THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

Thirty metres down and full of giant spiders.’
    ‘Fascinating,’ says Ruth. She has no time for extreme archaeology, which seems to her to abandon the most sacred precepts of the subject – time, patience and care – in favourof laddish thrill seeking. ‘Why do you think they could be linked to the bodies?
    ‘Take a look inside,’ says Ted.
    The nearest barrel has a hole in its side, leaving a wickedly jagged edge. Peering gingerly inside, Ruth smells a heady mix of petrol and the sea. She gags. The barrel is half-full of stones which have either fallen from the cliffs or been swept in by the tide, but the smell is still all-pervasive. The second barrel is also open to the elements and inside, under the stones and beach debris, Ruth can see something whitish. The third barrel, as Ted says, is still sealed.
    She puts on protective gloves and reaches inside the second barrel. The stones are tightly packed, a mixture of chalk and flint, with a stray crab leg or two thrown in for good measure (probably dropped there by seagulls). Ruth reaches down as far as she can and manages to get a hold of the something white. She pulls.
    ‘Let me help,’ says Ted.
    Together, they drag out a wad of cotton fibres, once white but now stained grey and yellow, smelling strongly of rotten eggs.
    Ruth almost chokes again. She takes a deep breath. ‘It looks like—’
    ‘The stuff we found buried with the bodies,’ says Ted. ‘That’s what I thought.’
    ‘The barrel’s full of it,’ says Craig. ‘It stinks to high heaven.’
    ‘Could be something dead in the bottom of the barrel,’ says Ruth. ‘A fish maybe?’
    ‘Nah,’ says Ted sniffing knowledgeably. ‘That’s sulphur, that is.’
    Sulphur. The word has an ominous sound. Sulphur and brimstone. The devil dancing in front of a yellow fire. Ruth shakes her head irritably. Her parents are big experts on the devil but she doesn’t expect him to come invading her thoughts like this. Especially as he is something else she doesn’t believe in.
    The third barrel is still sealed. Ruth pushes at it experimentally; it doesn’t budge but there is a faint sloshing sound.
    ‘Think it’s full of petrol,’ says Ted.
    ‘Petrol?’
    ‘Yeah, the beach stinks of petrol.’
    Ruth realises that this is true. Petrol must have leaked copiously from the first barrel so that the whole area smells like a garage forecourt. Looking down she sees that the sand is black with oil.
    ‘Well we’d better get the fire brigade to look at it,’ says Ruth. ‘Put some hazard signs up. All we need is some idiot with a cigarette …’
    ‘Goodnight Vienna,’ agrees Craig. He starts to pack up his equipment. Ruth likes him; he’s the only archaeologist who doesn’t argue with her.
    ‘What about the stuff we found in the barrel?’ asks Ted.
    ‘I’ll take a sample to the lab.’
    ‘Rather you than me,’ grins Ted.
    Further inland, overlooking gently rolling hills and flat water meadows, Nelson and Judy are smelling a rather different smell. Antiseptic, lavender and cut flowers masking another, more elemental, odour.
    ‘Christ, I hate these places,’ says Nelson for the tenth time, shifting impatiently in his chintz armchair.
    ‘I can’t imagine anyone likes them much,’ says Judy. She is finding her boss rather trying. It’s not her favourite way to spend an afternoon – interviewing some gaga old bloke in an old people’s home – but it’s her job and she has to get on with it. She thinks that Nelson just resents the fact that Whitcliffe has insisted that he attend this rather routine interview. His attitude, as he shifts in the too-low chair, seems to suggest that, if it wasn’t for this intrusion, he would be out catching criminals and righting wrongs. As it is, he’d probably only be in another of Whitcliffe’s meetings.
    As for her, she’d be catching up with paperwork and trying not to think about her hen night in two weeks’ time. There’s a notice on the staff room wall for people to sign on and she saw, to her horror, that there were at least thirty names on it. Surely there aren’t thirty women at the station? ‘Oh, people are bringing friends,’ said Tanya, a friend and fellow WPC. ‘The more the merrier.’
    Judy is sure that it’ll be very merry. They are starting off in a wine bar, then out for a meal then on to a club. She has asked for no fancy dress but she’s sure there’ll be an element of comedy headgear and novelty suspenders. Oh yes,