The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) Read Free Page B

but when he reaches the house, Michelle is on her way out of the door. There’s a crisis at the salon, she says, she needs to get to work straight away. She kisses Nelson lightly and climbs into her car. Nelson watches as she performs a neat three-point-turn and drives off, her face set as if she’s already thinking about work. Nelson sighs and gets back into his battered Mercedes.
    But, when he gets to the station, there is some compensation. Amongst all the rubbish in his inbox, one email stands out: ‘Dental records on skull found 17/7/13’. This is the American pilot, the one found in the summer behind the wheel of his buried plane. After Ruth had excavated the skeleton, an autopsy had found that death probably occurred as a result of the bullet wound in the temple. Here the investigation would probably have stalled without the generosity of the American Air Force, who had offered to fund DNA tests and extensive forensic investigations. Even so, the laboratories had taken their time. In August, Nelson had rather reluctantly accompanied Michelle on holiday to Spain (far too hot) and had returned to find that no progress had been made. Well, it looks as if they have a result at last. Nelson clicks open the email, still standing up.
    ‘Cloughie!’ he calls, a moment later.
    DS Clough appears in the doorway, a half-eaten bagel in his hand.
    ‘Look at this. We’ve got a positive match for our American pilot.’
    Clough peers over his boss’s shoulder. ‘Frederick J. Blackstock. Who’s he when he’s at home?’
    ‘Come on, Cloughie. You’re from Hunstanton way. Don’t you recognise the name?’
    ‘Blackstock. Oh, those Blackstocks. Do you think he’s related?’
    ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.’
    ‘Why would a Yank pilot be related to a posh Norfolk family?’
    ‘Your guess is as good as mine, Cloughie.’
    ‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’ says Clough, scrolling down the email. ‘American pilot found dead right near his old ancestral home.’
    ‘Exactly,’ says Nelson, gathering up his car keys. ‘And I don’t believe in coincidence.’
     
    It’s impossible to ignore the Blackstock name in the Hunstanton area. There’s the Blackstock Arms, the Blackstock Art Gallery, even the Blackstock Fishing Museum. The smug ubiquity of the name reminds Nelson of the Smiths in King’s Lynn, a comparison that isn’t exactly reassuring, given that a previous investigation involving the Smiths ended up combining Class-A drugs, an ancient curse and a poisonous snake. Unlike the Smiths, though, the Blackstocks still live in their ancestral home, a bleak manor house built on the edge of the Saltmarsh.
    They drive (along Blackstock Way) past flat fields criss-crossed with tiny streams; mournful-looking sheep stand marooned on grassy islands and geese fly overhead, honking sadly. The house is visible from miles away, a ship rising from a grey-green sea.
    ‘I wouldn’t like to live here,’ says Clough. ‘It’s as bad as Ruth’s place.’
    ‘It’s a bit grander than Ruth’s place.’
    Blackstock Hall is indeed grand, a stern brick-built edifice with a tower at each corner, but there is no comforting stately home feeling about it: no National Trust sign pointing the way to the tea rooms, no manicured lawns or Italian gardens. Instead the grass comes right up to the front door and sheep peer into the downstairs rooms. If there was a path to the front door, it vanished years, maybe centuries, ago. Nelson parks by the side of the road and he and Clough approach the house through the fields.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ says Clough, ‘the grass is full of sheep shit.’
    ‘What do you expect?’ says Nelson, hurdling a stream. The sheep stare at him with their strange onyx eyes.
    ‘I expect a proper driveway, since you ask,’ says Clough. ‘Bunch of gyppos would do it for a grand.’
    Nelson ignores this though he knows he should say something about the un-PC language. ‘It’s travellers, not