That’s another worry. Cathbad’s ridiculous naming-day party. It’s tomorrow night and Cathbad seems to have invited half the university. And now Tatjana will be there too. What will she think about a crowd of pagans dancing around the inevitable bonfire? Ruth has never discussed religion with Tatjana. She knows that Tatjana, like Nelson, was brought up as a Catholic, but living through a civil war tends to change people’s perceptions of good and evil. Ruth shivers; she hopes that they can get through these few weeks without ever discussing life or death or any of the points in between. They will have nice, civilised chats about archaeology, admire Kate, drink white wine and visit Norwich Castle. The past does not need to intrude at all.
What the hell is in this box? Old sample bags full of dust and pieces of flint, lecture notes, a model of a Stone Age causewayed enclosure made for the university open day, complete with plastic sheep, a theatre programme (A Little Night Music – when had she ever gone to see that?) and, oh my God, a picture of Ruth, Peter and Erik standing by the henge, as triumphant as if they had made it themselves.
She peers more closely at the photo. Christ, she is wearing a bikini top. She must have been at least three stone lighter then. Erik is in a billowing white shirt that has a faintly druidical feel. Peter is wearing a Chelsea football vest; his face red and sweaty. It had been a hot summer, she remembers. Working in the sun all day had been hard; they all wore hats, Ruth’s a wide-brimmed straw number, Peter’s one of those legionnaire’s caps with a flap at the back, Erik’s a jaunty panama. In the photo Erik is waving his hat, very white against the improbably blue sky. Now Erik is dead and the henge has disappeared, its timbers taken to a nearby museum to be preserved. Cathbad and the other druids had protested violently. ‘They belong to the wind and the sky,’ Ruth remembers Cathbad shouting, his purple cloak flying out behind him as he took his position in the centre of the sacred circle. ‘They are not yours to take, to bury in some soulless museum.’ Erik had sympathised but the university, who was funding the dig, had insisted. And now the timbers lie in an artificially controlled climate behind smoked glass, no longer a henge, just some oddly shaped pieces of wood.
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 Today entitled ‘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.
‘I made enquiries,’ says Eckhart. ‘There was indeed a Home Guard platoon captained by a man of that name. I decided to come to England. For many years I have been planning to write a book about the invasion.’
‘But they didn’t really invade, did they?’ responds Ruth. ‘I mean, I know there were rumours, and there was a film. I saw it with my father. But there was never any evidence.’
‘I believe there was,’ says Eckhart, putting down his cup. ‘But I believe that the evidence was deliberately destroyed.’
‘So you think the Germans came here? To Norfolk?’
Eckhart looks at her. He has very blue eyes, which reminds Ruth of Erik. He says, as if reading from a script: ‘In September 1940, in the village of Crostwick, Norfolk, villagers reported seeing a convoy of army trucks carrying dead German soldiers. Later that same month two bodies were found on the Kent coast between Hythe and St Mary’s Bay. They were identified as German soldiers by their uniforms. The bodies were burned from the waist down.’