The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) (11 page)

Ruth steps back into the lobby. The polite receptionist tells her the way to the Oak Room and there’s no more excuse to delay. Should she knock? No, she’s an invited guest, the archaeology expert. Ruth squares her shoulders and pushes open the door.

He’s there. He stands up when she enters and she remembers that this was one of the things she liked about him, an old-school courtesy that seems very American somehow.

‘Ruth,’ he says with a smile. He comes round the table and kisses her on the cheek. She can smell his aftershave. Is it worn in her honour? She knows that she is blushing.

There are two other men in the room, and one comes forward with his hand outstretched.

‘Earl Kennedy,’ he says. ‘Happy to meet you.’

Earl Kennedy is a small man, brown and shiny like a nut. Ruth finds herself slightly bending her knees in an attempt to appear smaller.

‘Let me introduce our director, Paul Brindisi.’

‘Yes,’ says Ruth. She holds out her hand to Paul Brindisi, who is dark and intense-looking. ‘Hi, I’m Ruth Galloway.’

‘Ruth was terrific in
Women Who Kill
,
’ says Earl. ‘Really natural and down-to-earth.’ Earl gestures for Ruth to sit on his right, opposite Frank. ‘We’ve got coffee, tea, juice. What will you have?’

‘Coffee would be great, thanks.’

Paul pours coffee from the jug on the table, from which Ruth deduces that director ranks lower than producer.

‘We’re really excited about this programme, Ruth,’ says Earl, fixing Ruth with his bright black eyes. ‘Shall I fill you in?’

‘Yes please.’

‘Essentially
The History Me
n is about presenting the human side of recent historical events. We’ve done the
Titanic
, the story of Italian immigrants – focusing on Paul’s actual ancestors – the Depression and the Gold Rush. Now we want to focus on World War Two and it seems to me that this dead pilot, Fred Blackstock, is our ideal way in. He was a Brit who chose a new life in the US and then died a few miles from his ancestral home here in Norfolk. How’s that for irony? We’ve contacted Fred’s family in the US. His daughter, Nell, is a real sweetheart. She’s keen to come over here and trace her dad’s past. Kind of a family reunion with some history thrown in. Whaddya think?’

Ruth feels rather dazed by this account. Her first thought is that the discovery of Fred’s body was not only ironical but mysterious, sinister even. But she realises that Earl doesn’t understand all the implications of Fred’s body turning up in the wrong plane.

‘Have you spoken to the British side of the family?’ she asks.

Earl’s eager expression doesn’t falter but Paul and Frank exchange glances.

‘Sure, sure,’ says Earl. ‘Seems that Fred’s brother is still alive. Old George his name is. How about that?’

‘And are they prepared to take part in the programme?’

‘We’re in negotiations,’ says Earl. ‘The old guy is a bit uneasy but the daughter-in-law thinks she can talk him round. After all, it’s an emotional time for the family. But you know what? Often these programmes can be real cathartic. They can bring healing. We’ve got therapists on hand if anyone wants to talk. Sometimes things come to the surface that have been buried for years.’

‘The thing is,’ says Ruth, ‘there may be a bit more to it than that.’

‘Whaddya mean?’

‘I excavated the body from the plane found in the field and I think it had been put there fairly recently.’

‘How can that be, Ruth?’ says Earl. ‘I understood the plane was buried in a chalk pit.’

‘It was,’ says Ruth, ‘and chalk preserves bone but it destroys flesh. The body in the plane still had flesh on it, leathery brown flesh typical of bodies found in marshy soil. That’s why I was pretty sure that it hadn’t been sitting in the plane for seventy years. Besides, records show that the pilot’s body was thrown clear and found in a nearby field. Fred Blackstock was meant to be in another plane altogether. A plane that had been shot down over the North Sea a week earlier.’

Earl and Paul exchange glances again.

‘So you’re saying that Fred Blackstock was in another plane?’

‘Yes.’

‘A plane we haven’t got?’

‘Yes.’

Earl spreads out his hands. ‘The thing is, Ruth, this is a story about a family. A family who have been through the horrors of war. A family reunited, a family reconnected, a family . . .’

Regurgitated? thinks Ruth. Aloud she says, ‘So you don’t want me to say that the body was in the wrong plane?’

‘On balance,’ says Earl, ‘no.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘You excavated the body,’ says Earl. ‘You can tell us exactly how it felt. And you can talk us through the DNA tests, stuff like that. Frank here will do the war background but you can be the white coat. Besides, it’ll be good to have a British voice. Hasn’t she got a cool accent, guys?’

Frank and Paul agree that Ruth’s accent is very cool. Ruth, who has never thought of her voice (basic South London overlaid with university lecturer) as anything other than boring, says, ‘Have you talked to the police? It’s an ongoing investigation.’

She thinks that Frank is looking at her. She has never discussed Nelson with Frank but she’s pretty sure that he’s got some questions about their relationship.

‘Sure,’ says Earl. ‘I’ve talked to a guy named Gerry Whitcliffe. He’s happy that the programme happens as long as we don’t step on any toes. I mean, it’s a cold case, right? It’s not likely that the police will find anything. Our programme will centre on the human interest. What does Nell feel, seeing her dad’s childhood home and the planes he flew? How does she feel meeting her British family after all these years? We’ll look at some of the old airfields. Frank says there are dozens round here. What are they called again, Frank?’

‘The ghost fields,’ says Frank. ‘In 1942, a new airfield was built every three days.’

‘Isn’t that great?’ says Earl. ‘The ghost fields. That might even be the title of this episode. And there are still watch towers and mess houses standing in the fields, some of them with really cool graffiti – American flags and love hearts and dancing girls. That’s our story. These boys, far away from home in the middle of the English countryside, ready to go out and die for our freedom. That’s the real story here.’

‘There were decoy sites too,’ says Frank. ‘Fake aerodromes built to confuse the Germans and divert attention from the real thing. They’re called the shadow fields.’

‘The shadow fields,’ repeats Earl happily. ‘Isn’t that priceless?’

Ruth looks at Frank, who smiles back rather ruefully. She doesn’t know about him but she felt a shiver run down her back at the name. Ghosts and shadows. She doesn’t think that Earl’s programme will be quite the heart-warming love-fest he envisages.

‘And Frank says that the land where the plane was found has a real interesting history,’ Earl continues. ‘Something about the Bronze Age?’

‘Ruth’s the expert on all that,’ says Frank quickly.

‘There’s some evidence that there may have been a Bronze Age burial site nearby,’ says Ruth. ‘So far one body has been found but I’m supervising a dig to see if we can find any others.’

Earl leans back in his chair. ‘How about that? A Bronze Age body? Can this picture get any better?’

‘The field’s known locally as Devil’s Hollow,’ offers Ruth.

She thinks that Earl might be about to explode with happiness.

‘A television programme? Are you mad?’

‘Really, Harry.’ Whitcliffe shifts irritably in his chair. ‘There’s no need for that sort of reaction.’

‘Sorry,’ says Nelson, not sounding it. ‘But this is an ongoing police investigation. We can’t have a film crew flat-footing around, getting in the way.’

At the words ‘film crew’, Whitcliffe raises a hand to flick his hair into place. Nelson watches him dourly. His boss is younger than him, but not by much. But where Nelson’s dark hair is greying at the temples, Whitcliffe’s is a uniform rich brown. Rumour has it that it’s dyed but Nelson’s hardly an expert on these things. ‘He’s had Botox too,’ says Tanya, a DC on Nelson’s team. ‘You can tell when he smiles.’ But Whitcliffe rarely smiles at Nelson, so this too he has to take on trust.

‘They’re hardly going to get in your way, Harry,’ says Whitcliffe. ‘As I understand it, the programme will be concentrating on the family of the dead pilot, not on DNA tests and suchlike.’

There are many things Nelson could say to this. He could say that the family of the dead pilot are the main suspects for his murder. He could say that DNA tests and suchlike are a staple of modern police work. He could say that while Whitcliffe will doubtless be prancing around in front of the cameras talking about his ‘mission to protect’, he, Nelson, will be hard at work behind the scenes solving crimes.

What he actually says is: ‘Will Ruth Galloway be involved?’

‘Ruth who? Oh, the forensic archaeology girl. I don’t know. Apparently the programme’s going to be fronted by some American historian.’

‘Frank Barker,’ says Nelson.

‘Yes. I think that was the name. Are you getting interested in history in your old age, Harry?’

‘No,’ says Nelson.

‘Well,’ Whitcliffe smoothes his hair again, ‘I don’t think you need to worry too much about the TV people. Apparently they do want to film the funeral service though. Do you know when that is?’

‘At the end of the month, according to Sally Blackstock.’ Rather to Nelson’s surprise, Sally had rung him with this information. She also told him that she is planning a little party after the event ‘to showcase our new B & B facilities as much as anything’. Nelson seriously doubts that Blackstock Hall will ever be in a state to be showcased as anything other than a crumbling ruin but he had kept his counsel. Wisely, as it turns out. ‘We hope you’ll be able to come, Detective Chief Inspector,’ Sally had said. ‘And your charming archaeologist friend. Ruth, wasn’t it?’

He contemplates mentioning the party now to watch Whitcliffe angle for an invitation, but that pleasure will have to wait.

‘I’m planning an excavation at Blackstock Hall next week,’ he says. ‘Do you think your TV friends will want to film it?’

‘I wouldn’t think so,’ says Whitcliffe. ‘Excavations are always so muddy, aren’t they?’

By the time that Earl has outlined his plans for the programme he now definitely calls ‘The Ghost Fields’ Ruth feels that she has lost the will to live. It’s not that Earl’s synopsis is bad; she can imagine that people would be interested in the story of Nell Blackstock’s homecoming, her reunion with her British family and her voyage of discovery into her father’s war years. ‘Lots of shots of the empty airfields,’ enthuses Earl, ‘the wind blowing and maybe some ghostly effects, planes taking off on deserted runways, that sort of thing.’ It’s more that Ruth can’t quite see where she comes in. Earl doesn’t seem remotely interested in how Fred’s body came to be in the wrong plane or in Ruth’s explanations about chalk versus clay burials. He is vaguely interested in the forensic analysis but only in so far as it proves that the dead man was a member of the Blackstock family. ‘Genuine British aristocrats,’ says Earl happily. ‘Pity they haven’t got a title though.’

What does Frank think about it all? It’s hard to tell, even though Ruth keeps sneaking glances at him. He listens politely to Earl’s story outlines, occasionally offering a word or two of historical context. Sometimes Ruth thinks that he’s smiling to himself rather sardonically and once he looks directly at her and grins, a ‘can you believe this bunch?’ grin, but then his face is blank once more and he nods solemnly as Earl tells him that he wants to create a ‘real Battle of Britain vibe’.

Where is Frank staying? Ruth knows that he has a flat in Cambridge, where he once studied, but she thinks he mentioned that it was let out to tenants. Maybe he’s staying in Norwich, or even King’s Lynn? She hopes that they will get a chance to talk after this interminable meeting. Maybe they can go and have a cup of tea somewhere, or even an early lunch. She remembers the first time she met Frank – after he crashed his car into hers – having lunch at a lopsided pub in the centre of Norwich, feeling as if they had known each other for ever. She realises that Frank is standing up.

‘So sorry,’ he says to the room at large, ‘but I’ve got an appointment. I’ll catch up with you all later.’