along by the outer wall. The new buildings are obviously going to come up right to the edge of the boundary. So much for spacious apartments. The modern walls look brash and confident against the crumbling flint of the originals. There are still some apple trees here though, and, in the far corner of the site, Ruth finds gooseberry and redcurrant bushes choked with thistles and dusty with builder’s dirt. Blackberries too, the brambles reaching out like tiny, spiteful fingers. The flowers haven’t set yet and, by the time they are berries, these bushes will have been ripped out to make room for ‘spacious landscaped gardens with water features’.
‘Blackberry and apple pie,’ says a voice, ‘now there’s a dish fit for a king.’
Ruth wheels round. An elderly man in a dark suit is standing smiling at her. He has an unripe apple in his hand and, for one mad moment, Ruth thinks of Adam in the Garden of Eden. An older, sadder Adam come to mourn the devastation of paradise. Then she sees the clerical collar and her brain clicks into gear.
‘Father Hennessey?’
‘Yes.’ The man holds out his hand. ‘You have the advantage of me, I’m afraid.’
‘Ruth Galloway. I’m an archaeologist.’
‘An archaeologist?’
‘I specialise in forensics.’
‘Ah,’ says Hennessey, understanding. ‘You’re involved in this sorry affair then.’
‘Yes.’
Father Hennessey sighs. From Nelson’s description, Ruth imagined that he would be a more aggressive presence, like one of the fire and brimstone preachers she remembers from her childhood. This man just looks sad.
‘The building work’s more advanced than I thought it would be,’ he says. ‘How on earth have they managed to cram so much onto one site?’
‘By making everything extremely small,’ says Ruth drily. ‘The whole of one of these flats could probably fit into the drawing room of the original house.’
‘You’re right there,’ says Hennessey, ‘this was a grand house once.’
They walk back through the garden. Hennessey stops once to look at a fallen tree, patting its stump sadly. It is hotter than ever. Thunder weather, Ruth thinks. Her shirt is sticking to her back and her feet seem to have melted and are spilling over the sides of her shoes. She longs to be lying down.
When they reach the front of the house, Hennessey looks up at the stone archway.
‘
‘The arch was there in your time then?’
‘Yes. It’s a folly, of course, but a rather magnificent one. And I always thought the words quite appropriate. After all, if you’re a Christian, you believe that death itself is just a change, not destruction.’
Ruth says nothing. Death is death as far as she is concerned. There is no way of cheating death except, perhaps, by having a child. But Hennessey’s words remind her of something. Max, on the beach with the Imbolc bonfire behind him, talking about Janus. ‘He’s not just the god of doorways but of any time of transition and change, of progression from one condition to another.’ The ultimate transition, from life to death.
‘Miss Galloway,’ Hennessey’s soft Irish voice cuts into her thoughts, ‘I wonder if you can show me… where you found the body.’
‘All right. And it’s Ruth.’ She hates to be called ‘Miss’ and Dr Galloway seems too formal somehow.
Part of the front wall still stands, the steps and the stone portico. Was this from the same period as the arch? It has a similar grandiose feel. A folly, the priest had said. The words reverberate uneasily in Ruth’s head.
‘Careful here,’ she says as they go through the doorway. On the other side, the ledge of black and white tiles is still there. It will be the last thing to go, thinks Ruth. The last link to the old house.
‘This way.’ She leads Hennessey along the ledge. As they climb down into the trench, he stumbles and almost falls.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’ But he is breathing heavily. He must be in his late seventies or even eighties, Ruth thinks.
Ruth points to the pile of earth in front of her. ‘The body was buried directly under the doorstep. We’ve removed that. We tried to leave everything else undisturbed.’ She looks at Hennessey’s face. ‘We’re very careful,’ she finds herself explaining, ‘very respectful.’
Hennessey’s lips move silently for a second. Is he praying? Then he says, ‘Buried under the doorstep, you say?’
‘Yes.’ She doesn’t mention the foetal position.
‘And the skull was in the well?’
‘That’s right.’
Hennessey is silent for a few minutes and then he says, ‘Would you mind if I said a prayer?’
‘Go ahead.’ Ruth backs away. She finds public prayer embarrassing at the best of times but to be trapped in a trench with someone chanting in Latin and waving incense – it’s her worst nightmare.
However Hennessey’s prayer turns out to be mercifully short, the words muttered and not (as far as Ruth can tell) in Latin. At the end he takes a small bottle from his pocket and sprinkles water onto the earth.
‘Holy water,’ he explains. He looks at Ruth’s face. ‘You’re not a Catholic?’ He sounds amused.
‘No. My parents are Christians but I’m not… anything.’
‘Oh, you’re something, Ruth Galloway,’ says Father Hennessey. He looks at her for a second and Ruth has the strangest feeling that he knows her very well, almost better than she knows herself. But then the moment passes and Hennessey says briskly, ‘I’m parched. Do you fancy a cup of coffee?’
Nelson is leaving the museum when he gets a call from Judy.
‘I’ve got Annabelle Spens’ death certificate, boss.’
‘Good. Anything interesting?’
He hears her rustling paper and he thinks of his father’s death certificate, those few stilted words encompassing all the pain and grief. His father’s cause of death had been ‘myocardial infarction’. At the time he had no idea what that meant.
‘Date and place of death,’ reads Judy. ‘24 May 1952, Woolmarket House, Woolmarket Street, Norwich. Cause of death: Scarlet fever. Children don’t get that any more do they?’
‘They get it,’ says Nelson, ‘they just don’t die of it.’ He stops as a party of schoolchildren stream past him, holding photocopied worksheets and trying to trip each other up.
‘She died at home,’ Judy is saying. ‘How come she wasn’t in hospital?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it was more usual to nurse children at home in those days.’
‘But they had money, they could afford health care. This was before the NHS, wasn’t it?’
‘Early days of the NHS.’
The children push through the glass doors of the museum. He can hear their teacher telling them that they’re going to be divided into groups. ‘You’re in my group, Ryan.’ That’s your day ruined, Ryan, you poor sod.
‘What about the certificate of interment?’ he asks.
‘Tanya’s getting it,’ says Judy, sounding slightly pissed off. ‘Boss, do you really think that Annabelle was buried in the house and not in a grave?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Nelson. ‘But there’s something odd about that house. There’s something odd about this whole case.’
He had been to see the curator, to ask how the foetus model could have escaped from the museum and ended up at Ruth’s feet in the trench in Swaffham. The curator had been perfectly pleasant but unable to offer any answers. The stages of development model had been taken down from display a few weeks ago (they had had some complaints from parents) and the components placed in the store room. Who had access? Well, any of the museum staff. The more valuable exhibits were kept in a safe but who would steal a plastic model of a baby? Who indeed?
Nelson stands on the steps, looking about over the Norwich rooftops and wondering what his next move should be. Should he go back and question Edward Spens again? He is sure that the man is holding something back. Should he get back to the station and bully Tanya about the interment certificate? They need to get hold of the dental records too. He sighs. It’s a hot, muggy day and more than anything else he fancies diving into a pub for a cold
