THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END

are equipped with satellite navigation and have no need of picturesque lighthouses.
    Ruth sighs and tries to get back to marking essays. She knows that she is behaving like a spoilt child, sulking because she’s missing a day out. The trouble is that knowing doesn’t make it easier to bear. She wants to go to the lighthouse,but Sandra is away for the weekend and Shona is spending Saturday with Phil and his sons and there is no-one to look after Kate. Tatjana is out on Saturday with the people from UEA but Ruth would never dream of asking her to babysit. No, Ruth will just have to stay at home like a good mother. Maybe she can bake a cake or something.
    She looks out of the window again, remembering the day that she saw Clara and Dieter embracing in the snow. Then, as if summoned by the earlier memory, she sees a blonde woman walking across the courtyard, her arms full of books. Clara. Without thinking about it, Ruth taps on the window. Clara looks up, smiles. Ruth beckons. She could do with a break, some company, a cup of coffee. It’ll stop her thinking about the lighthouse, unbreakable codes, Saturday morning telly.
    Clara looks cold and rather forlorn, wearing a scruffy waxed jacket that has clearly seen many years of dog walking. Her hair is lank and rather greasy and her face is pale. Ruth feels a sudden stab of sympathy. She hasn’t given much thought to what Clara must be feeling, losing her lover, realising that, in fact, she never had him. At least Dieter’s wife will have a funeral to attend, a grave to visit, all the status and sympathy accorded to a widow. Clara is left with nothing.
    ‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ Ruth asks as Clara appears in the doorway. ‘We can go to the canteen or there’s a machine that’s not too bad.’
    ‘Machine will be fine,’ says Clara. ‘I’m just returning some of Dieter’s books to the library.’ She puts the pile of books on Ruth’s desk. Ruth can’t resist looking at the titles – Second World War history mostly, one treatise on the dating ofbodies. Was Dieter doing his own forensic research then?
    ‘How are you?’ Ruth asks. ‘This must be an awful time for you.’
    Clara shrugs. ‘I’ve been better. I know it’s stupid because I’d only known him a few weeks but I really loved him, and to think that someone would kill him … like that …’ She puts her hand over her mouth.
    ‘It must be awful,’ repeats Ruth inadequately. Clara burrows in her bag for a tissue and Ruth takes the opportunity to escape to the coffee machine. Clara probably wants a few minutes on her own, she tells herself.
    When she returns with two steamy cups of coffee substitute, Clara seems a lot more composed. She tells Ruth quite calmly that Dieter’s wife has flown his body back to Germany. ‘I didn’t see her,’ she says. ‘I don’t think she knows anything about me.’
    Did you know about her? wonders Ruth. But she doesn’t say anything.
    ‘The hardest thing,’ Clara goes on, ‘is not having anything to do. I haven’t got a job. I’m not studying. All my friends have moved away. All I can do is take the dogs for walks, chat to Grandma, get in Mum’s way in the kitchen. It’s like being a teenager again.’
    Maybe it’s the word teenager that gives Ruth the idea. What do teenagers do to fill in the time? They take odd jobs, don’t they? Washing cars, delivering papers … didn’t Clara once say something about babysitting?
    ‘I’d love to,’ says Clara, looking cheerful for the first time. ‘I’m not doing anything on Saturday afternoon. I’d love to look after Kate.’
    ‘I shouldn’t be long,’ says Ruth. ‘Nelson says the boat’s leaving at two-thirty. I should be home by five at the latest.’
    ‘Boat?’
    ‘Yes, we’re going out to the lighthouse. It’s hard to explain but it’s all linked to the bodies that we found in the cliffs.’
    ‘The lighthouse?’ says Clara. ‘Dad owns it, I think.’
    When Saturday comes, Ruth almost changes her mind. The sea is calm but the skies are heavy and overcast. Snow is forecast and there is an ominous yellow line on the horizon. But Clara appears promptly at one-thirty, full of plans for a fun afternoon with Kate, so Ruth has no choice but to put on her anorak and head out to the car. Clara stands at the window, waving, with Kate in her arms. For a moment, Ruth feels an almost overwhelming urge to rush back into the house, grab her baby and never let her go again. But, she reasons, she