The House At Sea’s End

Ruth thinks about Broughton Sea’s End, about the sea advancing, eating away at the cliffs, destroying brick and stone, uncovering secrets. Was there a link between the bodies and the oil drums? The strange-smelling material had certainly looked the same. She has taken it to the lab (her car still reeks) and will run tests on it. Six German soldiers, shot and buried under a remote cliff, buried in sand so their bones will disintegrate, oil drums containing petrol and diesel fuel. Ruth is reminded of a film that she saw years ago with her father. Nazis marching through an English village. What was its name?

She has got precisely nowhere with the tidying. The bed is still buried under boxes, although Flint has found a pillow and is kneading it busily. She will have to be ruthless. Erik sometimes used to call her Ruth the Ruthless. Time to live up to her name. She’ll get some black plastic bags and chuck the lot away.

As she crosses the sitting room she sees, with a shock, that there is somebody at the front door. Her bell hasn’t worked for years but her few visitors know this and usually hammer and yell. God knows how long this polite person has been standing there. She opens the door, prepared to apologise.

A man is standing on the doorstep, smiling. Blond and good-looking, there is something unmistakably foreign about him. Maybe it’s the green coat or the backpack – or the smile, which shows extremely white teeth.

‘Dr Ruth Galloway?’

‘Yes.’ She likes it when people use her correct title. She doesn’t see why strangers should call her Ruth and she despises ‘Miss’.

‘My name is Dieter Eckhart. I wish to talk to you about some dead German soldiers.’

CHAPTER 11

‘You’d better come in,’ says Ruth.

Dieter Eckhart steps politely over the piles of books and folders in the sitting room (part of the tidying process) and perches on the edge of the sofa. Ruth offers him tea which he accepts but disconcerts her by asking for lemon instead of milk. She hasn’t got any lemon but finds a wizened lime at the back of the fridge (from Shona’s tequila phase). It’ll have to do.

‘I am sorry to trouble you at home,’ says Eckhart, accepting the unpleasant-looking drink with every appearance of pleasure. ‘But I ask at the university who is the forensic archaeologist in charge of the case.’

Ruth is gratified that someone has identified her as being in charge but rather mystified as to how Dieter Eckhart has managed to find out about the bodies so quickly. Thanks to Whitcliffe, there has been nothing in the British press.

The mystery is soon explained. From his backpack Eckhart pulls a map of Norfolk, a book about the D-Day landings and a crumpled letter written in thin black ink.

‘I’m a military historian,’ he says. ‘I have written several articles about the rumoured German invasion of Norfolk in the Second World War. One day last month I received this letter.’

He hands it to Ruth:

Dear Mr Eckhart

Please excuse my presumption in writing to you. I read your recent article in History Todayentitled ‘The Great Invasion Mystery’ and it awoke some very vivid memories, memories that I have, for many years, been trying to suppress. I was a member of the Broughton Sea’s End Home Guard from 1940 to 1941. I was one of the three younger members of the platoon which was captained by one Buster Hastings. I am now 86 and in poor health, yet a memory of a particular event in 1940 has haunted me all my life. I feel I must discuss it with you. You, sir, are a young man, an academic and a German. It is for these reasons that I feel compelled to contact you. A great wrong was done many years ago, Herr Eckhart, and, unless we tell the truth to the generations that follow, the evil will lie waiting beneath the earth.

I am, sir, your honourable former enemy,

Hugh P. Anselm.

Ruth looks across at Dieter Eckhart, who is calmly sipping his tea. Her mind is racing. The rumoured German invasion of Norfolk. Nazi officers patrolling the streets. Six bodies found buried under the cliff. The evil will lie waiting beneath the earth.