Elly Griffiths - The House At Sea’s End

All night they waited at the camp. Erik told them to make a fire. ‘Throughout the ages, it’s always been the same. Fire comforts us and it warns our enemies. It is both the flame of the hearth and the white heat of battle.’ So they had gathered around Erik’s bonfire, as close to the flames as they dared. First it was just the archaeologists then, slowly, the refugees began to join them, so that the circles around the fire expanded like ripples on a pond. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to get close to the hearth that night.

Except Tatjana. Early on, Ruth realised that she was missing but she had been scared to leave Erik and the comfort of the fire. Then, as the night drew on, Ruth knew that she had to find her friend. She went back to the archaeologists’ tents on the edge of the hillside and found Tatjana getting into the truck, a petrified Ivan beside her and a gun in her hand.

‘Tatjana! What are you doing?’

‘Stay out of this, Ruth,’ said Tatjana, pale but very calm. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘What are you doing with that gun? What’s happening?’ And, eventually, Tatjana had told her. She had recognised the name of the rebel leader. It was the man who had killed Jacob.

‘What are you going to do?’

But she knew.

‘I’m going to kill him,’ Tatjana had said calmly.

There was that look in her eyes again. That burning intensity, painful to witness.

‘I have to do this, Ruth. Don’t stop me.’

And so Ruth hadn’t stopped her. She hadn’t known what to say to her friend – had not been able to find the words of reason, of understanding, of comfort. So she had let Tatjana go. And when she heard in the morning that the rebel leader was dead, shot while he slept, she had known that she had failed.

She still feels that she failed. But now she understands. She understands only too well.

May

Kate must be getting heavier, thinks Ruth. It’s been quite a strain to hold her throughout the short service and now, at the end, people seem to want to take endless photographs. Her arms ache as she hoists her daughter higher in her arms.

‘Hold her up, Ruth. That’s it. Just a bit more. Smile, Kate!’

Ruth’s face aches too, as she tries to maintain a sunny, maternal expression. She still doesn’t know why she let Nelson talk her into this. Ever since Craig’s arrest and his own near-drowning, Nelson has been obsessed with the idea that Kate should be christened in a Catholic church.

‘But, Nelson,’ Ruth had protested, ‘I don’t believe in any of that stuff. The body and blood, the saints, life after death.’

‘You didn’t believe in Cathbad’s rubbish either but you still went ahead with the naming day. What’s the difference?’

Ruth can think of several differences (she couldn’t be accused of holding the naming day ceremony just to get Kate into a pagan primary school, for example) but, in the end, she gave in. Nelson has been uncharacteristically depressed after the events at Broughton Sea’s End. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t been able to save Ruth or maybe it is just the realisation that he owes his life to Clough, but Nelson has been anxious and ill-at-ease. He rings Ruth several times a day to check on Kate and nags her continually about the baby’s welfare.

‘I’m doing this on my own, Nelson. We agreed. Remember?’

But, in the end, the deciding factor for Ruth was that, if she made Nelson and Michelle godparents, they could have a formal role in Kate’s life. When it comes down to it, she is slightly scared of doing the whole thing on her own. Those terrible moments in the water when she saw not her own life, but Kate’s, unfold in front of her, made her realise that it was dangerous for Kate’s welfare to depend so entirely on one person. She is not particularly scared of dying but she is terrified of leaving Kate on her own. So she agreed to have Kate baptised into the Catholic Church, only making the stipulation that Father Hennessey should come from Sussex to perform the service. She has also made a will, naming Nelson and Michelle as Kate’s guardians in the event of her death. She doesn’t feel any qualms about leaving Kate in Michelle’s care. She’s a good mother and, this way, Kate will be able to be brought up with her half-sisters. Far better than a sterile existence with Ruth’s parents in South London.

Nelson explained to Michelle that Ruth had been brought up a Catholic and had decided on the christening ‘just to be on the safe side, belt and braces job’. Michelle had accepted this without question. She is spectacularly uninterested in religion and has never questioned Nelson’s decision to have their children baptised as Catholics. If you have to be something, why not Catholic? That’s her view. At least you can dress girls beautifully for their First Holy Communion.

Michelle herself is dressed beautifully today. She is wearing a pink flowered dress and beaded cardigan. Ruth, in dark trousers and a white shirt, feels distinctly outclassed. At least Cathbad, complete with cloak, evens things up a bit. Ruth decided that it would just be too weird to have only Nelson and Michelle as godparents, so she has asked Cathbad and Shona as well. The more the merrier. And, as Father Hennessey pointed out, three of the four are actually baptised Catholics.

‘I’m not exactly a practising Catholic,’ said Cathbad, with modest understatement.

‘Oh you can never get away from the Catholic church,’ smiled Father Hennessey. ‘You be a devil worshipper if you like, you’ll still be a lapsed Catholic to us.’

Tatjana had called Cathbad a devil worshipper, Ruth remembers. She never worked out whether this was a joke or not. She does know, though, that Tatjana has moved a long way from the Catholicism of her childhood. The night after Tatjana came to Ruth’s rescue on the beach, appearing on the sea wall like one of the Norse water spirits so beloved of Erik, they had sat up late into the night, talking. Tatjana told Ruth that, in her quest to come to terms with Jacob’s death, she had run the gamut of spirituality.

‘I’ve tried them all – past life regression, séances, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, I even belonged to some made-up church called The Fellowship of The Fisherman. Rick was very good about it. He wanted us to have our own kids but I couldn’t bear to. I didn’t want a child. I wanted Jacob. If anything happened to Kate, having another child wouldn’t make you forget her, would it?’

‘No,’ said Ruth, touching wood surreptitiously.

‘I wanted to get in touch with my little boy again but, of course, it was impossible. Oh, I had all those so-called mediums saying, “I’ve got a little boy here asking for his mummy.” Complete frauds, the lot of them. Not that I wasn’t taken in for a while, but Rick helped me to see what charlatans they were. They pick up on your grief and they feed off it, like vampires. No, the only thing that helped was finally finding his grave. Erik was right about that, you know. We need to see the burial place. It’s a fundamental human requirement.’

‘So you did find it.’

‘Yes. I met this wonderful woman, Eva Klonowski, who runs the International Commission on Missing Persons. She’s a forensic archaeologist and she’s been in Bosnia since the Nineties. She helped me. They’re using all sorts of new technologies there, you know – satellite imagery and spectral analysis – and they’re still finding bones all the time. We found a grave that looked like it might be in the right place and from the right time. The bodies had been moved several times but Eva helped me get DNA testing done. They don’t fund it, you see, except in special circumstances. The tests proved that it was Jacob and my parents. I buried my parents there, on the hillside, but I had Jacob’s bones cremated and I brought them home with me. Do you think that’s weird?’