THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

name.’
    Nelson tries another tack. ‘Tell us about the captain of the Home Guard. I believe he was Jack Hastings’ father?’
    ‘Yes. Buster Hastings. Hell of a chap. A real old devil, one of the old school. He’d been in the trenches in the first lot, you know. Tough as old boots. Ran a tight ship too. We weren’t just playing at soldiers. We did manoeuvres. Nightmanoeuvres. Patrolled the cliffs. On moonless nights, the
darks
we called them, we went out in the boat.’
    ‘Why?’ asks Judy.
    Archie’s eyes bulge. ‘Looking for invaders, of course. We were sure, at the start of the war, we were sure the Nazis were going to come. And Norfolk was the obvious place. All those little coves. So easy to land a boat at night. Hence the manoeuvres.’
    ‘And did you ever see anything?’ asks Nelson lightly.
    Archie Whitcliffe sits up even straighter. ‘If I had, I wouldn’t tell you. We took a blood oath, you see.’
    Ruth, Craig and Ted are in the pub, The Sea’s End. Ruth knows by now that any excavation involving Ted invariably ends in the pub. Ruth drinks Diet Coke and the men drink bitter. Everything is the same as on her visit with Nelson – the same men at the bar watching apparently the same TV programme, the same sticky floor, the same laminated menus. The only difference is that instead of feeling nervous and keyed-up she feels relaxed, enjoying the company of her colleagues. Since having Kate, opportunities for drinks with the boys (never her forte anyhow) have been few and far between.
    ‘Have a real drink,’ says Ted. ‘They do a good bitter here.’
    ‘I can’t, I’ve got to drive.’
    ‘One won’t hurt.’
    ‘And I’ve got to pick up Kate.’
    ‘Is that your baby?’ asks Craig. ‘How old is she?’
    ‘Nineteen weeks,’ says Ruth. She wonders if she’ll ever get used to giving Kate’s age in months or even – incredible thought – in years.
    ‘She’s a darling,’ says Ted, in his Irish voice. ‘Even Nelsonseemed taken with her. Not a man much given to sentiment, our Nelson.’
    Ruth keeps her face blank. Ted can’t possibly know anything, she tells herself. Keep calm. Keep smiling.
    ‘Do you know him well?’ Craig is asking Ted.
    ‘Not really,’ says Ted. ‘We worked with him on another case, didn’t we, Ruth? Got a short fuse, Nelson, but he seems a good copper for all that.’
    ‘What do you think about this case, Ruth?’ asks Craig.
    ‘Well,’ says Ruth, not able to resist a tiny twinge of pleasure at having been asked her opinion, ‘I’d say the bodies had been in the ground about seventy years, which brings us to the war years. I think the bones are of men aged between twenty-one and about forty, which makes them military age. I’d say they were soldiers.’
    ‘We didn’t find any uniform though,’ says Craig.
    ‘No clothes at all. Just the length of cotton. Maybe it was used to drag the bodies along the beach.’
    ‘Something fishy definitely went on,’ says Ted happily. ‘Shot at close range, nothing to identify them. Are we thinking Germans or English?’
    Ruth thinks she knows the answer to this but, for some reason, she wants Nelson to be the first to know. She stalls. ‘I’ve sent off for isotopic analysis. That should tell us, broadly speaking, where the men were from.’
    ‘Wonderful thing, science,’ says Ted. Craig smiles. Archaeologists are divided into those, like Ruth’s boss Phil, who adore science and technology and those who prefer the more traditional methods, digging, sifting, observation. Ted is definitely in the latter camp.
    Despite the fact that it is three o’clock in the afternoon, Ted orders a steak and kidney pie.
    ‘I love a good steak and kidney,’ he says. ‘No-one makes it any more.’
    ‘I do,’ says Craig. ‘I was brought up by my grandparents so I can do all the old-fashioned stuff. I’ve got a mean way with a brisket of beef.’
    ‘My mum used to cook oxtail,’ says Ruth, remembering. ‘I’m surprised it didn’t turn me into a vegetarian.’
    ‘A good oxtail soup is delicious,’ says Craig. ‘I’ll make you some one day.’
    There is a slightly awkward pause. Ted raises his eyebrows at Ruth over his (second) pint. Ruth is rather relieved when her phone rings. She goes outside to take the call.
    It’s Nelson. At last.
    ‘You wanted to speak to me.’ He sounds anxious.
    ‘I’ve had the results of the isotopic analysis.’
    ‘Is that all?’
    ‘What do you mean “is that all?” It’s