THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END (29 page)

At first there’s no answer from Maria’s bedsit then, just as he is turning away, a slightly scared voice says, ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s DCI Nelson, Maria. Can I come up for a minute?’

The entry phone buzzes and Nelson takes the steps three at a time.

The room is scrupulously clean as ever. No smell of Sunday roast and no TV blaring in the background. Maria and her little boy are obviously in the middle of some board game. George is sitting on the floor, rolling a dice with great concentration.

‘Snakes and ladders,’ explains Maria.

‘Grand,’ says Nelson. ‘My favourite game, though there’s always a great big snake right at the end.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Maria is still looking worried.

‘No thanks, love. I just wanted to show you a photo if that’s all right.’

‘A photo?’

‘Yes.’ Nelson pulls the picture from his wallet.

‘You remember you said that Archie used to have a visitor, an old lady. Was this her, by any chance?’

Maria looks at the photo of Irene sitting outside Sea’s End House. It was taken about a year ago, Stella had said.

‘Yes,’ says Maria slowly. ‘That is the lady. Mrs Hastings.’

After George has gone to sleep, Maria always likes to look out of the window for a while. Not that the view’s anything much – a garage forecourt, the houses across the street – once the sort of places where she could imagine a family living, now mostly bedsits like hers – the side of a giant billboard advertising a car, shiny red against a shiny blue background. But she likes sitting there in the darkened room (she doesn’t want to put the overhead light on because of George), watching the world outside: the cars drawing into the garage, sales reps in suits impatiently tapping their feet as they wait for the tank to fill, harassed parents, young men with tattoos and cars with extra bits stuck to them; people hurrying past under the streetlights, lights going on in the bedsits, one after the other. She is hundreds of miles away from her family but, somehow, these faceless, anonymous strangers have become her family. And sitting there in the dark listening to George’s noisy breathing (she must see the doctor about his sinuses again), she feels a curious affection, almost love, for the people outside. They all have their own lives, their little circles of light, but she, from
her vantage point, can watch over them all. Sometimes she’ll pick on one person, a woman labouring with heavy shopping or a pale-faced man jingling his loose change at the petrol pump, and say a decade of the rosary, especially for them. They’ll never know, of course, but it makes her feel happy to do it.

Tonight, though, she doesn’t feel cosy and secure. She feels jolted, uneasy. She knows why. It was that policeman, Nelson, coming here and asking questions. She doesn’t like the police. She always suspects that when people see how she lives, how little money she has, they’ll try to take George away from her. When he left, Nelson had tried to give her five pounds, ‘to buy George a present’. She’d refused, almost angrily. She may only be an ignorant girl from the Philippines but she knew that you should never take money from a man, especially a policeman. She’d made her mistake once, with George’s father, just a few months after she’d arrived in England, but she’s not going to be caught again.

Archie had been different. Of course, he’d been an old man, old enough to be her grandfather, as he’d often said. But sometimes he didn’t seem like an old man at all. His voice, for one thing, was still strong and echoing, not thin and apologetic like the old people at home. Archie still sounded like a soldier. Some of the other carers didn’t like it; they thought he was too bossy, too full of himself. But Maria liked a man to be a man. She didn’t mind Archie telling her what to do; he was her elder, after all. They had nice conversations, sitting in his little room in the evenings; they talked about George, about Maria’s plans for him. He would grow up to be an important man, just like his father,
and do great things in the world. Archie was an important man, Maria was sure of that. That was why it was wrong that he had been taken, suddenly in the night like that. Dorothy said they weren’t to talk about it but Maria knew what she thought. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t what God intended.

Even the garage isn’t the same tonight. Usually it is a great comfort to her because it is open for twenty-four hours, its little kiosk a beacon of hope through the night. But, tonight, there don’t seem to be any cars, just one figure, in a long, black coat, standing beside the tyre gauge. Maria doesn’t like the figure. She knows that people without cars shouldn’t hang around garages but this person has been there for twenty minutes at least, just standing, not going into the shop or anything, just waiting, out of view of everyone except her. Maria goes away to check on George. When she comes back, the figure is still there. Is it a man or a woman? She can’t tell. The person has a long coat and a woolly hat, its hair is hidden and she can’t see its shape. Maria watches for another five minutes before she realises the awful truth. She isn’t watching the figure. The figure is watching her.

Tired as he is, Nelson can’t sleep. Michelle has gone to bed and Rebecca is watching some music programme in the sitting room. Nelson sits in the study, going through Hugh Anselm’s papers. He doesn’t know why he is doing this or what he expects to find. He just knows that he needs a breakthrough. Could Irene, over ninety at his guess, really have killed three people to protect her husband’s name? It’s
unlikely, to say the least. Perhaps she could have stopped Hugh’s stairlift, maybe even smothered Archie, but kill Dieter Eckhart, a fit young man in the prime of life? Surely not. Could someone have done it for her? Jack, for instance, or even Clara?

He should watch the film again but he just can’t face it tonight. He can’t face seeing Hugh Anselm, so earnest, so tormented, so
young
. Nelson isn’t given to flights of fancy, but when he was watching the film he had the curious sensation that Hugh was speaking directly to him. Tell people about this, he was saying. Don’t let this happen again. Find the person who killed me.

Hugh Anselm’s papers date from about 1960. There is nothing about the murders and, as far as he can see, very little about the Home Guard. From 1960 onwards Hugh Anselm had kept a diary, which takes up about twenty exercise books. He didn’t write every day and what he did write was mostly about politics. Hugh had high hopes of J.F. Kennedy and of Harold Wilson and, in both cases, disillusionment set in fairly quickly. He lost faith in Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs and, to Hugh Anselm, Kennedy’s assassination was ‘a tragedy but perhaps better to remember him this way? Otherwise his presidency would surely have dissolved in a haze of scandal and broken promises.’ He admired Wilson for standing up to America over Vietnam and, especially, for setting up the Open University (Anselm was a great fan of further education, always going on courses) but he felt that, ultimately, Wilson had ‘betrayed the workers’. Anselm’s greatest loathing, though, is reserved for Margaret Thatcher. Page after page is devoted to her
iniquities, her jingoism, her lack of compassion, even her hair (‘dreadful helmet-like arrangement’) and her voice (‘reeking of insincerity’). Was this because Margaret Thatcher was Conservative or because she was a woman, wonders Nelson. He begins to detect, under Anselm’s fervent socialism, a thin vein of snobbishness and sexism which made him deplore Shirley Williams’ dress sense and wish that Tony Benn had retained his title.

There is very little about Anselm’s personal life. His wife Anne is referred to mainly in terms of her political opinions. ‘Anne has a fatal weakness for David Owen.’ ‘Anne thinks that Thatcher possesses normal maternal feelings – I disagree.’ There are a few mentions of his brother Stephen (‘Steve is one of nature’s Tories.’) and one reference to his niece Joyce (‘a dreadful girl’). The only items of real interest are two letters, obviously in draft form, stuck in the back of one of the files.

The first is to Archie Whitcliffe:

Dear Archie (I am tempted to call you Archibald just to see you wince!)

You will wonder at hearing from me after all these years. I hope those years have been kind to you as, in part, they have been to me. I was prompted to write after reading of the promotion to Police Superintendent of one Gerald Whitcliffe. A brief check on the internet (a wonderful invention – are you ‘on-line’?) revealed that this high-flyer was, in fact, your grandson. How proud you must be, dear Archie, and how wonderful to have grandchildren. My wife and I were never blessed with children and my dear Anne passed away last year.

Maybe it was this sad event which led to increasing thoughts of the past. Indeed, I find that, these days, I dwell more in the past than in the present. And this has led to a great desire to see you again, my old comrade. Not to discuss
[this next word is heavily crossed out]
but merely to reminisce, two old friends together. Is it not about time? Maybe you too have had a letter from Daniel? It brought back so many
[…]

Here the letter ends, obviously unfinished. Was a finished version ever sent? Did the two old friends ever meet? There is nothing in the files to suggest that they did.

The second letter is to Irene Hastings:

Dear Irene,

What a pleasure to see you again after all these years. I did enjoy our morning together. Thank you for your condolences on the death of my dear Anne. You, of all people, will know what it is like to lose your helpmate of so many years. With reference to our discussion
[…]

Here this letter, too, tails off.

So it seems that Irene Hastings had visited Hugh Anselm as well as Archie Whitcliffe. There is no date on either letter but Kevin Fitzgerald had said that Anne Anselm died eight years ago. In the letter to Archie, Hugh mentions his wife dying ‘last year’. The letter to Irene may have been sent just after Anne’s death, as Irene had been offering her condolences. What did Hugh discuss with Irene? Why was neither letter finished?

It occurs to Nelson that he never found that other letter,
the letter that Archie was reading on the morning that he died. He peers at the crossed-out word in Hugh Anselm’s letter to Archie Whitcliffe. He thinks it is ‘Lucifer’.

Maria stands in the shadows, watching the figure. Her heart is beating so loudly that it seems as if the whole building must echo with it. When she turns and sees George sleeping peacefully, it’s as if she has ventured into another world: the night light, the statue of Our Lady, her work clothes hanging on the door. Then, looking back to the window, He is still there. She has started to think of the figure as He. Only a man could be that threatening, she is sure of this. He is now standing almost directly under her window, staring up. Sometimes He seems to disappear into the darkness, then a car passes and, briefly, she sees him. Still there, still waiting. Light, dark, light, dark.

Maria herself is now in darkness. She wishes she could draw the blinds but she’s scared to show herself, even for a second. Flattened against the wall, she hopes that she can see him without him seeing her. What does he want with her? She says a few hurried Hail Marys but that doesn’t shift him. She wracks her brain for a suitable saint. St Jude of Hopeless Causes? St Agnes who grew a beard to scare off a persistent suitor? Is this man a suitor? It’s possible. A few men have pursued her, sometimes persistently. There was the cleaner at work who left a huge bunch of flowers outside her door. That had scared her. He knew where she lived. How had he got through the security door? For weeks she’d slept with a knife by her bed but then the cleaner had got another job and moved away and she had been safe once more.

But this man isn’t a suitor, she is sure. He doesn’t love her. There is nothing hopeful or expectant in the way he is standing. He is watching, as if they are playing a board game and he is waiting for her next move. When she moves, he will strike. He doesn’t want to marry her; he wants to kill her.

Nelson yawns and rubs his eyes. He’s exhausted but he doesn’t want to go to bed just yet. If he leaves it a bit longer Michelle will be asleep. If she is awake, she might be in the mood for sex and, for the first time in his married life, Nelson doesn’t want to sleep with his wife. He doesn’t think he could stand the guilt.

He sits at the desk, listening to the TV in the next room. Hugh Anselm’s words – pedantic, intelligent, sometimes sad – run on a constant loop through his head. Who had visited Hugh in February, switched off his stairlift and left him to die, struggling with the seatbelt, trying to reach the controls? Who had come to Archie’s room in the night, smothered him and departed without a sound? Who had stabbed Dieter Eckhart and thrown his body into the sea? Was it the same person or three different people?

We have only told one other person that this film exists. The last of the three of us left alive will leave instructions as to where to find this evidence.

The last of the three …

Nelson goes back to Hugh Anselm’s unfinished letters.
Maybe you too have had a letter from Daniel?

He hears Irene Hastings’ voice, the first time he met her.
Well, there were a few young boys. You could be in the Home Guard
if you were too young or too old to fight. I’m not sure about Hugh or Danny. Archie’s still alive, though …

Danny. Daniel. The mysterious third man. The man whose surname no-one remembers. The man who has vanished. But Hugh had a letter from him and, knowing Hugh, he will have kept the letter.

He goes back through the file, his eyes trained for any name beginning with D. Daniel Abse, the MP. Danny de Vito, the actor (Hugh was an unexpected fan of the American sitcom
Taxi
). Daniel Barenboim (admired for his work in the Middle East). But no letters from an ex-comrade called Daniel or Danny.

Eventually, in desperation, he goes back to the
Broughton and Rockham Parish News.
There, between a recipe for snoek casserole and an exhortation to Dig for Victory, he finds it. December 1940.