The House At Sea’s End

CHAPTER 18

Ruth’s first thought is that Kate is crying. Then she realises that the insistent noise is in fact her phone, ringing on the table next to her ear. Typical. The one morning that Kate doesn’t wake at the crack of dawn someone decides to make an early morning phone call. Who the hell can it be?

‘It’s me,’ says a brusque voice, though the screen is already flashing ‘Nelson’.

‘What is it?’ asks Ruth blurrily. She has just realised that she is on the sofa, that her neck aches and that she has a splitting headache.

‘Dieter Eckhart’s dead. Fisherman found his body this morning. Washed up by Sea’s End House.’

‘What? ’

‘Eckhart’s dead. Cloughie and I are at Broughton now.’

‘What’s the time?

‘Nine o’clock. I didn’t think it was much use trying to get Johnson out of bed. Have a good time last night, did you?’

Nine o’clock! Why hasn’t Kate woken up yet? Ruth is just about to rush upstairs in a panic when she sees Shona descending the stairs, carrying Kate in her arms. Kate looks smug; Shona triumphant.

Ruth wrenches her attention back to Nelson.

‘Was it an accident?’ she asks. ‘Did he drown?’

Nelson gives a humourless laugh. ‘Pathologist’s here now. Cause of death – a knife wound to the heart. It wasn’t an accident.’

‘Does Clara know?’

‘Yes. She identified the body.’

So many thoughts are swirling around in Ruth’s head that she feels sick. Clara, Dieter, a knife wound to the heart, Tatjana, Judy, fisherman found his body this morning. Then Kate holds out her arms and everything else is forgotten.

Kate coos loudly into the phone.

‘Is that Katie?’ Nelson’s voice softens. ‘I’ll call you later.’

The phone clicks off. Ruth looks at Shona, who is still holding Kate and looking pleased with herself.

‘We’ve been up for ages,’ she says. ‘I got Kate dressed and gave her a bottle. We’ve been playing.’

Of the two, Kate looks the best for the experience. She is bright-eyed and bursting with energy. Shona has, in fact, dressed her in pyjamas and a jumper that is two sizes too big but she is overcoming these sartorial disadvantages with aplomb. She takes Ruth’s phone and bites it, experimentally. Shona, on the other hand, looks pale and bleary-eyed, her hair is unbrushed and her shirt is on inside-out. But she is obviously so pleased with herself for having survived the night and the morning that Ruth feels a rush of affection for her.

‘You’ve done brilliantly,’ she says, taking Kate and putting her on the floor where she immediately rolls over on the rug – her favourite trick. ‘Did you hear me come in last night?’

‘No. Was it late? Did you have a good time?’

‘So-so. I think I’m too old for clubs.’

‘Rubbish. You just need the right company. Where’s Tatjana?’

Shona has a distinctly ambivalent attitude towards Tatjana. Before she arrived, she was full of curiosity. ‘I remember you talking about your time in Bosnia. I can’t wait to meet her.’ But when the two finally met at the naming day party, Shona had been decidedly cool. Maybe she hadn’t expected Tatjana to be so attractive, maybe she resented the way that she had annexed Phil, maybe she was just jealous of Tatjana’s relationship with Ruth but Shona, after exchanging a few cool pleasantries, announced to Ruth that she thought Tatjana was ‘shallow’. ‘What does your Bosnian friend think of me?’ she asked, a few days later. ‘She hasn’t mentioned you,’ Ruth had replied truthfully.

‘I’m not sure where she is,’ she says now. ‘I suppose she went home with Judy or one of the others.’

‘Maybe she met a man.’

Ruth thinks of the man Tatjana was dancing with. He was certainly gorgeous but would Tatjana really cheat on Rick?

‘She’s married,’ she says.

Shona shrugs. ‘When has that ever stopped any one? Who was that on the phone?’

‘Nelson.’

‘What did he want?’

‘A new development in the case.’

‘Jesus, Ruth. You’ve even starting to talk like a policeman. I’ll get us a coffee, shall I?’

Nelson walks slowly back along the cliff path. The scene-of-crime boys are loading Dieter Eckhart’s body into the white mortuary van. Clara and Jack Hastings stand watching. She had screamed when she first saw the body but now she is silent, her head on her father’s shoulder. Although he is smaller than her, there is something infinitely protective about the way he is stroking her hair. Nelson, thinking of his own daughters, feels moved.

Clough is still talking to the fisherman, who gave his statement with the stolid air of one who regularly finds dead bodies tangled up in his nets. A duty policeman had answered the first 999 call but, as soon as it was clear that a body was involved, Nelson was on his way. Jack Hastings was already there when he arrived, his dogs barking excitedly as the fisherman and the PC hauled the corpse above the tide line. Nelson was wondering whether to summon Clara when she appeared, wearing a coat over her pyjamas. Clough had attempted CPR but soon gave up. As he turned the body onto its side, water spouted from the mouth and the head flopped backwards, eyes rolling. It was then that Clara screamed.

The deputy pathologist, whom Nelson much prefers to Chris Stephenson, estimated that the body had only been in the water for a couple of hours, but that was time enough for Eckhart’s handsome face to become bloated and obscene. He is dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers and the knife wound, bloodless after immersion in the salty water, is almost directly over the heart. Nelson summons reinforcements to search for the murder weapon but he doubts that it will be found. Eckhart’s body had become wedged between rocks; otherwise it would have been carried away by the tide. The knife could be halfway to Norway by now.

‘Come on,’ he says now to Clara and her father. ‘It’s perishing here. Let’s go up to the house.’

Stella Hastings meets them at the door and guides Clara inside. ‘Come on, darling. We’ll get you dressed and you can have some hot chocolate to warm you up.’

Nelson stays in the doorway, feeling in the way but knowing that he must come in and, if possible, talk to Clara. Also, he’d rather like some hot chocolate. Jack Hastings takes pity on him.

‘Come into the kitchen and we’ll have something to drink,’ he says. ‘I’m sure you need to speak to Clara. She must have been the last person to see the poor fellow alive.’

Apart from the murderer, that is, thinks Nelson, following Hastings along the stone-flagged corridor. He notes also that the ‘Kraut journalist’ has become ‘the poor fellow’.

Hastings’ mother, Irene, is, as usual, knitting by the fire. Nelson wonders if she has been told of the morning’s events, but as he sits at the scrubbed oak table she turns to him and says, ‘Was it him? The German boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Poor soul,’ says Irene, knitting steadily without looking down. ‘That path is wickedly slippery. Easy to lose your footing, especially if you’ve had a drop to drink.’

Nelson hesitates. He knows he must tell the Hastings family how Dieter Eckhart was killed but he wants to choose his moment for doing so. At some point he’ll have to take formal statements, from Clara at least. He thinks it’s interesting, though, that Irene assumes that Dieter may have been drunk.

‘We don’t know what happened yet,’ he says. ‘There’ll have to be a post mortem.’

Hastings puts a mug of tea in front of Nelson. Irene looks disapproving.

‘Sorry, Ma,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t find the cups.’

‘Tea tastes better out of a cup and saucer,’ says Irene. ‘Don’t you think so, Sergeant?’

‘There’s something in that,’ agrees Nelson, accepting, with an effort, being addressed as sergeant.

‘Will you be able to trace the next of kin?’ asks Hastings, sitting opposite Nelson.

‘I think so. He was affiliated to the university or we can contact his publisher. Shouldn’t be difficult. My sergeant’s on to that now.’ He has sent Clough back to the station with specific instructions. He can’t help emphasising the word ‘sergeant’.

‘Clara might know,’ says Hastings. ‘But she’s terribly cut up. It was an awful shock.’

‘She was very sweet on him,’ cuts in Irene.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Hastings looks annoyed now. ‘She barely knew him.’

At that moment, Clara comes into the room. She is wearing jeans and a heavy jumper and looks pale but composed. She doesn’t appear to have heard her father’s words.

‘Miss Hastings,’ says Nelson gently, ‘is it all right if I ask you a few questions?’

Clara looks round at her mother. ‘Can I stay with her?’ asks Stella.

‘Of course. It’s just a few informal questions. She can come into the station later to make a proper statement. You can all stay,’ he adds, as Hastings and his mother show no signs of moving.

Clara sits down opposite Nelson and next to her father. Her mother puts a mug in front of her and she wraps her hands tightly round it.

‘Miss Hastings… Clara… were you with Mr Eckhart last night?’

‘Yes,’ says Clara, her voice low but clear. ‘We went to the pictures and then had a meal.’

‘Did you come back to Sea’s End House together?’

‘Yes. He drove me. We got back at about eleven.’

‘Did he come in? To say goodnight?’ Nelson wonders if they were sleeping together. He imagines so, thinking of the entwined couple on Ruth’s sofa but, at all events, they do not seem to have shared a room at Clara’s parents’ house.

‘Just quickly. We had a cup of tea.’

‘Was anyone else up?’

‘Dad was in his study watching TV. I put my head round the door to say hallo.’

‘I was dozing really,’ says Jack Hastings. ‘Can’t stay awake after ten these days.’

‘But you remember Clara coming in. Did you see Mr Eckhart?’

‘I remember seeing Clara, she said something about what I was watching. It was football, I think. I didn’t see Eckhart.’

‘What time did Mr Eckhart leave the house?’ Nelson asks Clara.

‘About half eleven, I think.’

‘Did you watch him drive off?’ Nelson asks. ‘Wave him goodbye?’

‘No,’ says Clara. ‘He told me to go inside because it was so cold. I waved from the door, his car was still parked outside but he was texting and didn’t see me. So I went upstairs, had a bath and got into bed.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Midnight. I remember looking at the time before I got into bed. You know how spooky it is when the clock says 00.00.’

‘The witching hour,’ says Irene. Clara shivers.

‘When you drove up to the house,’ says Nelson, ‘did you see anyone hanging around? Notice anything suspicious?’

‘No.’ A smile fleetingly curves her pale lips. ‘We were too busy to notice anything.’

‘Too busy spooning,’ explains Irene helpfully.

‘What about you, Mr Hastings?’ asks Nelson. ‘Did you notice anyone hanging about outside the house?’

‘No. I took the dogs out for their last run at ten-ish. They would have barked if there was anyone they didn’t know.’

‘Do you suspect that he was… murdered?’ asks Stella, almost in a whisper.

‘I’m keeping an open mind,’ says Nelson. ‘Now I’ll leave you in peace. I’ll have a WPC contact you about making a statement, Miss Hastings. Take care of yourself now.’

Before he goes back to the station, Nelson asks Hastings to show him round the back of the house. Beyond the French windows and the terrace there are just a few metres of land before the broken fence and the sheer drop to the sea. Nelson goes as close as he dares and peers down. Far below, the sea is breaking against the rocks, jagged murderous-looking debris left by numerous cliff falls. For the first time, Nelson realises how close to destruction the house actually is.

‘Is this where you walked the dogs?’ he asks.

‘No. Too dangerous for them here. They can easily go over the edge of the cliff, I’ve seen it happen. Dog chases a seagull and – wham. No, I always take them to the front garden at night.’

Nelson looks back at the house. There is really nowhere for a potential assassin to hide, no bushes, no trees, no outhouses. Just sheer grey walls and shuttered windows. He walks back around the side of the house, where the steep path leads down to the beach. He stops in front of a small green door.

‘What’s in there?’

‘Gardening room. It’s where we kept all our patio stuff, when we had a patio.’

Nelson tries the door; it’s locked.

‘Is it always kept locked?’ he asks.

‘Yes. No-one really uses it now.’

The front garden has some trees, though they are bent double by the constant wind that comes from the sea. It would be just possible, though, for a man to hide behind them in the dark.

‘And you saw nothing when you went out last night?’

‘No. As I say, the dogs would have barked if there’d been anyone lurking around.’

‘Anyone they didn’t know, that is.’

Hastings looks at him sharply but says nothing. As Nelson drives away, he sees Jack Hastings still standing in the front garden, frowning up at the house.

Nelson drives quickly, overtaking the myriad Sunday drivers out for a toddle along the coast. Dieter Eckhart was murdered, no doubt about that. Whether the killer was someone he knew remained to be seen. It usually is, Nelson knows that. Nine murders out of ten are committed by someone close to the victim. The dogs that didn’t bark: isn’t that a Sherlock Holmes story? Archie Whitcliffe would have known. Was there someone hiding in the garden that night? Or did the killer come from inside the house? Nelson would give a lot to know who Dieter Eckhart had been texting as he sat in his car outside Sea’s End House.

Does Nelson really suspect Jack Hastings, a highly respectable politician, of killing three people just to preserve his father’s reputation? On the face of it the thing is unlikely, but Nelson knows to look beyond the face of things. Buster Hastings is certainly revered in Sea’s End House and Dieter Eckhart would have had no compunction in denouncing him as a war criminal if he could find the evidence. In Hastings’ eyes, Eckhart had even corrupted his daughter. Nelson had noticed his face when Irene mentioned ‘spooning’. Jack Hastings had not been happy that his daughter was dating a German, not happy at all.

Back at the station, a grey-faced Judy is sitting at her desk. All officers have been called in to work. Whitcliffe, horrified at the autopsy report on Archie, is throwing everything at the case.

‘How are you feeling?’ asks Nelson.

‘Like death.’

‘Well, there’s a lot of it about. Good night last night?’’

‘Brilliant. I can’t remember anything after midnight.’

‘Did Ruth enjoy herself?’

‘Ruth? I think she left early. Tatjana stayed the night at my place though. She was up at eight for a run. The woman’s a marvel.’

‘Any luck on Dieter Eckhart’s next of kin?’ says Nelson.

‘Yes.’ Judy looks at him sideways. ‘I rang his university. Apparently he’s got a wife and two children.’