beer. That’s what Clough would do, he’s sure of it.
‘Hi, Detective Chief Inspector.’
Nelson whirls round. A young woman with lurid purple hair is smiling cheekily up at him. Who is she? One of his daughters’ friends? A trendy acquaintance of Michelle’s?
‘I’m Trace,’ says the apparition. ‘From the dig.’
Oh yes. The skinny girl who was on the site the first day. The one they all think Cloughie fancies. Rather him than me, thinks Nelson, looking at the metalwork gleaming on Trace’s ears and lip. But she seems friendly enough.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks.
‘Routine enquiries,’ he answers. ‘What about you?’
‘I work here, Mondays and Fridays. There’s not enough field archaeology to keep me busy all year round so I do some curatorial work, processing finds and that.’
Nelson has no idea what ‘processing finds’ means but he knows one thing: Trace could be an important contact within the museum. She might well know if anyone has been waltzing off with the exhibits. ‘Fancy a drink?’ he says.
Ruth tries to steer towards one of the picturesque cafes around Woolmarket Street but Father Patrick Hennessey heads like a bloodhound towards the shopping centre and Starbucks, a place Ruth loathes. ‘You can get a grand coffee in here,’ says Hennessey, rubbing his hands together. The air-conditioning is so strong that Ruth is shivering.
She notices some odd glances as they enter the cafe – the overweight woman with mud-stained trousers and a plaster over one eye, and the priest, red-faced in his black clothes. Ruth orders mineral water but Hennessey goes for the full skinny-latte-with-an-extra-shot-of-espresso palaver.
‘It’s impossible to get a decent coffee where I live,’ he explains.
‘Where do you live?’
‘In a godforsaken corner of the Sussex countryside.’ He says ‘godforsaken’ like he really means it.
‘Nelson, DCI Nelson, said it was very pretty.’
‘It’s pretty enough if you like trees. No, I’m a city boy. Born and brought up in Dublin. I’ve always lived in towns – Rome, London, Norwich.’
It sounds a bit like Del Boy’s van – New York, Paris, Peckham. Ruth suppresses a smile. ‘Norwich isn’t exactly cosmopolitan.’
‘Sure and it’s a fine town. I miss it. I miss my work, my parishioners, everything.’
‘You ran the children’s home, didn’t you?’
‘I started it and ran it, yes. I’d seen an orphanage in the East End of London, a place where the children lived together almost like a family. I tried to create something similar. Recruited all the staff myself. I chose young religious people, people who still had some ideals left.’
‘I met one of your ex… residents. He remembered the place with great affection.’
Hennessey looks interested. ‘Who did you meet?’
‘Davies, I think his name was.’
‘Oh, Kevin Davies. He was a nice boy. He’s an undertaker now I believe. He always had a serious way about him.’
Ruth thinks of the worried, crumpled-looking Davies. She can’t imagine him as a child. She is sure that he always looked forty.
Hennessey is looking at her. He has very blue eyes, with white smile-lines etched against his weather-beaten face.
‘Must be a difficult job,’ he says, ‘uncovering the past.’
Ruth is struck by this description. Most people see archaeology as ‘digging up bones’ but ‘uncovering the past’ is really what it is. She looks at the priest with new respect.
‘It is hard,’ she says carefully, ‘especially in cases like this where you’re dealing with the fairly recent past and especially when there’s a child involved.’ She stops, feeling that she has said too much.
But Hennessey is nodding. ‘As a priest I’ve often come across things that are best kept hidden. But the truth has a way of coming to the surface.’
Like the bones under the doorway, thinks Ruth. If Spens hadn’t been so keen to develop the site, if Ted and Trace hadn’t dug in that exact spot, would they have remained hidden for ever? Or would the long-forgotten crime have risen to the surface, crying out for vengeance?
‘Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s true and what isn’t,’ she says.
‘Pontius Pilate would agree with you. “Truth” he said,
“what is that?” And he was a wise man, Pilate. A coward but a wise man.’
Ruth is slightly confused by the way he is talking about Pontius Pilate as if he might, at any moment, walk into Starbucks. ‘DCI Nelson will find the truth,’ she says, with more confidence than she feels, ‘if anyone can.’
‘Ah, DCI Nelson. He’s a fine man, I think. A man with morals.’ Ruth is furious to find herself blushing. ‘He’s a good detective,’ she says.
‘And a good man,’ says Hennessey softly, ‘which may prove more difficult for him.’
Rather reluctantly, Nelson settles for a coke but Trace asks for a pint of bitter.
‘I thought all archaeologists drank cider,’ says Nelson.
Trace pulls a face. ‘Cider’s for wimps.’
I could get to like this girl, thinks Nelson.
‘How long have you been an archaeologist?’ he asks.
‘I left uni five years ago. I did an MA in London and worked in Australia for a bit. I didn’t really want to come back to Norwich but my mum and dad live here and it’s cheaper to live with them. There’s lots of archaeology here too.’
‘Lots of prehistoric stuff,’ says Nelson. He knows this from Ruth.
Trace nods. ‘Bronze Age and Iron Age. And Roman. That’s my favourite period. The Romans.’
‘Did you see
Trace snorts. ‘Films get everything wrong. All that decadent stuff, lying about eating grapes. The Romans brought law and order and infrastructure. We were nothing but a band of disparate warring tribes until they came along.’
Identifying ‘we’ as the British, Nelson says, slightly aggrieved, ‘They were invaders, occupiers, weren’t they?’
‘They were here for four hundred years. That’s more than fifteen generations. And, when they left, we forgot everything they taught us – all the stone building and engineering works, glass-making, pottery. We slipped into the Dark Ages.’
Nelson feels rather proud of this. They may have been here four hundred years, he thinks, but to us they were still foreigners, occupiers, with their fancy, glass-making ways. He does not say this to Trace though.
‘Have you been to the site in Swaffham?’ he asks. ‘Max Grey’s site?’
Trace’s face lights up. ‘Yes. I’ve done quite a bit of work there. He’s great, Max. He really knows his stuff. He did this great tour the other week for the Scouts. Made it all come alive.’
‘Do you get lots of visitors on the site?’
Trace shrugs. ‘A few. It’s become quite well-known since they mentioned it on Time Team. We’ve had some coach parties.’
‘Has Edward Spens paid a visit?’
Trace’s face, so open and animated when talking about the superiority of the Romans, becomes closed again. ‘I think he came once. I wasn’t there though.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Everyone in Norwich knows him.’
