The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (21 page)

‘Do you think you’ll be able to identify the . . . the remains?’

‘We’ll try to extract some DNA,’ says Nelson, ‘but that doesn’t help much unless we’ve got something to match it against.’

‘The police investigation won’t affect the filming, will it?’ says Chaz.

‘What filming?’ says Nelson.

‘
The History Men
are filming here tomorrow,’ says Chaz. ‘Doctor Galloway’s involved, aren’t you?’

All three men stare at Ruth. She mutters something incomprehensible.

‘Well, far be it for the police to stand in the way of a television programme,’ says Nelson. ‘After all, what’s really important here?’

Clough grins appreciatively but Chaz elects to take this at face value. Perhaps he’s just not very bright, thinks Ruth.

‘Oh, good show. I’ll see you tomorrow then, Doctor Galloway.’

‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘No. Maybe. I’d better get off to work now.’

She drives away feeling the conflicting emotions that usually accompany an encounter with Nelson. Pleasure in his company, irritation at his police persona, jealousy of his other life, confusion at the mention of
her
other life – it all combines to make working together rather an uneasy affair. She wonders if Nelson sometimes finds it awkward too. Probably not. He’s very focused when he’s working on a case. Probably just sees Ruth as another expert witness to be bullied or cajoled. Mind you, he was rather caustic about the TV company. Is it possible that he resents Ruth’s involvement with them?

She hadn’t known quite what to say to Chaz when he mentioned
The History Men
. She hadn’t heard anything about a shoot at Lockwell Heath. In fact, she hadn’t even twigged at first that the pig farm was the same place as Fred Blackstock’s airbase and Earl Kennedy’s ghost field. Now that she does know this, she agrees with Clough. It’s all rather sinister somehow. First the plane in Devil’s Hollow, the plane that had the wrong pilot inside. Then the pets’ graveyard at Blackstock Hall, where something, or someone, has obviously been exhumed fairly recently. Then the funeral and the strange man at the church. Then the attack on Cassandra, and now the discovery of human bones at Chaz Blackstock’s farm. Too many discoveries involving the Blackstock family, too many mysteries and too many bones. Bones that turn up at the wrong time and in the wrong place. It could be coincidence but she thinks again of the marshland stretching to the sea, the grey man standing there as if carved of stone.
Nothing good will ever come of living on land that should really be at the bottom of the sea
. Fred Blackstock should be lying at the bottom of the sea, but Ruth is almost convinced that he has spent the last seventy years buried amongst the Blackstocks’ faithful canine friends. Why? And whose bones are now scattered over the floor of the pig shed? Living close to your animals is all very well but this is getting ridiculous.

The campus is quiet as she parks outside the Natural Sciences block. The grounds took rather a battering in yesterday’s storm – there’s a bench in the ornamental lake and a fallen tree has narrowly missed the statue of Elizabeth Fry – and today many of the students seem to have elected to stay away. Well, that suits Ruth. If no one turns up to her tutorial at two, she’ll have more time to get on with her marking.

But as she nears her office, she sees an ominous shape lurking in the corridor. Phil. He is pretending to pin something on the noticeboard but he’s obviously lying in wait for her. Can she back away silently? No, it’s too late. He’s seen her.

‘Ruth! I wondered when you were getting in.’

Like many of Phil’s remarks, this is guaranteed to set Ruth’s teeth on edge. As long as she turns up for tutorials and lectures, her time is her own. But Phil always manages to make her feel as if she’s skiving.

‘I was involved in a police investigation,’ she says. She knows that this will drive him crazy. He envies Ruth’s association with the police and the access it gives her to inside information (not to mention TV coverage).

‘Oh?’ he says, putting his head on one side in a way that is obviously meant to be charming. Ruth opens her door with her key card, ‘Did you want something, Phil?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He fiddles with the drawing pin in his hand for a moment. ‘I was wondering . . . they’re filming at Lockwell Heath tomorrow, aren’t they? The old airbase?’

‘I think so.’ She doesn’t say that she has only just found this out herself.

‘Are you going?’

‘I don’t know. I’m pretty busy with marking.’

‘I thought I might,’ says Phil. ‘Just to see what’s going on. After all, they may want an archaeologist’s perspective.’

You hope, thinks Ruth. Rumour has it that Phil has memorised one or two TV-friendly sound bites, just in case.

‘Will Frank Barker be there?’ asks Phil.

‘I’m not sure,’ says Ruth. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .’

But when she sits at her computer, she sees that she has two interesting emails. One is from Paul Brindisi and it’s an invitation to attend tomorrow’s shoot at Lockwell Heath. The other is from the DNA Project. It is headed ‘Fascinating Discovery’.

We analysed the DNA from the Bronze Age body against samples supplied by local residents
(writes Dr Helga Henson)
and we have found common ancestry with a local family – the Blackstocks. We then cross-referenced the volunteers and came up with another close match, one which would indicate a common ancestor.

Ruth looks at the name of the volunteer found to share the Blackstock DNA.

David Clough.

CHAPTER 20

‘So I could be a lord or something. Lord Dave of Norfolk.’

‘I don’t think that’s quite how it works, Cloughie,’ says Nelson. ‘Apparently you’re related to the Blackstocks somewhere along the line, that’s all. It hasn’t made you the heir to the throne.’

When Ruth told him about Clough’s DNA match, Nelson decided to give him the news in private. After all, it’s potentially rather a sensitive subject. Clough has lived in the area all his life. If someone in his family has been over-friendly with the local landed gentry, then that could be embarrassing for him. Nelson knows very little about Clough’s family. His mother lives in Hunstanton; Clough is a surprisingly dutiful son and often visits her on a Sunday. There’s never been any mention of a father. Clough has a younger brother who has had a couple of near-misses with the law. Clough, by his own account, was no angel in his youth. This doesn’t bother Nelson. Teenage delinquents often make rather good policemen. He might have been a delinquent himself if he hadn’t been so scared of his mother.

But Clough doesn’t seem embarrassed in the least. In fact he seems rather taken with the idea that he might have aristocratic blood.

‘Fancy being related to the Blackstocks. No wonder I get on so well with Cassie.’

It’s Cassie now, is it? thinks Nelson. He wonders whether Clough has given any serious thought to the implications of the results. Nelson has George Blackstock the Younger’s DNA on file (he supplied a sample to establish the link with the dead pilot). He thinks it might just be worth running a Familial DNA Analysis, comparing this specimen to Clough’s. This will establish if there’s a close family connection. Clough is about the same age as George Blackstock’s children. What if George Blackstock is his father too? It’s not impossible. Clough’s mother lives in the area and (by her son’s own account) ‘she’s still quite fit-looking’. Did George Blackstock imagine that he had some kind of right to seduce local girls? There’s a foreign phrase for it,
droit de
something or other. Nelson looks at his colleague, who is still rambling on about his aristocratic connections. Like the Blackstocks, Clough is tall and dark-haired. It’s hard to see a connection between the thickset Clough and the effete Chaz Blackstock but isn’t there something that echoes the older George about Clough’s prominent nose and heavy eyebrows? Nelson doesn’t know. He’s terrible at spotting resemblances. Michelle’s always saying things like ‘isn’t Laura like my mum about the ear lobes?’. Nelson doesn’t feel qualified to adjudicate in such esoteric matters. Likewise, he doesn’t feel able to voice his concerns to Clough, especially when the possibility of a closer family relationship obviously hasn’t occurred to him. He’ll get Clough’s DNA analysed, and in the meantime, he’ll just have to do his best to keep his sergeant away from ‘Cassie’.

‘I might drop in on the Lockwell Heath farm today,’ Clough is saying. ‘See whether anything else has turned up in the pigswill.’

‘No,’ says Nelson. ‘They’ll be busy with the filming today. Let’s wait until we get the DNA results on the remains. Shouldn’t be long now.’

‘DNA, eh?’ Clough is still chuckling. ‘Fantastic stuff.’

‘From this lonely airfield, situated on the far eastern edge of Britain, the 444th Bombardment Group began their perilous mission. This building was once the control tower, where the young pilots were given their last-minute instructions before heading out to their planes. These brave men knew heavy losses. In December 1944, just a few days after arriving in Norfolk, they lost three aircraft during a raid on Kiel. Four months later, exhausted crewmen returning to their base were bombed as they climbed out of their aircraft. They died right here on the runway.’

Frank pauses, looking out into the middle distance. The camera, which has been following his slow progress from the control tower, stops too, and revolves slowly to take in the level fields, very green after the recent rain, the hangers black against the horizon and the wide, white sky. Ruth hopes that the soundman picks up the skylark singing, a sweet spiralling sound high above them.

Ruth is standing nearby because it’s her turn next. Frank is going to ask her about finding Fred’s body. They’re going to film at Devil’s Hollow next week. Now Frank takes a swig of water and a make-up girl wipes his face. He smiles his thanks but seems to accept these attentions as his due.

‘That’s great, Frank,’ shouts Paul, who has been looking at the monitor. ‘Real moving stuff.’ He looks around. ‘Ruth!’

‘Yes,’ says Ruth. To her knowledge this is the fourth time that Paul has checked that’s she’s there. He’s either got a very bad short-term memory or advanced OCD.

‘Ruth,’ Paul smiles at her with auto-charm. ‘Frank’s going to tell us a bit about Fred and then he’s going to ask you about finding the body. I thought we could shoot the two of you walking along the runway. Might as well make use of the good weather.’

‘OK,’ says Ruth, her heart sinking. In her (admittedly limited) experience of filming, it’s surprisingly difficult to walk and talk at the same time. But Paul’s right, it is a beautiful day, not a breath of wind after the storms of two days ago. The pig farm is looking its best, bleak and scenic at the same time. The TV cameras have, so far, managed to avoid the pigs altogether, concentrating on the control tower (the camera zeroing in on the faint words ‘Bomb Group’) and the runway. There’s no lack of family interest, either. Nell, Blake and Cassie are all in attendance, though none of them are due to be filmed today. Early next week, Paul will film a long segment with Nell at Blackstock Hall, ‘looking at some of your dad’s favourite places.’ ‘I’ve no idea what they were,’ Nell had said, suddenly sounding panicked. ‘No problem,’ said Paul. ‘We’ll make it up.’

Now the cameras are rolling again and Frank is standing on the runway, his eyes crinkling against the autumn sun.

‘Flying Officer Frederick Blackstock was twenty-seven years old when he was posted to Lockwell Heath Airbase. In some ways it was a homecoming. Fred had been born and brought up just a few miles from here. But in 1938, he emigrated to America in search of a better life. He married a New England girl, Bella Haywood, and they had a daughter, Nell. Fred was not to know then that when the country of his birth needed help, he would be one of the thousands of Americans who answered that call.’

Ruth notes that, according to
The History Men
, Fred has definitely become an American by 1938. She also questions whether Fred really did go to the States ‘in search of a better life’. He was hardly on the breadline in England after all. All she does know is that Fred shared his mother’s view that Blackstock Hall and the surrounding land were somehow unlucky. She wonders if the TV programme will mention this.

‘On September thirteenth, 1944, the single-seater Curtiss P-36 Mohawk D for Dog set out from Lockwell Heath on a reconnaissance mission. The plane never returned. It was believed to have crashed in a violent thunderstorm but no trace was ever found of the aircraft. Then, in July this year, a truck driver clearing land just a few miles south of here made a startling discovery. I’m joined by Doctor Ruth Galloway, Professor of Forensic Archaeology at the University of North Norfolk.’