Elly Griffiths - The House At Sea’s End

‘Four bodies. How extraordinary! Where did you find them?’

‘This is a police investigation now,’ says Ruth. ‘We’re not at liberty to say.’

She thinks how like a police officer she sounds – at liberty to say! – she has noticed before how Nelson and co always fall back on these stock phrases. They sound wrong in her mouth somehow.

But Hastings nods understandingly. ‘Of course. If I can be any help, though…’

‘You’ve already been a great help,’ says Ruth.

‘I’ve lived here all my life, as I say. Not much about the village that I don’t know.’

There is a silence while they all think about the fact that someone seems to have buried four bodies on Hastings’ doorstep without anyone apparently being any the wiser.

‘Do you know how long they’ve been there, Ruth?’ asks Hastings.

Ruth notes the use of her first name and the fact that Hastings is now deferring to her. She also notes that he has asked the most important question.

‘We won’t know until we’ve excavated the skeletons and run some tests,’ she says.

Hastings jumps on this. ‘So it’s just bones then?’

‘I can’t say,’ says Ruth. ‘The police will be here soon to fence the area off. We’ll excavate on Monday.’

‘Well, feel free to use Sea’s End House as your base,’ says Hastings. ‘Most of the time there’s just me and Stella here now. And Ma, of course. We rattle around somewhat.’

Why don’t you move then, thinks Ruth. Especially in view of the fact that your house is falling into the sea.

‘Children have left home,’ says Hastings, with a rueful smile. ‘Just us oldies and the dogs left.’ He pats one of the spaniels, who looks at him adoringly.

‘How many children do you have?’ asks Ted.

‘Three. Alastair, Giles and Clara. The boys are both married now with their own children. Clara’s the youngest. She’s just finished university. Not quite sure what to do with herself.’

‘Well, tell her there’s no money in archaeology,’ says Ted. Hastings laughs. ‘Oh, Clara wants to save the world. She’s just been out in Africa digging latrines and what have you.’

‘She sounds great,’ says Ruth. ‘We ought to be off now.’

‘There’s no hurry,’ says Trace. ‘The police haven’t arrived yet.’

‘I’ve got to collect my daughter from the childminder.’

She looks up just in time to catch Trace’s expression of amused contempt.

‘Four skeletons you say?’

‘At least four, according to Ruth Galloway.’

It’s Monday and Nelson is back. He has called a team meeting for nine but now his boss, Superintendent Gerald Whitcliffe, has forestalled this by strolling into his office, leaning all over Nelson’s lovely clean ‘to do’ list and ‘having a word’.

‘Just thought you’d like a heads-up, Harry, that’s all.’

Heads up? What the hell does that mean? Sometimes it seems as if he and his boss speak an entirely different language, and not just because Nelson was born in Blackpool and Whitcliffe in Norwich. Still, he’s not going to give Whitcliffe the satisfaction of asking for a translation.

‘Could be a delicate situation, you see.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, it’s right on Jack Hastings’ doorstep.’

Nelson feels he should know the name but he’s not quite in work mode yet. Not that Lanzarote is exactly the other side of the world, even though it felt like it at times. Michelle and Lisa have exchanged addresses and the two families are planning to meet up in the Easter holidays.

‘Who’s Jack Hastings?’

Whitcliffe laughs indulgently. ‘Where have you been hiding, Harry? He’s the MEP who keeps ranting on about his house falling into the sea and the government doing nothing about it. Lives at Broughton Sea’s End, that big castle-type place up on the cliff. Did you see his documentary, An Englishman’s Home ?’

‘Must have missed it.’

‘Anyway, turns out these bones have been found at the bottom of the cliffs. Just across the beach from Hastings’ place.’

‘What’s the problem? Surely he wouldn’t want to stop us investigating?’

This is said with a slight trace of irony, remembering other influential friends of Whitcliffe’s who have not always been helpful to the police. Whitcliffe doesn’t get it. He never thinks that Nelson is being funny; he just thinks he’s being Northern.

‘Of course not. Just that we have to make sure that we do it all by the book. Can’t afford to cut any corners.’

‘I never do,’ says Nelson. And now he is being funny.

An hour later, Nelson and Clough are driving towards Broughton Sea’s End. It is normally the junior officer who drives but Nelson hates being a passenger and Clough likes to leave his hands free for eating so they are in Nelson’s dirty white Mercedes, doing seventy along the winding coastal roads.

‘So, boss,’ says Clough, as the North Norfolk coastline shoots past, blurry and indistinct, caravan parks, pubs, sand dunes, pitch and putt. ‘Do you think we’ve got another serial killer on the loose?’

‘I assume nothing,’ says Nelson.

‘Still,’ says Clough hurriedly, fearing another variation on Nelson’s ‘never assume’ lecture, ‘seems funny, doesn’t it? Four skeletons in one grave. It’s an out-of-the-way place, too; cut off by the tide most of the time.’

‘We don’t know anything yet. Skeletons could be bloody Stone Age.’ Nelson has never forgotten the first time that he met Ruth Galloway. He had called her in to investigate a body found at the edge of the Saltmarsh, which he had thought might be that of a child and, in a way, he was right. Except that this child had died over two thousand years before.

‘Trace says that Ruth thinks they’re comparatively recent,’ says Clough.

‘Ruth’s not always right,’ says Nelson.

And when they reach the beach at Sea’s End the first person that Nelson sees is Ruth, with the entirely unwelcome addition of a child slung around her neck.

‘Why the hell have you brought Katie?’

‘Childminder’s sick,’ says Ruth.

‘What were you thinking? It’s way too cold for a baby.’

‘She’s well wrapped up.’

Katie looks like an Eskimo child, thinks Nelson. She is wearing an all-in-one thing with built-in feet and mittens. She is sound asleep.

‘I hadn’t got time to make other arrangements,’ says Ruth.

‘What about Shona?’

‘She’s teaching.’

Nelson knows he can’t say any more. Not here. He glares at Ruth and crunches away across the shingle. He doesn’t like this beach; it feels claustrophobic somehow, with the cliffs looming on one side and that monstrosity of a house on the other. He looks across at the turrets of Sea’s End House. Presumably that’s where Whitcliffe’s mate lives. Never trust a man who flies the Union Jack. Everything is so bloody grey – grey stone, grey sea, grey sky. Nelson has a very clear idea of what the seaside should look like, a vision that stays remarkably true to his native Blackpool – sand, big dippers and donkeys. Not this God-forsaken pile of rubble in the middle of nowhere. There’s not even a slot machine, for heaven’s sake.

At the far side of the bay there is an opening in the cliff, a sort of cleft about a metre wide. The mad Irishman Ted is there, clearing stones away with a shovel. Trace is there too, talking into her phone. Nelson sees Clough give her a little wave. Pathetic.

‘Top of the morning to you,’ Ted greets him.

‘Is this where the skeletons were found?’

‘Yes, in this recess. The opening was blocked off by a rock fall. I’ve cleared most of it away now.’

‘We’ve started on the trench.’ Ruth appears next to him. ‘It’s difficult because there’s not much space to dig.’