THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END (14 page)

‘Are you married, Mr Fitzherbert?’ he asks, accepting an invitation to sit down.

Kevin Fitzherbert looks slightly discomforted. ‘Divorced. My wife and I … we had our problems … but I’m off the drink now, been off it for five years. I’m in AA. Made a completely new start.’

Not for the first time Nelson wonders at the things people will disclose to the police without being asked. The fact that Kevin Fitzherbert used to have a drink problem might be relevant or it might not. Either way, Nelson stores the information away and smiles non-committally.

‘Tell me about Hugh Anselm,’ he says.

‘Ah …’ Fitzherbert looks genuinely sad now, the Irish lilt well to the fore. ‘That was a tragedy, so it was. A fine gentleman. A true gentle man, if you get my meaning. One of the old school.’

Nelson wonders where else he heard this phrase recently. ‘How did he die?’ he asks.

‘Heart attack,’ says Fitzherbert. ‘He had a heart problem.

Angina. It was very serious, the slightest exertion could trigger an episode. He knew he could go any time. I try to call on the older residents once a day, check they’re all right. Most people like a regular time. I used to see Hugh at nine o’clock, he was an early riser. We’d have a cup of tea, have a go at the
Telegraph
crossword together. He was a whizz at crosswords, Hughie. Anyway, I called on him as usual and there was no answer. I thought it was odd so I used my master key and went in. He was sitting in his stairlift, seatbelt on, stone dead.’

‘Why did he have a stairlift?’ asks Nelson, suddenly thinking. ‘Aren’t these all flats?’

‘No, some are maisonettes. They’re the nicest units really. Hugh had some stairs and climbing made him breathless, so he used the lift.’

‘How long did they think he’d been there?’

‘Almost twenty-four hours the coroner thought. He must have got into the lift just after I’d left him the day before.’

‘The coroner. Did the police investigate? One of my team?’ The incident must have happened when he was on his holiday, thinks Nelson. It still rang a faint bell though.

‘Yes, a nice fellow called Clough. I remember the name because I used to be a big Forest fan.’

Clough! That’s why the story seemed familiar; Nelson must have read it in the weekly report. Although Clough isn’t really to blame – the death appeared to be natural causes and he did write it up – Nelson still feels slightly irritated with his sergeant.

‘Mr Fitzherbert,’ he says, leaning forward, ‘as I said on the phone, I’m interested in anything Hugh Anselm may
have told you about the war. Especially his years in the Home Guard.’

‘I know you mentioned it and I’ve been wracking my brains so. But the truth is he never talked about the war. I think he’d been in the RAF but he never spoke about it. He was all for peace, Hugh. Wouldn’t even wear a poppy. Said Remembrance Day should be as much about the German war dead as the British. He said there was no good side and no bad side, only winners and losers. He was a bit of a Leftie really. Used to write all these letters to the papers about Iraq and so on.’

‘But he read the
Telegraph
?’

‘Ah, that was just for the crossword. He took the
Guardian
too and the
New Statesman
. History magazines as well. He was a fine, well-educated man.’

‘Mr Fitzherbert, I know it sounds odd but did Hugh Anselm ever mention … Lucifer?’

‘Lucifer? Dear God, no.’ In an instinctive gesture, Fitzherbert’s hand hovers over his forehead. A Catholic then.

There’s nothing else here, thinks Nelson. Hugh was a fine, well-educated man who died, aged eighty-six, of a heart attack. No close family, Nelson has already asked. His wife died eight years ago. No children. Nobody to mourn him except Kevin Fitzherbert, who missed his company over the crossword.

But, at the door, Nelson has a Columboesque last thought.

‘The stairlift. Was it up or down?’

Fitzherbert’s brow creases. ‘That’s the funny thing. It was halfway up.’

‘Halfway up? Had it broken?’

‘Must have done, but it’s an odd thing. They’re serviced regularly, and when I saw Hugh sitting there I pressed the button. It was an instinctive thing really. And the lift moved instantly.’

‘So why would it stop halfway up?’

‘Something must have interfered with the current. Or Hugh pressed the button by accident.’

‘Or someone could have stopped it,’ says Nelson.

Nelson drives back to the station, thinking hard. On the face of it, the deaths of the two old men could be from natural causes. But there are enough questions now to add up to a suspicion. How did the stairlift stop in mid air? What did Archie mean by the word ‘Lucifer’ and what was the blood oath sworn by the two men when they were still teenagers? There’s something else too that’s nagging at him. Something to do with an armchair, a
Radio Times
and Ruth Galloway. He frowns, taking the corner by the Campbell’s Soup factory on two wheels.

When he gets in, he asks Leah for black coffee and fills in a form requesting an autopsy on Archie Whitcliffe. His boss will see it, no question, but it makes sense to get the wheels in motion. ‘Just following procedure,’ he’d say, when challenged. Whitcliffe is a great one for procedure.

As he is laboriously filling in the boxes, Clough appears in the doorway.

‘You wanted me, boss?’ Nelson had sent him a text.

‘Yes, sit down a minute.’

Clough sits down, his jaws still working on some item of food lodged in his back teeth.

‘It’s about Hugh Anselm.’

Clough looks blank.

‘The old man found dead in the stairlift.’

‘Oh, yes. It was while you were on holiday. Poor old bloke got in his stairlift, had a heart attack, found the next morning. I filed a report.’ Slightly defensively.

‘The stairlift stopped halfway up. You didn’t think that was odd?’

‘The warden thought it must have malfunctioned. Or the old boy pressed the wrong button by mistake. There were no suspicious circumstances.’ Definitely defensive.

‘What happened to Hugh Anselm’s stuff? His belongings?’

‘I don’t know. I presumed next-of-kin took them.’ Clough looks curious now. ‘What’s this all about, boss?’

‘Probably nothing.’

‘Is there a link to old man Whitcliffe?’

That’s the trouble with Clough. He’s not as thick as he looks.

‘Possibly. They were both in the Home Guard, and before he died Hugh Anselm wrote a letter to a German military historian. He said something had happened in 1940 that had haunted him all his life. A “great wrong” he called it.’

‘Do you think it was the murder of our six chums?’ The team now know that the dead men were almost certainly German. Nelson has heard Clough calling them ‘the Nazi boy band’.

‘I don’t know and now there’s no-one left to ask.’

‘Suspicious,’ says Clough happily.

‘Yes.’

Clough is on his way out when Nelson calls him back. ‘Cloughie, what do you know about
Countdown
?’

‘
Countdown
, boss? It’s a quiz programme. Teatime TV. For the oldies. It’s a word game. Dictionary corner and all that.’

‘The sort of thing someone who liked crosswords would enjoy?’

‘I suppose so.’

Because Nelson had identified the thought that was nagging at him. Archie’s newspaper, folded back at his day’s viewing.
Countdown, Coronation Street, Panorama
, an afternoon film matinee of
Went the Day Well?

When Clough has gone, he googles
Went the Day Well?

‘Chilling classic,’ he reads, ‘imagining the brutal Nazi invasion of a sleepy English village.’

‘We gather today to bless a child.

A new life that has become part of our world.

We gather today to name this child.

To call a thing by name is to give it power,

and so today we shall give this child a gift.

We will welcome her into our hearts and lives

and bless her with a name of her own.’

Cathbad is in full swing. He made a bonfire in the back garden and placed a trestle table in front of it. He then put a goblet of wine and a bowl of olive oil on the table and has invited the guests to form a ring around the fire.

Ruth, carrying Kate in her blue snow suit, follows him rather reluctantly. She had been surprised to see how many people turned up for the naming day party. Tatjana, of course, was already in residence and was quickly chatting to Phil about Arlington Springs Woman. As well as Phil there was Shona, Cathbad’s friend Freya from the modern languages department, Trace and Clough, Ted, Judy and, surprisingly, Dieter Eckhart and Clara Hastings.

‘I met Cathbad at the university,’ explained Dieter. ‘He invited me. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Why should I mind?’ said Ruth, rather sulkily. Cathbad can hardly know Dieter, who is doing some research in the history department, very well. Ruth suspects him of extending the invitation to annoy Phil, who might be jealous of Dieter’s academic reputation (and his good looks). What is more surprising is how close Dieter and Clara seem, armin-arm, laughing warmly over shared jokes, speaking in German together. He has only been here a few days after all.

‘Clara’s been a great help to me,’ Dieter explained. ‘Telling me many stories of local history.’ He gave Ruth a rather meaningful look.

Clara laughed. ‘And I’ve been practising my German. I spent a year in Germany before going to uni but I’m awfully rusty. I wish I’d worked harder at school now.’

‘I bet you were the model pupil,’ said Dieter with a smouldering look.

‘Oh, I was useless,’ said Clara carelessly. ‘I was expelled from two schools.’

Well, Dieter was certainly making every effort to help Clara catch up, retiring with her into a corner of Ruth’s sitting room and managing, with clever body language, to block out the rest of the company altogether.

To her surprise, Ruth found that she was enjoying the party. It’s been a long time since she had so many people in her house and, since Cathbad and Freya provided the food and drink, it’s hardly a strain on her as hostess, though she had trouble finding enough plates and glasses (Clough
is drinking from a Winnie the Pooh mug and Phil is eating from one of Kate’s moulded plastic bowls). Ruth was just settling down to a good chat with Judy when there was a thunderous knock at the door.

‘That’ll be the boss,’ said Clough. ‘Trying to force entry.’

Oh please God, no.

But Clough was right. Standing framed in the doorway were Nelson, unsmiling in jeans and a leather jacket, and Michelle, carrying a huge, beribboned parcel.

‘I know we weren’t supposed to bring presents,’ said Michelle. ‘But I think this’ll be useful.’

Ruth accepted the present with thanks, her heart sinking. Despite Cathbad’s directive, Kate was actually doing quite well for gifts but the Nelson offering dwarfed the rest.

‘Do open it, Ruth,’ said Michelle, accepting a glass of punch from a suddenly attentive Cathbad. Where the hell had he found a clean glass?

Ruth hates opening presents with other people watching (memories of grisly Christmas mornings pretending to be grateful for a Bible) but there was no refusing without looking churlish. Gingerly, she tore the pink flowered paper.

‘Wow! It’s a … it’s wonderful … what is it?’

It was a pink gingham chair attached to a wide base on wheels. The chair had a tray in front bristling with things to touch and press and crinkle. It looked faintly alarming, like a power base for a pink-checked alien. Ruth had a sudden flashback to Doctor Who and the Daleks. Exterminate, exterminate.

‘It’s a baby walker,’ laughed Michelle. ‘You put her in the
chair and she can walk around. Well, she won’t be able to do it yet, but in a few months she’ll be whizzing about.’

Ruth found the idea of Kate on wheels rather frightening. At least, like the Daleks, she won’t be able to go upstairs.

‘Wow. It’s fantastic. Thanks.’

‘Where’s Kate? I haven’t seen her for ages.’

In the first months of Kate’s life, Michelle had put herself out to be kind to Ruth. She came all the way to the Saltmarsh to coo and offer advice. She suggested meeting in town, she volunteered to drive Ruth and Kate to the park, she even offered to take Kate swimming ‘at my club’. Ruth was touched, and she yearned for female friendship, especially from someone who had been through the whole baby thing herself, but however much she tried to pretend that Kate had no father, that she had sprung fully formed from Ruth’s brain like a modern-day Athena, she couldn’t quite face the prospect of playing happy families with Nelson’s wife. So she wriggled out of the invitations, pleading work and tiredness, and when Michelle eventually stopped ringing, she felt both relieved and disappointed.

But this evening Michelle was all friendliness, and admiration for Kate.

‘Oh, isn’t she gorgeous? Can I hold her?’

Ruth is always surprised how maternal Michelle is. For someone so glamorous, she doesn’t give a thought to sick on her shoulder or a baby grabbing handfuls of her hair. She held Kate expertly (not even relinquishing her glass) and nuzzled her head.

‘Oh, she’s lovely. I’d forgotten how they smell. Look, Harry. Do you want a hold?’

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ said Nelson.

Now, as the guests traipse out into the garden, Ruth looks back and sees Nelson helping Michelle on with her swishy red coat. She smiles and leans back against him. Behind them, Dieter and Clara are still whispering together. Love is in the air, thinks Ruth sourly, it must be the effects of Cathbad’s home-made punch.

‘This ceremony is called a wiccaning or a saining,’ Cathbad explained earlier. ‘It’s to introduce Kate to the Gods.’

‘Or, if you don’t believe any of that tosh,’ put in Ruth, ‘it’s just a party.’

But, now, in the dark, with the fire leaping upwards, it does feel more like a ceremony than a party.

‘The Guardians, that’s Shona and I,’ says Cathbad modestly, ‘should stand either side of the table. Ruth, you hold Kate in the middle.’

Ruth obeys. She’s willing to go along with Cathbad only so far. At the first sign of human sacrifice, she’ll be straight back indoors.