The House At Sea’s End

CHAPTER 15

The next morning Nelson drives to work in a sombre frame of mind. Last night felt like one of those weirdly scientific Japanese tortures designed to discover how much one person could stand in a short space of time. He prides himself on his self control but there are easier things in life than watching your wife hold your illegitimate baby. And what was Cathbad playing at around the fire? Nelson is sure that when he said the words, ‘we ask the gods to watch over you and over your father and mother’, Cathbad looked straight at him. Does Cathbad know that Nelson is Kate’s father? Before she was born Cathbad overheard something which may have given him a clue and Nelson has no doubt at all that he has remembered, word for word. Cathbad is also well in with all the university lot – maybe Ruth has confided in Shona or even that slimy Phil. Christ, probably everyone at UNN knows by now – Nelson’s hands are wet on the steering wheel. If so, it’s only a matter of time before Michelle finds out.

Michelle likes Ruth. She wants to help her. ‘She doesn’t know the first thing about looking after a baby’ she told a decidedly twitchy Nelson on her return from a visit to Ruth and the new-born Kate. ‘I caught her reading today.’ ‘Reading? ’ echoed Nelson, rather wildly. ‘Yes, she was feeding Kate and reading some old archaeology book.’ ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Michelle had laughed. ‘When you have a baby you don’t have time for reading. Not if you’re doing it properly.’ Was Ruth doing it properly? She doesn’t quite look comfortable with a baby, the way Michelle does. Ruth still holds Kate slightly warily, as if she might explode, but she seems to do all the right things and, sometimes, she looks at Kate with an expression that makes Nelson’s heart ache. And she talks to the baby all the time, even if she does address the five-month-old like one of her postgraduates. ‘We’re going outside now, Kate. You might find it a bit cold at first but that’s just the contrast with inside…’

No, to Nelson’s anxious eye, Ruth seems to be doing just fine. He’d worried about her going back to work but the childminder seems competent (unknown to Ruth, Nelson has run a third check on Sandra) and he knows that, as he’s hardly in a position to help her openly, Ruth needs the money. He has offered to give her some money every month (he’d tell Michelle it was a retirement scheme or something) but Ruth refused. ‘I want to do this on my own,’ she said. A statement which, though courageous and admirable in many ways, nevertheless fills Nelson with dread.

When it comes down to it, does he have any rights at all where Kate is concerned? None at all, says a lawyer whom he has secretly consulted. ‘If your name isn’t on the birth certificate, you’re no-one.’ Nelson has never seen Kate’s birth certificate but he’s betting it’s ‘father unknown’. Ruth could do anything – emigrate, join a commune, refuse to send Kate to school – and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Jesus, she’s already had a pagan christening service. His mother would turn in her grave (the shock of Kate’s parentage would have killed her). When Cathbad put the oil on Kate’s forehead Nelson had surprised himself by how strongly he wanted Cathbad, anyone, to trace the sign of the cross there. I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Once a Catholic, as they say. And Kate Scarlet! Why had Ruth done that? Even today, when he thinks of the name Scarlet, he feels as if his heart will break.

By the time he reaches the station he is sunk in gloom and the sight of Whitcliffe waiting for him in his office does nothing to cheer him up. He knows that Whitcliffe won’t have dropped in for a cosy chat about his promotion prospects.

Whitcliffe is holding a piece of paper. When he sees Nelson he strides forward and thrusts the paper into his face.

‘What is the meaning of this?’

Nelson has never known his boss so angry. Normally Whitcliffe keeps his distance and speaks in a light monotone. Now he is eyeball to eyeball with Nelson, his face red, his voice, in which the Norfolk accent has suddenly come to the fore, choked with fury. In an odd way, for the first time, Nelson almost likes the man. But he knows he must be careful, very careful.

‘What do you mean, sir?’ He throws in the ‘sir’ to appease Whitcliffe.

‘Mean? I mean this!’ Whitcliffe waves the paper again. Nelson backs away slightly.

‘What is it?’ Though he knows very well.

‘How dare you… how dare you ask for an autopsy on my grandfather.’

‘I had good reasons, sir,’ says Nelson stolidly.

They glare at each other. Whitcliffe is still breathing heavily but his colour has faded and, when he speaks, his voice is almost back to RP.

‘Perhaps you’d be good enough to share your reasoning with me.’

‘Why don’t we sit down?’ Nelson attempts a soothing tone and feels as if he has scored a point, especially when Whitcliffe takes the subordinate’s chair and allows him to take his place behind his own desk. But, as soon as they are seated, Whitcliffe returns to the attack.

‘How dared you do this, Harry. Behind my back.’

‘I’m the officer in charge of the investigation,’ says Nelson. ‘I followed procedure. I contacted the coroner’s office and copied you in. Otherwise you wouldn’t have known,’ he adds.

‘I know everything that goes on round here,’ spits Whitcliffe. Nelson hopes this isn’t true.

‘Look – er – sir… I know this is difficult for you–’

‘Difficult!’ Whitcliffe looks ready to explode.

‘Your grandfather is dead and, naturally, you’re upset. But I have reasons to suspect that death was not by natural causes.’

‘I’ll be fascinated to hear them,’ says Whitcliffe nastily.

‘The day before your grandfather died,’ says Nelson, ‘Detective Sergeant Johnson and I interviewed him about the bodies found at Broughton Sea’s End. I asked him if he remembered anything from his time with the Home Guard. His words were: “If I knew anything I wouldn’t tell you. I took a blood oath.”’

‘Is that your only–’

‘I didn’t think much of it,’ says Nelson smoothly, ‘though I thought he was concealing something. That night he died.’

‘He was an old man. He had a stroke.’

‘Two weeks ago,’ Nelson goes on, ‘another old man died. His name was Hugh Anselm and he served with your grandfather in the Home Guard. Shortly before he died he wrote to a German historian telling him that something terrible had happened at Broughton during the war. Two weeks later he was dead. He died in his stairlift. It had stopped halfway up the stairs. It’s possible that it was stopped deliberately.’

There is a silence. Gerry Whitcliffe stares at Nelson as if he is trying to read his mind. Nelson keeps his face bland. In the background he can hear Clough and Tanya arguing about whose turn it is to go out for chocolate.

‘Are you suggesting–’ begins Whitcliffe.

‘I’m not suggesting anything, sir,’ says Nelson. ‘But there are just too many coincidences for my liking. Both Mr Whitcliffe and Mr Anselm died before they could tell their stories. I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.’

‘But who could possibly have killed them?’

‘I do have a name,’ admits Nelson.

‘What name?’

‘Lucifer.’

Ruth and Tatjana are walking up a hill. After two weeks of mostly fine weather, it is cold with a biting east wind. Forecasters are talking happily about possible snow showers and the sky is a heavy, leaden grey. Not really the day for a pleasant country walk but Tatjana has expressed interest in a Roman site near Norwich and Ruth, who has no lectures this morning, is determined to entertain her guest. Besides, she knows the site well. She was called in last year when human bones were discovered in one of the trenches. The archaeologist who organised the dig is a Roman expert called Max Grey. He is an intelligent, attractive man and Ruth has sometimes allowed herself to think about him in a singularly unprofessional way. But the site also holds darker memories – a wolf circling in the night, letters written in blood, a dead baby. Ruth shivers and pulls her anorak tighter. Tatjana, dressed in a trendy suede jacket, looks half frozen.

‘I’d forgotten how cold it is in England.’

‘It must get cold in Cape Cod.’

‘Yes, but we have warmer houses.’

Tatjana hasn’t spoken much about her life in America. She and Rick seem to spend most of their time sailing and cooking gourmet meals. Ruth has seen photos of a low white house, shiny cars, shiny people, a vast gleaming boat. She thinks of her tiny cottage, the spare room still half full of boxes, her battered Renault 5. ‘You’ve done so well, Tatjana,’ she said once. ‘Two incomes, no kids,’ replied Tatjana, her face closing.

At the top of the hill, the ground drops away again. To the untrained eye, there is little to see, some grassy ridges and hollows, a trench running southwards and a rather forlorn-looking sign. But Tatjana draws in her breath. ‘It’s quite a big settlement.’

‘Yes, Max thinks it was a vicus, a garrison town. The road,’ she gestures to the trench, ‘leads to the sea.’

Tatjana strides over to the sign, which is the only evidence of the lottery money which funded the dig. Max is hoping for a further grant next year. He says that half the town is still underground.

‘It says here that bodies were found buried under the walls.’

‘Yes. Max thought they may be foundation sacrifices. You know, offerings to Janus.’

‘The God of Doorways?’

‘Yes, and of beginnings and endings.’

Tatjana looks thoughtful. ‘I would have thought that human sacrifice was more Celtic than Roman.’

‘Well, the Romans often adopted Celtic Gods and traditions. They were pragmatists in that way.’

Tatjana turns away. ‘I’m sure the Celts were pragmatists too. When your land is invaded, you tend to be.’

Ruth curses herself. How the hell have they got back to Bosnia? But when Tatjana turns back she is smiling. ‘It’s beautiful up here,’ she says. ‘You can see for miles.’

‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘In the summer it’s lovely. There’s a great pub here too.’

‘A pub,’ says Tatjana. ‘Does it do beer and ploughman’s lunches?’

‘You read my mind,’ says Ruth.

Judy, too, is feeling the cold. Nelson has dispatched her to Broughton with a brusque instruction to ‘talk to the locals about the war’. Great idea, thinks Judy, except that on a day like today the locals are very sensibly inside watching TV. So far she has spoken to a surly teenager and a lost tourist looking for Great Yarmouth. She has already walked through the village twice, not that this has taken very long. It’s really just the one street – a Victorian terrace – and, behind it, a few newer-looking houses. There is only one shop, but by the looks of it, some of the other houses used to be shops. They have large bow windows, now swathed in net curtains, and in some cases the shop names remain, written or engraved under the eaves. ‘S. Austin and son, Fishmonger’. ‘T. Burgess, Butcher’. ‘Ronald Caffrey, Grocer’.

The one remaining shop occupies the end of the row. Is this why it has survived when S. Austin, T. Burgess and Ronald Caffrey were all forced to hang up their aprons? It certainly doesn’t have a very prepossessing window display – a few shrimping nets and a dusty bucket arranged around a collection of ancient-looking magazines: Knitting World, Horse and Hound, The Coarse Fisherman. What would happen, Judy thinks, if she asked for a copy of Cosmopolitan or, worse, the Guardian?

A bell clangs loudly behind her and a bespectacled man appears from behind a bead curtain.

‘Yes?’ His eyebrows are raised. The shop clearly does not encourage passing trade. It is an odd mix of supermarket, newsagent and post office. Tins of tomatoes share shelf space with string, sellotape and lurid pink Mother’s Day cards (though Mothering Sunday was three weeks ago). The post office counter bears a large handwritten sign saying ‘Closed’. Another sign gives parcel weights in pounds and ounces. Evidently the metric system has yet to reach Broughton Sea’s End.

Judy shows her warrant card which causes the shopkeeper’s eyebrows to disappear further into his sandy hair.

‘Police?’ he echoes faintly.

‘Just a few routine enquiries,’ says Judy, putting on a reassuring voice. ‘In fact, we’re interested in something which may have happened fifty or sixty years ago.’

‘I’d hardly remember it then, would I?’ says the man huffily, though, to Judy, he could be any age.

‘I just wondered if there were any residents who could remember those days,’ says Judy soothingly. ‘People older than yourself. After all, in a shop like this you must get to know everyone in the community.’

Her flattery is not entirely wasted. The eyebrows come down slightly.

‘We try. We’re a valuable local resource. You must sign our petition to save the post office.’

‘I will.’

‘In a few years’ time shops like this will vanish completely. It’ll be all supermarkets and chain stores.’

Good thing too, thinks Judy. But then she thinks: if I were an old person and I wanted a copy of Knitting World, I wouldn’t want to have to catch a bus to the next village. Mind you, didn’t Nelson say that the whole of Broughton was slowly falling into the sea?

‘I think it’s dreadful,’ she says. ‘I hate supermarkets myself. I never go in them.’ This is true; she buys all her groceries on-line.

The man leans on the counter, eyebrows back in place, friendliness itself.

‘You’re so right. Supermarkets are all very well but where’s the personal touch?’ He leers at her.

‘I’m sure you’re always delivering groceries to the old folk.’

‘Well, I can’t lift much because of my back but I’ve always got a cheery word for them when they collect their pensions.’

‘Speaking of older people…?’

‘Yes.’ He straightens up, looking slightly suspicious once more. ‘Well, there was Mr Whitcliffe, a fine old gentleman. But he went into a home a good few years ago.’

‘I’ve met Mr Whitcliffe.’ Judy does not feel inclined to go into details.

‘His grandson’s in the police force, I believe.’

‘He’s my boss. My ultimate boss.’

‘Really?’ This has the effect of banishing some of the suspicion. The Whitcliffes, a local family, are obviously to be trusted.

‘Anyone else from that era?’

‘Mr Drummond died a couple of years ago. There’s Mrs West. She lives at number two Cliff Road. One of the new houses.’

‘Thank you,’ says Judy. She gives him her card. ‘Could you ring me if you think of anyone else?’

The man nods. He is squinting at the card.

‘Johnson. Are you one of the Cromer Johnsons?’

‘No,’ says Judy. ‘I’m not from round here.’

She walks to Cliff Road. There are only four houses, modern versions of fishermen’s cottages with exposed brick and fake weatherboarding. There is no answer at number two. Number one is also empty, but at number three she is told that Mrs West (‘a lovely old lady’) died last year. So much for local knowledge.

Disconsolately she wanders on to the end of the road. The church, squat and imposing, lies on her left, raised on a slight hill surrounded by gravestones. Judy climbs the short flight of steps and reads that the church of St Barnabas dates from the tenth century. It was built in Saxon times, burnt down and rebuilt in the Norman era, became derelict in the Middle Ages and was rebuilt (again) by a Victorian philanthropist. The notice board proclaims the church as Anglican but, as Judy’s Irish Catholic father would say, ‘It was ours once.’ She tries the door; it’s locked.

It is starting to rain. Judy puts up her hood and decides to call it a day. She has done her best but everyone in Broughton Sea’s End is either dead, or in an old people’s home or inside reading fishing magazines. It’s an odd place, pretty but rather sad. Maybe it’s just the weather but everything looks grey and washed out and somehow defeated. ‘Fight coastal erosion’ said a sign in the shop window, but Judy can’t imagine the residents doing anything so energetic. No, the sea will get them; the houses, the shop, even the church. The sea will win in the end.

As she turns back to the steps, a name on one of the gravestones catches her eye. She goes back to have a look. ‘Keaton “Buster” Hastings MC. Born: 1893. Died: 1989. He fought the good fight.’ This must be Jack Hastings’ father. Someone who clearly did relish a fight. What had Archie said about him? Hell of a chap… Tough as old boots. Ran a tight ship too. We weren’t just playing at soldiers. There is none of the usual stuff about Buster being a loving husband and father but lying in front of the headstone is a fresh bunch of red roses.

Walking back through the graves, some lovingly tended, some overgrown with ivy and softened by moss, Judy finds: ‘Sydney Austin, born 1880, died 1961’. ‘Thomas William Burgess, born 1890, died 1971’. ‘Ronald Caffrey, born 1901, died 1996’. The boss was right; they’re all here. They’re just all dead.

Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, thinks Nelson as he dials the number for Wentworth and Thenet, Solicitors. Whitcliffe has grudgingly agreed to the autopsy, saying that he’ll speak to other family members. He then stalked out of the station, speaking to no-one. Nelson takes advantage of his absence to find out about Archie’s will. Wentworth, when Nelson finally gets hold of him, is wary. Only when Nelson points out that the will’s contents will be in the public domain once it has cleared probate, does the lawyer relent.

The will is simple. Archie’s money is divided equally between his grandchildren, including Whitcliffe. It’s not much but Nelson assumes that, whatever money Archie once had, it has long since disappeared to pay the bills at the Greenfields Care Home. The only other bequests are a writing case to Hugh Anselm and a hundred pounds and some detective books to Maria.

There is also a rather unexpected message for Whitcliffe: ‘Gerald, I’m so proud of you and I know you’ll do the right thing. Please take care of Maria and George.’ George? This must be Maria’s son, the one Archie used to buy presents for. But why didn’t Archie take care of George himself, instead of asking his grandson to do it? Nelson can’t exactly imagine Whitcliffe in the role of caring uncle to George. And why did Archie care so much in the first place? Maybe he saw Maria as a surrogate granddaughter but, then again, he was hardly short of grandchildren.

When was the will written? Two years ago, says Wentworth. Archie was not to know that Hugh would predecease him by a matter of weeks. Archie mentioned corresponding with Hugh some years ago – was this correspondence more significant than it seemed, important enough to be marked by a memento? Nelson has made an appointment to see Hugh Anselm’s niece, his closest relative. He doesn’t expect much. According to Kevin Fitzherbert, the niece, Joyce Reynolds, visited maybe twice in ten years. Nevertheless, she has inherited all of her uncle’s effects (including, presumably, the writing case) and so it may be worth talking to her. There’s always a chance that an avid letter writer like Hugh Anselm may have a journal or an unpublished novel somewhere.

He is thinking about letter writing and Countdown and crossword puzzles when his phone rings.

‘Nelson,’ he barks.

‘Jack Hastings here,’ answers another, equally authoritative voice. ‘Are you aware that there’s a Kraut journalist hanging round my daughter?’

Nelson wonders whether to affect surprise and force Hastings to tell him about Dieter Eckhart and his suspicions, but in the end he settles for faint distaste at such shockingly un-PC language. ‘I’ve spoken to a German military historian called Dieter Eckhart,’ he says.

‘That’s the fellow. Turned up at my house, if you please. An Englishman’s home is his castle, I told him.’

Nelson ponders how much Hastings loves this phrase. He uses it in almost every TV interview (Nelson has looked them up) and it is, presumably, why he still insists on living in the fortress-like house on the cliff. Delusions of grandeur.

‘I sent him away with a flea in his ear,’ Hastings continues. ‘Then I find out he’s been pestering Clara.’

‘Pestering’ is not how Nelson would describe the distinctly mutual snuggling on Ruth’s sofa, but it’s hardly worth mentioning this now. Instead, he says, ‘Why did Eckhart want to speak to you?’

For the first time, Hastings sounds discomfited. ‘He had some ridiculous theory about those bodies found under the cliff. Thought they were German, or some such nonsense.’

Time to stir Hastings up a little, thinks Nelson. ‘Our forensic tests show that the bodies were very possibly of German origin,’ he says.

There is a silence. ‘What?’ says Hastings.

‘Mineral analysis shows that the six bodies found in Broughton were of possible German origin,’ repeats Nelson patiently. ‘And we believe we know their identities.’

‘You do?’

‘Dieter Eckhart has been researching the disappearance of six German commandos in September 1940. I assume that’s why he came to you.’

‘What the hell’s it got to do with me?’

‘Your father was in charge of the Home Guard at that time.’

There is another silence and then Hastings says, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Look, I’m more than happy to help with any police enquiry but my mother’s old and she’s not very strong. Something like this could upset her, make her ill. And Clara, well, she’s sensitive…’

Nelson remembers the blonde girl bouncing into the sitting room at Sea’s End House. Sensitive is not the word he’d use.

‘We’ll be very low key,’ he assures Hastings. ‘But I’ll need to speak to you again.’

‘Understood,’ says Hastings, sounding subdued.

‘One more thing, Mr Hastings. Does the name Hugh Anselm mean anything to you?’

‘Hugh Anselm? No I don’t think so.’

‘Your mother mentioned a Hugh, one of the other young men in the troop. That was Hugh Anselm.’

‘Very possibly, but what’s he got to do with anything?’

‘I think he may have been murdered,’ says Nelson.