‘So I could be a lord or something. Lord Dave of Norfolk.’
‘I don’t think that’s quite how it works, Cloughie,’ says Nelson. ‘Apparently you’re related to the Blackstocks somewhere along the line, that’s all. It hasn’t made you the heir to the throne.’
When Ruth told him about Clough’s DNA match, Nelson decided to give him the news in private. After all, it’s potentially rather a sensitive subject. Clough has lived in the area all his life. If someone in his family has been over-friendly with the local landed gentry, then that could be embarrassing for him. Nelson knows very little about Clough’s family. His mother lives in Hunstanton; Clough is a surprisingly dutiful son and often visits her on a Sunday. There’s never been any mention of a father. Clough has a younger brother who has had a couple of near-misses with the law. Clough, by his own account, was no angel in his youth. This doesn’t bother Nelson. Teenage delinquents often make rather good policemen. He might have been a delinquent himself if he hadn’t been so scared of his mother.
But Clough doesn’t seem embarrassed in the least. In fact he seems rather taken with the idea that he might have aristocratic blood.
‘Fancy being related to the Blackstocks. No wonder I get on so well with Cassie.’
It’s Cassie now, is it? thinks Nelson. He wonders whether Clough has given any serious thought to the implications of the results. Nelson has George Blackstock the Younger’s DNA on file (he supplied a sample to establish the link with the dead pilot). He thinks it might just be worth running a Familial DNA Analysis, comparing this specimen to Clough’s. This will establish if there’s a close family connection. Clough is about the same age as George Blackstock’s children. What if George Blackstock is his father too? It’s not impossible. Clough’s mother lives in the area and (by her son’s own account) ‘she’s still quite fit-looking’. Did George Blackstock imagine that he had some kind of right to seduce local girls? There’s a foreign phrase for it, droit de something or other. Nelson looks at his colleague, who is still rambling on about his aristocratic connections. Like the Blackstocks, Clough is tall and dark-haired. It’s hard to see a connection between the thickset Clough and the effete Chaz Blackstock but isn’t there something that echoes the older George about Clough’s prominent nose and heavy eyebrows? Nelson doesn’t know. He’s terrible at spotting resemblances. Michelle’s always saying things like ‘isn’t Laura like my mum about the ear lobes?’. Nelson doesn’t feel qualified to adjudicate in such esoteric matters. Likewise, he doesn’t feel able to voice his concerns to Clough, especially when the possibility of a closer family relationship obviously hasn’t occurred to him. He’ll get Clough’s DNA analysed, and in the meantime, he’ll just have to do his best to keep his sergeant away from ‘Cassie’.
‘I might drop in on the Lockwell Heath farm today,’ Clough is saying. ‘See whether anything else has turned up in the pigswill.’
‘No,’ says Nelson. ‘They’ll be busy with the filming today. Let’s wait until we get the DNA results on the remains. Shouldn’t be long now.’
‘DNA, eh?’ Clough is still chuckling. ‘Fantastic stuff.’
‘From this lonely airfield, situated on the far eastern edge of Britain, the 444th Bombardment Group began their perilous mission. This building was once the control tower, where the young pilots were given their last-minute instructions before heading out to their planes. These brave men knew heavy losses. In December 1944, just a few days after arriving in Norfolk, they lost three aircraft during a raid on Kiel. Four months later, exhausted crewmen returning to their base were bombed as they climbed out of their aircraft. They died right here on the runway.’
Frank pauses, looking out into the middle distance. The camera, which has been following his slow progress from the control tower, stops too, and revolves slowly to take in the level fields, very green after the recent rain, the hangers black against the horizon and the wide, white sky. Ruth hopes that the soundman picks up the skylark singing, a sweet spiralling sound high above them.
Ruth is standing nearby because it’s her turn next. Frank is going to ask her about finding Fred’s body. They’re going to film at Devil’s Hollow next week. Now Frank takes a swig of water and a make-up girl wipes his face. He smiles his thanks but seems to accept these attentions as his due.
‘That’s great, Frank,’ shouts Paul, who has been looking at the monitor. ‘Real moving stuff.’ He looks around. ‘Ruth!’
‘Yes,’ says Ruth. To her knowledge this is the fourth time that Paul has checked that’s she’s there. He’s either got a very bad short-term memory or advanced OCD.
‘Ruth,’ Paul smiles at her with auto-charm. ‘Frank’s going to tell us a bit about Fred and then he’s going to ask you about finding the body. I thought we could shoot the two of you walking along the runway. Might as well make use of the good weather.’
‘OK,’ says Ruth, her heart sinking. In her (admittedly limited) experience of filming, it’s surprisingly difficult to walk and talk at the same time. But Paul’s right, it is a beautiful day, not a breath of wind after the storms of two days ago. The pig farm is looking its best, bleak and scenic at the same time. The TV cameras have, so far, managed to avoid the pigs altogether, concentrating on the control tower (the camera zeroing in on the faint words ‘Bomb Group’) and the runway. There’s no lack of family interest, either. Nell, Blake and Cassie are all in attendance, though none of them are due to be filmed today. Early next week, Paul will film a long segment with Nell at Blackstock Hall, ‘looking at some of your dad’s favourite places.’ ‘I’ve no idea what they were,’ Nell had said, suddenly sounding panicked. ‘No problem,’ said Paul. ‘We’ll make it up.’
Now the cameras are rolling again and Frank is standing on the runway, his eyes crinkling against the autumn sun.
‘Senior Airman Frederick Blackstock was twenty-seven years old when he was posted to Lockwell Heath Airbase. In some ways it was a homecoming. Fred had been born and brought up just a few miles from here. But in 1938, he emigrated to America in search of a better life. He married a New England girl, Bella Haywood, and they had a daughter, Nell. Fred was not to know then that when the country of his birth needed help, he would be one of the thousands of Americans who answered that call.’
Ruth notes that, according to The History Men, Fred has definitely become an American by 1938. She also questions whether Fred really did go to the States ‘in search of a better life’. He was hardly on the breadline in England after all. All she does know is that Fred shared his mother’s view that Blackstock Hall and the surrounding land were somehow unlucky. She wonders if the TV programme will mention this.
‘On September thirteenth, 1944, the single-seater NAA P-51 Mustang D for Dog set out from Lockwell Heath on a reconnaissance mission. The plane never returned. It was believed to have crashed in a violent thunderstorm but no trace was ever found of the aircraft. Then, in July this year, a truck driver clearing land just a few miles south of here made a startling discovery. I’m joined by Doctor Ruth Galloway, Professor of Forensic Archaeology at the University of North Norfolk.’
Ruth barely has time to notice that Frank has skated over the fact that Fred was not, in fact, the pilot of D for Dog and that the real pilot’s body was found a few hundred yards away. She thinks of the ten men standing beside the Flying Fortress. The Shamrock and her crew are clearly not going to feature in Paul’s version of events. Instead she tells Frank about the plane unearthed by Edward Spens’s driver in Devil’s Hollow.
‘How did you know you had found the remains of a World War Two aircraft?’ asks Frank, turning towards her with his easy, on-screen intimacy. But what if it’s not just for the camera? Despite herself, Ruth feels her heart beating faster. God, she hopes she isn’t going red.
‘The soil had a bluish tinge,’ she says, ‘which comes from corroded aluminium. It’s sometimes called Daz because it’s meant to look like blue washing powder and it’s typical of this sort of wreckage. Then we saw the cockpit, which was still intact. There was a body inside.’
‘That must have been quite some moment.’
‘Yes. It gave the digger driver an awful shock.’ Will Americans understand the word ‘digger’? Well, she can’t worry about that now. She thinks of the moment when she looked through the glass and saw the figure sitting in the pilot’s seat. Paul has told her not to mention her doubts about how long the body had been in the ground or about the bullet hole in the skull (‘This is meant to be a heart-warming story, not Murder She Wrote’), but she can’t help injecting a note of caution when Frank asks her about the body.
‘I thought the skin was remarkably well preserved for human remains buried in chalky ground,’ she says. ‘The plane had actually landed in an old chalk pit.’
‘But DNA analysis proved that the remains were those of Frederick Blackstock?’
‘Yes,’ Ruth admits. ‘It did.’
‘Cut,’ says Paul. ‘Well done, Ruth. It’s cute that you’re so British and unemotional.’
‘Is it?’ says Ruth.
But Paul has moved away to film the wild geese flying low over the marshes. Ruth doesn’t doubt that this will come complete with some analogy about flight and freedom and the green fields of England. A runner offers her a lift up to the house (‘There’s tea and coffee and a selection of muffins’) and she accepts gratefully. It may be a perfect autumn day but it’s still very cold, especially when you’ve been hanging around for ages in a light jacket because your anorak makes you look like a barrage balloon. Besides, she’s always wanted to go in a golf cart.
In Chaz Blackstock’s surprisingly spartan kitchen she finds the rest of the Blackstocks, together with Cathbad’s friend Hazel. He seems to be on very good terms with Chaz.
‘Have you done your bit?’ asks Nell. ‘I’m terrified about next week.’
‘It’s not too bad,’ says Ruth, accepting a cup of tea from Chaz. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘TV reduces everything to the lowest common denominator,’ complains Blake. ‘I heard that presenter fellow giving the dates of World War Two. Surely everyone knows that?’
Ruth has heard it said that Americans think that the war dates from 1941 to 1945 but she decides not to say this.
‘I liked Paul,’ says Cassie, who is sitting on the kitchen table, fetchingly attired in jeans and a Swedish crime girl jumper. ‘He wants to interview me about my memories of Uncle Fred.’
‘It would be remarkable if you had any, my dear,’ says Blake, ‘considering that he died about forty years before you were born.’
‘I mean family memories,’ says Cassie, batting her eyelashes at him. ‘I’m sure Grandpa has some.’
‘He’s even asked me to be in his film,’ laughs Hazel. ‘I think I fulfil the role of harmless English eccentric.’
It would be easy to write Hazel off as an eccentric, thinks Ruth, but, as with Cathbad, this would be a mistake. She remembers that Hazel had been one of the druids who had protested against the henge dig. They had been passionately committed to their cause and actually rather frightening.
She addresses Hazel now. ‘Are you going to mention the Bronze Age burials?’
Hazel smiles at her. He’s really rather attractive in a grungy way. ‘I certainly am. I’m going to say that all the land around Blackstock Hall is a sacred landscape and that Edward Spens builds his ghastly housing estate at his own risk.’
‘Good luck with that,’ says Chaz gloomily. ‘I went down there yesterday and the building work’s pretty advanced.’
Interesting that Chaz keeps such a close watch on the site, thinks Ruth. He’s the one who really knows this land best and loves it the most. And his sister, of course. Ruth looks at Cassandra and is surprised to see her face brighten as if lit from within.
‘Dave!’ she says in delight.
‘Hallo, all,’ says a familiar voice. ‘Guess who turns out to be related to the Blackstocks?’
Clough has joined the party.
Somehow Paul produces pizzas for lunch. Ruth has no idea how he has found a company that delivers out to the wilds of North Norfolk but the pizzas arrive in bona fide cardboard boxes, still hot and surprisingly good. They eat in the kitchen, Nell, Blake, Chaz and Paul at the table and the rest of the family and crew perched on work surfaces or sitting on the floor. Phil turns up in time for lunch and is busy suggesting to Paul that he might be able to fill in ‘some of the general archaeological background’. Paul seems unconvinced.
Ruth finds herself wedged between Frank and the fridge.
‘This is cosy,’ he says with a grin.
Ruth agrees that it is. She had intended to play it cool today, to be the mysterious, aloof professional. But it’s impossible to be a woman of mystery while eating a slice of pepperoni pizza. Besides, she’s worried about falling off the kitchen cabinet. It’s all right for Frank; his legs are so long that they’re practically touching the floor.
‘It’s nice to see the family so involved,’ says Frank, looking over to where Nell and Blake are showing the crew photographs of their grandchildren.
‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘I think it means a lot to Nell, seeing the place where her father was stationed.’
‘Do you know if the family had any idea that he was here at the time?’
‘I don’t think so,’ says Ruth. ‘From something Old George—Fred’s brother—said, I don’t think they knew he was based here until they got the news of his death. Odd that he didn’t get in touch.’
‘There was probably some kind of family rift,’ says Frank. ‘I guess we’ll never really know.’ There’s a pause and then he says, ‘It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Living here, at Lockwell Heath. Having a drink in the officer’s mess, playing some sport—apparently there were squash courts here too—all the time knowing that you might die any day, that you probably would die before you got much older. Their courage must have been extraordinary.’
‘Yes,’ says Ruth, thinking of the pictures she had seen of the men and their planes. ‘It’s hard to get much sense of what this place would have been like . . . then.’
‘There’s a mural in one of the farm buildings,’ says Frank. ‘Chaz says it was painted by one of the crew of the 444th.’ He calls over to Chaz, ‘Is it OK if I show Ruth the mural?’
‘Be my guest,’ says Chaz. ‘I think Paul’s going to film it later. Isn’t that right?’
‘I sure am,’ says Paul. ‘The viewers will love it.’
In the hall, they pass Clough and Cassie sitting on the stairs. They look extraordinarily comfortable together, thinks Ruth. Clough is leaning back on his elbows and Cassie is whispering something in his ear, her long dark hair falling forward. They don’t appear to notice Ruth and Frank leaving. Ruth is relieved; she doesn’t want Clough reporting back to Nelson. What is Clough doing here anyway? Isn’t he meant to be working?
Outside, the runway seems to be full of cars. Ruth recognises the camera van and Clough’s sporty Saab. The vehicles give the farm an oddly purposeful air and make it easier to imagine it as it would have been during the war, a hive of activity and enterprise, lights shining all night and the fields full of winged monsters. Earlier, on camera, Frank had demonstrated the wingspan of one of the bombers, ‘as wide as ten men standing abreast’. They must have looked awe-inspiring, thinks Ruth, like the Angel of the North. Terrifying too.
Frank leads the way past the hangars to a brick-built building standing on its own at the edge of a field. ‘Chaz thinks this was part of the operations block,’ he says. ‘There were barracks here too and a cafeteria and the squash court. You can see some of the walls.’ Ruth looks at the field, where several large pigs are snuffling happily. She sees that they are snuffling past squares of concrete that still have a few bricks standing here and there. It’s hard to imagine a whole complex of buildings here. This part of the airbase has thoroughly gone back to nature; the pigs are in control now. It’s like a scene from Animal Farm. The last remaining building looks lopsided and incomplete, almost apologetic.
‘Chaz stores hay in here,’ says Frank. ‘It’s quite damp, unfortunately, which has affected the paint.’
When Frank opens the door, Ruth almost cries out in surprise. The mural is mildewed and faded but still the effect is startling—an entire wall has been painted to show a blue sky upon which yellow planes dive and turn. Near the foot of the wall a series of squares represents the airbase. The biggest square is proudly flying the Stars and Stripes.
‘They think it shows US Liberators in a dogfight with German Dorniers,’ says Frank. ‘See, that plane is on its way down.’ Ruth sees that a plane emblazoned with a swastika is heading vertically downwards, towards a sticky confrontation with a rather stylised tree. She thinks of the plane in Devil’s Hollow, its surprisingly gentle trajectory, its shocking cargo.
‘Do we know who painted it?’ she asks.
‘It’s not signed,’ says Frank, ‘but there’s something that may be a clue.’ He points to the top right-hand corner where, almost hidden by encroaching mildew, a small dog sits on a cloud.
‘It may be a reference to the artist’s name or nickname,’ says Frank. ‘I’m going to look through the list of personnel at the airbase to see if I can uncover anything. What do you think of the painting?’
‘It’s very . . . evocative,’ says Ruth. This is true. The brushwork may be crude, the planes out of perspective and the figures barely more than stick men but there’s something about the work of the unknown airman that brings back the past more effectively than any documentary or reconstruction. For a moment Ruth feels that if she were to pull open the rusty iron door she would find a bustling airbase, full of grim-faced men in olive green uniforms, and not a sleepy Norfolk farm with pigs grunting amongst the fallen leaves.
‘Ruth,’ says Frank, bringing her crashing back to the present, ‘we need to talk. Are you free for supper tonight?’
‘I’ve got to pick Kate up from the childminder.’ It’s halfterm, a holiday which previously had gone unnoticed in Ruth’s calendar but now presents all sorts of logistical challenges.
‘I could come with you. We could all go out together.’
‘No.’ Ruth can just imagine how that would look to Sandra. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve got a lot of marking to do.’
‘What about Friday?’
‘It’s Kate’s birthday.’ She’ll be five, something that doesn’t seem quite possible to Ruth. They are planning to celebrate it with Judy and Michael, swimming followed by pizza.
‘Tomorrow then. Thursday. Please. I’d really like to spend some time with you.’
What can Ruth say except, ‘All right then’?