The Janus Stone

CHAPTER 18

Nelson calls a special team meeting in the morning. Working on Saturday means overtime, which won’t please Whitcliffe, but he knows it is imperative that they make some headway on the case before the press get hold of it. Nelson arrives at the station in a mood of manic efficiency. He bounds upstairs, crashes open the door to the incident room, rips the picture of Father Patrick Hennessey off the pinboard and barks, ‘Right, the priest’s in the clear. Any other ideas?’

The effect is rather ruined because Judy and Clough are the only people in the incident room. Clough is eating a McDonald’s breakfast burger and Judy is reading the Mail.

‘What did you say?’ asks Clough, screwing up greaseproof paper and throwing it in the bin.

‘The priest.’ Nelson puts the picture on the table. Father Hennessey’s blue eyes stare blandly up at him. ‘He’s innocent. Ruth Galloway has identified traces of fluoride on the skull that could only have come from before 1955. Elizabeth Black was born in 1968.’

‘Fluoride?’ Clough still looks blank.

‘In the teeth. Apparently there’s some special sort of flu oride that was only used between 1949 and 1955. So that’s our range.’

‘Don’t they put fluoride in the water anyway?’ asks Clough.

‘Not in Norfolk,’ offers Judy, folding away the paper. ‘Fluoride occurs naturally in our water. There’s no need to add it to the supply.’

‘Anyway, this is different stuff. Stannous fluoride, it’s called. Apparently they don’t use it any more because it stains your teeth. Or rather they do but only in one specialised brand.’

‘So Holy Joe didn’t do it?’ Clough sounds disappointed.

‘No.’

‘I never thought he did,’ says Judy.

‘Well, you’re another one of them.’

‘What?’

‘Catholics.’

‘They’re everywhere, Cloughie,’ says Nelson, ‘except in the Masons. Now, come on, we’ve got work to do.’

Ruth also wakes in an optimistic frame of mind. It is Saturday so she can have a lie-in. Light filters in through the curtains and onto the bed where Flint sleeps stretched out, his claws twitching. Ruth stretches too, touching the cat with her toes. It had been a good night last night. The meal on the boat, getting the pregnancy thing off her chest, the breakthrough in the case. The perfect evening in fact. After the call from Debbie and Ruth’s call to Nelson, she and Max had chatted some more and then he had driven her back to her car. Drinkers were still sitting outside the pub and the moon was high above the treetops. He had kissed her cheek and told her to take care. ‘See you soon,’ Ruth had said. ‘I hope so,’ Max had replied.

There was something in his tone, and in the kiss, which makes Ruth’s heart beat a little faster as she remembers it. He can’t possibly fancy her, especially now he knows she is pregnant but, nevertheless, there is something, a hint that they might be more than just friends. Does she fancy him? A little, she admits. He is very much her type, tall and dark and intelligent, a little distant. But all those usual women’s magaziney feelings have been submerged by the overwhelming fact that she is expecting a baby. She can’t really think of anything else. Even now, lying here luxuriating in the warm bed, she is thinking about the creature inside her. She even fantasises that she can feel him move, although the nurse at the hospital said it was too early. There is something though. A heaviness, a presence, a sense of space filled. She has even thought of a name for him. She has begun to call him Toby. She doesn’t know why, she doesn’t even particularly like the name, but she just has a feeling that this baby is called Toby.

Damn, she needs to go to the loo again. She might as well make a cup of tea now she’s up. Downstairs, the early morning view over the Saltmarsh is spectacular, seagulls wheeling against the pale blue sky. The news is on the radio but soon there will be that blissful listening hour between nine and ten: feel-good stories, inheritance tracks, bizarre facts about people who collect matchboxes or who have unknowingly married close blood relations. Perfection.

Ruth pads upstairs with her tea. She’ll listen to the radio and then she’ll think about getting up. She might even go for a swim, do something healthy. It’ll be good for Toby. Humming tunelessly, she gets back into bed.

Nelson faces his team across the now more crowded incident room. ‘So,’ he is saying forcefully, ‘whilst the evidence needs to be verified, it does seem that we are looking at an earlier timescale for this crime. Elizabeth Black was born in 1968. If the expert evidence is correct, the skull can’t possibly be hers.’

‘Are we sure the skull and body are the same child, sir?’ Nelson cranes his head to see who has asked this excellent question. A new recruit, Tanya Fuller.

‘Good question, Tanya. Yes, the DNA results confirm this. So, we’re looking at earlier events in the house. Cloughie, what does the title deed registration tell us?’

Clough, who has been glaring resentfully at Tanya, jumps to his feet. He flicks importantly through his file.

‘Prior to 1960, the house was owned by… Bloody hell!’

After breakfast, Ruth contemplates her day. There is always work, of course, but the sun is shining in the dust motes by her window and she doesn’t feel like working. Exercise would be good but she no longer fancies the swimming pool with its smell of chlorine and other peoples’ feet. A walk, that’s what she’d like. A brisk walk with a pub lunch at the end of it.

She almost phones Shona, who is sometimes amenable to walking if compensated by alcohol, but then she hesitates, wondering if she’s up to further bulletins on the state of Phil’s marriage. Anyway, Shona would want to eat in King’s Lynn, somewhere where she can be sure of extra virgin olive oil and ciabatta. Ruth fancies something a little more rustic. Suddenly, a vision of the Phoenix comes into her head – the smell of chicken cooking on the outdoor grill, the view over the hills, the clink of glasses and the hum of conversation.

Didn’t Max say something about discovering some more finds on the site? If Ruth drives out to Swaffham, she won’t be going to see Max, she’ll be going to see the pottery and the coins and the pieces from the Roman board game. That’s all right then.

Ruth fetches her jacket.

‘Prior to 1960,’ Clough looks portentously around the room, ‘the house was owned by Christopher Spens.’

‘Christopher…’ Nelson echoes, ‘not the same family…?’

‘One and the same.’ Clough sounds like he is enjoying himself though, in retrospect, this is an oversight of fairly epic proportions. ‘Father of Roderick Spens, grandfather of Edward Spens.’

‘Explains why he still owns the site really,’ says Tanya brightly. Clough scowls at her.

‘Did the Spens family actually live in the house?’ asks Judy.

‘Looks like it – I’ve got the census here. Yep, census of 1951. Christopher Spens, Rosemary Spens, children Roderick and Annabelle.’

‘Right.’ Nelson gets to his feet. ‘Cloughie, you find out all you can about the Spens family. Judy and Tanya, you get on to the lab for the test results. I’m going to have a little chat with Edward Spens.’

The weather stays bright all the way to Swaffham but as Ruth pulls off the A47 (carefully mirror-signal-manoeuvring) dark clouds are scudding across the sky. As she parks on the grass at the foot of the hill, fat raindrops are beginning to fall. She watches as the students run laughing down the slope, holding coats and tarpaulins over their heads. Most disappear into the pub, some bundle into dilapidated cars and drive off in a blur of exhaust smoke. Soon Ruth’s is the only vehicle parked at the bottom of the mound.

‘Is it important, Harry? Otherwise one does rather like leave weekends free for the family.’

‘Oh it’s important, Mr Spens,’ says Nelson grimly. He decides to do away with any introductory niceties. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that your family used to live on Woolmarket Street?’

A slight pause. ‘I assumed you knew.’

‘Never assume, Mr Spens. So, even when a body was discovered on the site, you didn’t think it was worth mentioning that the house was once your family home?’

‘I never lived there. The house and land was leased to the diocese in 1960.’

‘But you still owned it?’

‘Yes. But you were interested in the years when it was a children’s home. The Spens family had nothing to do with the house then.’

‘And now we’re interested in the Spens years,’ says Nelson smoothly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve got evidence that the body was that of a child born in the early to mid-fifties. When would be a good time for me to pop over?’

The rain seems to be slowing down. Ruth, who feels slightly sick after the car journey, decides to take a short walk after all. Just up to the site and back. She gets out of the car, pulling on her yellow sou’wester.

The climb up the hill is hard going and she finds herself staring down at the grass, willing her feet to keep moving. When she gets to the top and looks around her, she realises that the sky is now completely black. Far off, she hears the first faint rumble of thunder.

As she heads towards the main trench she thinks she sees something out of the corner of her eye. She whirls round but there is nothing, just the wind blowing across the coarse grass. But Ruth is sure she saw something – a black shape skirting around the edge of the site. An animal maybe but, for some reason, Ruth feels shaken. She hears Max’s voice. She is meant to haunt crossroads, crossing places, accompanied by her ghost dogs.

Don’t be ridiculous, she tells herself. Hecate’s hounds are hardly going to be lying in wait for you. It was probably a fox or a cat. But, nevertheless, she has a strong urge to go back to her car and drive as far away from the site as she can. It is only the thought of climbing all the way up the hill for nothing that stops her. She’ll just have a quick look in the main trench and go back. Just to say that she’s done something.

The sky murmurs again. Pulling her hood further over her head, Ruth lowers herself into the trench.

Ruth stumbles slightly and almost falls onto the packed earth. Suddenly lightning splits open the sky. Ruth shuts her eyes. When she opens them again, there is a dead baby at her feet.

Last night I had a terrible dream – a snake-faced woman, a man with two faces, a child thrown into the furnace, its flesh melting off, like a plastic doll that has fallen in the fire. I woke drenched in sweat but I was too scared to go back to sleep. I stayed awake, reading Pliny and waiting for dawn to break. Why am I troubled in this way? I have made all the right sacrifices yet it is almost as if the gods are angry.

The weather has got warmer. Yesterday Susan was working in the garden with her sleeves rolled up. I could see her arms, speckled like hens’ eggs, covered with surprisingly thick blonde hairs. I had to reprimand her, of course. I am the Master.

I am tired. Sometimes I just want to lie down and sleep and forget everything. By a sleep to say we end the heartache… Hamlet Act 3, scene 1. To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream.

Ay, there’s the rub.