christmas and the sight of the puppies running along in the snow always sparks a few anxious queries.

‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘They get home in time for Christmas. Everyone’s happy at the end.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ says Clara. ‘You must have had an awful drive.’

‘I’ll make it,’ says Ruth. ‘And you’d better stay the night here. Honestly, the wind’s so bad I thought it would blow me off the road.’

‘Thanks,’ says Clara. ‘I must say, I was dreading the drive back.’ She sits on the other side of Kate. ‘It’ll be fun,’ she says. ‘We can have a sleepover.’

‘Sleepover,’ repeats Kate. It’s one of her favourite words.

CHAPTER 17

Nelson wakes to find that three of his fence panels have fallen down in the night. A quick glance around the cul-de-sac shows that many fences have met the same fate. There’s a trampoline upside down on someone’s lawn and a couple of recycling bins are bowling along the road. It’s still pretty windy out there. As he watches, a tarpaulin becomes detached from a car and flies into his next-door neighbour’s cherry tree. Nelson shuts the door.

He goes back into the kitchen and turns on the TV (there’s a tiny set by the microwave because Michelle likes to catch up on
Coronation Street
while she’s cooking). He puts on the kettle and slots a slice of bread into the toaster. It’s part of their morning ritual; he always wakes first and he always makes the tea. He has a piece of toast while he’s waiting and Michelle has her healthy breakfast of yoghurt and fruit when she comes downstairs. Nelson usually has another piece of toast then, just to keep her company.

The TV news is full of last night’s storm. St Jude’s Storm, they’re calling it. Nelson remembers Cathbad using the name but had dismissed it as typical Cathbad nonsense. As usual, though, it looks as if Cathbad’s cosmic weather forecast was accurate. The screen is full of fallen trees and crashing waves. Flights have been cancelled and trains derailed. A teenage boy has been swept out to sea in Newhaven. The sea is a dangerous enemy.

Nelson thinks about last night as he pours boiling water into the teapot (he always makes a proper pot). Was Cassandra really attacked in the grounds of her parents’ house? She certainly had a bash on the head, whatever happened. Could she have fallen, hit her head on a gravestone and made up the attacker later? She might even have been hit by a branch or something and just assumed it was an assailant. She looks like a girl who enjoys the limelight. Nelson remembers Clough staggering in with the wounded victim in his arms. That was quite some entrance. Well, he’ll go round today and check Cassandra’s story. He’ll take Clough with him as the girl seems to like him so much.
I feel much safer when he’s here.
That’s not how most people think about Cloughie.

And what about Ruth’s bearded man, the stranger who suddenly materialised in the grounds of Blackstock Hall? If it had been anyone else but Ruth, Nelson would have taken this story with a pinch of salt. But Ruth’s not the type to make up mysterious strangers. So if the man exists, who is he and why was he hanging about outside during the worst storm for years? Could the bearded man – Ruth’s Ancient Mariner – have attacked Cassandra? But why? Nelson eats his toast, watching as a weather forecaster points gleefully at the whirlpool of arrows covering south-east Britain. ‘We haven’t seen the last of the bad weather yet,’ she’s saying happily.