Judy is sure that it’ll be very merry. They are starting off in a wine bar, then out for a meal then on to a club. She has asked for no fancy dress but she’s sure there’ll be an element of comedy headgear and novelty suspenders. Oh yes, everyone will have a whale of a time. Everyone except the bride herself, that is.
‘Would you like to come this way?’ a uniformed figure is smiling down at them. She is probably not a nurse but her manner – a crisp mix of kindness and professionalism – certainly suggests a hospital ward. But this isn’t a hospital, Whitcliffe stressed that. ‘Absolutely super place. Granddad loves it. They play bowls and do gardening. There’s even an archery team. Real home from home.’
Greenfields Care Home, as they walk through its cream-painted corridors, is certainly clean and well-organised, but homely? Judy can’t imagine anyone wanting to decorate their homes with prints of Norfolk Through the Ages or hand-sanitisers or stairlifts or notices on fire safety. And it doesn’t seem terribly like home to have a room with a number, even if it does have your name on it, in cheerful lower case letters.
‘Archie? Visitors for you.’
Archie Whitcliffe, who greets them at the door of his tiny room as if he were Jack Hastings himself, looks disconcertingly like his grandson. Superintendent Gerald Whitcliffe is tall and dark, vain about his hair and his suits. Archie Whitcliffe is also tall, though slightly stooped, with immaculate silver hair. He isn’t wearing a suit but his cardigan and trousers are freshly pressed and he is wearing a tie, regimental by the look of it.
He shakes hands briskly. ‘So you work for Gerald?’
That isn’t quite how Nelson likes to look at it, but he nods. ‘Yes. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson and this is Detective Sergeant Judy Johnson.’
Archie positively twinkles at Judy. ‘What a mouthful. Do you mind if I call you Judy?’
Judy smiles back. ‘Not at all.’ There’s no reason to antagonise the old boy, after all.
The room contains only a single bed, a desk with a television on it, an armchair and a bookcase. As well as the ubiquitous Norfolk print, there are several framed family portraits. Judy cranes her head to catch a glimpse of a teenage Whitcliffe.
‘Here,’ says Archie obligingly. ‘Gerald at his passing out parade.’
Judy looks at the newly qualified policeman, saluting, his neck vulnerable under the new cap. He looks about twelve.
‘He’s done so well,’ she says. ‘You must be proud of him.’
‘Course I am. Proud of all my grandchildren.’
‘How many do you have?’
‘Ten. Gerald’s the oldest.’
Jesus wept, thinks Nelson. The Whitcliffes are breeding like rabbits. There truly is no help for Norfolk.
Archie sits on the desk chair, gesturing Nelson to the armchair. Judy perches on the bed.
‘Mr Whitcliffe,’ Nelson begins. ‘Superintendent Whitcliffe, Gerald, may have told you about the skeletons found buried at Broughton Sea’s End…’
‘He has.’
I bet he has, thinks Nelson. Despite the matter being strictly police business.
‘We believe these skeletons are of a group of men who may have died anywhere from forty to seventy years ago. This obviously includes the war years. I wondered if, as a member of the Home Guard, you remember any sort of incident at Broughton Sea’s End.’
Archie is silent for a long time. Along the corridor someone is playing the piano accompanied by some rather weedy singing. ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’.
‘You were in the Home Guard,’ prompts Nelson.
‘Yes.’ Archie seems visibly to straighten in his chair. ‘The Local Defence Volunteers we were called at first. I was too young to join up at the start of the war. Did later, of course. Tank Corps.’ He gestures to the tie.
‘There were some other youngsters in the troop, weren’t there?’ Nelson glances at his notes. ‘Hugh and… er… Danny.’
‘Yes.’
Nelson wonders if it’s his imagination or does Archie stiffen slightly? He looks at Nelson pleasantly, a calm smile on his face. The tension is in his body which is completely still. Too still, surely?
‘Are you still, in touch with Hugh and Danny? Do you know if they’re still alive?’
‘I corresponded with Hugh a few years ago. I haven’t heard from him since.’
‘Do you have an address for him?’
‘I’m sorry, no.’ Archie does not bother to go and look. He just stares at Nelson out of bland blue eyes.
‘A surname?’
‘I don’t think I can remember.’
Nelson looks at Judy who leans forward and asks, ‘What about Danny?’
‘I haven’t seen him since the war, my dear. I’d clean forgotten him until you mentioned his name.’
Nelson tries another tack. ‘Tell us about the captain of the Home Guard. I believe he was Jack Hastings’ father?’
‘Yes. Buster Hastings. Hell of a chap. A real old devil, one of the old school. He’d been in the trenches in the first lot, you know. Tough as old boots. Ran a tight ship too. We weren’t just playing at soldiers. We did manoeuvres. Night manoeuvres. Patrolled the cliffs. On moonless nights, the
‘Why?’ asks Judy.
Archie’s eyes bulge. ‘Looking for invaders, of course. We were sure, at the start of the war, we were sure the Nazis were going to come. And Norfolk was the obvious place. All those little coves. So easy to land a boat at night. Hence the manoeuvres.’
‘And did you ever see anything?’ asks Nelson lightly.
Archie Whitcliffe sits up even straighter. ‘If I had, I wouldn’t tell you. We took a blood oath, you see.’
Ruth, Craig and Ted are in the pub, The Sea’s End. Ruth knows by now that any excavation involving Ted invariably ends in the pub. Ruth drinks Diet Coke and the men drink bitter. Everything is the same as on her visit with Nelson – the same men at the bar watching apparently the same TV programme, the same sticky floor, the same laminated menus. The only difference is that instead of feeling nervous and keyed-up she feels relaxed, enjoying the company of her colleagues. Since having Kate, opportunities for drinks with the boys (never her forte anyhow) have been few and far between.
‘Have a real drink,’ says Ted. ‘They do a good bitter here.’
‘I can’t, I’ve got to drive.’
‘One won’t hurt.’
‘And I’ve got to pick up Kate.’
‘Is that your baby?’ asks Craig. ‘How old is she?’
‘Nineteen weeks,’ says Ruth. She wonders if she’ll ever get used to giving Kate’s age in months or even – incredible thought – in years.
‘She’s a darling,’ says Ted, in his Irish voice. ‘Even Nelson seemed taken with her. Not a man much given to sentiment, our Nelson.’
Ruth keeps her face blank. Ted can’t possibly know anything, she tells herself. Keep calm. Keep smiling.
‘Do you know him well?’ Craig is asking Ted.
‘Not really,’ says Ted. ‘We worked with him on another case, didn’t we, Ruth? Got a short fuse, Nelson, but he seems a good copper for all that.’
‘What do you think about this case, Ruth?’ asks Craig.
‘Well,’ says Ruth, not able to resist a tiny twinge of pleasure at having been asked her opinion, ‘I’d say the bodies had been in the ground about seventy years, which brings us to the war years. I think the bones are of men aged between twenty-one and about forty, which makes them military age. I’d say they were soldiers.’
‘We didn’t find any uniform though,’ says Craig.
‘No clothes at all. Just the length of cotton. Maybe it was used to drag the bodies along the beach.’
‘Something fishy definitely went on,’ says Ted happily. ‘Shot at close range, nothing to identify them. Are we thinking Germans or English?’
Ruth thinks she knows the answer to this but, for some reason, she wants Nelson to be the first to know. She stalls. ‘I’ve sent off for isotopic analysis. That should tell us, broadly speaking, where the men were from.’
