The Janus Stone

She is ushered into the room with the ultrasound. They are running late as usual and she begins to worry that she won’t get to the site for eleven thirty. The technician rubs gel onto her stomach and, miraculously soon, there are the grey, cloudy insides of her womb. Ruth leans forward.

‘There’s the baby’s legs. Long legs.’ The technician presses some buttons. ‘There’s a good one of the face.’ Ruth looks and sees only overlapping shapes, like a Cubist painting. The technician points, ‘There’s the nose.’ And then Ruth sees an actual profile: forehead, tiny nose, lips, chin. She even thinks she can discern an expression, stern and serious.

‘Do you want to know the sex?’ asks the technician.

Ruth is surprised quite how much she does want to know. Somehow her relationship with this creature, this person, has become such that she can’t not know.

‘Oh… yes please.’

The technician points. ‘We can never be one hundred per cent certain but I’m pretty sure it’s a girl.’

Ruth stares. ‘A girl?’

‘Well, sometimes the tackle’s hidden, if you know what I mean, but we’re getting a pretty good full-frontal here. I think you’ve got a girl.’

A girl. A daughter.

Nelson is having a trying morning. Clough seems to be taking a hell of a long time at the museum. Probably stuffing his face at the café. Or maybe he’s met up with Trace and they’re having a cosy chat about the Romans. Then Roderick Spens arrives, all confused charm and long stories, and has to be coaxed through the testing routine. Judy would have handled it better, thinks Nelson, watching as Tanya tries to shepherd the old man out of the office. Firm but polite, that’s what you need to be. But he’s never been that good at the touchy-feely stuff himself.

Then, to cap it all, Whitcliffe pays him a visit.

‘Morning, Harry. Just popped in to see how the Woolmarket Street case was progressing. Had a call from Edward Spens. Seems he’s a bit worried about his old dad being involved.’

Typical, thinks Nelson. Edward Spens is just the sort of man to complain to the boss. The warmer feelings engendered by Spens’ kindness to his father are quickly dispelled.

‘Sir Roderick’s here now,’ he says. He has a feeling Whitcliffe already knows this. ‘We’re seeing if there’s a DNA match with the body. One of my WPCs is looking after him.’

‘Is it likely there’ll be a match?’

Nelson explains about Annabelle Spens but Whitcliffe still looks dubious. ‘Clutching at straws a bit, aren’t you, Harry?’

‘Perhaps.’ Whitcliffe calls Nelson Harry but there is no way that Nelson can call him Gerry. He’s not about to call him ‘sir’ though.

Whitcliffe is about to say something but Nelson’s phone suddenly buzzes with a text message. Nelson picks it up. ‘Excuse me.’

The message is from Ruth. Three words. ‘It’s a girl!’

Nelson stares. In the background Whitcliffe is droning on. ‘Important local businessman… relations with the wider public… care and respect for the elderly…’ But Nelson can only think about Ruth’s text. A girl. Another daughter. He can hardly believe it. Ruth had been so sure she was having a boy and, somehow, he had believed it too. Michelle is so ultra-feminine it had always seemed impossible that she could give birth to a male. But Ruth, tough and independent, he had been sure that she would have a son. Another daughter. Well, he needs no practice in loving a daughter.

‘Harry?’

‘Yes. Yes. Of course. Consider it done.’

Whitcliffe looks at him curiously and Nelson wonders what he is agreeing to. But the answer seems to please his boss who swaggers out of the office in high good humour.

As soon as the door has closed behind him, Nelson rings Ruth. ‘Ruth! Is this true?’

She laughs. ‘Apparently so. We’re having a girl.’

‘But you were so sure it was a boy.’

To Nelson’s irritation, he sees that Sir Roderick Spens has wandered in, closely followed by Tanya. Nelson waves a hand for them to leave.

‘I know but the radiographer was pretty certain.’

‘Another girl. My God.’

‘Are you pleased?’

He laughs. Of course he isn’t pleased, Ruth’s pregnancy could be about to blow his marriage sky-high but, on another level, of course he is pleased. He is delighted.

‘Where are you?’ he asks.

‘On my way to the Woolmarket Street site.’

‘I’ll meet you there.’ He looks at his watch, it is twenty past eleven. ‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

And he rings off before Ruth has a chance to say that she is meeting Max.

The site is busy again. Diggers trundle to and fro and a large skip is blocking the entrance. Max, wearing a hard hat, is standing by the foreman’s hut looking glum.

‘I didn’t think the building work would be so advanced.’

‘I think they’re making up for lost time,’ says Ruth. ‘Nelson says that Edward Spens is desperate to get the work finished.’

‘Typical.’

Ruth looks curiously at Max. ‘Do you know him then?’

‘We were at university together.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, we both read history at Sussex.’

Ruth thinks about the suave figure she met on the site.

It’s hard to connect him to Max but, come to think of it, they must be about the same age.