They have come in Judy’s car because Nelson’s is in for its MOT. Judy, in the face of much teasing, drives a four-by-four, a flashy jeep with wheels like a tractor. As Nelson climbs into the passenger seat, he says, ‘This car’s too big for you.’
‘It suits me fine.’
‘What does Darren drive?’
‘A Ford Ka.’
Nelson grunts as if his worst fears have been confirmed.
They drive along the coast road, Nelson trying not to tell Judy when to change gear (in fact, she’s a far better driver than he is).
‘Johnson!’
‘What?’ Judy brakes.
‘Let’s go to Sheringham. Have a look at this listening post thing.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I just want to have a look at it.’
As Judy does a U-turn she considers that the boss is getting really hung up on this war business. It’s true that whoever killed Archie Whitcliffe and Hugh Anselm (not to mention Dieter Eckhart) probably knew about Operation Lucifer but, in Judy’s personal opinion, the truth must lie closer to home and to the present day. Don’t overcomplicate; that’s what Nelson himself usually says.
Beeston Bump turns out to be a long walk. A stunning one too, if you like that sort of thing, which Nelson doesn’t. But Judy enjoys striding over the short, aromatic grass, the wide blue sky above and the sea thundering away below. It’s a long haul, though, and they’re both panting by the time they reach the top. The view, as Father Tom promised, is spectacular. The flat plains of Norfolk lie behind them, they can even see the church tower at Broughton and Sea’s End House perched on the end of its promontory. In front of them is the sea, calm and clear.
All that remains of the listening post is an octagonal concrete base. Hard to imagine a building here, on this exposed point. A tower, Stella Hastings had said. Nelson looks out over the sea, sparkling innocently in the sun. How crowded it must have been seventy years ago – German E-boats, tankers stuffed full of petrol ready to ignite, Captain Hastings and his crew patrolling in their little dinghy. And, of course, the six Germans who died at Broughton Sea’s End. What happened to their boat, he wonders. Father Tom had shown them a map of the East Norfolk coast. It was studded with little crosses. ‘What are these?’ Nelson had asked. ‘Shipwrecks,’ answered Father Tom. ‘The coast is full of them. It’s treacherous, this coastline, lots of dangerous rocks, shallow sandbanks. That’s why we had the sea light at Broughton. You can’t land a boat on some beaches because of all the submerged wrecks.’ So, even under the sea, it’s crowded.
His phone rings. Ruth.
‘What is it?’
‘I think I’ve come up with something.’ She sounds excited. ‘Can you come over?’
Nelson glances at Judy who is gazing rather dreamily out to sea. Probably thinking about her fiancé.
‘Okay. I’ve got Johnson with me. We’ll be over in half an hour.’
Ruth meets them at the door. To Nelson’s secret delight, she’s holding Kate.
‘Hi, baby,’ says Judy. ‘Hey, she smiled at me!’
That was at me, thinks Nelson.
Ruth takes them into her sitting room which is as untidy as ever and where, now, Kate’s toys and blankets and baby gym jostle for space with Ruth’s books and papers and old coffee cups. Spread out on the table are a selection of murder mysteries. Skulls, daggers and spectral hounds grin up at them.
‘I bought them from Amazon,’ says Ruth. ‘They’re the books on Archie’s list. The ones he left to Maria.’
‘Why did you buy them?’ asks Nelson, watching surreptitiously as Kate rolls on the floor under her baby gym. Shouldn’t she be crawling by now? He can’t remember any of the milestones though Michelle has them all recorded in albums, complete with first teeth and locks of baby hair.
‘I wanted to see if I could crack the code. I thought it would be easier if I had the actual books.’
‘What code?’ asks Judy.
‘Well, you remember the order Archie told Maria to read the books in? I think it was a code. I think he was trying to send her a message.’
‘Have you worked it out?’ asks Judy, her eyes round.
‘I think so.’ Ruth arranged the books on the table as if she is laying out Patience – or a magic trick. Judy leans forward, interested. Nelson wrenches his eyes away from Kate.
‘Look. First I tried putting the books in the order Archie said. That puts Evil Under the Sun first. But then there are four twos in a row. It doesn’t make sense. So then I thought: what if it’s the third word?’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Judy.
‘Well, the third word of the first title is Truth.’ Ruth shuffles the books. ‘The second word of the second title is Lies.’
‘Truth and Lies,’ says Nelson. ‘That’s deep.’
Ruth glares at him. ‘The second word of the third title is Under.’
‘I get it!’ says Judy. ‘Truth Lies Under.’
‘Yes! The second word of the fourth title is Fourth.’
‘Truth Lies Under Fourth,’ says Nelson. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘The second word of the fifth title is Step. The third word of the sixth is Of. The first word of the seventh is Sea. The second of the eighth title is Light. Truth Lies Under Fourth Step Of Sea Light.’
There is a silence. Under the baby gym, Kate coos and chortles. Flint climbs onto the table and sits on the Sherlock Holmes book, purring loudly.
‘What’s a sea light?’ asks Judy
Nelson hears Father Tom’s voice, echoing in the dusty back room. It’s treacherous, this coastline, lots of dangerous rocks, shallow sandbanks. That’s why we had the sea light at Broughton.
‘The lighthouse,’ he says. ‘It means the lighthouse. Under the fourth step of the lighthouse.’
CHAPTER 21
April
The lighthouse. Ruth stares out of her office window, across the courtyard towards the artificial lake, and thinks about the impending trip to the sea light. It has already been put off twice because of bad weather and is now set for Saturday.
‘Why don’t you come?’ Nelson had said on the phone. ‘It’s the weekend, after all.’ How can he say that so casually? Doesn’t he know that, because it’s the weekend, Ruth is kept a prisoner by Kate? Of course he doesn’t. Michelle has always done all the childcare and Nelson is as free as he ever was. Ruth imagines him at weekends, playing football or golf, going to the pub, with never a thought as to who is looking after his children. Of course, his daughters (his other daughters) are grown up now. He and Michelle can even go away on holiday together, not that Nelson seems to enjoy holidays but whose fault is that? The point is, he has escaped from the parenting years and Ruth is just beginning. In only eighteen years’ time, she tells herself hollowly, I can go out on a Saturday.
The thing is she wants to go to the lighthouse. It was her idea, after all. She cracked the code and now she has to sit at home while Judy or Clough goes out on the police launch, climbs the precarious steps and finds… what? Does she really believe that there’s something hidden below the fourth step of the Broughton Sea’s End lighthouse? What could it possibly be? The truth, according to the code, but as an archaeologist Ruth knows that truth can prove remarkably elusive as the years go by. Is it a confession? A photograph? Another cryptic clue? Maybe Archie has set up a whole series of clues that will have them running all over the country, untangling acronyms and decoding acrostics, while the real murderer slips silently out of sight.
She pictures the lighthouse. It’s a real landmark on the North East Norfolk coast, commemorated in countless postcards and souvenirs. The tall red-and-white tower perched on a rock, seeming sometimes to rise straight out of the sea. Photos show it shrouded by mist on autumn mornings, almost hidden by crashing waves during winter storms and mirrored on a flat sea at the height of summer. The lighthouse is only a few hundred metres from the land but it is surrounded by rocks, making it almost impossible to reach except
in calm weather. This is one of the reasons why the light is no longer in use. The main reason is that most ships nowadays are equipped with satellite navigation and have no need of picturesque lighthouses.
Ruth sighs and tries to get back to marking essays. She knows that she is behaving like a spoilt child, sulking because she’s missing a day out. The trouble is that knowing doesn’t make it easier to bear. She wants to go to the lighthouse, but Sandra is away for the weekend and Shona is spending Saturday with Phil and his sons and there is no-one to look after Kate. Tatjana is out on Saturday with the people from UEA but Ruth would never dream of asking her to babysit. No, Ruth will just have to stay at home like a good mother. Maybe she can bake a cake or something.
She looks out of the window again, remembering the day that she saw Clara and Dieter embracing in the snow. Then, as if summoned by the earlier memory, she sees a blonde woman walking across the courtyard, her arms full of books. Clara. Without thinking about it, Ruth taps on the window. Clara looks up, smiles. Ruth beckons. She could do with a break, some company, a cup of coffee. It’ll stop her thinking about the lighthouse, unbreakable codes, Saturday morning telly.
Clara looks cold and rather forlorn, wearing a scruffy waxed jacket that has clearly seen many years of dog walking. Her hair is lank and rather greasy and her face is pale. Ruth feels a sudden stab of sympathy. She hasn’t given much thought to what Clara must be feeling, losing her lover, realising that, in fact, she never had him. At least Dieter’s wife will have a funeral to attend, a grave to visit, all the status and sympathy accorded to a widow. Clara is left with nothing.
‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ Ruth asks as Clara appears in the doorway. ‘We can go to the canteen or there’s a machine that’s not too bad.’
‘Machine will be fine,’ says Clara. ‘I’m just returning some of Dieter’s books to the library.’ She puts the pile of books on Ruth’s desk. Ruth can’t resist looking at the titles – Second World War history mostly, one treatise on the dating of bodies. Was Dieter doing his own forensic research then?
‘How are you?’ Ruth asks. ‘This must be an awful time for you.’
Clara shrugs. ‘I’ve been better. I know it’s stupid because I’d only known him a few weeks but I really loved him, and to think that someone would kill him… like that…’ She puts her hand over her mouth.
‘It must be awful,’ repeats Ruth inadequately. Clara burrows in her bag for a tissue and Ruth takes the opportunity to escape to the coffee machine. Clara probably wants a few minutes on her own, she tells herself.
When she returns with two steamy cups of coffee substitute, Clara seems a lot more composed. She tells Ruth quite calmly that Dieter’s wife has flown his body back to Germany. ‘I didn’t see her,’ she says. ‘I don’t think she knows anything about me.’
Did you know about her? wonders Ruth. But she doesn’t say anything.
‘The hardest thing,’ Clara goes on, ‘is not having anything to do. I haven’t got a job. I’m not studying. All my friends have moved away. All I can do is take the dogs for walks, chat to Grandma, get in Mum’s way in the kitchen. It’s like being a teenager again.’
Maybe it’s the word teenager that gives Ruth the idea. What do teenagers do to fill in the time? They take odd jobs, don’t they? Washing cars, delivering papers… didn’t Clara once say something about babysitting?
‘I’d love to,’ says Clara, looking cheerful for the first time. ‘I’m not doing anything on Saturday afternoon. I’d love to look after Kate.’
‘I shouldn’t be long,’ says Ruth. ‘Nelson says the boat’s leaving at two-thirty. I should be home by five at the latest.’
‘Boat?’
‘Yes, we’re going out to the lighthouse. It’s hard to explain but it’s all linked to the bodies that we found in the cliffs.’
‘The lighthouse?’ says Clara. ‘Dad owns it, I think.’
When Saturday comes, Ruth almost changes her mind. The sea is calm but the skies are heavy and overcast. Snow is forecast and there is an ominous yellow line on the horizon. But Clara appears promptly at one-thirty, full of plans for a fun afternoon with Kate, so Ruth has no choice but to put on her anorak and head out to the car. Clara stands at the window, waving, with Kate in her arms. For a moment, Ruth feels an almost overwhelming urge to rush back into the house, grab her baby and never let her go again. But, she reasons, she experiences a modified version of this urge every time she leaves Kate with Sandra. If she obeyed every irrational maternal impulse she’d never leave the house.
Ruth drives slowly along the coast road. Sometimes, in spring, you see groups of birdwatchers, binoculars in hand, trekking over the windblown grass in the hope of seeing a greenshank or a bar-tailed godwit. But, today, the Saltmarsh is deserted. There is a feeling of tension, almost expectancy, in the air. The grey-green reeds are sharply defined against the pale sky, a flock of snipe zigzags low over the road, water gleams between the ditches, dark and forbidding. Ruth turns on her car radio. Nothing like Any Questions? for driving away feelings of impending doom.
She is due to meet Nelson at Wyncham, along the coast from Broughton. There is a jetty there and steps leading down to the beach. The police launch will come from Yarmouth and take them on the ten-minute trip to the lighthouse. As Ruth rounds the last bend, she sees the lighthouse rising starkly out of the grey sea. As she looks across the water, it seems to her that there is a flash of light from its high windows. Impossible; the light was taken away years ago, it is probably just a chance reflection. But Ruth feels uneasy. Why on earth did she ever want to go on this trip?
Nelson is waiting for her by the steps, accompanied by a man carrying what looks like a pneumatic drill. There is a third man too, someone short but very upright, bouncing on his toes as he looks out across the water. Can it really be…? Yes it can. Ruth parks her car on the grass at the top of the cliff next to Nelson’s Mercedes and an old-style Jaguar that looks as if it has been preserved in aspic. Trust Jack Hastings to buy British.
‘Ruth! You made it.’ Nelson manages to give the impression that she’s late though it is still only twenty past.
‘Hallo, Nelson, Mr Hastings.’
‘Jack, please.’ Hastings is wearing a yellow sou’wester and seems full of bonhomie. ‘Fine day for a cruise,’ he says as he leads the way down the wooden steps. The launch is waiting by the jetty. It’s a lot smaller than Ruth expected.
‘Turns out Mr Hastings owns the lighthouse,’ says Nelson. ‘Lock, stock and barrel.’
‘Only way to stop it being demolished,’ says Hastings. ‘I couldn’t let that happen. Valuable part of our maritime heritage. Not that the government cares, of course.’
‘What are you going to do with it?’ asks Ruth. She is sure she read somewhere about decommissioned lighthouses being turned into museums or even bed-and-breakfasts.
‘Do?’ Hastings turns to look at her. ‘I’m not going to do anything. It’s perfect as it is.’
Ruth looks across at the sleek stone tower that seems almost part of the rocks around it. She thinks she knows what Jack Hastings means. As she watches, the sun is once more reflected from the top windows – two flashes, like a signal.
Ruth wonders how much Nelson has told Jack Hastings about today’s expedition. She is considering how to find out when Nelson says, rather repressively, ‘I’ve told Mr Hastings about your theory concerning the lighthouse.’
Ruth notes ‘your theory’. In other words, if the whole thing is a waste of time, it’ll be Ruth’s fault.
‘Jolly good fun,’ Hastings says, over his shoulder. ‘Like something from an Arthur Ransome book.’
‘Let’s get on with it,’ says Nelson. ‘The tide’ll turn in a minute.’ They have had to wait until high tide so that most of the rocks will be under water. Nelson hates waiting for anything though time and tide, as Ruth could have told him, wait for no man.
A boatman in an RNLI jersey holds the craft steady as they clamber on board. It pitches alarmingly an
d, too late, Ruth remembers that, while she loves the sea, she hates boats.
From the shore the sea had looked completely flat, but as soon as they are away from the jetty, waves appear from nowhere and the little boat struggles against them. Ruth’s stomach lurches in sympathy. Oh God, what if she’s sick all over Nelson? Hastings, clinging to the rail with one hand, seems to be enjoying himself.
‘Great fun!’ he shouts, above the noise of the engine.
A wave crashes over the prow. Ruth cowers inside the little glass cabin. What will happen to Kate if she is drowned? She really must make a will.
The lighthouse is getting nearer. Close up it looks more derelict, rusty tears running down its sides. The rocks make it difficult to land. The launch pitches to and fro as the waves wash up over its sides. Ruth clamps her teeth together. Eventually, though, the skipper manages to get them close enough for his mate to jump ashore. He ties the boat onto the little landing jetty and stretches out a hand to help Ruth. Praying that she doesn’t slip, she puts one foot on the side of the wildly rocking boat. Thank God she wore trainers. She manages an ungainly leap onto the rocks. It feels wonderful to be on solid ground.
Nelson jumps easily, he’s surprisingly nimble for such a big man, but Hastings stumbles and nearly falls.
‘Careful,’ says the crewman cheerfully. ‘If you fell in, we probably wouldn’t be able to get you out again.’
An iron ladder leads from the jetty up to the lighthouse. Are these the steps referred to in the code? Ruth looks doubtfully at the rusty metal. How could anything be buried under here?
Nelson doesn’t waste any time. He climbs the ladder, hand over hand, and disappears from view. Ruth follows, more slowly. She can hear Hastings behind her, breathing hard. The third man brings up the rear, struggling with the heavy drill.
Now they are standing looking up at the lighthouse itself and Ruth sees that there are more steps, concrete slabs leading up to the heavily barred door. They all stand there in silence for a minute. Seagulls call plaintively from the surrounding rocks. Ruth thinks of stories of lighthouse keepers sent mad by loneliness and wild weather. Though they are not far from land, the shore is misty and uncertain. Easy to imagine yourself miles from the world.
The House At Sea’s End Page 18