The House At Sea’s End

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘Is she? She’s been with her boyfriend a long time, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Since they were at school.’

  ‘God, I can’t imagine that.’ Ruth thinks of the boy she was going out with at sixteen, a spotty youth called Daniel Harris. She thinks he became a plumber. He’s probably loaded. Maybe she should have married him.

  ‘Hen parties, wedding lists. That’s all I ever hear. Even Whitcliffe-’ He stops.

  ‘What?’

  Nelson is silent for a moment, chewing his sandwich. Ruth takes an unenthusiastic bite of hers. It tastes of wet plastic.

  Nelson pushes his plate away. ‘Did you catch the name of the bloke in the Home Guard?’ he says. ‘The one who’s still alive?’

  ‘Archie something.’

  ‘Archie Whitcliffe. I think he’s my boss’s grandfather. He talked about him once. Local hero. Fighting on the home front and all that.’

  ‘Will that make things difficult for you?’

  ‘Maybe. Whitcliffe’s touchy about his family. He’s Norfolk born and bred. Explains a lot, in my opinion. He won’t want me bullying his war hero granddad.’

  ‘But you’re not going to bully him, are you?’ asks Ruth sweetly. ‘You’re just going to ask him some questions.’

  ‘Whitcliffe thinks I’m too forceful.’

  ‘Why ever would he think that?’

  This time Nelson gets it. ‘I’ve no idea. I’m a real pussy cat.’

  This makes Ruth think about Flint. She hasn’t seen him today. She hopes he’s all right and hasn’t got shut in somewhere. Since she lost her other cat last year, she’s become rather neurotic about Flint.

  ‘Are you finished?’ she says. ‘I should be getting back to work.’

  As they drive back through the squalling rain, Nelson asks, ‘Do you think we’ll get anywhere with identifying the bodies?’

  ‘We might do,’ says Ruth. ‘I can do isotope analysis.’

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘It tests the chemicals and minerals present in teeth and bone. Put simply, the teeth will tell us where someone grew up, the bone will tell us where they ended up.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because bone keeps growing. It renews itself, from the inside out. The teeth provide a record of the time that they were formed, the bones will show the chemicals and minerals absorbed more recently.’

  ‘That’s good then, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes…’ Ruth hesitates. ‘It’s just… we can do the tests, but without the records to cross check it doesn’t really help with identification. I suppose if we find out roughly where the men may have come from, we could make enquiries there. The trouble is it’s so long ago.’

  ‘People have got long memories,’ says Nelson grimly. ‘That’s one thing I’ve learnt on this job.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Nelson drops Ruth at the station and she drives straight back to the university where she has a tutorial at three. The Natural Sciences building is quiet. It’s a grey afternoon and most of the students are probably in Halls or in the union bar. Ruth climbs the stairs to her office, thinking about Tatjana and Nelson and Kate and what Jack Hastings’ mother meant by ‘he never forgot the horror’.

  Hearing Tatjana’s voice had been a real shock. After Bosnia, Tatjana had moved back to the States and married an American. There had been a few Christmas cards. Tatjana and her husband (Rick? Rich? Rock?) were living in Cape Cod. Tatjana was doing some archaeological work and trying to write a book. Rick/Rich/Rock was a doctor, specialising in geriatrics. ‘No shortage in Cape Cod,’ Tatjana had written with typical terse humour. That had been almost ten years ago.

  ‘Ruth.’ Tatjana had sounded unnervingly the same. ‘I had your number from the university. I hope it’s okay?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ The office was not meant to give out personal numbers, but in an age when tutors send their students text messages and communicate via Facebook (not that Ruth would ever do either of these things), nothing was really private any more.

  ‘So you’re still teaching?’ Tatjana’s accent had almost gone, replaced with a slight East Coast whine, but the inflection was still foreign, the ends of each word crisp and emphasised.

  ‘Yes, I’m a lecturer in forensic archaeology. I teach postgraduates mostly.’

  ‘Did you ever write the book?’

  ‘No. Did you?’

  ‘No.’ Tatjana’s laugh, that sudden staccato bark, brought back the past more vividly than anything else could. The ballroom, the oil lamps, Erik telling stories about vampires, Hank playing ‘Smoke on the Water’ on the guitar.

  ‘And Erik,’ said Tatjana. ‘Do you still see Erik?’

  ‘Erik’s dead,’ said Ruth. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘Erik dead. Dear God.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you, Ruth: What’s your news? Are you married? Children?’

  Ruth took a deep breath, watching the flickering green light from the baby monitor. ‘I’m not married but I have a child. A baby.’

  Ruth remembers that there was a brief silence before Tatjana said, ‘A baby, well that is news. Congratulations, Ruth. A boy or a girl?’

  ‘A girl. Kate.’

  ‘Kate.’

  Another silence and Ruth could almost hear the years rushing past, a whooshing sound like walking through falling leaves.

  ‘I’m coming to England,’ said Tatjana at last. ‘I’m giving some lectures at the University of East Anglia. I wondered, could I stay with you? For a week or two?’

  Ruth thought a lot of things in that moment: her cottage is a long way from UEA, two weeks is a long time, she would have to tidy the spare room. She thought so long that Tatjana said, ‘Of course, if it’s a problem…’

  ‘No,’ said Ruth. ‘No problem. It’ll be wonderful to see you again.’

  But will it be wonderful, thinks Ruth, searching for the key card to open her office. Seeing Tatjana will bring back a whole slew of memories, not all of them pleasant. For many years afterwards she’d had nightmares about Bosnia. Bones gleaming in the sun, a hotel with endless corridors, door after identical door, grand staircases leading into nothingness, the flames of a bonfire, Tatjana’s face in the darkness.

  The last time she saw Tatjana it had been a harrowing occasion. She still thinks about it, wonders if she could have said or done anything differently, if, by some small change, she could have made events turn out another way. She doesn’t know if, even fourteen years later, she’s ready to revisit that scene. She feels too fragile – not enough sleep, too many confrontations with Nelson. But Tatjana is her friend, and over the last year, she’s learnt a lot about friendship. Tatjana must want to see her badly if she’s made so much effort to get in touch. She mustn’t turn her away. She mustn’t let Tatjana down again.

  While she is scrabbling in her organiser bag – it has so many zips and pockets that it’s almost impossible to find anything – she notices that the lights are on inside her office. She pushes open the door and finds Cathbad sitting at her desk, under the poster of Indiana Jones, reading Alice in Wonderland.

  Although not entirely surprised – Cathbad makes rather a speciality of materialising in unexpected places – Ruth is taken aback to see him there, calm as a Buddha in his lab coat, his long hair in a ponytail, an expression of serene benevolence on his face. Although she sometimes sees Cathbad around the campus (he is a technician in the chemistry department), he rarely comes near the archaeology corridor. He once trained as an archaeologist under Erik and, perhaps for this reason, studiously avoids Phil, Ruth’s boss. Certainly no two men could be less alike than Erik and Phil.

  ‘Lewis Carroll,’ says Cathbad dreamily, ‘such a visionary.’

  ‘I thought he was a paedophile.’

  ‘He was a sad little man who liked the company of young girls. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Ask Nelson.’

  Cathbad smiles. To everyone’s surprise, including their own, Cathbad and
Nelson get on rather well. Twice they have faced considerable danger together and Cathbad is convinced that Nelson saved his life on one of these occasions. They are bound together by this circumstance, he says, forever. Nelson grunts sceptically when he hears this, but despite a famed intolerance for anything even slightly fey or alternative Nelson finds Cathbad good company. Beneath the New Age trappings is a keen intelligence at work in Cathbad. Nelson sometimes thinks that he would have made a good detective.

  ‘Nelson sees demons everywhere. How are you, Ruthie?’

  Ruth is startled. For one thing, it seems like years since anyone has asked about her rather than Kate. For another – Ruthie? Only Erik ever called Ruth Ruthie.

  ‘I’m fine. You look different. What is it?’

  Cathbad raises a slightly self-conscious hand to his face and Ruth realises.

  ‘You’ve shaved off your beard.’

  For the past few years, Cathbad has sported a black beard, dramatically at odds with his greying hair. Without it he looks younger, more approachable and, to Ruth’s surprise, rather good-looking.

  ‘Maddy persuaded me.’

  Maddy is Cathbad’s teenage daughter. It’s news to Ruth that they’re in contact. ‘Good for Maddy. It’s a distinct improvement.’

  Ruth puts her bag on the visitor’s chair and waits for Cathbad to vacate hers. Instead, he smiles up at her, eyes very dark in his clean-shaven face.

  ‘How’s Hecate?’

  ‘Kate,’ snaps Ruth. Jesus, why can’t anyone get her name right?

  ‘I was thinking that it was about time for her naming ceremony.’

  Cathbad has appointed himself Kate’s godfather. Ruth quite likes the idea of godparents (anyone turning up with presents is surely a Good Thing) but has refused to have Kate christened because of the little problem of not believing in God. Cathbad, who likes any opportunity to have a party, has suggested a pagan naming ceremony instead. Ruth doesn’t believe in the pagan gods either but at least Cathbad’s plans don’t involve a church. A picnic on the beach was his last suggestion.

  ‘Bit cold on the beach,’ she says now.

  ‘We could have a bonfire.’ Cathbad loves bonfires. He says they are libations for the gods but Nelson is convinced that he is a closet arsonist.

  ‘You’re not going to start sacrificing goats, are you?’

  Cathbad looks hurt. ‘Of course not. It’s a very simple ceremony. We’re just going to show Kate to the gods, that’s all.’

  ‘Still sounds a bit Wicker Man.’

  ‘Forget the gods. Just see it as a party to welcome Kate to the world.’

  ‘That sounds okay, I suppose.’

  ‘Great. I’ll organise it. Shall we say Thursday week? Are you going to invite your parents?’

  ‘I don’t think a pagan naming ceremony will be quite their thing somehow.’

  ‘Are you sure? What about Shona?’

  ‘She’ll come.’ Shona loves a party almost as much as Cathbad does, and despite a Catholic upbringing she is definitely on the side of the pagans.

  ‘You’ll have to invite Phil too,’ says Ruth mischievously. ‘They’re together now.’

  ‘In that case I will invite him,’ says Cathbad with dignity. ‘Even though I find him a rather negative spiritual presence.’

  It’s mutual, Ruth wants to tell him. But she doesn’t. Despite everything, she quite likes the idea of a party for Kate. She gives in and sits in the visitor’s chair. Good old Cathbad. He’s been a real support to her over the first few months of Kate’s life. He deserves to be a godparent.

  Cathbad’s next words, though, wipe the indulgent smile from Ruth’s face.

  ‘We’ll have to have Nelson.’

  ‘Why?’ asks Ruth warily.

  Cathbad looks at her blandly. One of the most irritating things about him is that you never quite know what he’s thinking.

  ‘I see Nelson as a sort of spiritual father to Kate.’

  ‘Do you?’ Ruth’s heart is beating fast but she keeps her face still.

  ‘He can be a Guardian. Someone to watch over her.’

  ‘Nelson’s a Catholic. He wouldn’t come to a pagan ceremony.’

  ‘He’s not hung up on ritual. He’d come. I’m sure of it.’

  That’s what Ruth’s afraid of.

  ‘We must invite his wife too,’ she says.

  ‘I’ve only met her once,’ says Cathbad, ‘but she seems a beautiful soul.’

  ‘She’s very pretty,’ says Ruth drily.

  ‘I meant spiritually beautiful,’ says Cathbad. Ruth isn’t convinced. For all his high-flown spirituality, Cathbad is susceptible to good-looking women.

  ‘All right,’ says Ruth. ‘We’ll have a party and a bonfire. Invite all the beautiful people.’

  Cathbad smiles and, long after he has left and Ruth is preparing for her tutorial, she still seems to see the smile lingering in the air, like the grin on the face of Lewis Carroll’s famous cat.

  CHAPTER 8

  A week later Ruth gets the results of the isotope analysis. She rings Nelson immediately but is told, importantly, that he is out ‘on police business’. His mobile phone is switched off so she leaves a message and waits impatiently, looking down at the data in front of her, tapping her phone against her teeth. When it rings, she jumps a mile.

  ‘Ruth?’ It’s Ted.

  ‘Hi, Ted. What’s up?’

  ‘We’ve found something on the beach.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Some barrels.’

  ‘Barrels?’

  ‘Old oil barrels. They might be linked to the bodies we found. Do you want to come and have a look?’

  Ruth hesitates. Nelson could be hours and she doesn’t feel ready to settle down to any other work. She has no tutorials this afternoon and doesn’t have to collect Kate until five. And she’s intrigued; how could some old oil barrels be linked to the six skeletons?

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I’ll come over.’

  Ted is waiting for her by the cliff path. It’s a beautiful afternoon; sunny but cold, with no wind. The tide is out and the shallow rock pools are a bright, unearthly blue. Ted is rubbing his hands together with what looks like glee but could just be an attempt to get the circulation back.

  ‘This way.’

  He leads the way past the jutting headland and onto the next beach. To get there they have to climb over the remains of the old sea wall and Ruth is soon out of breath. Ted rushes on ahead, bounding over the slippery rocks like a goat. Is there such a thing as a sea goat? Ruth pauses on the highest part of the wall, getting her breath back and enjoying the view. In front of her is a perfect picture-postcard bay – white sand, blue sky, seagulls calling – a desert island courtesy of Radio 4. Ted’s footprints in the wet sand are like Man Friday’s. Ruth could almost believe that no-one has ever been on this beach before. Although it is only a few miles from resorts like Cromer, this coastline is remote and hard to reach. The cliffs are high and there are no paths or steps. And there’s always the danger of being cut off by the tide. The cliffs are dangerous too, full of caves and fissures, overhanging precariously in places. The only creatures at home here are the birds – hundreds of them – nesting on the sheer rock face. Despite living near a bird sanctuary, Ruth is not fond of birds.

  A tiny figure on the deserted beach, Craig is clearing away sand with a shovel. He looks like an illustration of an impossible task, one of the labours of Hercules or a punishment in the Underworld.

  Another, less classical, allusion comes into Ruth’s head, inspired perhaps by Cathbad’s championing of Lewis Carroll:

  The Walrus and the Carpenter

  Were walking close at hand.

  They wept like anything to see

  Such quantities of sand.

  ‘If only this were cleared away,’

  They said, ‘it would be grand.’

  Ruth climbs down from the wall and walks carefully over the rock pools towards the beach. As she gets closer, she sees that, in fact, Cr
aig is clearing the sand away from a large object – several large objects – that lie half-buried at the foot of the cliff. Closer still, she sees that they are oil barrels, orange with rust and studded with limpets.

  Craig is red in the face from his exertions. He greets Ruth and Ted with ‘Just the three of them, I think.’

  ‘What are they doing here?’ asks Ruth, bending close to examine the corroded metal. ‘It’s such an isolated place. Miles from anywhere.’

  ‘I used to come birds-nesting here as a child,’ says Craig. ‘We actually used to climb up without ropes or anything. Madness really. The cliffs are eighty foot high in places.’

  ‘I used to go in for extreme archaeology,’ says Ted. ‘Went into these caves once in the cliffs on the Firth of Clyde. Thirty metres down and full of giant spiders.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ says Ruth. She has no time for extreme archaeology, which seems to her to abandon the most sacred precepts of the subject – time, patience and care – in favour of laddish thrill seeking. ‘Why do you think they could be linked to the bodies?

  ‘Take a look inside,’ says Ted.

  The nearest barrel has a hole in its side, leaving a wickedly jagged edge. Peering gingerly inside, Ruth smells a heady mix of petrol and the sea. She gags. The barrel is half-full of stones which have either fallen from the cliffs or been swept in by the tide, but the smell is still all-pervasive. The second barrel is also open to the elements and inside, under the stones and beach debris, Ruth can see something whitish. The third barrel, as Ted says, is still sealed.

  She puts on protective gloves and reaches inside the second barrel. The stones are tightly packed, a mixture of chalk and flint, with a stray crab leg or two thrown in for good measure (probably dropped there by seagulls). Ruth reaches down as far as she can and manages to get a hold of the something white. She pulls.

  ‘Let me help,’ says Ted.

  Together, they drag out a wad of cotton fibres, once white but now stained grey and yellow, smelling strongly of rotten eggs.