The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (9 page)

‘What do you think?’ Nelson gestures towards the house.

‘And I thought my place was isolated.’

Nelson laughs. ‘That’s what Cloughie and I said.’

Ruth is slightly disconcerted to think that she has been the subject of discussion between Nelson and Clough. She always wonders what Nelson’s colleagues think of her. Well, Judy’s a friend, but the others – Clough, Tim and Tanya – they’re a slightly unknown quantity. The one thing they have in common is a fierce loyalty to Nelson. Do they resent her role in his life? What
is
her role in his life?

If Nelson is indulging in such soul-searching, it doesn’t show.

‘We’re looking for signs that a body’s been buried and dug up fairly recently,’ he says. ‘What are we looking for apart from a bloody big hole?’

‘A grave is a footprint of disturbance,’ says Ruth. ‘The soil will look different, even the colour of it. Sometimes there’s a dip because, in time, soil compacts over a decomposing body and falls into the gap when the rib cage collapses. Even the vegetation will grow differently.’

‘Decaying bodies are good for the flowers, are they?’

‘Decomposition fluids can be toxic to some plants,’ says Ruth. ‘But some plants, like nettles, flourish.’

‘But we’re looking for a grave that has been disturbed.’

‘We can still see the signs,’ says Ruth. ‘Places where the earth is looser, less compacted.’

‘If we do find the original grave, ‘says Nelson, ‘will you be able to tell how long ago the body was dug up?’

‘It’s hard to be sure,’ says Ruth. ‘We might be able to do carbon dating on any objects found in the grave. The layers around the plane looked as if they’d been disturbed fairly recently. My guess is that the body would have been placed there a few weeks before the digger driver discovered it.’

‘Fairly recently, a few weeks,’ grumbles Nelson, holding the gate open and leading the way across the field. ‘It’s all guesswork with you lot.’

Ruth ignores this. ‘Have you told the family what we’re doing today?’ she asks.

‘I’ve told them that I’m bringing a forensic archaeologist to have a look round,’ says Nelson. ‘I haven’t said that we’re looking for a grave site but they must know that’s what I’m thinking. They haven’t objected though.’

The way he says this makes Ruth think that the family have raised objections before.

‘What do they think about the investigation?’ she asks, trying to find a pathway between two giant puddles. She is wearing wellingtons but the water looks deep in some places. The last thing she wants is to disappear, like Dawn French in
The Vicar of Dibley
, into a bottomless pit.

‘The old dad is a bit suspicious,’ says Nelson, striding on ahead, regardless of the mud splattering his trousers. ‘The dead pilot was his brother, so I suppose it’s natural that he should be upset. The daughter-in-law is pretty vague about the whole thing and the son doesn’t say much. The thing is, they all thought Fred died when his plane went down over the sea. It’s a bit of a shock to find him in another plane altogether, just a few miles from the family home.’

‘Do you really think someone killed him?’

‘Come on, Ruth,’ says Nelson. ‘You told me yourself that he was shot in the head. Then someone wrapped him in a tarpaulin and buried him. Of course he was murdered. The question is, who killed him and where did they bury him?’

No, thinks Ruth, following Nelson as he takes the path to the side of the house. The question is, why did they dig him up again?

In the old aircraft hanger, now a farrowing shed, Chaz Blackstock is looking at his pigs. Usually this gives him great satisfaction, but today even the sight of a Gloucester Old Spot sow in full pig can’t lighten his mood. He sighs heavily and his sister, Cassandra, who is standing next to him, asks him what he’s thinking about.

‘It’s just all this business with Grandpa,’ he says.

‘What business?’

Cassandra has been away, touring in an experimental play about Sylvia Plath, but even so her lack of interest in the family is exasperating sometimes.

‘Honestly, Cass. You must have heard about them finding Uncle Fred’s body. It’s all Mum and Dad can talk about. Did you know the Yanks are making a film about it?’

‘Really?’ From when she was a child, two words were always guaranteed to bring the stars to Cassandra’s eyes – acting and film. See also: theatre, starring, premiere, centre-stage and Oscar.

‘Yes. They want the whole drama, hero pilot returned to his family, dotty aristos wandering about, Norfolk in all its glory.’

‘Handsome pig farmer grandson, gorgeous actress granddaughter.’

Chaz looks at his sister. She is one of the few people who can use the word ‘gorgeous’ about themselves and get away with it. Because, even in jeans and an old Barbour with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she is effortlessly, film-star gorgeous.

‘Are you imagining yourself in the starring role?’ he asks.

Cassandra laughs but doesn’t deny it. Chaz reflects, without rancour, that his sister usually takes the starring role in any given situation. He doesn’t mind it; he’s always preferred to stay in the background. Even today, in the bosky gloom of the shed, she looks like an actress ready to play the main part in some pastoral melodrama. There is something grand about Cass, something operatic that is quite out of tune with her surroundings.

‘The thing is,’ he says, with his eyes on the pig (she is operatic too, in her way), ‘I’m worried about Grandpa. What if he has one of his turns?’

Cassandra turns to look at him. ‘But he’s been OK for years.’

‘I know. But what if this sets him off again? Mum said that he was really bad after his oldest brother disappeared. This might bring it all back.’

‘Mum doesn’t know. She wasn’t even around when Uncle Lewis went missing. She just makes these things up.’

Chaz knows that Cassandra is touchy when it comes to their mother but this strikes him as unfair. ‘I don’t think she makes things up. Grandpa must have told her. He talks to her more than he talks to Dad.’

Cassandra looks mutinous. ‘There’s no reason to think Grandpa will get sick again. He hasn’t so far, has he?’

‘Mum said he didn’t like the policemen coming to the house.’

‘Oh, that’s just him doing his lord of the manor bit.’

‘And he’s furious about this American film. Says he doesn’t even want to meet Fred’s daughter.’

‘He had a daughter? How old is she?’

‘Older than Dad. He said she was really dishy when she was young. She came over in the sixties, with a miniskirt and an open-top car. I think Dad was quite smitten.’

Cassandra laughs. ‘God, I hope she’s not still wearing miniskirts. We want to come over well in the film, after all.’

‘I’m sure
you
will,’ says Chaz. And he means it.

At the back of Blackstock Hall, the land falls gently away towards the sea. The main entrance to the house is obviously here because a proper tarmacked drive leads up to the back door, which is the stable type with the top part open. There’s a kitchen garden too, with raised beds and a small greenhouse. Everything looks pretty wild and gone to seed but, Ruth reflects, that probably because it’s autumn. She’s hardly an expert on gardening. As they walk past the rows of giant cabbages (who knew they grew so big?), Ruth casts an eye over the soil. It has been turned fairly recently, no doubt about that, but isn’t that what you would expect in a garden? Then again, Ruth once found a body buried in a vegetable patch. She stops and looks at the earth. The topsoil seems to be mostly clay, clumpy and wet after the rain, but underneath there’s some chalk – she can see white flakes in the compost heap. A skeleton might be well preserved in this environment, if it wasn’t buried too deeply.

‘What are you doing, Ruth?’ calls Nelson from the gate. ‘Planning on making cabbage soup?’

‘I’m analysing the soil,’ says Ruth with dignity. She spent several weeks on the cabbage soup diet. Never again.

Through the gate there are a few stunted apple trees, bent almost double by the wind. But to their right is something that makes Ruth and Nelson look at each other. It’s a large stone cross, not visible from the house because it is situated in a slight dip. As they approach, they see that there are other crosses and headstones lower down the slope. The stone is almost the same colour as the grass, which makes the markers look as if they have grown there, strange hunched trees perhaps, or distorted rock formations.

Nelson has reached the biggest cross. Because of its position it seems to loom unnaturally large against the sky, like one of those optical illusion pictures beloved of tourists, where a person can hold up the Tower of Pisa. But here the effect is sinister, the massive crucifix seeming to overshadow Nelson, stretching its arms towards him. It’s all Ruth can do not to call out.

‘Admiral Nathaniel Blackstock, 1789–1850,’ Nelson is reading. ‘Safe in harbour. Looks like we’ve stumbled on the family graveyard.’

Ruth brushes lichen away from one of the smaller crosses. ‘Ralph Blackstock, RIP. Also his beloved wife. I see she doesn’t even get a namecheck.’

‘There don’t seem to be any new graves,’ says Nelson. ‘It’s probably not consecrated any more.’

‘And no signs of recent digging,’ says Ruth, looking around her. In fact the slope, with its grey shapes rising up out of the grass, looks like it hasn’t been visited for centuries. She doesn’t think she has ever seen a lonelier place.

Nelson is evidently thinking the same thing. ‘I wouldn’t like to be buried here,’ he says. ‘It’s miles from anywhere.’

‘What do you need near you when you’re dead?’ says Ruth. ‘It’s not as if you’re going to be popping to the corner shop for milk.’

‘You know what I mean,’ says Nelson. ‘It’s bloody bleak.’

In fact the view is stunning. Beyond them lie the marshes, miles of flat grey grassland, interspersed with glimmering streams. In the distance is the sea, a line of darker grey against the sky. As they watch, a flock of geese fly overhead in a perfect v-shape.

‘Of course, all this would have been under the sea once,’ says Ruth. ‘You can tell by the chalk.’

‘What do you mean?’ asks Nelson.

‘Chalk is formed by marine deposits. All landscapes with chalky soil were under the sea once.’ She stops because Nelson is looking at her oddly. ‘What’s the matter? I’m talking about millions of years ago.’

Nelson shakes his head. ‘It’s nothing. I’m just thinking about something Old George said. He’s the granddad. He said that his mother hated this place because she thought nothing good would ever come of living on land that should really be at the bottom of the sea. She used to say that the sea wanted the land back.’

Ruth looks out over the grey-green landscape. It might just be her imagination but she thinks that she can hear the sea. It has a roaring, urgent sound. She imagines the waves swallowing up the marshes and the grazing land, rising higher and higher until they cover the stone crosses and the garden wall and finally the house itself.

‘She thought she could hear sea sprites singing at night,’ says Nelson.

Ruth looks at him out of the corner of her eye. She is relieved to see that he’s smiling.

‘We must introduce her to Cathbad.’

‘She died years ago,’ says Nelson with an involuntary glance at the looming graves. ‘Come on, let’s go round the other side of the house.’

The inland side of the house boasts a barn, some outhouses – all derelict, a tree with a rope swing and an area fenced off by a low iron railing. Nelson hurdles this and, with rather more difficulty, Ruth follows. She sees immediately that they are in another graveyard, only this time the stones are small and regular in size.

She squats down to read the engraved letters. ‘Blue, beloved friend. Rosie, never forgotten. Patch, faithful companion.’

She looks up at Nelson. ‘It’s a pet’s burial ground.’ She feels her eyes filling with tears. She can’t bear to think what will happen when Flint dies.

‘Jesus,’ says Nelson. ‘More money than sense, these people.’

Ruth turns away to avoid one of Nelson’s lectures on profligate people (usually southerners) who spend money on their pets while there are children starving. As she does so, she notices something.