THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

hisses and the sleet hammers against the windows. Judy takes a proffered shortbread and hopes that the interview takes a nice long time. She has no desire to be out on the road again with an increasingly grumpy Nelson. She hopes that Jack Hastings doesn’t come back too soon. She can’t imagine anyone taking a walk in this weather but she supposes that, if you have dogs, you have to take them out. A good reason for not having dogs.
    She is halfway through her second cup when Jack Hastings appears, accompanied by what seems to be a sea of dogs, but soon resolves itself into two hysterically wagging spaniels.
    ‘Detective Chief Inspector. What a pleasant surprise.’
    The irony, if it is irony, doesn’t register on Nelson’s stony face.
    ‘I did say that I’d like another chat.’
    ‘A chat? Yes, fine. Fine. Chat away.’
    Hastings stands in front of the fire and rubs his hands together. It’s a remarkably defensive pose, thinks Judy, like a stag at bay or, perhaps, a politician facing questions across the floor of the house.
    ‘Mr Hastings,’ begins Nelson, ‘last time I was here we talked about the Home Guard, about any members thatmight still be alive. You mother mentioned Archie Whitcliffe. He used to send you Christmas cards, apparently.’
    Hastings looks over at his mother, who is making another pot of tea, deep in concentration.
    ‘I remember …’ he says hesitantly.
    ‘Mr Whitcliffe was living at the Greenfields Care Home. Did you ever visit him there?’
    ‘No.’ Hastings looks bemused now.
    ‘What about Hugh Anselm? We spoke about him on the phone.’
    Suddenly Irene Hastings puts down the teapot and bustles purposefully from the room. Nelson wonders if he ought to call her back. She’s the one who remembers the war years, after all. Jack Hastings does not seem to have noticed his mother’s departure.
    ‘Hugh Anselm,’ he says. ‘I don’t remember the name.’
    ‘You mother mentioned him. He was one of the younger members of the Home Guard. Archie Whitcliffe was another.’
    ‘She has wonderful recall of those years,’ says Stella, who has briskly taken over the tea-making. ‘But thinking about it can make her upset. They were desperate times here in Broughton, I think.’
    Nelson continues to address Jack Hastings. ‘So you’ve never met Archie Whitcliffe or Hugh Anselm?’
    ‘I don’t think so, no. What’s all this about?’
    ‘Archie Whitcliffe died last week. Hugh Anselm a few weeks earlier.’
    ‘But you can’t think there’s anything suspicious about their deaths, surely? I mean they must have been old men.On the phone you said that you thought this Hugh chap had been murdered.’
    Judy looks at Nelson. It’s unlike the boss to say something like this to an outsider. Never assume, that was Nelson’s mantra. Why would he suddenly start sharing his assumptions with a member of the public, especially someone who appears almost to be a suspect? She remembers the initial investigation into Hugh Anselm’s death. At the time Clough had described it as a tragic accident, there was even a sort of black humour about the situation. ‘Old dear dead in a stairlift.’ Now the everyday deaths of these two old men are taking on a very different aspect and there is something sinister at work in the cosy room, even if Judy can’t work out exactly what it is.
    ‘We’re following several lines of enquiry,’ Nelson replies now, perhaps regretting saying so much in the first place.
    Jack Hastings looks at his wife and it appears as if she is about to speak when Irene comes back into the room. She walks up to Nelson and places a photograph on the table in front of him.
    ‘That’s Archie,’ she says quietly, ‘with his hat at an angle. My Buster used to have a go at him about that. That’s Hugh, with the glasses.’
    Judy peers over Nelson’s shoulder. The picture is in black and white and shows a group of men standing in front of a grey-walled house. This house, she realises. At first glance they look identical, homogenised by baggy, ill-fitting uniforms and by a sort of sepia-tinted nostalgia. But, looking closer, Judy sees that the three men in front are a lot younger than the others. Even in sepia, they look full of life.
    ‘I’ve seen this picture before,’ says Nelson. ‘There was a copy in Archie Whitcliffe’s bedroom.’ He looks at Irene. ‘Which was Buster?’
    Judy is betting on the walrus moustache, who looks like a old-style army major, the sort of man