THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

he taught you gardening.’
    ‘Exactly. My family have always looked after the gardens at Sea’s End House. Even now, when there’s hardly any garden left, I still tend it. I still care for it.’
    Tend, care. Strange words for a murderer to use. Can this softly spoken man, an
archaeologist
, for God’s sake, really have killed three people?
    ‘I’m glad I killed that German,’ Craig is saying now. ‘He just wanted to dig dirt on Captain Hastings and his troop. He wasn’t fit to lick their boots. And he was deceiving Clara. He told me that he was married, boasted about it almost, one night in the pub. So I waited for him that night. I had the keys to the garden room, you see. I’d done the garden earlier and I just waited. Eckhart was sitting in his car, sending a text to someone. Probably his wife. I asked for his help. Said my car had broken down. Whenwe got to the car park I stabbed him and threw his body in the water.’
    ‘Clara was devastated. You broke her heart.’
    Craig laughs. ‘She’ll get over it. Can’t have a Hastings marrying a German, destroying that fine English bloodline. No, Clara’s destined for higher things. I might even marry her myself.’
    In your dreams, thinks Ruth. The Hastings family would never let their daughter marry the gardener. To them, Craig, like his grandfather before him, is a servant. They would sooner let Clara marry Dieter Eckhart. Class is a stronger social adhesive than nationality. But Ruth decides not to say any of this to Craig. She has to keep him talking, get him to feel sorry for her.
    ‘Don’t kill me, Craig, I’ve got a baby. She needs me.’
    ‘Your baby! You’re never with her. She wouldn’t miss you, she never sees you.’
    Another tribute to her mothering skills. But Ruth knows that Kate does need her and, for this reason alone, she’s not going to let herself be killed. She throws herself to one side, splintering the rotten timbers of the boat. Craig shoots but misses. The bullet lodges itself in one of the barrels. In seconds, the sea is on fire.
    Nelson sees the smoke from the cliffs at Rockham. Judy and Clough haven’t arrived yet but he doesn’t wait. He leaves his car on the grass and makes for the steps, a rickety wooden structure marked by a sign saying, unambiguously, ‘Danger! Do not take the steps at High Tide. Danger of Drowning.’ Nelson, bounding down the slippery planks, sees a semicircleof shingle beach below. A line of grey rocks separates it from the next cove but the sea still hasn’t reached the bottom of the cliff. There may still be a chance to get to Ruth. The smoke spirals high in the air, like a distress flare. What the hell is happening? Is this Ruth’s way of attracting his attention? If so, it’s working …
    He runs across the beach, stumbling over the pebbles. Michelle once told him that this was good exercise. Now it feels more like torture, like one of those nightmares where you are running your hardest but get nowhere, where the ground turns into marshmallow and your feet become lead weights. Surely he should have reached the cliff by now. The waves are breaking over the furthest rocks. He’ll have to climb to get onto the next beach. Jesus, if only he was fitter. He should never have let his gym membership lapse.
    His phone rings. He answers it, still running.
    It’s Judy.
    ‘We’re at Rockham, boss. Where are you?’
    ‘On the beach.’
    ‘There’s a ship burning on the next beach. A real inferno. Black smoke everywhere.’
    ‘Any sign of Ruth?’
    ‘No, but we can’t get close enough to see.’
    ‘Call the coastguard. And the fire brigade.’
    ‘I already have. The coastguard says the tide’s coming in fast. You’d better get back up here.’
    ‘No. I’ve got to get to the next beach.’
    He clicks off the phone. He has finally reached the rocks and sees that they are, in fact, the remains of a man-made wall, huge grey breeze blocks, covered in seaweed. He triesand fails to get a foothold, falling back onto the pebbles. The waves are crashing against the end of the wall. He should go back, wait for the coastguard. It’s not going to do either Michelle or Ruth any good if he gets killed. But he launches himself back at the wall, clinging on with his fingertips, hauling himself upwards by sheer willpower. Then, somehow, he’s there, standing on the very top of the sea wall. The next cove is filled with black smoke. He can’t see anything else at all. He pauses, catching his