Nelson’s only reply is a grunt. He can’t think of anything worse than poncing around in a monkey suit in the company of a load of arty-farty types. But not only his wife but his boss, Gerry Whitcliffe, were insistent that he should go. ‘Just the sort of PR the force needs,’ Whitcliffe had said, carefully not mentioning that it was Nelson’s handling of the Saltmarsh case that had left the local force so in need of good publicity. PR! Jesus wept.
‘Pity,’ says Max lightly, his hand just hovering around Ruth’s shoulders. ‘Another time perhaps.’
Nelson watches them go. The beer garden of the Phoenix is filling up with early evening drinkers. He can hear laughter and the clink of glasses. He can’t help hoping that Leah’s uncle has run out of cider.
CHAPTER 2
Ruth drives slowly along the A47 towards King’s Lynn. Although it is past eight, the traffic is never-ending. Where can they all be going, thinks Ruth, tapping impatiently on her steering wheel and looking out at the stream of lorries, cars, caravans and people carriers. It’s not the holiday season yet and it’s far too late for the school run or even the commuter traffic. What are all these people doing, heading for Narborough, Marham and West Winch? Why are they all trapped on this particular circle of hell? For several junctions now she has been stuck behind a large BMW with two smug riding hats on the back shelf. She starts to hate the BMW family with their Longleat sticker and personalised number-plate (SH3LLY 40) and their horse riding at weekends. She bets they don’t even really like horses. Brought up in a London suburb, Ruth has never been on a horse though she does have a secret fondness for books about ponies. She bets that Shelly got the car for her fortieth birthday along with a holiday in the Caribbean and a special session of Botox. Ruth will be forty in two months’ time.
She’d enjoyed the drinks in the pub, though she’d only had orange juice. Max had been very interesting, talking about Roman burial traditions. We tend to think of the Romans as so civilised, he’d said, so outraged by the barbaric Iron Age practices but there is plenty of evidence of Roman punishment burials, ritual killing and even infanticide. A boy’s skull found in St Albans about ten years ago, for example, showed that its owner had been battered to death and then decapitated. At Springfield in Kent foundation sacrifices of paired babies had been found at all four corners of a Roman temple. Ruth shivers and passes a hand lightly across her stomach.
But Max had been good company for all his tales of death and decapitation. He’d been brought up in Norfolk and obviously loved the place. Ruth told him about her home on the north Norfolk coast, about the winds that come directly from Siberia and the marshes flowering purple with sea lavender. I’d like to visit one day, Max had said. That would be nice, Ruth had replied but neither had said more. Ruth had agreed to visit the dig next week though. Max has a whole team coming up from Sussex. They are going to camp in the fields and dig all through May and June. Ruth feels a rush of nostalgia for summer digs; for the camaraderie, the songs and dope-smoking round the camp fire, the days of back-breaking labour. She doesn’t miss the lack of proper loos or showers though. She’s too old for all that.
Thank God, SH3LLY 40 has turned off to the left and Ruth can see signs for Snettisham and Hunstanton. She’s nearly home. On Radio 4 someone is talking about bereavement: ‘for everything there is a season’. Ruth loves Radio 4 but there are limits. She switches to cassette (her car is too old for a CD player) and the air is filled with Bruce Springsteen’s heartfelt all-American whine. Ruth loves Bruce Springsteen – the open road, the doomed love, the friends called Bobby Joe who’ve fallen on hard times – and no amount of derision is going to make her change her mind. She turns the sound up.
Ruth is now driving between overhanging trees, the verges rich with cow parsley. In a moment, she knows, the trees will vanish as if by magic and the sea will be in front of her. She never tires of this moment, when the horizon suddenly stretches away into infinity, blue turning to white turning to gold. She drives faster and, when she reaches the caravan site that marks the start of her road home, she stops and gets out of the car, letting the sea breeze blow back her hair.
Ahead of her are the sand dunes, blown into fantastic shapes by the wind. The tide is out and the sea is barely visible, a line of blue against the grey sand. Seagulls call high above and the red sail of a windsurfer shimmers silently past.
Without warning, Ruth leans over and is violently sick.
Norwich Castle, a Victorian icing covering a rich medieval cake, is now a museum. Nelson has been there several times with his daughters. They used to love the dungeons, he remembers, and Laura had a soft spot for the teapot collection. He hasn’t been for years though and as he and his wife Michelle ascend the winding pathway, floodlit and decorated with heraldic banners, he fears the worst. His fears are justified when they are met by serving wenches. The invitation did not mention fancy dress but these girls are very definitely wenches, wearing low-cut, vaguely medieval dresses and sporting frilly caps on their heads. They are proffering trays of champagne and Nelson takes the fullest glass, a fact not wasted on Michelle.
‘Trust you to take the biggest,’ she says, accepting a glass of orange juice.
‘I’m going to need alcohol to get through this evening,’ says Nelson as they walk up to the heavy wooden doors. ‘You didn’t tell me it was fancy dress.’
‘It isn’t.’ Michelle is wearing a silver mini-dress which is definitely not medieval. In fact, Nelson feels that it could do with a bit more material, a train or a crinoline or whatever women wore in those days. She looks good though, he has to admit.
They enter a circular reception room to be met by more champagne, someone playing the lute, and, most disturbingly, a jester. Nelson takes a step backwards.
‘Go on,’ Michelle pushes him from behind.
‘There’s a man in tights!’
‘So? He won’t kill you.’
Nelson steps warily into the room, keeping his eye on the jester. He has ignored another danger though, which advances from the opposite direction.
‘Ah Harry! And the beautiful Mrs Nelson.’
It is Whitcliffe, resplendent in a dinner jacket with an open-neck shirt, which he presumably thinks is trendy. He’s also wearing a white scarf. Wanker.
‘Hallo, Gerry.’
Whitcliffe is kissing Michelle’s hand. The jester is hovering hopefully, shaking his bells.
‘You didn’t tell me there’d be people dressed up funny,’ says Nelson, his northern accent, always evident in times of stress, coming to the fore.
‘It’s a medieval theme,’ says Whitcliffe smoothly. ‘Edward does these things so well.’
‘Edward?’
‘Edward Spens,’ says Whitcliffe. ‘You remember I told you that Spens and Co are sponsoring this evening.’
‘The builders. Yes.’
‘Building contractors,’ says a voice behind them.
Nelson swings round to see a good-looking man of his own age, wearing faultless evening dress. No white scarf or open-neck shirt for him, just a conventional white shirt and black tie, setting off tanned skin and thick dark hair. Nelson dislikes him instantly.
‘Edward!’ Whitcliffe obviously doesn’t share this feeling. ‘This is Edward Spens, our host. Edward, this is Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson and his lovely wife, Michelle.’
Edward Spens looks admiringly at Michelle. ‘I never knew policemen had such beautiful wives, Gerry.’
‘It’s a perk of the job,’ says Nelson tightly.
Whitcliffe, who isn’t married (a cause of much speculation), says nothing. Michelle, who is used to male admiration, flashes a wide but slightly distancing smile.
‘Nelson,’ Edward Spens is saying, ‘weren’t you the copper involved in the Saltmarsh affair?’
‘Yes.’ Nelson hates talking about his work and he particularly dislikes being called a ‘copper’.
‘What a terrible business.’ Spens is looking serious.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, thank God you solved it.’ Spens pats him heartily on the back.
