THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

go towards the carers’ wages.
    Outside he takes a deep breath and sees Judy is doing the same.
    ‘Not much of a life is it?’ he says.
    ‘No.’ Judy chews her lip. ‘When I think of all the things my sister’s kids have.’
    ‘Most kids today have too many things,’ says Nelson opening the car door. He thinks of the hundreds of toys hehas thrown out or recycled over the years: games lacking half the pieces, Barbies with missing limbs, electrical gadgets ignored after the first thrill of acquisition, the unread books.
    ‘I wonder about George’s father,’ says Judy. ‘He obviously doesn’t help much.’
    Nelson starts the car, forgets that he has left it in gear and curses as the Mercedes jerks forwards. Christ, why are people always talking about fathers? Johnson’s been funny all day, come to think of it. The way she kept looking at the wedding photos at Joyce Reynolds’ house and now getting all misty eyed about the little boy. He knows she’s getting married and all that but she’s got to learn to keep emotion out of policing.
    ‘Where are we going now?’ asks Judy, bracing herself as he takes a corner.
    ‘Sea’s End House,’ says Nelson. ‘I think it’s time we asked Mr Hastings a few more questions.’
    ‘Bone has both a mineral and an organic content in the ratio of two to one.’
    Ruth is addressing a motley group of students in the university’s smaller lecture theatre. It’s a stuffy room and one or two of her audience look almost asleep. She must make more of an effort to engage them but the subject, The Dating and Treatment of Bones, is not exactly an exhilarating one, even to her. The trouble with the MA course is that a lot of the students come from overseas, mostly Asia, and English isn’t their first language. By the time that she gets onto decalcification and fossilisation, she senses that she will have left most of them behind.
    She presses a key on her PowerPoint. Like most academics, Ruth is secretly happier with handwritten slides.
    ‘This is an example from the
Mary Rose
. Anaerobic silt is excellent for preservation of bones.’
    Unlike the bodies at Broughton Sea’s End, buried in sand. Did whoever buried them know that, over time, their bones would crumble into nothingness? Yet, in Ruth’s experience, evil has a habit of finding its way to the surface.
The evil will lie waiting beneath the earth.
    The last slide. ‘Cremation destroys the organic content of bone. Prehistoric cremations weren’t hot enough to destroy the bone altogether. Flesh was burnt away but the bone remained – becoming white and fragile but mostly retaining its shape. These bone fragments provide valuable evidence for forensic archaeologists. Any questions?’
    One interesting question about mummification and Ruth is heading back to her office, just time for a quick sandwich before her two o’clock tutorial. Having Tatjana in the house has cut down on the amount of time that she can spend working at home. It also means that she has to do some proper food shopping. She’ll go to the supermarket after she’s collected Kate. It’s a hassle but Kate loves sitting in the baby seat of the trolley, smiling at the other shoppers and trying to eat cereal boxes.
    It has been a strain, in some ways, having Tatjana to stay. The cottage is really too small for two adults. Ruth remembers how when she and Peter split up, amidst all the feelings of sadness, loss and guilt, there was also a distinct relief that she could now spread her books all over the sitting room floor and go to the loo with the door open.She and Tatjana seem to spend a lot of their time apologising to each other and waiting for the other one to go first down the stairs. Whenever Kate wakes in the night Ruth is full of guilt that Tatjana’s sleep has been disturbed and when, after a hard day’s work, she would really like to slob out and watch
Coronation Street
, she has to pretend to be interested in reruns of
Time Team
on Channel 4. Still, Tatjana has started her teaching which means she is out all day. And some things have been nice – having someone to talk to about work, cooking proper meals, having an excuse to open a bottle of wine with supper, having someone to laugh with when Flint gets stuck in the cat flap.
    Ruth grabs a sandwich from the canteen and rushes back to her office before she can become trapped in a long discussion with one of her colleagues about exam grades or Prehistoric burial practices. She also