The Janus Stone

Places smell too. The downstairs loo where he once found the body of a little girl, murdered by her mother; the garbagestrewn backstreet where he saw a colleague stabbed to death; the desolate beach where he and Ruth unearthed the body of another dead girl. There may not have been an actual smell but there was something in the air, heaviness, a sense of secrecy and of things left to fester and rot.

And Nelson had smelt it on that building site. No matter how many years had passed since that little body was buried beneath the floorboards, the smell was still there. It’s a murder scene; Nelson is sure of it.

The children’s home had closed in 1981; afterwards the building had been used as some sort of council offices. Now Edward Spens is planning to build seventy-five luxury apartments on the site.

‘Seventy-five!’ Nelson had echoed, when Edward Spens had told him. ‘Seventy-five luxury rabbit hutches more like.’

Edward Spens had, of course, been on the phone as soon as Nelson and Clough had got back to the station. He’d been very cordial and full of phrases like ‘my duty as a citizen’ but had, nevertheless, managed to drop in a few mentions of his very good friend Gerry Whitcliffe and the city’s need for new housing, job creation, urban redevelopment la di da di da.

‘I appreciate your frustration, sir,’ Nelson had said, ‘but you must understand that we have a suspected murder enquiry.’

‘Murder?’ Spens had sounded shocked as Nelson had meant him to be. ‘But those bones could be hundreds of years old. That archaeologist chap Ted was telling me that there used to be a medieval churchyard on the site.’

‘That’s as maybe, sir. I’ve got Dr Ruth Galloway from the university examining the bones now. I’m hoping that in a few days she’ll be able to give me an approximate date.’

‘This Ruth Galloway, is she the best person? I know Phil Trent up at the university. He might be able to get us someone more… senior.’

‘Dr Galloway is head of forensic archaeology,’ Nelson replied stiffly, ‘and an acknowledged expert on bones.’ Ruth always claims that this makes her sound like a sniffer dog but, for the present, Spens seemed satisfied.

Spens is losing money, Nelson reflects, not without satisfaction, as he turns off the M25 towards Gatwick. Everyone is talking about the property market caving in. Nelson loathes TV programmes about smug yuppies buying and selling houses but even he has gathered that much. All those smug yuppies will soon be saddled with negative equity and serve them right. His own house is mortgaged up to the hilt, of course, but that doesn’t bother him. Nelson was brought up in a council house. For him, a mortgage is a sign of respectability.

But, even so, Spens had better start building quickly or there will be no one left to buy his luxury apartments. Luxury! Nelson snorts as he overtakes a coach loaded with German tourists. Where there was once one, admittedly large, house, now there will be seventy-five soulless shoe-boxes. It’s not his definition of luxury. Actually, he’s not sure he possesses one.

Father Patrick Hennessey lives in a church-run ‘retreat’ in West Sussex. He explains on the phone that this is a sort of retirement placing for priests. ‘People come here for a week or even just for a few days, to recharge their spiritual batteries. I wander around asking them if they want to talk to a priest and, when they say no, I wander off again.’ Nice work if you can get it, thinks Nelson. It is a beautiful May morning, the fields lush and green, the trees heavy with blossom. As he drives past yet another rose-strewn cottage, Nelson reflects how much he prefers this countryside to Norfolk. Everything is contained: a single oak stands in a gated field, flint cottages surround a pond, gentle hills form perfect framing devices for picturesque villages. There is no threatening expanse of sky, none of the windswept desolation that he so dislikes about his adopted county. Even so, you’d need a ton of money to live here. The villages are heavy on antique shops and low on fast-food outlets. He has to weave his way through a slalom of BMWs, Porsches and shiny Land Rovers. Definitely a cushy retirement billet.

‘Can’t stand the place,’ says Father Patrick Hennessey cheerfully, stomping out over the smooth green lawn to shake Nelson heartily by the hand.

The strength of the handshake does not surprise Nelson. He has met priests like this before; burly, red-faced Irishmen who look more like ex-boxers than clerics. Hennessey is elderly, seventies Nelson reckons, and walks with a stick, but he has a definite physical presence, with shoulders as broad as Nelson’s own, a white crew cut and a nose that has clearly been broken several times.

‘Why not?’ asks Nelson as they walk towards a shady seat overlooking the rose garden. ‘Seems a beautiful spot to me.’