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

says, ‘I just wanted to ask you about your brother Frederick. We’re trying to get a picture of him at the time of his death and you’re really the only person who can help us.’
    Old George glares at Nelson across the table. ‘Got a letter – no, not a letter, an email – from his daughter today. Eleanor her name is. Calls herself Nell. Nell Blackstock Goodheart. What kind of a name is that?’
    ‘Americans always have lots of names,’ says Sally vaguely, arranging cups on the table.
    ‘She wants to come and meet us,’ continues the old man. ‘Says they’re making a film about Fred or some such nonsense. She wants to come over with her husband for a family reunion. That’s what she says, “a family reunion”.’
    ‘How nice,’ says Sally. ‘They can have the Blue Room, though it does leak a bit in winter.’
    ‘Have you met Nell before?’ asks Judy, managing to sound as if they’re personal friends. This is why Nelson has brought her, of course.
    ‘Once,’ says Old George. ‘She came over with her mother sometime in the sixties. Her mother, Bella her name was, wanted to see Fred’s “resting place” as she called it. Look at the sea, I told her. He’s under there somewhere. Fish food.’
    I’m sure she found that very comforting, thinks Nelson. Young George speaks up suddenly. He looks very like his father, although his hair is grey rather than white and his nose doesn’t quite dominate his face yet. It’s not hard to see that he must once have been as handsome as Chaz.
    ‘I remember Nelly,’ he says now. ‘She had lots of long dark hair. She took me for rides in her sports car. She was very glamorous.’
    ‘She must be in her early seventies now,’ says Sally.
    ‘About fifteen years older than me,’ says George. ‘She was born in the war.’
    ‘Tell me about Fred,’ says Nelson. ‘I understand he emigrated to America before the war.’
    He’s not sure who he expects to answer but it’s Old George who speaks up, his harsh old voice softer now, reminiscent. ‘Fred never liked the place,’ he says. ‘Said it was unhealthy, unlucky. He got that from our mother. She was American, you see. She married m’ father when he went to the States before the First World War. She was an heiress, very wealthy, and she used to say that Pa had only married her so he could waste her money on this house. She might have liked Norfolk at first, I don’t know, but by the time I was born she was always complaining about it. She was fanciful, you see. She said that nothing good would ever come of living on reclaimed land, land that should, by rights, be at the bottom of the sea. She said that the sea wanted the Blackstock lands back and one day it would come for us all. She used to say that she could hear the sea sprites singing at night. When Fred died, she said that was their revenge.’
    Nelson and Judy don’t look at each other. Nelson thinks that Old George’s mother sounds not so much fanciful as plain mad. It’s all bollocks, he tells himself. Besides, the sea sprites got it wrong, Fred hasn’t spent all these years at the bottom of the sea. His bones have lain somewhere else entirely. But where?
    ‘When did Fred leave for America?’ asks Judy.
    ‘1938,’ says Old George with remarkable promptitude. ‘I remember Pa saying that war with Germany was coming and he’d done it to get out of fighting. There was a bit of a row about that. But he did fight, didn’t he?’
    Judy and Nelson agree that he did.
    ‘How old were you when he left?’ asks Nelson.
    ‘Twelve,’ says George. ‘I was born in 1926, the year of the General Strike.’
    ‘Were you sad?’ asks Judy. ‘Did you miss him?’
    For the first time Old George seems at a loss. He looks at his son and daughter-in-law as if expecting them to know the answer.
    ‘Well, naturally,’ he says at last, ‘if you’re used to having someone about, then you do, well, notice when they’re gone.’
    ‘Did you ever see him again,’