Ruth Galloway (46 page)

‘Yes and you can eat without worrying about getting fat.'

‘Another brownie?'

‘Thanks.'

‘It's scary though too,' Ruth continues, after a pause. ‘I don't know enough about babies or anything. I'm … estranged from my mother. None of my friends have babies.'

This isn't quite true. Some of Ruth's friends from school and university have had babies, most of whom are children or even teenagers now. It's just that, as soon as they had children, an invisible wall seemed to appear between them and their childless friends. Ruth could turn up at the hospital with flowers and balloons (‘It's a girl!'), she could remember birthdays and Christmas, but she was forever outside that charmed circle of motherhood. Gradually, those friendships faded and died.

‘And the father …?'

‘He doesn't know.'

‘Oh.' Ruth hears disapproval in the monosyllable. Of course, Max wants children. He would identify with the unknown father, will accuse her of abusing father's rights and other newly invented crimes. In fact he's probably about to jump on the roof dressed as Superman.

‘I will tell him,' she says, ‘it's just … he's married.'

‘Oh.' A different sound, more understanding, perhaps even sympathetic. ‘You can talk to me,' he says, ‘I don't know anything about babies, but you can talk to me.'

‘Thank you.'

The silence, a companionable one this time, is broken by Ruth's mobile ringing. She snatches it up, meaning to turn it off, but then she sees the caller display. ‘Debbie Lewis.'

‘Excuse me,' she says, ‘I'd better take this call.'

Nelson is at home, reading through some of the results of Clough's sulky trawl through the files. Nelson doesn't usually bring work home (at the outset of their marriage he promised Michelle he wouldn't and, by and large, he has kept his word). But he is keen to point the case in a new direction. If Clough has found any useful leads on the children … but it seems that he hasn't.

He has birth certificates for Martin and Elizabeth: mother Louise Black, née Maxwell; father Daniel Black. He has a death certificate for Louise Black dated 1970 and, in 1998, a death certificate for Daniel Black. If, as Nelson suspects, Daniel Black knew more about his children's disappearance than he admitted, it is too late to talk to him.

He also has statements from other employees at the Sacred Heart Children's Home – cleaners, gardeners, health visitors, someone calling themselves a Play Specialist. All these statements, without exception, attest to the saintliness of Father Hennessey and the high standard of care in the home. One of the gardeners describes Martin Black as ‘trouble' but this could have been linked to his habit of digging holes in the lawn. The Health Visitor says Elizabeth was prone to colds
and sore throats but was otherwise healthy; Martin was ‘as strong as a horse'.

Clough has also tracked down a distant cousin living in Ireland but, as she hasn't seen Martin since 1963 and has never set eyes on Elizabeth, this contact is of little use.

Nelson also talked to Tom Henty, the grizzled Desk Sergeant, who remembered the Black case very well. ‘Massive manhunt, all leave cancelled. We couldn't work out how two children could just vanish like that. I was a PC then and I was one of the first to go into the house. Great big place, it was. Like a stately home almost, high ceilings, chandeliers and all that but with kids' stuff all over the place, toys and little tables and gym equipment in the dining room. Strange place.'

‘Why do you say that?' asked Nelson.

‘I don't know. The priest in charge, he was a good bloke, you could see that, and the kids were happy but the house was strange. I searched the bedrooms, they were up in the attics, lots of little beds under the eaves and, I don't know, something about it gave me the creeps. I kept expecting to see a dead body in one of the beds.'

‘But you didn't find anything.'

‘No.' Seeing Nelson's look, Henty added, rather defensively, ‘We did a proper search but there was nothing. We searched the grounds, had frogmen in the river, did a house-to-house, nothing.'

‘Did you look in the well?'

Henty looked confused. ‘It was boarded up. Hadn't been tampered with, you could see that.' He stared at Nelson with sudden fearfulness in his eyes. ‘Is that what this is about?
Have you found a body in the well?'

Now Nelson sits in his ‘study' (also called ‘the snug' by Michelle and ‘the playroom' by Laura and Rebecca), reading through the print-outs and photocopies and wondering where the hell he's going to go from here. It can't be long before the press gets hold of the story and if he hasn't got a credible suspect by then he'll be hanged, drawn and quartered. A child's body buried under a former children's home – the tabloids will love it. And it's getting close to summer when other news will be thin on the ground. If he isn't careful, Inspector Plod of the Norfolk flatfoots will be on the front page of every paper for months.

He sighs. He can hear the
Sex and the City
music coming from the sitting room which means, at least, that he's not tempted to go in. His wife and daughters are addicted to the programme which is on every night on Sky. To him it seems sheer unadulterated filth combined with the most bizarre-looking women he has ever seen. ‘It's fashion Dad,' Rebecca had explained. But, if it's fashion, how come he's never sees anyone else dressed like that? Maybe it's American fashion. Apart from a trip to Disneyland, which hardly counts, Nelson has never been to America and has no desire to go. Unlike some cops, he does not have a secret FBI fantasy which involves guns, fast cars and improbably glamorous settings. Life as a cop in America, he is sure, is much the same as anywhere – ten per cent excitement, ninety per cent mind-numbing boredom.

‘Dad!' A shout from the sitting room. ‘Your phone's ringing.' Grumbling Nelson goes into the hall, where his phone is ringing from his jacket pocket. Of course, it stops
as soon as he lays hands on it. ‘One missed call from Ruth.' Nelson presses call back.

‘Ruth? What is it?'

She sounds very distant but he knows, from her voice, that she has made some sort of breakthrough.

‘I've had a call from Debbie Lewis. She's the forensic dentistry expert I mentioned.'

‘Bloody hell. That sounds a fun job.'

‘It's fascinating. Anyway she's come back with some interesting results. Apparently there are traces of stannous fluoride on the teeth.'

‘So?'

‘Well stannous fluoride was first introduced by Crest toothpaste as a trial in 1949. But they found that it stained the teeth so, in 1955, they switched to sodium monofluorophosphate.'

‘So what?' Nelson's head is starting to swim.

‘So the skull must be from a child who was alive before 1955. When was the girl born? The girl in the children's home?'

‘Elizabeth Black?' Nelson rifles through the papers on his desk but he thinks he already knows the answer.

‘1968,' he says.

Nelson calls a special team meeting in the morning. Working on Saturday means overtime, which won't please Whitcliffe, but he knows it is imperative that they make some headway on the case before the press get hold of it. Nelson arrives at the station in a mood of manic efficiency. He bounds upstairs, crashes open the door to the incident room, rips the picture of Father Patrick Hennessey off the pinboard and barks, ‘Right, the priest's in the clear. Any other ideas?'

The effect is rather ruined because Judy and Clough are the only people in the incident room. Clough is eating a McDonald's breakfast burger and Judy is reading the
Mail.

‘What did you say?' asks Clough, screwing up greaseproof paper and throwing it in the bin.

‘The priest.' Nelson puts the picture on the table. Father Hennessey's blue eyes stare blandly up at him. ‘He's innocent. Ruth Galloway has identified traces of fluoride on the skull that could only have come from before 1955. Elizabeth Black was born in 1968.'

‘Fluoride?' Clough still looks blank.

‘In the teeth. Apparently there's some special sort of fluoride that was only used between 1949 and 1955. So that's our range.'

‘Don't they put fluoride in the water anyway?' asks Clough.

‘Not in Norfolk,' offers Judy, folding away the paper. ‘Fluoride occurs naturally in our water. There's no need to add it to the supply.'

‘Anyway, this is different stuff. Stannous fluoride, it's called. Apparently they don't use it any more because it stains your teeth. Or rather they do but only in one specialised brand.'

‘So Holy Joe didn't do it?' Clough sounds disappointed.

‘No.'

‘I never thought he did,' says Judy.

‘Well, you're another one of them.'

‘What?'

‘Catholics.'

‘They're everywhere, Cloughie,' says Nelson, ‘except in the Masons. Now, come on, we've got work to do.'

Ruth also wakes in an optimistic frame of mind. It is Saturday so she can have a lie-in. Light filters in through the curtains and onto the bed where Flint sleeps stretched out, his claws twitching. Ruth stretches too, touching the cat with her toes. It had been a good night last night. The meal on the boat, getting the pregnancy thing off her chest, the breakthrough in the case. The perfect evening in fact. After the call from Debbie and Ruth's call to Nelson, she and Max had chatted some more and then he had driven her back to her car. Drinkers were still sitting outside the pub and the moon
was high above the treetops. He had kissed her cheek and told her to take care. ‘See you soon,' Ruth had said. ‘I hope so,' Max had replied.

There was something in his tone, and in the kiss, which makes Ruth's heart beat a little faster as she remembers it. He can't possibly fancy her, especially now he knows she is pregnant but, nevertheless, there is something, a hint that they might be more than just friends. Does she fancy him? A little, she admits. He is very much her type, tall and dark and intelligent, a little distant. But all those usual women's magaziney feelings have been submerged by the overwhelming fact that she is expecting a baby. She can't really think of anything else. Even now, lying here luxuriating in the warm bed, she is thinking about the creature inside her. She even fantasises that she can feel him move, although the nurse at the hospital said it was too early. There is something though. A heaviness, a presence, a sense of space filled. She has even thought of a name for him. She has begun to call him Toby. She doesn't know why, she doesn't even particularly like the name, but she just has a feeling that this baby is called Toby.

Damn, she needs to go to the loo again. She might as well make a cup of tea now she's up. Downstairs, the early morning view over the Saltmarsh is spectacular, seagulls wheeling against the pale blue sky. The news is on the radio but soon there will be that blissful listening hour between nine and ten: feel-good stories, inheritance tracks, bizarre facts about people who collect matchboxes or who have unknowingly married close blood relations. Perfection.

Ruth pads upstairs with her tea. She'll listen to the radio
and then she'll think about getting up. She might even go for a swim, do something healthy. It'll be good for Toby. Humming tunelessly, she gets back into bed.

Nelson faces his team across the now more crowded incident room. ‘So,' he is saying forcefully, ‘whilst the evidence needs to be verified, it does seem that we are looking at an earlier timescale for this crime. Elizabeth Black was born in 1968. If the expert evidence is correct, the skull can't possibly be hers.'

‘Are we sure the skull and body are the same child, sir?' Nelson cranes his head to see who has asked this excellent question. A new recruit, Tanya Fuller.

‘Good question, Tanya. Yes, the DNA results confirm this. So, we're looking at earlier events in the house. Cloughie, what does the title deed registration tell us?'

Clough, who has been glaring resentfully at Tanya, jumps to his feet. He flicks importantly through his file.

‘Prior to 1960, the house was owned by … Bloody hell!'

After breakfast, Ruth contemplates her day. There is always work, of course, but the sun is shining in the dust motes by her window and she doesn't feel like working. Exercise would be good but she no longer fancies the swimming pool with its smell of chlorine and other peoples' feet. A walk, that's what she'd like. A brisk walk with a pub lunch at the end of it.

She almost phones Shona, who is sometimes amenable to walking if compensated by alcohol, but then she hesitates, wondering if she's up to further bulletins on the state of Phil's marriage. Anyway, Shona would want to eat in King's
Lynn, somewhere where she can be sure of extra virgin olive oil and ciabatta. Ruth fancies something a little more rustic. Suddenly, a vision of the Phoenix comes into her head – the smell of chicken cooking on the outdoor grill, the view over the hills, the clink of glasses and the hum of conversation.

Didn't Max say something about discovering some more finds on the site? If Ruth drives out to Swaffham, she won't be going to see Max, she'll be going to see the pottery and the coins and the pieces from the Roman board game. That's all right then.

Ruth fetches her jacket.

‘Prior to 1960,' Clough looks portentously around the room, ‘the house was owned by Christopher Spens.'

‘Christopher …' Nelson echoes, ‘not the same family …?'

‘One and the same.' Clough sounds like he is enjoying himself though, in retrospect, this is an oversight of fairly epic proportions. ‘Father of Roderick Spens, grandfather of Edward Spens.'

‘Explains why he still owns the site really,' says Tanya brightly. Clough scowls at her.

‘Did the Spens family actually live in the house?' asks Judy.