The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (14 page)

There are a few interesting finds though. Ruth arranges these on her tarpaulin.

‘Found something?’ asks Nelson.

Ruth looks up. Nelson looms over her, blocking out the light. It reminds her of the first time she saw him, in the corridor of the university, looking altogether too large and solid for the flimsy academic surroundings.

‘Some glass,’ she says. ‘And a few coins.’

‘Glass? How can that be important?’

‘It can help us establish the date the soil was disturbed,’ says Ruth, putting the glass into a paper evidence bag.

Nelson grunts and backs away. She hears him talking to Tim and then Sally’s voice, those effortlessly carrying upper-class tones.

‘Why don’t we all break for lunch? I’ve made leek and potato soup.’

It feels strange, eating lunch in the cosy kitchen with Old George at the head of the table and Sally bustling around them, offering crusty bread and homemade lemonade. It’s as if they’re at some jolly social occasion – a harvest supper perhaps – instead of investigating a crime. Ruth is now almost certain that Fred’s body was once buried in the pets’ burial ground but here she is, smiling at his family and accepting another helping of soup as if she hasn’t a care in the world.

‘Marvellous soup, Mrs Blackstock,’ says Tim. Ruth noticed that Sally had given him by far the largest portion and now she shoots him a positively flirtatious look.

‘Would you like some more, Sergeant?’

‘I shouldn’t,’ says Tim, smiling at her.

‘Oh, get along with you. You’re as slim as anything. Have some more.’

‘Thank you,’ says Tim. Ruth and Nelson exchange glances. Judy has already left and Tim is only having lunch with them because Sally pressed him to stay. Ruth thinks that Nelson will send him back to the station as soon as they’ve finished eating. She hopes so. She finds Tim’s presence slightly disconcerting and, though she doesn’t want to admit it, even to herself, she would like some time alone with Nelson.

‘I hope you’ll stay with us for the filming, Dr Galloway,’ Sally is saying. ‘I’m hoping that all the TV people will stay here. Including that lovely Frank Barker.’ She gives another of her slightly manic laughs. Old George watches her glumly from under his eyebrows.

‘Thanks,’ says Ruth, ‘but I’ll probably go home every night. I live quite near here and I’ve got a young daughter.’

‘Let her father look after her,’ says Sally. ‘That’s what they’re for. George was wonderful with the little ones. Young George, that is. I don’t think Old George has ever changed a nappy in his life.’

Her father-in-law agrees fervently that he hasn’t. Ruth wonders where Young George is today. He may be a new man but it seems he’s not above leaving his wife to look after his dad.

‘I don’t live with Kate’s father,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s complicated.’ She doesn’t look at Nelson.

‘Everything’s complicated these days,’ says Sally. ‘It’s the same with my children. Neither of them are married. Chaz lives on his own on that dreadful pig farm and Cassandra hangs round with these awful arty types. Mind you, she’s very excited about the TV programme. I think she’s hoping a casting director will discover her.’

‘Television’s for stupid people,’ says Old George.

‘Get along with you, Dad,’ says Sally. ‘You love
Hollyoaks
.
’

The old man brightens immediately. ‘Is it on now?’

‘Soon,’ says Sally soothingly. ‘More bread anyone? Cheese? Coffee?’

‘We’d better crack on,’ says Nelson. ‘And Sergeant Heathfield needs to get back to the station.

Young George is at the pig farm. He has been helping Chaz get a rather recalcitrant boar into the finishing shed. Now they are sitting down to lunch, not such a civilised affair as Sally’s, but companionable none the less. Hazel has just returned from the market, where he was delivering a truck-load of porkers. He works for Chaz sometimes in return for bread and board, and these are being provided now. They eat together at the kitchen table, bread, cheese and pickles. Chaz has opened a bottle of his home-made cider.

‘When will it be safe to go back to the Hall?’ asks Chaz, cutting himself a hunk of bread.

‘I don’t know,’ says George gloomily. ‘She can’t keep digging all day, can she?’

‘Who’s digging?’ asks Hazel.

‘The archaeologist, Ruth Whatshername. She’s digging in the pets’ burial ground because she thinks Uncle Fred was buried there.’

‘Whatever gave her that idea?’

Chaz shrugs. ‘Search me? But they know things, these forensic archaeologists, don’t they? They know where bodies have been buried.’

‘What does Old George think about it?’ asks Hazel.

Young George raises his eyes to the ceiling. ‘You can imagine. He’s going on about all the faithful friends buried there. Then he gets onto the seas rising and the end of the world. Sally had to give him a tranquilliser yesterday.’

‘What does he think about the TV programme?’ asks Chaz.

‘I was a bit worried that it would upset him,’ says George. ‘But he hasn’t really mentioned the TV people at all. It was the pets’ burial ground that really got to him. But he’s quite excited about Nell and Blake coming. Looking forward to telling them all his tales of doom and gloom.’

‘Bet he’s not as excited as you,’ says Chaz, with a sidelong glance at Hazel.

George laughs. ‘I’m an old man now and Nell’s an old woman. I don’t think there’s anything to get excited about.’

‘You’re not old,’ says Chaz, ‘You’re only fifty-eight. Look how you wrestled that pig to the ground this morning. You were like a machine.’

George laughs, wryly this time. ‘A very old and creaky machine. No, I feel a bit sad about seeing Nell actually. She was so young and beautiful. I’d rather just remember her like that.’

‘You’re a bundle of laughs,’ says Chaz. ‘You must get it from Grandpa.’

There’s a pause while they all think about Grandpa. Then Hazel says, ‘What exactly is this TV programme about?’

‘As I understand it,’ says George, ‘it’s part of an American series called
The History Men
. The idea is to tell the human story behind historical events. They want to use Fred to tell the story of American airmen in Norfolk.’

‘Are you all going to be in it?’ asks Hazel.

‘I hope not,’ says George. ‘They want to film Nell, but I hope the rest of us can stay in the background. They’ll want to come here, of course, because this is where the base was.’

Chaz groans, pouring himself another mug of cider.

‘You could charge them a location fee,’ says Hazel. ‘Might as well make some money out of it.’

‘You’re very practical for a druid,’ says Chaz.

At the Hall, as the afternoon progresses, the atmosphere becomes sombre, almost tense. Maybe it’s because of the darkening sky, the wind gaining strength and humming across the marshes. By three o’clock it is almost dark. Maybe it’s because Ruth has suddenly gained an audience. As well as Nelson, Sally is watching her closely and even Old George makes an appearance, wrapped up in a greatcoat and muffler.

The young policeman is sent home as soon as the hard digging is completed and Ruth works alone. She is analysing the soil, taking samples, looking at anything that may give her clues about what happened on this little plot of land. She’s not surprised to find no skeletal matter – the body was wrapped up after all – but the soil might contain traces of blood, hair, even DNA. She works in silence, aware of the watchers above and of the animal graves all around her, darkening now against the stormy sky.
Blue, beloved friend. Rosie, never forgotten. Patch, faithful companion.

She is just about to suggest that they bring the excavation to a close – she has all the samples that she needs and the wind is bitterly cold now – when the last rays of the setting sun pick out something in the churned-up topsoil. It’s a tiny gleam of silver. Ruth looks but the sun has already sunk out of sight behind the outhouses and the trench is almost in darkness. She digs in the spot where she thought she saw it and, after a few minutes, her gloved hand closes on something small and metallic. She lifts it out.

‘What’s that, Ruth?’ asks Nelson.

Her first thought is that it’s a dog-tag, a soldier’s identity disc. But then she sees that, although she is literally correct, her find is rather more prosaic. It is a dog-tag but it’s a tag belonging to a dog, a metal disc from a collar. ‘Bingo’, it says and there’s an old fashioned telephone number underneath. ‘Flaxman 9618’.

Silently she hands it to Nelson. Sally and Old George come forward to look.

‘Bingo,’ says Nelson. He turns to Old George. ‘Wasn’t that the name of your brother’s dog? The one that died just before he went missing?’

Old George lets out a sound that is somewhere between a howl and a sob.

CHAPTER 12

‘Why was he so upset?’ says Ruth. She and Nelson are talking in hushed voices, despite the fact that they’re sitting in Nelson’s car, a good fifty yards from the house.

‘I don’t know,’ says Nelson. ‘But he certainly went into meltdown, didn’t he?’

The moments after the disc had been found had certainly been uncomfortable. Old George had sunk to his knees on the muddy ground, sobbing and clutching at his woolly cardigan. Sally knelt next to him.

‘Dad? Dad. It’s all right.’

Ruth, feeling oddly guilty, had climbed out of the trench with Nelson’s help. She was just in time to hear Old George saying tearfully, ‘He was a good dog. Bingo was such a
good
dog.’

Sally had led the old man into the house, leaving Ruth and Nelson to bag up the few finds and put the soil back in the ditch. It was dark by the time they had finished, and when Nelson mentioned that he had a flask of coffee in his car, it seemed natural for them to repair there, discussing the case. The wind, stronger now, batters against the sides of the car.

‘I’d better get home,’ says Ruth, not moving.

‘Do you think today’s dig will tell us anything?’ asks Nelson.

‘I’m pretty sure there was a body buried there,’ says Ruth, ‘but beyond that . . .’

‘But how did Fred’s body, if it was Fred’s body, end up back here when it should have been at the bottom of the sea?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Ruth. ‘But I’m going to see if I can find out some more.’

‘Are you going to talk to the US Air Force then?’ says Nelson. ‘Good luck, if so.’

‘I thought you said they’d been very helpful.’

‘To the police, yes. But you’re a civilian.’

Nelson seems to be deliberately trying to wind her up. Ruth says, as evenly as possible, ‘I’ve contacted the Air Force Research Agency in Alabama but, actually, there’s a small RAF museum at Blickling Hall, near here. I’m going to pay them a visit.’

But Nelson seems not to have heard.

‘Have fun,’ he says. ‘I know you like Americans.’

A particularly rough gust of wind rocks the car and Ruth thinks that it’s time to go.

Tim is on the way to the gym. ‘Leaving early?’ asks Clough when he sees the sports bag coming out. Tim doesn’t rise; he’s not leaving early and Clough knows it. Clough tries a new tack.

‘A man can do too much exercise.’

‘How would you know?’

‘Bet you I could still do more push-ups than you.’

‘OK,’ says Tim, facing him across the briefing room, half-serious, half-joking. ‘Let’s do it.’

‘My money’s on Tim,’ says Judy from across the room.

‘Not in front of a pregnant woman,’ says Clough.

Tim laughs and heads for the door. He can hear Judy and Clough arguing as he heads for the stairs. They’re like quarrelsome siblings sometimes.

Tim is used to families. He has two brothers and two sisters. Tim is in the middle, the clever one who escaped to university. His brothers both ended up in trouble with the police, his sister Alesha had three children before she was twenty. The youngest sister, Blessing (guess who’s the favourite?), also shows signs of being able to keep her head down. She’s at sixth-form college. Tim doesn’t talk about them much at work, though he sometimes shows pictures of his nieces and nephews. There are ten altogether, his brothers both being rather reckless progenitors.