The House At Sea’s End

CHAPTER 29

All in all, Ruth is relieved to go to work on Monday morning. A policeman returned her car late on Sunday night and, by then, a lot of the snow had melted. During Sunday evening, as she and Tatjana watched TV, huge chunks of snow kept falling off her roof. When she went to bed, early because she was exhausted, she could see dark patches appearing in the Saltmarsh and the tops of the reeds emerging from the blanket of whiteness.

Monday morning is bright, almost spring-like. As she drives to work, the roads are clear, the snow remaining only as dirty sludge in the gutters. The university grounds are still white though. A huge snowman draped in a UNN scarf stands at the entrance to the Natural Sciences block but, as Ruth passes, its head falls forward, like a deposed tyrant. Soon all the snow will disappear, like a dream of winter. That’s what Saturday night must be, Ruth tells herself sternly, a dream. Now she must get on with real life. She sighs, climbing the stairs to the archaeology corridor.

She has a meeting with the Field Team at ten. Trace isn’t there but Ted, Craig and Steve squash into Ruth’s tiny office and Ruth tells them briefly about the discovery of the film. The team are still employed by the university on their erosion survey but Ruth feels she needs to keep them updated as they were the ones that found the bodies in the first place. She has agreed with Nelson that she won’t go into any detail, will just say that new evidence has emerged. She can’t say how the film was found, either, though naturally the archaeologists are intrigued. Ted, in particular, keeps asking very awkward questions. ‘How come this film has turned up after seventy-odd years? Who were the men anyway? That Dieter bloke said they were German. Have you any idea who killed them?’

‘I can’t tell you any more,’ Ruth keeps saying. ‘It’s confidential. The police are still investigating.’

‘Are they investigating Dieter’s death?’ asks Ted. ‘Looks pretty suspicious to me.’

‘I really can’t say.’

Craig comes to her rescue by asking about Operation Lucifer. With relief, Ruth describes the explosive trail laid along the North Norfolk coast, the fire ships, the barrels of gun cotton.

‘We’ll get down there this morning and have another look around,’ says Ted. ‘We’ve still got a few miles of coast to go.’

‘Well, be careful,’ says Ruth. ‘Some of the explosives may still be primed.’

Her whole life, she thinks, as the door closes behind the three men, seems suddenly to be full of unexploded bombs. Sure enough, before the Field Team have clumped to the end of the corridor, Phil appears, smiling engagingly.

‘Can I have a word, Ruth?’

‘I’ve got a tutorial in an hour.’

‘It’ll only take a minute.’

Phil sits opposite, crinkling his eyes in what Shona probably tells him is an attractive way.

‘What about that snow, eh? Shona and I took the boys sledging. Great fun.’

‘It must have been.’

‘What was New Road like? Must have been hellish, out there in the back of beyond.’

‘The snow was fairly deep on Saturday. It had cleared by this morning.’

‘Shona tells me you’ve been making some exciting discoveries.’

Ruth curses herself for telling Shona about the lighthouse trip. She’d only done it because she wanted Shona to babysit.

‘Yes. We’ve found some new evidence about the bodies found at Broughton Sea’s End.’

Phil cocks his head on one side, inviting her to say more.

‘I’m not sure how much I can tell you,’ says Ruth awkwardly. ‘It’s a police matter.’

‘Oh, come on, Ruth. I’m your head of department.’

This is true. But it’s also true that Ruth is now seconded to the Serious Crimes Unit, part of the police team. She has a foot in both camps and the ground between has suddenly become a minefield.

‘Dieter Eckhart, poor chap.’ Phil ducks his head piously. ‘He said the bodies were German.’

‘Yes, we’re pretty sure that they were German soldiers. The oxygen isotope analysis points that way.’

‘Do you know how they were killed?’

‘They were shot.’

Phil’s eyes widen. ‘By the British?’

‘We have a statement to that effect.’

‘A statement? From whom?’

‘I don’t think I can say.’

Phil changes tack. ‘What about Eckhart’s death? There are a lot of rumours floating around.’

‘The police are investigating.’

‘Do they think it was murder?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘They do then.’

Ruth says nothing, and after loitering maddeningly for a few minutes Phil drifts away.

Monday is a busy teaching day for Ruth. She has another tutorial at two. She has a quick sandwich in the canteen and escapes to her office to prepare, treading warily as she passes Phil’s open door. She doesn’t want to get trapped into giving anything else away.

She is just finishing her sandwich and reading about bone disease in preparation for her students, when the phone rings. It’s Craig. He and Ted have found a boat on the beach just beyond Broughton. It looks old. Could it be one of the fire ships she was mentioning? Does she want to come and have a look?

Ruth does want to, very much. She longs to escape from the university and do some real archaeology, examine a piece of evidence, feel the sun and wind on her face. But even if she leaves straight after her tutorial she still won’t be back in time to pick up Kate at five. Sandra probably wouldn’t mind keeping her an hour longer, or maybe Tatjana would go and pick her up? Tatjana’s conference has finished and she was just saying that morning that she hadn’t anything to do today. She leaves tomorrow, her bags are packed and she’s done all the touristy things in King’s Lynn and Norwich. Ruth has avoided asking Tatjana to have anything to do with Kate but surely she won’t mind this one little favour. After all, Ruth has had her to stay for nearly three weeks.

She rings Tatjana on her mobile. She hadn’t expected it to be difficult, had even expected Tatjana to interrupt and offer to get Kate, but Tatjana hears her out in silence. Ruth stammers and repeats herself. She remembers how much she hates asking for favours. When she has talked herself to a standstill, Tatjana says, ‘Let me get this straight. You want me to pick up your daughter?’

Ruth does not like the way she says ‘your daughter’.

‘Yes,’ she mutters.

‘Just because you can’t be bothered?’

‘No! It’s not that. It’s just that Craig has found something which might be interesting…’

‘Interesting but not vital. There’s no necessity for you to go today is there?’

‘No but…’

‘You expect us all to run round after you, don’t you?’ Tatjana is laughing but her voice does not sound amused. ‘Shona, me, Judy. We all have to look after your baby because you’re too busy swanning around with Detective Inspector Nelson, pretending to solve crimes. That’s not your job, Ruth. Your job is being a mother.’

‘My job is being an archaeologist.’

‘Yes, right.’ Tatjana laughs again. ‘How is that going, Ruth? How many papers have you written? Where’s that book you were always going to write? It didn’t happen, did it?’

‘I’ve been–’

‘Busy? Yes, busy having a baby without a father.’

Ruth is speechless. This is the sort of thing her mother says. Not Tatjana, who is meant to be her friend.

‘I’m sorry you feel like this,’ she says at last.

‘Yes.’ Suddenly Tatjana sounds very tired. ‘I’m sorry too. Sorry for all of us. Especially Kate.’ And she rings off.

Ruth is shaking. She looks at her phone as if it holds the key to Tatjana’s outburst. She had known that Tatjana disapproved of her asking Clara to babysit, she had known and she had understood. Who knows better than she how Tatjana feels about putting career before children? Why had she ever thought that Tatjana would be on her side? Tatjana despises her for leaving her daughter in other people’s care while she ‘swans around’ with Nelson. But she had never expected so much vitriol, so much… hatred was the only word. There was such a depth of contempt in Tatjana’s voice that Ruth feels as if she has been physically attacked. And she feels humiliated too. She had thought she was doing quite well, trying to do the famous juggling thing, trying to be a good mother and keep her job, trying not to rely on other people. But it turns out that Tatjana thinks she is relying on other people. Is that what everyone thinks about her? Shona, Judy, Cathbad, Phil? Look at Ruth pretending to be a policeman. She can’t even be bothered to look after her own baby, just dumps the poor thing with a childminder. She’s not fit to have a child.

And maybe it’s true. Hadn’t she summoned Shona to take charge of Kate while they were excavating the bodies on the beach? This, despite the fact that Shona obviously couldn’t cope and had let Kate scream herself almost sick. And even though Shona was clueless about babies, hadn’t Ruth left Kate with her again so she could go to a hen night, of all frivolous things? What sort of mother was Ruth, anyway, drinking in wine bars and clubs, coming home past midnight? And she’d left Kate with Clara, someone she barely knew, just so that she could hang around on the edge of Nelson’s investigations, lapping up vicarious glory. Seconded to the Serious Crimes Unit indeed! Who is she trying to kid? It was all Ruth’s fault that Clara had been snowed in with Kate, that Judy had to risk her life driving over the snow-covered marshes. No wonder Judy’s hardly spoken to her since. And now she’d done it again. She has obviously deeply insulted Tatjana. And why? Just so that she can go and dig up an old boat, probably just some fishing boat that ran aground in a storm.

By the time her students arrive, standing self-consciously in the open doorway, shuffling their papers, Ruth has decided to go straight home after the tutorial. She’ll stop all this ridiculous detective business. It’s no business of hers whether the wreck is that of a fire ship, part of Operation Lucifer. It’s no business of hers who murdered Archie Whitcliffe, Hugh Anselm or Dieter Eckhart. Her job, as Tatjana pointed out, is being a mother. She’d better get on with it.

It’s not one of her best tutorials. Luckily, the students do most of the work themselves, one of them reading a paper, the others discussing it. They are all mature students from China and America and they are scrupulously polite to each other. All Ruth has to do is to steer the conversation in certain directions and to correct some misconceptions about Neanderthal Man. Then they are backing out of her room, the Chinese students literally bowing.

Ruth’s phone rings. It’s Nelson.

‘Ruth, I’m off to Sea’s End House. There’s a few more questions I need to ask. What are you doing?’

‘Well, Craig, one of the field team, rang to say that they’d found a boat on the beach just beyond Broughton. They think it might be a fire ship. You know, part of the coastal defence.’

‘Are you going down to have a look at it?’

‘I might do.’

‘I’ll see you there, if so. And Ruth?’

‘What?’

‘Be careful.’

Ruth turns off the phone but, almost immediately, switches it back on to call Sandra. She’ll just have a quick look at the boat. She’ll be home by six at the latest.

Nelson had asked if he could speak to Irene on her own, but when he reaches Sea’s End House he is told by Stella that her mother-in-law is unwell and can’t be disturbed.

‘What is it?’ Nelson does not return Stella’s smile.

‘The doctor thinks it may be a small stroke.’

‘Jesus.’ Nelson is taken aback. A stroke is serious. Why aren’t they running about calling ambulances?

‘At Mother’s age these things are almost inevitable,’ says Stella, leading the way into the sitting room. ‘There’s no point her going into hospital. She might as well stay here, peacefully, in her own bed.’

There is an air of resignation about her which Nelson finds disturbing. In her own bed. People talk about dying ‘in their own bed’. He’s not going to do that. He’s going to die in a speeding car or saving some child from drowning. Peace is overrated, in his opinion.

‘How old is Irene?’

‘Ninety-three.’ Again, that calm smile.

It seems odd not to have Irene fussing about with the tea. There’s no sign of Jack or Clara either. But that suits Nelson. Stella has always struck him as the sanest one of the family.

‘Jack and Clara have taken the dogs for a long walk,’ explains Stella. ‘Jack needed to get out of the house. He’s been so worried about Irene. And Clara could do with a break too. She’s had a bad time of it recently.’

‘Was she very upset about Dieter Eckhart’s death?’

‘Very. I think she really cared about him.’

‘Was she in love with him?’

Stella looks slightly reproving. ‘They’d only known each other for a few weeks.’

But it happens, Nelson wants to tell her. Didn’t he fall in love with Michelle as soon as he saw her, that day in the Blackpool Rock Shop?

‘Mrs Hastings,’ says Nelson. On Saturday night they had been on first name terms but that seems a long time ago. ‘How much do you know about the war years at Sea’s End House?’

‘Quite a lot,’ says Stella placidly. ‘More than Jack, I daresay. Irene talked to me a lot. Buster too. I was very interested.’

‘Did you know that Irene used to visit Archie Whitcliffe?’

‘Yes. She was fond of him. Buster had been almost like a father to him.’

It seems odd to think of the elderly man with the regimental tie having a father, surrogate or otherwise. Nelson remembers what Archie said about Buster Hastings. Hell of a chap. A real old devil. One of the old school. Not the most loving of descriptions.

‘What about Hugh Anselm? Did she visit him?’

‘She went once, a few years ago. She wasn’t so close to Hugh. I don’t think Buster liked him much, he always referred to him as that damned commie.’ She laughs softly.

‘Did you ever meet Hugh?’

‘Yes. I drove Irene over to see him that time.’

‘And Archie?’

‘Once or twice.’

It’s incredible, reflects Nelson. He had thought that Jack was the key to Sea’s End House but all the time it was the quiet woman sitting in front of him. She had known all Irene’s wartime stories, she remembers Buster, she had taken Irene to visit both Archie and Hugh.

‘Mrs Hastings, did Buster ever talk about Daniel West?’

‘Daniel West? No, I don’t think so. Who is he?’

‘He was a young boy in Buster Hastings’ platoon. He killed himself in 1940.’

‘Killed himself? How horrible.’

‘He killed himself to escape the memory of a war crime committed by Buster Hastings and his men.’

‘What do you mean, war crime?’

‘Has your husband told you about the film we were watching that day at your house? The day when it snowed?’

‘Only that it was some nonsense produced by Hugh.’

‘In the film Hugh Anselm accuses Captain Hastings and his sergeant of killing six defenceless German soldiers. The six bodies we found at Broughton Sea’s End.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Your husband believed it.’

‘Jack? He can’t have.’

‘You said yourself that the war was a desperate time. People do desperate things in desperate times.’

She looks at him as if half conceding the point. In the background, a clock ticks.

‘Mrs Hastings,’ says Nelson. ‘Do you know how Hugh Anselm died?’

Stella’s brow furrows. ‘Some sort of accident, wasn’t it?’

‘He was found dead in his stairlift.’

‘How terrible.’

‘We think foul play may have been involved.’

He meant to shock her and he does. Her eyes widen and her hand clenches on the arm of her chair.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that someone deliberately stopped the stairlift. Someone who knew that Hugh Anselm had a heart condition and that the agitation of trying to free himself would be likely to kill him.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Archie Whitcliffe was suffocated,’ says Nelson brutally. ‘I think the same person killed both men.’

‘Archie? Suffocated? I don’t believe you.’

‘A post mortem examination cannot lie,’ says Nelson, though they can and do.

There is a silence. Out of the French windows, Nelson can see the sea, brightest blue under a paler blue sky. A white-sailed yacht moves slowly across the horizon.

‘Detective Chief Inspector,’ Stella is very pale but her voice is perfectly steady, ‘am I to understand that you suspect someone in this family of these horrible crimes?’

‘I suspect no-one and everyone,’ says Nelson portentously.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Someone killed those men and I think it was to protect the memory of Buster Hastings. Dieter Eckhart too. He was about to uncover the truth. I think someone killed to prevent that happening.’

She stares at him, her hands still clenched on the arms of her chair. An alarm goes off, making them both jump. Stella Hastings looks at her watch.

‘Time to check on Mother. Excuse me, Detective Chief Inspector. I won’t be long.’

And she goes out. Leaving Nelson to look out of the window, across the bay to the lighthouse. In front of him is a row of plants, one of which, he now realises, is planted in a German officer’s helmet.

Ruth is glad that she came. It is a beautiful afternoon, the sea sparkling in the sun. There is no snow left on the beach and it could almost be a summer day, if it were not for the sharp air that makes her catch her breath and wish she’d brought a scarf.

Craig is waiting for her at the foot of the slope. He is warmly dressed in a donkey jacket and black woolly hat.

‘Where’s Ted?’

‘He had to go back. Some domestic crisis. I said I would wait.’

‘That was kind of you.’

As Ruth follows Craig across the beach, she wonders about Ted’s domestic crisis. As far as she knows, he isn’t married or living with anyone. He’s a bit of an enigma, Irish Ted. He once told her that his name wasn’t even Ted.

Sandra had been happy to look after Kate for an hour longer. ‘No problem. Don’t worry so much, Ruth.’ But Ruth does worry. Tatjana’s words have left her feeling bruised and vulnerable. She has tried a couple of times to ring Tatjana back but her phone seems to be switched off. Is Ruth really such a terrible mother? She loves Kate more than her life but maybe this isn’t enough. Certainly the whole maternal thing doesn’t come easily to her, as it does to women like Michelle. Ruth never knows what to say to Sandra or to other mothers – one excruciating morning at a mother and baby group was enough to show her this. She doesn’t know what baby food to buy or which car seat to avoid. She’s never read a parenting magazine or watched Supernanny. She and Kate are having to make it up as they go along. And she’d thought she was doing all right, until the conversation with Tatjana.

But Tatjana has her own issues. Ruth knows this but she still shies away from talking properly to her friend. She has had her chances over the past weeks, but she has been too cowardly to take them. Tatjana will go home tomorrow and Ruth may never see her again.

They have left Broughton now and are crossing the beach where the barrels were found. The tide is out, rock pools stretch in front of them and Ruth can see the remains of the Victorian sea wall, like a green-slimed monster rising from the water, but something in the air perhaps, or in the wild calling of the seagulls, tells her that the tide may be about to turn. They’d better keep an eye on it. There’s no way off this beach and the cliffs are too high to climb.

‘How much further?’ she asks.

‘Just round the next headland.’

They have to climb over rocks, sharp with barnacles and crusted mussels, then in front of them lies another bay, a perfect semicircle scooped out of the sandstone cliff. And there, rearing out of the shallow water, is the unmistakeable hull of a ship. The water has eaten away at the wood and Ruth can see the blue sky through its prow but the shape is still there, a largish boat, about the size of the launch that took them to the lifeboat. It looks both menacing and strangely sad.

‘Have you any idea how old it is?’ asks Ruth, splashing forwards, despite the fact that she isn’t (for once) wearing her wellingtons. The water is freezing.

‘I don’t know but I think about sixty or seventy years old by the shape of it.’

Ruth knows nothing about the shape of boats but this one looks as if it has been here forever. ‘What makes you think it was a fire ship?’ she asks.

‘There are barrels inside,’ says Craig. ‘Take a look.’

‘We’d better be quick,’ says Ruth, looking out to sea at the waves coming in towards them, shockingly fast.

‘Oh, we’ve got all the time in the world,’ says Craig.

Nelson is still staring out of the window when Stella comes back into the room.

‘How is she?’ he asks.

‘As well as can be expected. Peaceful.’ That note of resignation again. It casts a shadow on the bright afternoon, a shadow reflected on Stella’s face as she joins Nelson by the window.

All that is left of the garden at Sea’s End House is a thin strip of land, about a metre across, that runs alongside the house. The back garden has disappeared completely. But someone has taken trouble with the tiny piece of ground that is left. There is a narrow ribbon of lawn and someone has been tending the flowerbeds.

‘Strange to see the flowers coming up again after the snow,’ says Stella. ‘They’re hardier than you think, spring flowers.’

‘Are you a keen gardener?’ asks Nelson. He isn’t, though he quite likes mowing the lawn. Michelle loves garden centres; they’re her idea of heaven.

‘No, but we have someone who comes in. There’s not really enough for him to do now but he’s always looked after our garden. And his grandfather before him.’

Something stirs in Nelson’s brain as he looks at the spindly tulips pushing up out of the chalky soil.

‘Wasn’t he in the Home Guard? Your old gardener?’

‘Yes, Donald Drummond. He was devoted to Buster. And to Irene.’

As clear as if it is being amplified into the air around him, Nelson’s hears Hugh Anselm’s voice: Donald said they were only filthy Jerries and would do the same to us. Donald Drummond, the gardener.

And, like a kaleidoscope spinning before his eyes, so fast that the colours are blurred and the shapes indistinct, Nelson sees himself looking down from Archie Whitcliffe’s window. He is watching the gardener mow the lawn. Then, he sees himself at Hugh Anselm’s sheltered accommodation, admiring the grounds, so beautifully kept, recently mown, newly planted.

‘What’s the name of the gardener you have now? Donald’s grandson?’ he asks, so sharply that Stella steps back.

‘Craig. I assumed you’d know him. He’s an archaeologist too. One of Ruth’s team.’