The House At Sea’s End

‘Have you worked it out?’ asks Judy, her eyes round.

‘I think so.’ Ruth arranged the books on the table as if she is laying out Patience – or a magic trick. Judy leans forward, interested. Nelson wrenches his eyes away from Kate.

‘Look. First I tried putting the books in the order Archie said. That puts Evil Under the Sun first. But then there are four twos in a row. It doesn’t make sense. So then I thought: what if it’s the third word?’

‘What do you mean?’ asks Judy.

‘Well, the third word of the first title is Truth.’ Ruth shuffles the books. ‘The second word of the second title is Lies.’

‘Truth and Lies,’ says Nelson. ‘That’s deep.’

Ruth glares at him. ‘The second word of the third title is Under.’

‘I get it!’ says Judy. ‘Truth Lies Under.’

‘Yes! The second word of the fourth title is Fourth.’

‘Truth Lies Under Fourth,’ says Nelson. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘The second word of the fifth title is Step. The third word of the sixth is Of. The first word of the seventh is Sea. The second of the eighth title is Light. Truth Lies Under Fourth Step Of Sea Light.’

There is a silence. Under the baby gym, Kate coos and chortles. Flint climbs onto the table and sits on the Sherlock Holmes book, purring loudly.

‘What’s a sea light?’ asks Judy

Nelson hears Father Tom’s voice, echoing in the dusty back room. It’s treacherous, this coastline, lots of dangerous rocks, shallow sandbanks. That’s why we had the sea light at Broughton.

‘The lighthouse,’ he says. ‘It means the lighthouse. Under the fourth step of the lighthouse.’

CHAPTER 21

April

The lighthouse. Ruth stares out of her office window, across the courtyard towards the artificial lake, and thinks about the impending trip to the sea light. It has already been put off twice because of bad weather and is now set for Saturday.

‘Why don’t you come?’ Nelson had said on the phone. ‘It’s the weekend, after all.’ How can he say that so casually? Doesn’t he know that, because it’s the weekend, Ruth is kept a prisoner by Kate? Of course he doesn’t. Michelle has always done all the childcare and Nelson is as free as he ever was. Ruth imagines him at weekends, playing football or golf, going to the pub, with never a thought as to who is looking after his children. Of course, his daughters (his other daughters) are grown up now. He and Michelle can even go away on holiday together, not that Nelson seems to enjoy holidays but whose fault is that? The point is, he has escaped from the parenting years and Ruth is just beginning. In only eighteen years’ time, she tells herself hollowly, I can go out on a Saturday.

The thing is she wants to go to the lighthouse. It was her idea, after all. She cracked the code and now she has to sit at home while Judy or Clough goes out on the police launch, climbs the precarious steps and finds… what? Does she really believe that there’s something hidden below the fourth step of the Broughton Sea’s End lighthouse? What could it possibly be? The truth, according to the code, but as an archaeologist Ruth knows that truth can prove remarkably elusive as the years go by. Is it a confession? A photograph? Another cryptic clue? Maybe Archie has set up a whole series of clues that will have them running all over the country, untangling acronyms and decoding acrostics, while the real murderer slips silently out of sight.

She pictures the lighthouse. It’s a real landmark on the North East Norfolk coast, commemorated in countless postcards and souvenirs. The tall red-and-white tower perched on a rock, seeming sometimes to rise straight out of the sea. Photos show it shrouded by mist on autumn mornings, almost hidden by crashing waves during winter storms and mirrored on a flat sea at the height of summer. The lighthouse is only a few hundred metres from the land but it is surrounded by rocks, making it almost impossible to reach except in calm weather. This is one of the reasons why the light is no longer in use. The main reason is that most ships nowadays are equipped with satellite navigation and have no need of picturesque lighthouses.

Ruth sighs and tries to get back to marking essays. She knows that she is behaving like a spoilt child, sulking because she’s missing a day out. The trouble is that knowing doesn’t make it easier to bear. She wants to go to the lighthouse, but Sandra is away for the weekend and Shona is spending Saturday with Phil and his sons and there is no-one to look after Kate. Tatjana is out on Saturday with the people from UEA but Ruth would never dream of asking her to babysit. No, Ruth will just have to stay at home like a good mother. Maybe she can bake a cake or something.