Ruth Galloway (93 page)

He sits at the desk, listening to the TV in the next room. Hugh Anselm's words – pedantic, intelligent, sometimes sad – run on a constant loop through his head. Who had visited Hugh in February, switched off his stairlift and left him to die, struggling with the seatbelt, trying to reach the controls? Who had come to Archie's room in the night, smothered him and departed without a sound? Who had stabbed Dieter Eckhart and thrown his body into the sea? Was it the same person or three different people?

We have only told one other person that this film exists. The last of the three of us left alive will leave instructions as to where to find this evidence.

The last of the three …

Nelson goes back to Hugh Anselm's unfinished letters.
Maybe you too have had a letter from Daniel?

He hears Irene Hastings' voice, the first time he met her.
Well, there were a few young boys. You could be in the Home Guard
if you were too young or too old to fight. I'm not sure about Hugh or Danny. Archie's still alive, though …

Danny. Daniel. The mysterious third man. The man whose surname no-one remembers. The man who has vanished. But Hugh had a letter from him and, knowing Hugh, he will have kept the letter.

He goes back through the file, his eyes trained for any name beginning with D. Daniel Abse, the MP. Danny de Vito, the actor (Hugh was an unexpected fan of the American sitcom
Taxi
). Daniel Barenboim (admired for his work in the Middle East). But no letters from an ex-comrade called Daniel or Danny.

Eventually, in desperation, he goes back to the
Broughton and Rockham Parish News.
There, between a recipe for snoek casserole and an exhortation to Dig for Victory, he finds it. December 1940.

So Daniel West had died, only a few months after the six Germans were murdered. It seems inconceivable that neither Irene nor Archie would remember this fact. But not as inconceivable as the fact that Hugh Anselm apparently had a
letter from Daniel some seventy years after he died. It can't be the same Daniel. Surely?

He jumps because his phone is ringing. He can't find it at first because it has fallen into the box of papers. He gets it on the last note of the ring tone.

Clough.

‘You'd better get down here, boss. It's that girl, Maria. She reckons someone's trying to kill her.'

It is past midnight when Nelson arrives at Maria's bedsit. Maria is sitting at the table with Clough beside her. A uniformed PC is checking the area around the house. George is asleep in the double bed. The whole thing feels slightly surreal, not least because their conversation has to be conducted in whispers. The room is dark apart from George's nightlight, which projects blue stars and moons onto the ceiling. Maria is clearly very upset – she has a mug in front of her and when she raises it to drink, her hand shakes.

‘I made her tea,' says Clough. Rather defensively, Nelson thinks.

‘Wonderful. I'll put you in for a medal.'

‘She was hysterical.'

Maria raises huge, tear-washed eyes to his face. ‘Someone is waiting outside my house. Someone is trying to kill me.'

‘All right, Maria. Let's start at the beginning.'

Nelson tries to speak softly but George stirs in his sleep. Maria's face crumples. ‘He must get his sleep! He's got school tomorrow.'

‘Okay, okay.' Nelson lowers his voice another notch. ‘Tell me about this mysterious person outside your house.'

‘It was about nine o'clock. I was looking out of my window and I saw him. Looking at me.'

‘Where was he standing, exactly?'

Maria takes Nelson to the window and points. The garage forecourt is deserted, the only light comes from the kiosk and from a huge illuminated advert for a Volkswagen Golf. As Nelson watches, a policeman comes slowly into view, shining his torch in wide, careful arcs. Nelson recognises him as Roy ‘Rocky' Taylor, a local boy. Definitely not the brightest bulb in the box.

‘He was standing there,' says Maria. ‘Looking up. I see him at nine, ten, again at eleven.'

‘Did he just stand there all the time?'

‘Yes. But, at ten past eleven, there is a ring at my bell. I know it is him.'

‘Did you answer?'

‘No. I ring this number. It is the lady policeman, Judy, who came with you.' She shows him Judy's card. ‘I ring Judy because I think she is kind.'

‘Sergeant Johnson wasn't on duty,' puts in Clough. ‘So I answered the call.'

Maria looks at him doubtfully.

PC Taylor appears at the door and Nelson goes to speak to him. There is no sign of any man hanging around. The people in the garage haven't seen anything. Their CCTV cameras don't cover the area near Maria's block of flats. Nelson wonders if the mysterious lurker knew this. He asks if Taylor has spoken to any of the other residents in the
building. No, says the policeman stolidly, no-one asked him to.

Nelson sighs. ‘All right, Taylor. Wait for us in the car.'

He turns back to Maria who is sitting back at the table. Clough is beside her, just far enough away to be professional.

‘Maria, did you get a good look at this man?'

‘No. It is dark. He is wearing dark clothes and a hat.'

‘What sort of hat?'

‘A knitted one. Like the hat George wears for football.'

‘What colour?'

‘Black.'

‘Did you see his face? When he was looking up?'

‘Not really.'

‘Was he pale skinned? Dark?' Nelson treads warily in the PC minefield.

‘Pale. Like you.'

‘What was he wearing?'

‘A long dark coat. Trousers.'

‘Are you sure it was a man?' asks Clough.

Maria looks at him, her lip quivering. ‘No.'

Clough and Nelson exchange glances. Nelson feels so tired that he can barely speak. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of Maria's mystery prowler but, then again, she was the person who was given Archie's cryptic clue, the unwitting recipient of a seventy-year-old secret. Could someone be trying to scare her? Could someone be trying to find the code for themselves?

‘Maria,' he says. His soothing whisper comes out more like a sinister croak. ‘You remember that Archie left you some books in his will?'

‘Yes.' Maria looks up, surprised.

‘Can I see them? The actual books.'

Maria goes to the black trunk beside the bed. She lifts the lid with difficulty (Clough rushes to help) and pulls out the eight battered paperbacks. Avoiding Clough's eye, Nelson carefully fans through the pages. In
Evil Under the Sun
he finds what he is looking for. A letter.

‘Did you know this was here?' he asks Maria.

Maria looks bemused. ‘No.'

‘Do you mind if I borrow this for a bit?'

‘No.'

Nelson folds the letter and puts it in his pocket. He is sure Ruth would have told him to wear gloves.

At the door, he asks, ‘Maria, did you tell anyone that Archie left you the books?'

‘Everyone at the home knew. Dorothy said it was a tribute to us all. That he left me something.'

Nelson isn't so sure about this. If Archie had wanted to pay tribute to Greenfields Care Home, he could easily have done it openly. No, the books were for Maria alone.

‘Anyone else?' he asks.

‘My mother. I phone her every Sunday. I told her.'

Nelson looks around the room, at the sleeping child under the blue light, the statue of Mary, the bare walls, the uniform hanging on the door, the breakfast plates already laid out next to the sink. He thinks of the letter in his pocket. Did anyone else know it was there?

‘Try not to worry, Maria,' he says. ‘I'm sure it was just some down-and-out looking for somewhere to kip. But I'll have a patrol car come past every half hour or so, just to
make sure he doesn't come back. If you're scared for any reason, just ring me.'

‘Or me,' says Clough.

‘You're very kind,' says Maria. ‘You'd better go now. George needs his sleep.'

*

Driving home, windows open to keep him awake, Nelson thinks about Maria and her delicate, compassionate relationship with Archie Whitcliffe. Why had the old man left her his books? Why did he make her the guardian of this secret, protected so long and with such ingenuity? Had Archie discussed his will with Hugh Anselm? Is this what was agreed at their last meeting, if it ever took place?
The last of the three of us left alive will leave instructions as to where to find this evidence.
Archie had been the last of the three. Why had he decided to pass on his secret in this way?

The house is dark. Michelle and Rebecca must both be in bed, but when Nelson goes into the study he sees that the computer is still on. By the blue light of the computer screen, he takes the letter from his pocket and reads:

Nelson sits there for a long time in the dark, the letter in his hand. He is sure, beyond any doubt, that this is the letter that Archie was reading on the night that he died. The letter that he had hidden for so many years inside the Agatha Christie classic. Was the title somehow significant?
Evil Under the Sun
? But these murders were committed by the light of the moon, witnessed only by Jack Hastings' wakeful little brother, himself now dead.

Archie's memories must have been stirred by Nelson's visit, which is why he went to sleep that night with the word ‘Lucifer' on his lips. Lucifer – the plan to turn the seas into fire. Or maybe even a reference to Buster Hastings, the ‘old devil' himself, the man who had murdered five people
in cold blood (not forgetting the man killed by his loyal sergeant) and forced his troop to take a blood oath, promising to keep his secret forever. Archie had kept his promise but, while he slept that night, someone had come into his room and suffocated him. Who is still alive who would kill to protect the Hastings name?

And who else might they kill?

All in all, Ruth is relieved to go to work on Monday morning. A policeman returned her car late on Sunday night and, by then, a lot of the snow had melted. During Sunday evening, as she and Tatjana watched TV, huge chunks of snow kept falling off her roof. When she went to bed, early because she was exhausted, she could see dark patches appearing in the Saltmarsh and the tops of the reeds emerging from the blanket of whiteness.

Monday morning is bright, almost spring-like. As she drives to work, the roads are clear, the snow remaining only as dirty sludge in the gutters. The university grounds are still white though. A huge snowman draped in a UNN scarf stands at the entrance to the Natural Sciences block but, as Ruth passes, its head falls forward, like a deposed tyrant. Soon all the snow will disappear, like a dream of winter. That's what Saturday night must be, Ruth tells herself sternly, a dream. Now she must get on with real life. She sighs, climbing the stairs to the archaeology corridor.

She has a meeting with the Field Team at ten. Trace isn't there but Ted, Craig and Steve squash into Ruth's tiny office
and Ruth tells them briefly about the discovery of the film. The team are still employed by the university on their erosion survey but Ruth feels she needs to keep them updated as they were the ones that found the bodies in the first place. She has agreed with Nelson that she won't go into any detail, will just say that new evidence has emerged. She can't say how the film was found, either, though naturally the archaeologists are intrigued. Ted, in particular, keeps asking very awkward questions. ‘How come this film has turned up after seventy-odd years? Who were the men anyway? That Dieter bloke said they were German. Have you any idea who killed them?'

‘I can't tell you any more,' Ruth keeps saying. ‘It's confidential. The police are still investigating.'

‘Are they investigating Dieter's death?' asks Ted. ‘Looks pretty suspicious to me.'

‘I really can't say.'

Craig comes to her rescue by asking about Operation Lucifer. With relief, Ruth describes the explosive trail laid along the North Norfolk coast, the fire ships, the barrels of gun cotton.