The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (24 page)

‘I’d trust him with my life,’ he says at last.

‘That’s quite some reference,’ says Cassie. ‘Do you still play football?’

‘Sunday mornings,’ says Clough, relieved at the change of subject. ‘You can come and watch if you want.’

‘I’d love to. What shall we do between now and Sunday?’

‘I’ve got a few ideas,’ says Clough.

‘So have I.’ And she’s the one who leans over to kiss him, to the envious amusement of the men by the pool table.

Ruth lies awake watching the clouds scudding across the moon. She hasn’t pulled the curtains and can’t be bothered to get up now. She should be asleep, she should be taking advantage of Kate’s absence and having an uninterrupted night. But, right now, she feels that she will never sleep again. Her nerves are tingling, she feels painfully conscious of the sheet against her skin, of the breeze that’s moving her open curtains. After
that
kiss, Frank had simply said goodnight, they’d got into their separate cars and driven away. But the kiss has changed everything.
Can
a kiss change everything, when you’re a forty-five-year-old single mother? It’s different when you’re sixteen and the whole evening rests on whether he’ll kiss you at the end of the slow dance. Maybe Frank kisses all his female friends like that. He’s the one in a relationship, after all. Maybe it didn’t mean anything to him. But remembering Frank’s expression – half rueful, half something else Ruth doesn’t even want to name – she knows that it did mean something. But what? She looks at the alarm. One a.m. Perhaps she should read for a bit, listen to the World Service, make herself a milky drink. But she does none of these things. She just lies, completely still, watching the sky.

Later still, Clough is leaving Cassie’s flat in Spalding. It’s not that he wants to leave – in fact, the way he feels now, he’d like to stay in Cassie’s bed for the rest of his life – but he’s working tomorrow (today now) and needs to get home to shower, change and generally sober up. Cassie has called him a minicab. ‘Don’t get up,’ he’d said but, when he looks back, she is standing in the window, wrapped in a sheet, waving. Clough waves back, wondering why he suddenly feels like crying.

Cassie’s flat is in a mews, a tiny space carved out behind the High Street. She has told him that the cab will wait on the main road and he can see its yellow light now. He takes the short cut that he remembers from last night, between two tall old houses. As he does so, someone steps into his path. The first thing he sees is a devil mask and he wonders why the waiters from last night have followed him. Did he forget to leave a tip or is it some weird Day of the Dead thing?

Then. Blackness. Nothing.

CHAPTER 22

Nelson is making toast when he gets the call. He wants to get into work early and hassle the lab about the DNA analysis on the pig farm remains. He’s also hoping to see Katie, as it’s her birthday, but he knows he will have to tread carefully on this one. He and Michelle have bought her a present though. It sits, wrapped in pink paper, on the hall table, reminding Nelson what an amazing wife he has.

The call is from the hospital. He listens intently, rings off and tries Judy’s phone. No answer. He tries Tim, who answers on the third ring.

‘Hi, boss.’

‘Tim. Cloughie’s been stabbed. He’s in the Queen Elizabeth. I’m on my way. Can you meet me there?’

‘Stabbed. Jesus. How bad is it?’

‘I don’t know. He’s in theatre now. One of the ambulance men recognised him and called me. He was picked up in Spalding.’

‘Spalding? What was he doing there?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Nelson, making a mental note to check Cassandra Blackstock’s address.

‘I’ll get going now,’ says Tim. ‘I’m at the gym.’

Even in his agitated state, Nelson has time to question the sanity of someone who goes to the gym before seven o’clock.

‘I’ll see you there,’ says Nelson. ‘I’ve got to call his mum first.’

Nelson rings Mrs Clough and arranges for a police car to pick her up and take her to the hospital. While he’s doing this, Michelle comes into the kitchen. By the time he’s off the phone she has made him a cup of tea.

‘Drink this. You’ve had a shock.’

‘I haven’t got time.’

‘Just a sip. What’s happened to Dave?’

‘He’s been stabbed. I don’t know anything else.’

He takes a gulp of tea and Michelle doesn’t press him to have more. ‘Will you ring me as soon as you know how he is?’ she says. She’s known Clough a long time. The girls call him Uncle Dave.

‘If I can,’ he says, gathering up his keys.

Michelle hugs him. ‘He’ll be fine, Harry. Cloughie’s tough. That’s what you always say.’

‘I hope so,’ says Nelson. ‘I really hope so.’

Nelson arrives at the hospital at the same time as Tim. They are shown to a visitors’ room, where a woman and a man are sitting side by side on a low sofa, not talking.

‘Mrs Clough?’ says Nelson.

‘Yes. Lindsay Clough. Are you DCI Nelson?’

‘Yes.’ They shake hands. Clough’s mother is a good-looking woman, maybe in her mid fifties, with carefully streaked hair and a rather improbable suntan. She has obviously dressed in a hurry – her cardigan is done up on the wrong buttons and she’s wearing battered pumps that could double as slippers – but you can tell that this is a woman who normally takes pride in her appearance. The man is a younger version of Clough with the addition of a few tattoos and piercings. Clearly this is the delinquent little brother. What was his name?

‘This is my son Mark,’ says Lindsay Clough. ‘He came as soon as he heard. He and Dave are very close.’

Mark glowers at the floor.

‘Have you had any news?’ asks Nelson.

‘Not really. They’re still operating. Apparently he was stabbed in the chest.’ She dabs her eyes.

‘Bishoy, the paramedic, said that he was conscious when they picked him up,’ says Nelson. ‘That’s a good sign.’

Lindsay Clough is looking at Nelson with a mixture of trust and resentment. ‘How did it happen?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know,’ says Nelson. ‘Clough . . . David . . . was off duty last night.’

‘Off duty?’ she says in surprise. ‘But they said he’d been found in Spalding. I thought he must be on a case. He seems to work all the hours that God sends.’ Again, that note of resentment.

‘He was with a bird if I know Dave,’ says Mark.

Nelson and Tim exchange glances. They know that they are both thinking the same thing.

‘But why would he be attacked if he was off duty?’ says Lindsay.

‘I don’t know,’ says Nelson again. ‘But I’ve got officers on the scene now. I’ll find out who did this. I’m sending Detective Sergeant Heathfield to take charge of the search.’ He looks at Tim, who nods.

‘Are you Tim?’ says Lindsay Clough suddenly. ‘You’re the one who’s always at the gym. Dave likes you but he says you’re a bit too good at football.’

‘Dave’s better than me,’ says Tim. ‘He could have been a professional.’

‘He’s too lazy,’ says Mark. ‘He likes a pint and a pie.’

This simple truth strikes them all to the heart. Lindsay Clough’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I wish they’d give us some news,’ she says.

There’s a particularly hellish feeling about a public swimming pool in half-term: the amplified shouts of the children, the smell of chorine, the soupy water, the cracked tiles in the changing rooms. Ruth and Cathbad are in the shallow pool with the children. Judy sits on the side holding the towels (‘If I got in, the water would get out’). Kate, resplendent in her new Hello Kitty costume, is thoroughly over-excited. She has only recently learnt to swim without armbands but that doesn’t stop her diving headfirst down slides and launching herself onto the inflatable octopus in the centre of the pool. Michael is far more cautious. He follows Kate at a distance but always checks before running, jumping or otherwise compromising his safety. When Cathbad starts a game of tag, Kate shrieks delightedly when she’s caught; Michael accepts it solemnly, as if being ‘it’ is a burden he has to bear. Watching him, Ruth feels her heart contract. Sweet Michael, will life be difficult for him? Kate (like her father) has courage enough for anything, hurdles will disappear before her single-minded determination to succeed. But Michael, who has already been through so much in his three years of life, will always see both sides of a question. And that, Ruth knows, can make things very complicated.

Ruth likes swimming but wading waist-deep in warm water is not really her idea of fun. At least if you’re swimming properly, your body is hidden underwater. Now she feels that far too much flesh is on display. Mind you, she’s not the fattest mother in the children’s pool, though she’s almost the only one without a tattoo. She’s just about to suggest that they break for lunch when Judy stands up suddenly. The towels fall to the floor.

‘Hallo?’ Judy is on her mobile. A lifeguard comes over to tell her that this is not allowed but backs away at the expression on her face.

‘When?’ she is saying. ‘Where is he now?’

Ruth checks to see that Cathbad is with both children and climbs out of the pool.

‘What is it?’ she asks. Judy’s face is as white as the diving board.

‘It’s Clough,’ she says. ‘He’s been stabbed. They think he might die.’

Judy drives to the hospital, trying to keep her breathing steady. Going into premature labour will not help anyone. She still can’t quite compute the message she has just received from Tim. Clough is in hospital. He was stabbed in the chest. Doctors have operated but his condition is still critical. ‘The doctor came in just as I was leaving,’ said Tim. ‘Frankly, it didn’t look good. Clough’s mum was in pieces. The boss was trying to comfort her but you know he’s not good at that stuff. Besides, he was pretty cut up himself. I think he could do with some support.’ ‘I’m on my way,’ Judy had said.

She had only turned her phone on because she wanted to play a surreptitious game of online Sudoku. She had immediately seen the three missed calls from Nelson and was about to ring back when Tim’s name had appeared on the screen. She is grateful now that it was Tim who told her. Hearing the news from Nelson would have been too much for her self-control. They have been through too much together, the three of them. Tim is still on the outside, for all that they like and trust him. It was easier hearing the news from him.

Only a few years ago, thinks Judy as she negotiates the roundabout outside the hospital, she would almost have stabbed Clough in the chest herself. When they met on the sergeant’s training course, there had been instant hostility between them. Clough, who had worked his way up from a cadet, insisted on treating Judy as a flighty female for whom policing was a charming hobby to be enjoyed for a few years before settling down to marriage and children. Judy, who had wanted to join the force since an encounter with a mounted policeman aged five, deeply resented this. Judy and Clough had both ended up working for Nelson and became locked in a rather adolescent battle for his favour. When Clough earned his stripes first, Judy had been almost eaten up with jealousy. Now, five years and several demanding cases later, there is a deep respect between them. But it was during that terrible time when Michael went missing that Clough really became a friend. Clough is Michael’s godfather. He can’t die. Judy just won’t let him.

Nelson is in the car park, talking on his phone. Judy sees his face and, for a moment, she thinks she is too late. She had never seen the boss looking so bleak. But he sees her, ends his conversation and says immediately, ‘He’s still with us.’

‘Thank God,’ says Judy. ‘What happened? Tim didn’t give any details.’

‘We don’t know much,’ says Nelson. ‘I’m on my way to the station now. He was found at about five this morning in Spalding. He was in a little alleyway just off the main road and he’d been stabbed. A passer-by raised the alarm but the paramedics thought he may have been there a while. Any longer and it would have been too late. He’s lost a lot of blood.’

‘Why was Clough in Spalding?’

‘I don’t know but I could make a guess.’

‘Involving a woman?’

Nelson smiles. ‘Exactly. Did you ever meet Cassandra Blackstock?’

‘No. Is she the daughter of the Blackstocks at the Hall? The one who was attacked the other day?’