The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) Read Free

at least a day to excavate the body. Isn’t that right, Ruth?’
    ‘Scene of the Crime team?’ says Spens. ‘Isn’t that going a bit far? I mean the poor chap obviously crashed his plane into this field during the war, seventy years ago. Must have landed in the chalk pit and been covered by a landslide or something. It’s not as if there’s been a crime or anything.’
    ‘I’m afraid you’re wrong,’ says Ruth, standing up.
    ‘What do you mean?’ says Spens, sounding offended.
    ‘I think a crime may have taken place.’
    ‘What makes you think that, Ruth?’ asks Phil implying, by his tone, that he is likely to side with the local captain of industry rather than his colleague.
    ‘There’s a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead,’ says Ruth.

CHAPTER 1
     
    September 2013
     
    ‘Just one more picture.’
    ‘For God’s sake, Nelson, she’ll be late for school on her first day.’
    But Nelson is focusing the camera. Kate stands patiently by the fence, neatly dressed in her blue school sweatshirt and grey skirt. Her dark hair is already escaping from its plaits (Ruth isn’t very good at hair). She holds her book bag in front of her like a weapon.
    ‘First day at school,’ says Nelson, clicking away. ‘It doesn’t seem possible.’
    ‘Well, it is possible,’ says Ruth, though she has lain awake half the night wondering how on earth she can entrust her precious darling to the terrors of education. This from a person with two degrees who works in a university.
    ‘Come on, Kate,’ says Ruth, holding out her hand. ‘We don’t want to keep Mrs Mannion waiting.’
    ‘Is that your teacher?’ asks Nelson.
    No, she’s the local axe-murderer, thinks Ruth. But she leaves it to Kate to tell Nelson that Mrs Mannion is very nice and that she gave her a sticker on the taster day and that she’s got a teddy bear called Blue.
    ‘We take it in turns to take Blue Bear home,’ she informs him. ‘But we’ve got to be good.’ She says this doubtfully, as if it’s an impossible condition.
    ‘Of course you’ll be good,’ says Nelson. ‘You’ll be the best.’
    ‘It’s not a competition,’ mutters Ruth as she opens the car door for Kate. But she has already had enough rows with Nelson about league tables and private schools and whether it’s absolutely necessary for a four-year-old to learn Mandarin. In the end, Ruth had her way and Kate is going to the local state primary school, a cheerful place whose mission statement, spelt out in multicoloured handprints above the main entrance, reads simply: ‘We have fun.’
    ‘You’re exactly the sort of person who’s against competition,’ says Nelson, putting away his camera.
    ‘What sort of person’s that?’
    ‘The sort of person who does well in competitions.’
    Ruth can’t really deny that this is true. She has always loved learning and positively enjoyed exams. This is why she wants Kate to have fun and play with potato prints for a few years. Plenty of time for formal learning later. Nelson, who hated school and left as soon as possible, is anxious that his children should waste no time in scaling the slippery academic slope. He and Michelle sent their daughters to private schools and both went to university. Job done, though Laura is currently a holiday rep in Ibiza and Rebecca has no idea what she wants to do with her Media Studies degree beyond a vague desire to ‘work in TV’.
    ‘Say goodbye to Daddy,’ says Ruth.
    ‘Bye, Daddy.’
    ‘Bye, sweetheart.’ Nelson takes a last picture of Kate waving through the car window. Then he puts away his camera and goes back to have breakfast with his wife.
     
    Ruth takes the familiar road with the sea on one side and the marshland on the other. Bob Woonunga, her neighbour, comes out to wave them goodbye and then there are no more houses until they reach the turn-off. It’s a beautiful day, golden and blue, the long grass waving, the sandbanks a soft blur in the distance. Ruth wonders if she