The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths Read Free Book Online Page A

non-committally.
    ‘And think how great it would be to see Norfolk and meet my Blackstock relatives. We always said we’d travel when we retired.’
    ‘I haven’t completely retired. There are my classes on the American Pastoral, for one thing.’
    ‘I know, but they’re evening classes. You could swap with one of the other tutors.’
    Blake says nothing and so Nell presses her advantage.
    ‘And we could have a proper funeral for Daddy. That would mean so much to me.’
    Blake waves his hand out of the window, at the maple trees flaring against the mountains, at the white clapboard houses scattered at discreet intervals along the loggers’ road.
    ‘Why would you want to go to England and miss all this?’
    ‘Oh, the fall.’ Nell dismisses Vermont’s pride and joy with a shrug. ‘It’s pretty while it lasts but soon it’ll be winter. Snow and cold and not seeing anyone for weeks on end. I bet Norfolk’s real temperate. They never have bad weather in England.’
    ‘I don’t know about that,’ says Blake, but he knows that he’s beaten all the same. ‘I went to a conference in Cambridge once and there was ice on the inside of the windows.’
     
    There’s no ice on the roads but it’s a grey foggy morning when Nelson and Judy drive out to Blackstock Hall. As they approach the house, the snipe rise out of the grass and zigzag drunkenly overhead. The sheep watch them morosely from their islands, smaller now after the night’s rain.
    ‘I wouldn’t want to live out here,’ says Judy as they park by the gates.
    ‘Get along with you,’ says Nelson. ‘Cathbad would love it. Lots of sea and sky and miserable-looking sheep. He’d say that the place has good energies.’
    Judy looks at him suspiciously. She hates people taking the mickey out of Cathbad but, on the other hand, she can’t deny that Nelson is right. Cathbad would love this place.
    Nelson, for his part, watches anxiously as Judy heaves herself out of the car and they begin the trek across the field. She’s seven months pregnant but she looks more. He wishes she would go on maternity leave and take it easy, but Judy informs him that she wants to work ‘right up to the last minute’ so that she can make the most of her time after the baby is born. Judy’s the wage-earner in the family, with Cathbad relishing the role of full-time father, though he is apparently much in demand as a ‘spiritual counsellor’ (Nelson doesn’t like to think what that entails).
    Nelson has rung ahead and courteously requested an interview with George the elder. ‘Just a chat really. By all means have your son or daughter-in-law there too.’ He can’t complain about that, surely?
    It seems that George has decided to make it a family affair. Sally meets them at the door and ushers them into the kitchen where both Georges, Old and Young, are sitting at the table by the Aga.
    ‘Do sit down, Inspector Nelson and . . .’ Sally looks enquiringly at Judy.
    ‘This is Detective Sergeant Johnson,’ says Nelson.
    ‘Well, do sit down, Detective Sergeant Johnson. Goodness me, you look like you could do with a seat. When’s the baby due?’
    Nelson suppresses a smile. He has already heard Judy complaining about the way that her pregnancy has made her a public object (‘Complete strangers patting my stomach. It’s outrageous!’) but she thanks Sally politely enough and volunteers that the baby is due early in December.
    ‘Shouldn’t still be working,’ says Old George. ‘Should be at home getting the nursery ready.’
    ‘I need the money,’ says Judy dourly.
    Sally looks at Nelson rather accusingly (‘making that poor girl work for a pittance’) and offers Judy a cup of tea.
    ‘Just water, please,’ says Judy.
    ‘Inspector?’
    ‘Tea would be grand, thanks.’ Nelson turns to Old George. He’s still a tall man, face shrunken to emphasise a beaky nose and bushy white eyebrows. Nelson thinks that he must be in his late eighties.
    ‘Mr Blackstock,’ he