The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (3 page)

‘First day at school,’ says Nelson, clicking away. ‘It doesn’t seem possible.’

‘Well, it is possible,’ says Ruth, though she has lain awake half the night wondering how on earth she can entrust her precious darling to the terrors of education. This from a person with two degrees who works in a university.

‘Come on, Kate,’ says Ruth, holding out her hand. ‘We don’t want to keep Mrs Mannion waiting.’

‘Is that your teacher?’ asks Nelson.

No, she’s the local axe-murderer, thinks Ruth. But she leaves it to Kate to tell Nelson that Mrs Mannion is very nice and that she gave her a sticker on the taster day and that she’s got a teddy bear called Blue.

‘We take it in turns to take Blue Bear home,’ she informs him. ‘But we’ve got to be good.’ She says this doubtfully, as if it’s an impossible condition.

‘Of course you’ll be good,’ says Nelson. ‘You’ll be the best.’

‘It’s not a competition,’ mutters Ruth as she opens the car door for Kate. But she has already had enough rows with Nelson about league tables and private schools and whether it’s absolutely necessary for a four-year-old to learn Mandarin. In the end, Ruth had her way and Kate is going to the local state primary school, a cheerful place whose mission statement, spelt out in multicoloured handprints above the main entrance, reads simply: ‘We have fun.’

‘You’re exactly the sort of person who’s against competition,’ says Nelson, putting away his camera.

‘What sort of person’s that?’

‘The sort of person who does well in competitions.’

Ruth can’t really deny that this is true. She has always loved learning and positively enjoyed exams. This is why she wants Kate to have fun and play with potato prints for a few years. Plenty of time for formal learning later. Nelson, who hated school and left as soon as possible, is anxious that his children should waste no time in scaling the slippery academic slope. He and Michelle sent their daughters to private schools and both went to university. Job done, though Laura is currently a holiday rep in Ibiza and Rebecca has no idea what she wants to do with her Media Studies degree beyond a vague desire to ‘work in TV’.

‘Say goodbye to Daddy,’ says Ruth.

‘Bye, Daddy.’

‘Bye, sweetheart.’ Nelson takes a last picture of Kate waving through the car window. Then he puts away his camera and goes back to have breakfast with his wife.

Ruth takes the familiar road with the sea on one side and the marshland on the other. Bob Woonunga, her neighbour, comes out to wave them goodbye and then there are no more houses until they reach the turn-off. It’s a beautiful day, golden and blue, the long grass waving, the sandbanks a soft blur in the distance. Ruth wonders if she should say something momentous, tell Kate about her own first day at school or something, but Kate seems quite happy, singing a jingle from an advertisement for breakfast cereal. In the end, Ruth joins in. Crunchy nuts, crunchy nuts and raisins too. Yoo hoo hoo. Raisins too.

It still sounds funny to refer to Nelson as ‘Daddy’. When Kate was three and asking questions, Ruth decided to tell her the truth, or at least a sanitised version of it. Nelson is her father; he loves her but he lives with his other family. Does he love them too? Of course he does. They all love each other in a messy twenty-first-century way. Nelson had been appalled when Ruth had told him what she was going to say. But he realised that Kate – a bright, enquiring child – needed to know something and, after all, what else could they say? Nelson’s wife, Michelle, also took the agreed line, which Ruth knows is more than she deserves. She’s glad that Kate has Michelle in her life as Michelle is a proper homemaker, good at all the mother things. She would have done those plaits right, for a start (she’s a hairdresser).

They drive past the field where the Bronze Age body was found in July. English Heritage have agreed to fund another dig and they will also include the project in their DNA study. There’s even a chance that the dig might be filmed. Two years ago Ruth appeared in a TV programme called
Women Who Kill
and, while the experience was traumatic in all sorts of ways, she didn’t altogether dislike the feeling of being a TV archaeology expert. She’s not a natural, like Frank Barker, the American historian who fronted the programme, but the
Guardian
did describe her as ‘likeable’, which is a start.

‘Mummy might be on TV again,’ she says to Kate.

‘I hope Blue Bear does come to our house,’ says Kate.

She’s right too. Blue Bear is more important just now.

Ruth had been scared that Kate would cry, that she would cry, that they would have to be prised apart by disapproving teaching assistants. But in the end, when Kate just waves happily and disappears into the sea of blue sweatshirts, that somehow feels worse than anything. Ruth turns away, blinking back foolish tears.

‘Mrs Galloway?’

Ruth turns. This is an altogether new persona for her. She likes to be called Dr Galloway at work and she has never been Mrs anything. Mrs Galloway is her mother, a formidable born-again Christian living in South London, within sight of the promised land. Should she insist on Ms or would that blight Kate’s prospects on the first day?

‘Mrs Galloway?’ The speaker is a woman. Teacher? Parent? Ruth doesn’t know. Whoever she is, she looks scarily at home in the lower-case, primary-coloured environment of the infant classrooms.

‘I’m Miss Coles, the classroom assistant. I just wondered if Kate was having school dinners or packed lunch.’

‘Dinners,’ says Ruth. She doesn’t feel up to preparing sandwiches every day.

‘Not a fussy eater then? That’s good.’

Ruth says nothing. The truth is that Kate is a rather fussy eater but Ruth always gives her food that she likes. She dreads to think of Kate’s reaction when presented with cottage pie or semolina. But surely school dinners are different now? There’s probably a salad bar and a wine list.

Miss Coles seems to take Ruth’s silence for extreme emotion (which isn’t that far from the truth). She pats the air above Ruth’s arm.

‘Don’t worry. She’ll settle in really quickly. Why don’t you go home and have a nice cup of tea?’

Actually I’ve got to give a lecture on palaeolithic burial practices, thinks Ruth. But she doesn’t say this aloud. She thanks Miss Coles and walks quickly away.

Nelson, too, finds it hard to stop thinking about Kate. He wishes that he had been able to take her to school but it was generous enough of Michelle to agree to the early morning visit. The late breakfast together was meant to be Nelson’s attempt to say thank you, but when he reaches the house, Michelle is on her way out of the door. There’s a crisis at the salon, she says, she needs to get to work straight away. She kisses Nelson lightly and climbs into her car. Nelson watches as she performs a neat three-point-turn and drives off, her face set as if she’s already thinking about work. Nelson sighs and gets back into his battered Mercedes.

But, when he gets to the station, there is some compensation. Amongst all the rubbish in his inbox, one email stands out: ‘Dental records on skull found 17/7/13’. This is the American pilot, the one found in the summer behind the wheel of his buried plane. After Ruth had excavated the skeleton, an autopsy had found that death probably occurred as a result of the bullet wound in the temple. Here the investigation would probably have stalled without the generosity of the American Air Force, who had offered to fund DNA tests and extensive forensic investigations. Even so, the laboratories had taken their time. In August, Nelson had rather reluctantly accompanied Michelle on holiday to Spain (far too hot) and had returned to find that no progress had been made. Well, it looks as if they have a result at last. Nelson clicks open the email, still standing up.

‘Cloughie!’ he calls, a moment later.

DS Clough appears in the doorway, a half-eaten bagel in his hand.

‘Look at this. We’ve got a positive match for our American pilot.’

Clough peers over his boss’s shoulder. ‘Frederick J. Blackstock. Who’s he when he’s at home?’

‘Come on, Cloughie. You’re from Hunstanton way. Don’t you recognise the name?’

‘Blackstock. Oh,
those
Blackstocks. Do you think he’s related?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.’

‘Why would a Yank pilot be related to a posh Norfolk family?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine, Cloughie.’

‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’ says Clough, scrolling down the email. ‘American pilot found dead right near his old ancestral home.’

‘Exactly,’ says Nelson, gathering up his car keys. ‘And I don’t believe in coincidence.’

It’s impossible to ignore the Blackstock name in the Hunstanton area. There’s the Blackstock Arms, the Blackstock Art Gallery, even the Blackstock Fishing Museum. The smug ubiquity of the name reminds Nelson of the Smiths in King’s Lynn, a comparison that isn’t exactly reassuring, given that a previous investigation involving the Smiths ended up combining Class-A drugs, an ancient curse and a poisonous snake. Unlike the Smiths, though, the Blackstocks still live in their ancestral home, a bleak manor house built on the edge of the Saltmarsh.

They drive (along Blackstock Way) past flat fields criss-crossed with tiny streams; mournful-looking sheep stand marooned on grassy islands and geese fly overhead, honking sadly. The house is visible from miles away, a ship rising from a grey-green sea.

‘I wouldn’t like to live here,’ says Clough. ‘It’s as bad as Ruth’s place.’

‘It’s a bit grander than Ruth’s place.’

Blackstock Hall is indeed grand, a stern brick-built edifice with a tower at each corner, but there is no comforting stately home feeling about it: no National Trust sign pointing the way to the tea rooms, no manicured lawns or Italian gardens. Instead the grass comes right up to the front door and sheep peer into the downstairs rooms. If there was a path to the front door, it vanished years, maybe centuries, ago. Nelson parks by the side of the road and he and Clough approach the house through the fields.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Clough, ‘the grass is full of sheep shit.’

‘What do you expect?’ says Nelson, hurdling a stream. The sheep stare at him with their strange onyx eyes.

‘I expect a proper driveway, since you ask,’ says Clough. ‘Bunch of gyppos would do it for a grand.’

Nelson ignores this though he knows he should say something about the un-PC language. ‘It’s travellers, not gyppos, and we should respect different lifestyle choices, etc., etc.’ Instead he says, ‘Hope there’s someone at home after all this.’

‘There’s smoke coming out of the chimneys,’ says Clough. ‘Probably burning a virgin for the harvest.’

‘I should never have let you watch
The Wicker Man
,
’ says Nelson.

Despite the smoke, it seems at first that the house might be deserted after all. Finally, after almost five minutes, the heavy oak door opens slowly and a woman’s face appears.

‘Oh, there is someone here,’ she says. ‘We only really use the back door.’

‘I wasn’t aware of that,’ says Nelson stiffly. ‘I’m DCI Harry Nelson from the King’s Lynn police. This is DS Clough. We’d like to speak to Mr or Mrs Blackstock.’

‘You’d better come in then,’ says the woman. ‘I’m Sally Blackstock.’

The door opens with difficulty and Nelson sees that the hall is full of packing cases. Clearly Sally Blackstock was telling the truth about this entrance not being in use. She’s an attractive woman in her mid-fifties, ash-blonde hair, blue eyes, no make-up. She reminds Nelson of an older version of Barbara in
The Good Life
.

‘This is quite some house,’ says Nelson.

Sally Blackstock laughs. ‘It’s a mish-mash really. Built in Tudor times, burnt down during the Civil War, rebuilt in the Georgian era. The Blackstocks have lived on this site for over five hundred years and it feels as if we’ve still got all their rubbish.’ She gives one of the packing cases a feeble shove.

‘Are you moving out then?’ asks Clough.

Sally laughs. ‘I should be so lucky! No, we’re clearing up. I’ve got this mad idea about opening the house as a B & B. Now I wonder what I’ve started. Lunacy, the whole thing.’