THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

classes, a roast meal with all the trimmings. She pictures her mother and father walking down Avery Hill Road, dressed in their best clothes, thinking of Salvation. She really must take Kate down to see them soon.
    In a remarkably short time they are on New Road, crossing the marshes, blackness around them, the sea somewhere close, whispering in the dark.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ says the driver. ‘What do you want to live here for? Gives me the creeps.’
    ‘I like it,’ says Ruth. Stop talking, she adds silently, and just get me home.
    ‘Isn’t this the place where they found that little girl? About a year ago?’
    ‘I think so.’
    ‘Rather you than me, love. I’d be scared of the ghoulies and ghosties, living out here.’
    But Ruth isn’t scared of ghosts. She pays the driver his Sunday rates and lets herself into the cottage. Creeping upstairs, she looks at the sleeping Kate. Her little face looks stern and thoughtful through the bars of the cot. Beside her Shona sleeps peacefully, her long hair spread out on Ruth’s pillow. Ruth takes a pile of bedding and heads down to the sitting room. She isn’t scared of ghosts. She is scared of nightclubs, of having to enjoy herself, of something happening to Kate, of waking up one morning and realising that she is in love with Nelson.
    Sighing, she curls up on the sofa, listening to the sea.

     
    At Sea’s End House, a single light shines from the turret. Like the beam from the deserted lighthouse, it illuminates the black waves as they thunder in towards land. They break against the walls of the house as if demanding entrance, turning the narrow inlet into a torrent, rising and falling as the moon waxes and wanes. Then, as the tide starts to turn, they retreat, sucking the stones from the beach where the six Germans soldiers lay buried, leaving the cliff path wet and gleaming. And leaving a body floating gently in the shallows, its blond hair streaming out in the dark water.

CHAPTER 18
     
    Ruth’s first thought is that Kate is crying. Then she realises that the insistent noise is in fact her phone, ringing on the table next to her ear. Typical. The one morning that Kate doesn’t wake at the crack of dawn someone decides to make an early morning phone call. Who the hell can it be?
    ‘It’s me,’ says a brusque voice, though the screen is already flashing ‘Nelson’.
    ‘What is it?’ asks Ruth blurrily. She has just realised that she is on the sofa, that her neck aches and that she has a splitting headache.
    ‘Dieter Eckhart’s dead. Fisherman found his body this morning. Washed up by Sea’s End House.’
    ‘
What?
’
    ‘Eckhart’s dead. Cloughie and I are at Broughton now.’
    ‘What’s the time?
    ‘Nine o’clock. I didn’t think it was much use trying to get Johnson out of bed. Have a good time last night, did you?’
    Nine o’clock! Why hasn’t Kate woken up yet? Ruth is just about to rush upstairs in a panic when she sees Shonadescending the stairs, carrying Kate in her arms. Kate looks smug; Shona triumphant.
    Ruth wrenches her attention back to Nelson.
    ‘Was it an accident?’ she asks. ‘Did he drown?’
    Nelson gives a humourless laugh. ‘Pathologist’s here now. Cause of death – a knife wound to the heart. It wasn’t an accident.’
    ‘Does Clara know?’
    ‘Yes. She identified the body.’
    So many thoughts are swirling around in Ruth’s head that she feels sick. Clara, Dieter, a knife wound to the heart, Tatjana, Judy, fisherman found his body this morning. Then Kate holds out her arms and everything else is forgotten.
    Kate coos loudly into the phone.
    ‘Is that Katie?’ Nelson’s voice softens. ‘I’ll call you later.’
    The phone clicks off. Ruth looks at Shona, who is still holding Kate and looking pleased with herself.
    ‘We’ve been up for ages,’ she says. ‘I got Kate dressed and gave her a bottle. We’ve been playing.’
    Of the two, Kate looks the best for the experience. She is bright-eyed and bursting with energy. Shona has, in fact, dressed her in pyjamas and a jumper that is two sizes too big but she is overcoming these sartorial disadvantages with aplomb. She takes Ruth’s phone and bites it, experimentally. Shona, on the other hand, looks pale and bleary-eyed, her hair is unbrushed and her shirt is on inside-out. But she is obviously so pleased with herself for having survived the night and the morning that Ruth feels a rush of affection for her.
    ‘You’ve done brilliantly,’ she says,