The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (41 page)

‘Ruth!’ It’s not Nelson but Frank who comes striding towards her.

‘Hi.’ Looking at Frank, Ruth thinks how much she’ll miss him, his height and breadth, his blue eyes, his air of expecting to have a good time wherever he goes. But she doesn’t have to miss him. All Ruth has to do is ask him to stay. That’s all. Why does it seem so much?

Kate comes skipping over and they go into the barn like a proper family. This space too has been transformed. Where, only a few weeks ago, pigs grunted and chomped, now fairy lights criss-cross the beams and the walls have been painted white, the dark-blue ceiling studded with stars. Cassie is ladling out mulled wine at the entrance.

‘Hallo, Frank. Hallo, Ruth. Hallo, Katie. Are you looking forward to the nativity?’

‘You bet,’ says Frank. ‘A fine old English tradition.’

‘There are real Brownies in the choir,’ says Cassie, as if people are in the habit of substituting fake Brownies for the real thing.

‘Great,’ says Ruth. In a few years Kate can join the Brownies, if Ruth can get over their militaristic habits of saluting and wearing uniforms.

‘Hallo, babe,’ says Clough, coming up behind Cassie and kissing her neck.

‘Darling.’ Cassie nestles against him. Ruth moves away. She’s very happy for Clough but there’s only so much romance she can take.

They find seats near the front, then the whole row is disrupted because Judy arrives with Michael and baby Miranda. Cathbad parks the buggy near the door and waves to show that he’s happy to stay where he is. Michael sits next to Kate. Blue Bear sits between them, obviously enjoying himself. Ruth peers into the blankets to look at the baby.

‘She looks so like you.’

Where Michael has always resembled Cathbad to a rather embarrassing extent, Miranda has her mother’s sweet round face and pink-and-white skin. But is there something Cathbad-like about Miranda’s blue eyes and long dark eyelashes? Cathbad says that she looks like his mother, that long-dead Irish wise woman, and there is undoubtedly something far-sighted about Miranda’s gaze. Will she grow up to be a druid or a policewoman? Time will tell.

‘She’s gorgeous,’ says Frank, leaning over Ruth to stroke the baby’s cheek. ‘She’s lucky to have a cool big brother.’ He ruffles Michael’s hair. It’s nice of Frank not to forget Michael, thinks Ruth. But then he is nice. She looks round and sees Nelson and Michelle standing near Cathbad. The two men are deep in conversation but Michelle smiles and waves. Ruth waves back.

A blast of recorded music and the Brownies launch into ‘A Long Time Ago in Bethlehem’. The play is about to start.

After Jesus has been born and the shepherds have visited, complete with a real sheep, and the Brownies have sung their way through
The Children’s Book of Carols
, they are free to escape into the weak sunshine. Cathbad takes Michael and Kate to visit the pigs and Judy stays in the barn to feed Miranda.

‘Fancy a walk?’ says Frank.

Ruth looks round and sees Nelson and Michelle talking to Chaz. She hasn’t seen Michelle since the sighting at the gym. She wonders if she’s still seeing Tim, who, she knows, is on leave, visiting his family in Essex. After he helped save her life, she can’t help feeling slightly warmer towards Tim but she still feels uneasy whenever she hears Nelson praise Tim, which he does quite often these days. She studies Michelle and Nelson for signs of marital unease but they seem to be quite happy. In fact Ruth has observed a particular closeness in their body language today. Michelle has her arm through Nelson’s and occasionally she rests her head against his shoulder. Ruth wishes that she could stop noticing this sort of thing.

‘Yes,’ she says to Frank. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

They walk to the perimeter of the farm where the operations building once stood. The pigs are still snuffling around the ruins of the barracks and the cafeteria and the squash court, their breath smoky in the cold air.

‘What’s happening with your Bronze Age dig?’ asks Frank. ‘The one with the body that might have been a Blackstock?’

Ruth smiles, though she’s now not so quick to claim that her body (she still feels possessive about it) is related to the Blackstocks.

‘I’ve got funding for another dig in the spring,’ she says. ‘I’m still hoping to find more bodies. I’m sure there’s a burial site near here. That’s the only thing Hazel and I agree on.’

‘The burial site might be underneath those new houses in Devil’s Hollow,’ says Frank. ‘That’s an uncomfortable thought.’

‘If there’s something buried there, it’ll come to the surface one day,’ says Ruth. ‘That’s one thing I’ve learnt in my job. Nothing stays buried for ever.’

They have reached the barn with the mural on the wall. ‘I’ve got something to show you,’ says Frank. ‘It’s in here.’ He lifts the latch and pulls open the heavy door. Once again the planes come flying towards them, yellow triangles on a bright-blue sky. Once again Ruth feels that dizzying time-slip feeling, as if the years are revolving before her eyes.

Frank points up to the corner, where the small dog sits in the clouds.

‘I looked up the pilot who was really in the plane,’ he says, ‘the pilot whose body was found near Devil’s Hollow. His name was Douglas Rovington. I looked in the platoon’s log books and I saw that his nickname was Rover. I think he might have been the one who painted this.’

Ruth looks at the blue sky and the yellow planes, at the little dog floating above it all. The scene blurs with her sudden tears.

‘D for Dog,’ says Frank.

Outside, it is starting to get dark. They walk back to the barn where an ever-enterprising Cassandra is selling hot chestnuts and mince pies.

‘I’ll miss you,’ says Frank.

‘I’ll miss you too,’ says Ruth.

Frank takes her arm and they come to halt. ‘Have you thought about it,’ he says. ‘Me coming back to England? Is that what you’d like?’

Ruth looks towards the old airfield, where Nelson is now swinging Kate round in his arms. Michael is clamouring for his turn and Judy watches, the baby swaddled against her. Cathbad is holding Blue Bear. There’s no sign of Michelle.

Ruth looks up and sees a small plane tracking slowly across the dark-blue sky. It could be Fred or any of his companions from 444th Bomb Group. She doesn’t know why but it makes her feel very sad.

‘I’m sorry, Frank,’ she says. ‘But there’s someone else. I think there always will be.’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the Second World War, there were thirty-seven airfields in Norfolk, plus the decoy ‘shadow fields’ mentioned by Frank. The deserted bases are known as ‘ghost fields’ and a lot has been written about them. For me, the most helpful book was Roderick McKenzie’s
Ghost Fields of Norfolk
, which includes histories, plans and photographs of all the sites. The base at Lockwell Heath is fictional but it owes a lot to abandoned airfields like Docking and Seething (the names are wonderful). The mural is also imaginary but there are many real ones, for example at Shipham, Flixton and Wendling. This artwork, painted on buildings not meant to last, has suffered a lot over the years and there is now a race to record these pictures for posterity. Thanks to Gloria Stephens for the trip to a real-life air base.

In general, my books contain a mix of real and imaginary places. Blackstock Hall is fictional but Hunstanton and the Le Strange Arms are real. The beautiful Blickling Hall is real and does house the RAF Oulton Museum. Dr Raymond Alder, on the other hand, is fictional. The apocalyptic weather in this book is also based on reality. In October 2013 there was a savage storm known as St Jude’s Storm and December 2013 saw Norfolk devastated by terrible floods. I need hardly say that the Blackstock family and the events described in this book are all entirely fictional.

For archaeological information, I am indebted to Andrew Maxted, my favourite archaeologist. Many thanks to Mike Silverman for his help on forensics and DNA. For a better description of police forensic work than I could ever manage, I would thoroughly recommend
Written in Blood
by Mike Silverman and Tony Thompson. Thanks also to Dr Simon Trew for his guidance on military research. I should stress that I have only followed the experts’ advice as far as it suits the plot and any resulting mistakes are mine alone.

Thanks as ever to my editor, the wonderful Jane Wood, and to my agent, Rebecca Carter. Thanks to everyone at Quercus and Janklow & Nesbit for working so hard on my behalf. I’d also like to thank all the other publishers around the world who publish the Ruth books. Special thanks to Katrina Kruse of HMH for taking me on a fantastic road trip and showing me Walden Pond and the Green Mountains. Thanks to Lesley Thomson for her friendship and support – and for the advice on cars. Love and thanks always to Andy and to our children, Alex and Juliet.

This book is for my sister Sheila and brother-in-law Ian, with love from Eli.

Ruth’s previous investigations

The Crossing Places

A child’s bones are discovered near the site of a pre-historic henge on the north Norfolk coast, and the police ask local forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway to date them. Are these the remains of a local girl who disappeared ten years ago?

DCI Harry Nelson refuses to give up the hunt for this missing child. Ever since she vanished, someone has been sending him bizarre anonymous notes about ritual sacrifice, quoting Shakespeare and the Bible. He knows Ruth’s instincts and experience can help him finally put this case to rest.

Then a second child goes missing, and Ruth finds herself in danger from a killer who knows she’s getting ever closer to the truth...

The Janus Stone

Forensics expert Ruth Galloway is called in to investigate when builders, demolishing a large old house in Norwich to make way for a new development, uncover the skeleton of a child - minus the skull - beneath a doorway. Is it some ritual sacrifice or just plain straightforward murder? DCI Harry Nelson must find out.

The house was once a children’s home. Nelson meets the Catholic priest who used to run the home. He tells him that two children did go missing forty years before – a boy and a girl. They were never found.

When carbon dating proves that the child’s bones predate the children’s home, Ruth is drawn more deeply into the case. But as spring turns to summer it becomes clear that someone is trying very hard to put her off the scent by frightening her half to death…

A Room Full of Bones

Night falls on Halloween eve, the museum in King’s Lynn is preparing for an unusual event – the opening of a coffin excavated from the site of a medieval church. But when archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway arrives to supervise, she finds the museum’s curator lying dead beside it.

Ruth and Detective Inspector Nelson are forced to cross paths once again when he’s called in to investigate the murder, and their past tensions are reignited. And as Ruth becomes further embroiled in the case, she must decide where her loyalties lie – a choice that her very survival depends on.

Dying Fall

Ruth’s old friend Dan Golding thinks he has made a discovery that will change archaeology forever - but he needs Ruth’s help. Then, Dan is killed in a fire, leaving Ruth with one clue: the tomb of the Raven King.

DCI Nelson is also rediscovering the past. He meets his friend Sandy Macleod, now at Blackpool CID, who tells him there are mysterious circumstances surrounding Dan’s death. A Neo-Nazi group at Dan’s University has been making threats and could be involved.

Many of Dan’s colleagues seem fearful and have secrets to hide. Ruth is drawn into the mystery, and where she goes, so does her daughter, Kate. This time, it’s not just Ruth’s life at risk.

The Outcast Dead

Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway has excavated a body from the grounds of Norwich Castle, once a prison. The body may be that of Victorian murderess Jemima Green. Called Mother Hook for her claw-like hand, Jemima was hanged for the murder of five children.