THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END (18 page)

It has been a strain, in some ways, having Tatjana to stay. The cottage is really too small for two adults. Ruth remembers how when she and Peter split up, amidst all the feelings of sadness, loss and guilt, there was also a distinct relief that she could now spread her books all over the sitting room floor and go to the loo with the door open.
She and Tatjana seem to spend a lot of their time apologising to each other and waiting for the other one to go first down the stairs. Whenever Kate wakes in the night Ruth is full of guilt that Tatjana’s sleep has been disturbed and when, after a hard day’s work, she would really like to slob out and watch
Coronation Street
, she has to pretend to be interested in reruns of
Time Team
on Channel 4. Still, Tatjana has started her teaching which means she is out all day. And some things have been nice – having someone to talk to about work, cooking proper meals, having an excuse to open a bottle of wine with supper, having someone to laugh with when Flint gets stuck in the cat flap.

Ruth grabs a sandwich from the canteen and rushes back to her office before she can become trapped in a long discussion with one of her colleagues about exam grades or Prehistoric burial practices. She also keeps a weather eye out for Cathbad. She’s fond of Cathbad and she appreciates the interest he takes in Kate, but recently he has made one too many references to Nelson being Kate’s spiritual father. She knows Cathbad suspects something but he’ll never know the truth unless she tells him and, if she’s honest, sometimes the urge to tell someone is very strong. When she was first pregnant, she quite liked the idea of hugging a secret to herself, like the baby growing inside her. But now, sometimes she wonders how she ever thought she’d have the strength to get through Kate’s whole babyhood, her whole
life
, without ever telling anyone who her father is.

Of course, one day she’ll have to tell Kate herself, but by then who knows what will have happened? Nelson’s daughters will have left home, it’ll no longer be so important to
protect them, perhaps Nelson himself will have left Michelle … But she stamps firmly on that thought, seeing Nelson at the naming day party helping his wife on with her coat, Michelle laughing against him. Nelson has never in his life looked at her like that. She just has to face it; he loves Michelle, he doesn’t love her. And, she tells herself, she wouldn’t want to live with Nelson anyway. He’s too sexist, too Neanderthal, way too bossy. Good in bed though, she’s shocked to find herself adding.

She hurries across the courtyard to the Natural Sciences Department. It’s a bitterly cold day, icy winds and the occasional eddy of snow. She’s amazed that, even in these conditions, a couple has still found time to linger under the covered walkway that leads to the main building, kissing and wrapping their arms around each other. As she gets nearer, she recognises Dieter Eckhart in his green Germanic coat and Clara Hastings, slim and girlish in jeans, with her hair in a ponytail. They are so engrossed that they don’t notice Ruth and she hardly wants to engage them in conversation. When she is safely inside, she looks back from a first floor window. They are still standing there, with the snow whirling around them, locked in a passionate embrace. But, as Ruth watches, Dieter Eckhart raises his head and looks straight at her. His eyes are as pale and cold as the snow.

The wind is even wilder at Broughton Sea’s End. As Nelson and Judy cross the bridge, they have to bend double to avoid being blown over. The snow has turned into stinging sleet, causing Judy to pull her woolly cap down over her eyes (Nelson never wears a hat). Below them the sea thunders
against the rocks. How can Sea’s End House withstand many more poundings like this, thinks Judy. The furthest turret seems almost at the edge of the cliff, the Union Jack whipping furiously to and fro. I wouldn’t like to sleep in this house, she decides. The wind and waves are so loud that she wonders whether anyone will hear their knock on the door, although Nelson leaves the brass lion’s head positively vibrating.

But, after a few minutes, the door is opened and a dark-haired woman is smiling at them.

‘DCI Nelson.’ Nelson doesn’t smile back. ‘I rang to say I was on my way.’

‘Oh yes, hallo,’ says the woman. ‘I’m Stella, Jack’s wife.’

She is charming, thinks Judy. Or maybe she’d be predisposed in anyone’s favour after they’d ushered her in from the freezing cliff top and installed her in a kitchen with an open fire and twinkling pots and pans. There’s even a sweet old lady knitting by the fire to complete the picture.

‘My mother-in-law, Irene,’ says Stella. ‘Mother,’ she raises her voice slightly. ‘It’s the policeman come back to talk to us.’

Judy suppresses a smile at the thought of Nelson being reduced to ‘the policeman’, like a character in an Agatha Christie play. Irene smiles sweetly at Judy.

‘You’re not the same girl that came before.’

‘No,’ says Nelson, rather quickly. ‘That was Dr Galloway, the forensic archaeologist. This is Detective Sergeant Johnson.’

Judy says hallo and accepts an offer of tea. So the boss came here with Ruth, did he?

‘Shall we stay in the kitchen?’ Stella Hastings is saying. ‘It’s much warmer than the drawing room. Jack won’t be long. He’s taken the dogs out.’

Drawing room
, thinks Judy. She doesn’t know if she’s ever heard anyone calling it that in real life. She shoots a glance at Nelson who raises his eyebrows.

Stella puts the kettle on and Irene starts arranging cups and saucers. The fire hisses and the sleet hammers against the windows. Judy takes a proffered shortbread and hopes that the interview takes a nice long time. She has no desire to be out on the road again with an increasingly grumpy Nelson. She hopes that Jack Hastings doesn’t come back too soon. She can’t imagine anyone taking a walk in this weather but she supposes that, if you have dogs, you have to take them out. A good reason for not having dogs.

She is halfway through her second cup when Jack Hastings appears, accompanied by what seems to be a sea of dogs, but soon resolves itself into two hysterically wagging spaniels.

‘Detective Chief Inspector. What a pleasant surprise.’

The irony, if it is irony, doesn’t register on Nelson’s stony face.

‘I did say that I’d like another chat.’

‘A chat? Yes, fine. Fine. Chat away.’

Hastings stands in front of the fire and rubs his hands together. It’s a remarkably defensive pose, thinks Judy, like a stag at bay or, perhaps, a politician facing questions across the floor of the house.

‘Mr Hastings,’ begins Nelson, ‘last time I was here we talked about the Home Guard, about any members that
might still be alive. You mother mentioned Archie Whitcliffe. He used to send you Christmas cards, apparently.’

Hastings looks over at his mother, who is making another pot of tea, deep in concentration.

‘I remember …’ he says hesitantly.

‘Mr Whitcliffe was living at the Greenfields Care Home. Did you ever visit him there?’

‘No.’ Hastings looks bemused now.

‘What about Hugh Anselm? We spoke about him on the phone.’

Suddenly Irene Hastings puts down the teapot and bustles purposefully from the room. Nelson wonders if he ought to call her back. She’s the one who remembers the war years, after all. Jack Hastings does not seem to have noticed his mother’s departure.

‘Hugh Anselm,’ he says. ‘I don’t remember the name.’

‘You mother mentioned him. He was one of the younger members of the Home Guard. Archie Whitcliffe was another.’

‘She has wonderful recall of those years,’ says Stella, who has briskly taken over the tea-making. ‘But thinking about it can make her upset. They were desperate times here in Broughton, I think.’

Nelson continues to address Jack Hastings. ‘So you’ve never met Archie Whitcliffe or Hugh Anselm?’

‘I don’t think so, no. What’s all this about?’

‘Archie Whitcliffe died last week. Hugh Anselm a few weeks earlier.’

‘But you can’t think there’s anything suspicious about their deaths, surely? I mean they must have been old men.
On the phone you said that you thought this Hugh chap had been murdered.’

Judy looks at Nelson. It’s unlike the boss to say something like this to an outsider. Never assume, that was Nelson’s mantra. Why would he suddenly start sharing his assumptions with a member of the public, especially someone who appears almost to be a suspect? She remembers the initial investigation into Hugh Anselm’s death. At the time Clough had described it as a tragic accident, there was even a sort of black humour about the situation. ‘Old dear dead in a stairlift.’ Now the everyday deaths of these two old men are taking on a very different aspect and there is something sinister at work in the cosy room, even if Judy can’t work out exactly what it is.

‘We’re following several lines of enquiry,’ Nelson replies now, perhaps regretting saying so much in the first place.

Jack Hastings looks at his wife and it appears as if she is about to speak when Irene comes back into the room. She walks up to Nelson and places a photograph on the table in front of him.

‘That’s Archie,’ she says quietly, ‘with his hat at an angle. My Buster used to have a go at him about that. That’s Hugh, with the glasses.’

Judy peers over Nelson’s shoulder. The picture is in black and white and shows a group of men standing in front of a grey-walled house. This house, she realises. At first glance they look identical, homogenised by baggy, ill-fitting uniforms and by a sort of sepia-tinted nostalgia. But, looking closer, Judy sees that the three men in front are a lot younger than the others. Even in sepia, they look full of life.

‘I’ve seen this picture before,’ says Nelson. ‘There was a copy in Archie Whitcliffe’s bedroom.’ He looks at Irene. ‘Which was Buster?’

Judy is betting on the walrus moustache, who looks like a old-style army major, the sort of man who could be described as a ‘real old devil’. But Irene points to a small, insignificant-looking chap at the far right of the picture.

‘That’s Buster. Jack looks very like him, doesn’t he?’

‘Very,’ says Nelson.

‘That’s Edwin Butler next to him, he’d been badly shell-shocked in the first lot. That’s Syd Austin, he had the fish shop in the village. His son was killed at Dunkirk. That’s Donald Drummond, he was the gardener here. That’s Ernst Hoffman, the one with the moustache. He was German by birth but his family lived in Broughton for years. He was interned at the start of the war and sent to the Isle of Man. Buster kicked up such a fuss that he was released. Ernst was a scientist, a very clever one.’

Stella wasn’t wrong about the old lady’s memory, thinks Judy. She looks back at the photograph. It’s hard to connect these faded figures, like something from a history book, with the stories of life and death. But to Irene the photo isn’t a historical curio, it’s a memento of her husband, of his friends.

Hugh is unsmiling, as awkward and intense as in his First Communion picture. He looks like the sort of boy who might grow up to do the
Telegraph
crossword. Archie looks far more cheerful, grinning away as if the whole thing is a game of cowboys and Indians. He looks like his grandson, Judy realises. The same good looks and proud bearing, but where
Gerry Whitcliffe seems afraid of showing his true feelings, Archie looks afraid of nothing.

‘Mrs Hastings,’ Nelson addresses Irene who is still looking at the photo, smoothing its edges lovingly. ‘Do you remember any talk of a German invasion in 1940?’

Jack Hastings laughs but Irene says serenely, ‘There was always talk but it never came to anything, did it?’

‘Was invasion a big fear in these parts?’

‘Yes,’ says Irene, carefully covering the teapot with a knitted cosy. ‘We were sure they would come. Buster was sure. He insisted on nightly patrols. They had a boat too. I think it was Syd’s. They’d go out on the moonless nights, sailing along the coves. Buster thought it would happen on a moonless night.’

Judy hears Archie’s voice:
On moonless nights, the darks we called them, we went out in the boat.
What happened on that dark night, nearly seventy years ago?

‘He set up defences along the beach,’ Irene was saying. ‘Ernst helped him. He knew all about explosives, you see. “They won’t take us by surprise,” Buster used to say. “They won’t find Broughton undefended.”‘

‘What happened to the defences after the war?’ asks Judy.

‘I don’t know’, says Irene. ‘Later on, the invasion didn’t seem likely any more. We never spoke about it again.’

‘What about you?’ asks Nelson. ‘Were you part of this defence scheme?’

‘Oh yes,’ says Irene proudly. ‘I was on the listening post.’

‘Listening post?’ repeats Judy. It sounds made-up, almost childish. Stella takes up the story, smiling at her mother-in-law.

‘During the war, Detective Sergeant, there was a military listening post at Sheringham, a few miles from here. It was literally a building, a tower really, where people listened for Nazi ships out to sea. It was manned by women. Irene was one of them.’

Womanned, thinks Judy. She knows better than to say it aloud though.

‘What do you mean, they listened for ships?’ asks Nelson.

‘Just that. There were German E-boats out at sea. They could listen in on their Morse code. How do you think the code-breakers at Bletchley Park got the codes in the first place? From the listening posts. It was really important war work.’

‘The E-boats didn’t use Morse code,’ cuts in Irene. ‘We could hear them talking to each other in German. Where are you, Siegfried? I’m here, Hans.’

Nelson and Judy exchange glances. Now it seems more like a children’s game than ever.
Where are you, Siegfried?
Nelson turns to Irene. ‘Did you husband ever discuss with you what you’d do if the invasion actually happened?’

‘Oh yes,’ says Irene. ‘My job was to shoot the children and shoot myself. Buster didn’t want us taken prisoner, you see.’

‘He was mad,’ says Judy. ‘Buster Hastings was mad.’

They are sitting in Nelson’s car. Nelson has turned on the engine to demist the windows. Outside it is still raining, the windscreen wipers struggling under the weight of water. Occasionally a gust of wind rocks the car.