The House At Sea’s End

by Elly Griffiths

  Tatjana hasn’t spoken much about her life in America. She and Rick seem to spend most of their time sailing and cooking gourmet meals. Ruth has seen photos of a low white house, shiny cars, shiny people, a vast gleaming boat. She thinks of her tiny cottage, the spare room still half full of boxes, her battered Renault 5. ‘You’ve done so well, Tatjana,’ she said once. ‘Two incomes, no kids,’ replied Tatjana, her face closing.

  At the top of the hill, the ground drops away again. To the untrained eye, there is little to see, some grassy ridges and hollows, a trench running southwards and a rather forlorn-looking sign. But Tatjana draws in her breath. ‘It’s quite a big settlement.’

  ‘Yes, Max thinks it was a vicus, a garrison town. The road,’ she gestures to the trench, ‘leads to the sea.’

  Tatjana strides over to the sign, which is the only evidence of the lottery money which funded the dig. Max is hoping for a further grant next year. He says that half the town is still underground.

  ‘It says here that bodies were found buried under the walls.’

  ‘Yes. Max thought they may be foundation sacrifices. You know, offerings to Janus.’

  ‘The God of Doorways?’

  ‘Yes, and of beginnings and endings.’

  Tatjana looks thoughtful. ‘I would have thought that human sacrifice was more Celtic than Roman.’

  ‘Well, the Romans often adopted Celtic Gods and traditions. They were pragmatists in that way.’

  Tatjana turns away. ‘I’m sure the Celts were pragmatists too. When your land is invaded, you tend to be.’

  Ruth curses herself. How the hell have they got back to Bosnia? But when Tatjana turns back she is smiling. ‘It’s beautiful up here,’ she says. ‘You can see for miles.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘In the summer it’s lovely. There’s a great pub here too.’

  ‘A pub,’ says Tatjana. ‘Does it do beer and ploughman’s lunches?’

  ‘You read my mind,’ says Ruth.

  Judy, too, is feeling the cold. Nelson has dispatched her to Broughton with a brusque instruction to ‘talk to the locals about the war’. Great idea, thinks Judy, except that on a day like today the locals are very sensibly inside watching TV. So far she has spoken to a surly teenager and a lost tourist looking for Great Yarmouth. She has already walked through the village twice, not that this has taken very long. It’s really just the one street – a Victorian terrace – and, behind it, a few newer-looking houses. There is only one shop, but by the looks of it, some of the other houses used to be shops. They have large bow windows, now swathed in net curtains, and in some cases the shop names remain, written or engraved under the eaves. ‘S. Austin and son, Fishmonger’. ‘T. Burgess, Butcher’. ‘Ronald Caffrey, Grocer’.

  The one remaining shop occupies the end of the row. Is this why it has survived when S. Austin, T. Burgess and Ronald Caffrey were all forced to hang up their aprons? It certainly doesn’t have a very prepossessing window display – a few shrimping nets and a dusty bucket arranged around a collection of ancient-looking magazines: Knitting World, Horse and Hound, The Coarse Fisherman. What would happen, Judy thinks, if she asked for a copy of Cosmopolitan or, worse, the Guardian?

  A bell clangs loudly behind her and a bespectacled man appears from behind a bead curtain.

  ‘Yes?’ His eyebrows are raised. The shop clearly does not encourage passing trade. It is an odd mix of supermarket, newsagent and post office. Tins of tomatoes share shelf space with string, sellotape and lurid pink Mother’s Day cards (though Mothering Sunday was three weeks ago). The post office counter bears a large handwritten sign saying ‘Closed’. Another sign gives parcel weights in pounds and ounces. Evidently the metric system has yet to reach Broughton Sea’s End.

  Judy shows her warrant card which causes the shopkeeper’s eyebrows to disappear further into his sandy hair.

  ‘Police?’ he echoes faintly.

  ‘Just a few routine enquiries,’ says Judy, putting on a reassuring voice. ‘In fact, we’re interested in something which may have happened fifty or sixty years ago.’

  ‘I’d hardly remember it then, would I?’ says the man huffily, though, to Judy, he could be any age.

  ‘I just wondered if there were any residents who could remember those days,’ says Judy soothingly. ‘People older than yourself. After all, in a shop like this you must get to know everyone in the community.’

  Her flattery is not entirely wasted. The eyebrows come down slightly.

  ‘We try. We’re a valuable local resource. You must sign our petition to save the post office.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘In a few years’ time shops like this will vanish completely. It’ll be all supermarkets and chain stores.’

  Good thing too, thinks Judy. But then she thinks: if I were an old person and I wanted a copy of Knitting World, I wouldn’t want to have to catch a bus to the next village. Mind you, didn’t Nelson say that the whole of Broughton was slowly falling into the sea?

  ‘I think it’s dreadful,’ she says. ‘I hate supermarkets myself. I never go in them.’ This is true; she buys all her groceries on-line.

  The man leans on the counter, eyebrows back in place, friendliness itself.

  ‘You’re so right. Supermarkets are all very well but where’s the personal touch?’ He leers at her.

  ‘I’m sure you’re always delivering groceries to the old folk.’

  ‘Well, I can’t lift much because of my back but I’ve always got a cheery word for them when they collect their pensions.’

  ‘Speaking of older people…?’

  ‘Yes.’ He straightens up, looking slightly suspicious once more. ‘Well, there was Mr Whitcliffe, a fine old gentleman. But he went into a home a good few years ago.’

  ‘I’ve met Mr Whitcliffe.’ Judy does not feel inclined to go into details.

  ‘His grandson’s in the police force, I believe.’

  ‘He’s my boss. My ultimate boss.’

  ‘Really?’ This has the effect of banishing some of the suspicion. The Whitcliffes, a local family, are obviously to be trusted.

  ‘Anyone else from that era?’

  ‘Mr Drummond died a couple of years ago. There’s Mrs West. She lives at number two Cliff Road. One of the new houses.’

  ‘Thank you,’ says Judy. She gives him her card. ‘Could you ring me if you think of anyone else?’

  The man nods. He is squinting at the card.

  ‘Johnson. Are you one of the Cromer Johnsons?’

  ‘No,’ says Judy. ‘I’m not from round here.’

  She walks to Cliff Road. There are only four houses, modern versions of fishermen’s cottages with exposed brick and fake weatherboarding. There is no answer at number two. Number one is also empty, but at number three she is told that Mrs West (‘a lovely old lady’) died last year. So much for local knowledge.

  Disconsolately she wanders on to the end of the road. The church, squat and imposing, lies on her left, raised on a slight hill surrounded by gravestones. Judy climbs the short flight of steps and reads that the church of St Barnabas dates from the tenth century. It was built in Saxon times, burnt down and rebuilt in the Norman era, became derelict in the Middle Ages and was rebuilt (again) by a Victorian philanthropist. The notice board proclaims the church as Anglican but, as Judy’s Irish Catholic father would say, ‘It was ours once.’ She tries the door; it’s locked.

  It is starting to rain. Judy puts up her hood and decides to call it a day. She has done her best but everyone in Broughton Sea’s End is either dead, or in an old people’s home or inside reading fishing magazines. It’s an odd place, pretty but rather sad. Maybe it’s just the weather but everything looks grey and washed out and somehow defeated. ‘Fight coastal erosion’ said a sign in the shop window, but Judy can’t imagine the residents doing anything so energetic. No, the sea will get them; the houses, the shop, even the church. The sea will win in the end.

  As she turns back to the steps, a name on one of the graves
tones catches her eye. She goes back to have a look. ‘Keaton “Buster” Hastings MC. Born: 1893. Died: 1989. He fought the good fight.’ This must be Jack Hastings’ father. Someone who clearly did relish a fight. What had Archie said about him? Hell of a chap… Tough as old boots. Ran a tight ship too. We weren’t just playing at soldiers. There is none of the usual stuff about Buster being a loving husband and father but lying in front of the headstone is a fresh bunch of red roses.

  Walking back through the graves, some lovingly tended, some overgrown with ivy and softened by moss, Judy finds: ‘Sydney Austin, born 1880, died 1961’. ‘Thomas William Burgess, born 1890, died 1971’. ‘Ronald Caffrey, born 1901, died 1996’. The boss was right; they’re all here. They’re just all dead.

  Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, thinks Nelson as he dials the number for Wentworth and Thenet, Solicitors. Whitcliffe has grudgingly agreed to the autopsy, saying that he’ll speak to other family members. He then stalked out of the station, speaking to no-one. Nelson takes advantage of his absence to find out about Archie’s will. Wentworth, when Nelson finally gets hold of him, is wary. Only when Nelson points out that the will’s contents will be in the public domain once it has cleared probate, does the lawyer relent.

  The will is simple. Archie’s money is divided equally between his grandchildren, including Whitcliffe. It’s not much but Nelson assumes that, whatever money Archie once had, it has long since disappeared to pay the bills at the Greenfields Care Home. The only other bequests are a writing case to Hugh Anselm and a hundred pounds and some detective books to Maria.

  There is also a rather unexpected message for Whitcliffe: ‘Gerald, I’m so proud of you and I know you’ll do the right thing. Please take care of Maria and George.’ George? This must be Maria’s son, the one Archie used to buy presents for. But why didn’t Archie take care of George himself, instead of asking his grandson to do it? Nelson can’t exactly imagine Whitcliffe in the role of caring uncle to George. And why did Archie care so much in the first place? Maybe he saw Maria as a surrogate granddaughter but, then again, he was hardly short of grandchildren.

  When was the will written? Two years ago, says Wentworth. Archie was not to know that Hugh would predecease him by a matter of weeks. Archie mentioned corresponding with Hugh some years ago – was this correspondence more significant than it seemed, important enough to be marked by a memento? Nelson has made an appointment to see Hugh Anselm’s niece, his closest relative. He doesn’t expect much. According to Kevin Fitzherbert, the niece, Joyce Reynolds, visited maybe twice in ten years. Nevertheless, she has inherited all of her uncle’s effects (including, presumably, the writing case) and so it may be worth talking to her. There’s always a chance that an avid letter writer like Hugh Anselm may have a journal or an unpublished novel somewhere.

  He is thinking about letter writing and Countdown and crossword puzzles when his phone rings.

  ‘Nelson,’ he barks.

  ‘Jack Hastings here,’ answers another, equally authoritative voice. ‘Are you aware that there’s a Kraut journalist hanging round my daughter?’

  Nelson wonders whether to affect surprise and force Hastings to tell him about Dieter Eckhart and his suspicions, but in the end he settles for faint distaste at such shockingly un-PC language. ‘I’ve spoken to a German military historian called Dieter Eckhart,’ he says.

  ‘That’s the fellow. Turned up at my house, if you please. An Englishman’s home is his castle, I told him.’

  Nelson ponders how much Hastings loves this phrase. He uses it in almost every TV interview (Nelson has looked them up) and it is, presumably, why he still insists on living in the fortress-like house on the cliff. Delusions of grandeur.

  ‘I sent him away with a flea in his ear,’ Hastings continues. ‘Then I find out he’s been pestering Clara.’

  ‘Pestering’ is not how Nelson would describe the distinctly mutual snuggling on Ruth’s sofa, but it’s hardly worth mentioning this now. Instead, he says, ‘Why did Eckhart want to speak to you?’

  For the first time, Hastings sounds discomfited. ‘He had some ridiculous theory about those bodies found under the cliff. Thought they were German, or some such nonsense.’

  Time to stir Hastings up a little, thinks Nelson. ‘Our forensic tests show that the bodies were very possibly of German origin,’ he says.

  There is a silence. ‘What?’ says Hastings.

  ‘Mineral analysis shows that the six bodies found in Broughton were of possible German origin,’ repeats Nelson patiently. ‘And we believe we know their identities.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Dieter Eckhart has been researching the disappearance of six German commandos in September 1940. I assume that’s why he came to you.’

  ‘What the hell’s it got to do with me?’

  ‘Your father was in charge of the Home Guard at that time.’

  There is another silence and then Hastings says, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Look, I’m more than happy to help with any police enquiry but my mother’s old and she’s not very strong. Something like this could upset her, make her ill. And Clara, well, she’s sensitive…’

  Nelson remembers the blonde girl bouncing into the sitting room at Sea’s End House. Sensitive is not the word he’d use.

  ‘We’ll be very low key,’ he assures Hastings. ‘But I’ll need to speak to you again.’

  ‘Understood,’ says Hastings, sounding subdued.

  ‘One more thing, Mr Hastings. Does the name Hugh Anselm mean anything to you?’

  ‘Hugh Anselm? No I don’t think so.’

  ‘Your mother mentioned a Hugh, one of the other young men in the troop. That was Hugh Anselm.’

  ‘Very possibly, but what’s he got to do with anything?’

  ‘I think he may have been murdered,’ says Nelson.

  CHAPTER 16

  ‘I did my best,’ says Joyce Reynolds, ‘but I’ve got my own family, you see.’

  ‘It must be difficult,’ says Judy sympathetically, ‘looking after an elderly relative.’

  Joyce Reynolds relaxes and looks saintly, though, as Judy and Nelson both know, her only contact with Hugh Anselm, her elderly uncle, was a yearly Christmas card and those two visits to the sheltered housing estate. Two in more than ten years.

  ‘Was he lonely?’ Nelson had asked Kevin Fitzherbert.

  ‘Lonely?’ Fitzgerald smiled, rather sadly. ‘Sure and we’re all lonely here. Hughie coped with it better than most. He had his books, his crossword, his letters. He hadn’t shut the world out.’

  ‘Your uncle sounds an interesting man,’ says Nelson, accepting a second biscuit. Joyce Reynolds had not wanted the police to visit but, now they’re here, she’s determined to put on a good show. She is a stout woman in her late fifties, wearing a ruffled blouse over black velvet trousers. She has obviously dressed up for them, thinks Judy, though she’s sure it’s lost on Nelson. Joyce Reynolds is the daughter of Stephen Anselm, Hugh’s elder brother, who died in 1984. Joyce herself has three children and two grandchildren. She shows them the photos.

  Judy looks at the pictures with interest. All those brides with frothing dresses and trailing veils. All those hats, all those smiles. She tries, and fails, to imagine her own wedding photos. The dress, tried on last week, is undeniably lovely, the problem is the person inside the dress. Judy doesn’t suffer from unduly low self esteem; she’s certain that, with the help of hairdressers and a vat of make-up, she’ll look pretty enough, it’s just… the expression. How on earth is she going to manage that dewy smile, that look of mingled sentiment and rapture, when all the time she’s just counting the minutes until it’s all over and she can put on her old jeans and watch Top Gear? Still, she mustn’t think about that now. She’s a police officer, conducting an investigation. Clough would love to be here, putting his oar in, being all boys together with the boss, but it’s her call because she’s good at interviews. She’d better get on with it.

  ‘Sergeant Johnson’s
getting married soon,’ says Nelson suddenly.

  Judy glares at him. She knows what he’s doing, of course. Softening a potentially hostile witness with some personal details, the human touch, trying to empathise (a word Nelson usually hates). It’s probably a good move but it doesn’t stop Judy wishing Nelson would fall into a fiery hell-hole and be tortured by sadistic demons.

  The witness, though, is definitely softened. ‘Are you?’ Joyce turns to Judy with what appears to be genuine interest. ‘When?’

  ‘In May. At St Joseph’s.’

  ‘The Catholic church?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was brought up a Catholic,’ says Joyce, ‘but my husband didn’t hold with it so I became a Unitarian.’

  ‘Was Hugh a Catholic?’ asks Nelson.

  ‘Yes,’ says Joyce. ‘Dad used to say he was quite religious as a boy but I never remember him going to church.’

  ‘Have you got any pictures of your dad and Hugh?’ asks Nelson cosily. He tries to smile apologetically at Judy. She ignores him.

  In a drawer, far below the fat satin wedding books, Joyce has a brown envelope containing some sepia photographs. Two boys, both wearing glasses, gaze up at them. The elder is in school uniform, the younger in a white suit with sash.

  ‘First Communion?’ asks Judy.

  Joyce shrugs. ‘I suppose so. Here’s Hugh in RAF uniform. He couldn’t fly planes because of his eyes but he did navigation, I think.’

  The same intense, short-sighted stare. The same slightly stiff pose. Hugh Anselm was one of those men who don’t look quite right in uniform. He seems nervous, unsmiling, hands clenched at his sides. He must have joined the RAF after the Home Guard, thinks Judy.

  ‘What did your uncle do after the war?’ asks Nelson.

  ‘Went to university. The only person in the family to go. Dad always said that Hugh was the clever one.’

  ‘And after university?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He did lots of jobs. He was a teacher, worked in a bank, even ran his own restaurant for a while. As I say, we weren’t exactly close.’