THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

than Roman.’
    ‘Well, the Romans often adopted Celtic Gods and traditions. They were pragmatists in that way.’
    Tatjana turns away. ‘I’m sure the Celts were pragmatists too. When your land is invaded, you tend to be.’
    Ruth curses herself. How the hell have they got back to Bosnia? But when Tatjana turns back she is smiling. ‘It’s beautiful up here,’ she says. ‘You can see for miles.’
    ‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘In the summer it’s lovely. There’s a great pub here too.’
    ‘A pub,’ says Tatjana. ‘Does it do beer and ploughman’s lunches?’
    ‘You read my mind,’ says Ruth.
    Judy, too, is feeling the cold. Nelson has dispatched her to Broughton with a brusque instruction to ‘talk to the locals about the war’. Great idea, thinks Judy, except that on aday like today the locals are very sensibly inside watching TV. So far she has spoken to a surly teenager and a lost tourist looking for Great Yarmouth. She has already walked through the village twice, not that this has taken very long. It’s really just the one street – a Victorian terrace – and, behind it, a few newer-looking houses. There is only one shop, but by the looks of it, some of the other houses used to be shops. They have large bow windows, now swathed in net curtains, and in some cases the shop names remain, written or engraved under the eaves. ‘S. Austin and son, Fishmonger’. ‘T. Burgess, Butcher’. ‘Ronald Caffrey, Grocer’.
    The one remaining shop occupies the end of the row. Is this why it has survived when S. Austin, T. Burgess and Ronald Caffrey were all forced to hang up their aprons? It certainly doesn’t have a very prepossessing window display – a few shrimping nets and a dusty bucket arranged around a collection of ancient-looking magazines:
Knitting World, Horse and Hound, The Coarse Fisherman
. What would happen, Judy thinks, if she asked for a copy of
Cosmopolitan
or, worse, the
Guardian?
    A bell clangs loudly behind her and a bespectacled man appears from behind a bead curtain.
    ‘Yes?’ His eyebrows are raised. The shop clearly does not encourage passing trade. It is an odd mix of supermarket, newsagent and post office. Tins of tomatoes share shelf space with string, sellotape and lurid pink Mother’s Day cards (though Mothering Sunday was three weeks ago). The post office counter bears a large handwritten sign saying ‘Closed’. Another sign gives parcel weights in pounds and ounces. Evidently the metric system has yet to reach Broughton Sea’s End.
    Judy shows her warrant card which causes the shopkeeper’s eyebrows to disappear further into his sandy hair.
    ‘Police?’ he echoes faintly.
    ‘Just a few routine enquiries,’ says Judy, putting on a reassuring voice. ‘In fact, we’re interested in something which may have happened fifty or sixty years ago.’
    ‘I’d hardly remember it then, would I?’ says the man huffily, though, to Judy, he could be any age.
    ‘I just wondered if there were any residents who
could
remember those days,’ says Judy soothingly. ‘People older than yourself. After all, in a shop like this you must get to know everyone in the community.’
    Her flattery is not entirely wasted. The eyebrows come down slightly.
    ‘We try. We’re a valuable local resource. You must sign our petition to save the post office.’
    ‘I will.’
    ‘In a few years’ time shops like this will vanish completely. It’ll be all supermarkets and chain stores.’
    Good thing too, thinks Judy. But then she thinks: if I were an old person and I wanted a copy of
Knitting World
, I wouldn’t want to have to catch a bus to the next village. Mind you, didn’t Nelson say that the whole of Broughton was slowly falling into the sea?
    ‘I think it’s dreadful,’ she says. ‘I hate supermarkets myself. I never go in them.’ This is true; she buys all her groceries on-line.
    The man leans on the counter, eyebrows back in place, friendliness itself.
    ‘You’re so right. Supermarkets are all very well butwhere’s the personal touch?’ He leers at her.
    ‘I’m sure you’re always delivering groceries to the old folk.’
    ‘Well, I can’t lift much because of my back but I’ve always got a cheery word for them when they collect their pensions.’
    ‘Speaking of older people … ?’
    ‘Yes.’ He straightens up, looking slightly suspicious once more. ‘Well, there was Mr Whitcliffe, a fine old gentleman. But he went into a home a good few years