A Book of Bones

by John Connolly

“Where were you, and what were you doing, on the night Romana Moon died?”

  Calley laughed.

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “I could be overly dramatic and tell you that everybody is a suspect,” said Hynes, “but it would make me sound like a detective in a film.”

  He smiled, but Calley noticed that he was standing slightly in front of the door, so she couldn’t slip by him if she did decide to take offense and attempt to storm off.

  “I’ve never been a suspect before,” she said. “It feels quite… exotic.”

  Hynes was tired of her now, and also slightly ashamed at himself for the way he’d handled her, even if it had produced results. Gackowska wouldn’t be happy at being excluded, either, and if Calley did decide to prove difficult at some future date, the unorthodox nature of their discussion over cigarettes wouldn’t reflect well on Hynes.

  “Romana Moon’s throat was cut,” he said. “And that was after whoever killed her worked his—or her—way up to it by stabbing her in the upper body. She died in a lot of pain before her remains were dumped on a moor. That doesn’t strike me as very exotic.”

  If Calley reacted at all to this, it was only with disappointment, as though she’d expected more of Hynes.

  “Now you do sound like a detective in a film,” she said. “Was that supposed to make me feel bad?”

  “It was a reminder of why we’re here.”

  “And we were getting on so well.” She took in the grim buildings around her, and the uneven, pitted playing fields. “I hate this place. Romana would have ended up hating it, too. I wish she’d had the chance.”

  The ambiguity of that final statement didn’t pass Hynes by.

  “As for where I was on the night she died,” said Calley, “I was at home. I have the ground floor in a shared two-story house in Redcar. I own the property. It used to be my parents’, and I inherited it when they died. A couple, Tom and Ione Newton, rent the top floor. Their daughter was ill on the night in question—she’s only little, and has a lung condition—and they had to take her to the hospital. That was shortly after eleven, I think, because I’d just watched a movie on Sky, which started at nine. When I heard the commotion on the stairs, I went out to see what was the matter, and spoke to the Newtons. I was wearing my dressing gown and slippers, because I always change into my nightclothes if I don’t have to go out in the evening. I heard them come back shortly after two in the morning. I had to go to the loo anyway, so I stepped out to ask after their kid. I have telephone numbers for both of the Newtons, if you want to check with them.”

  Hynes made a note of the names, and took the numbers from Calley as she read them out from her phone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, when she was done. “I shouldn’t have been so flippant. This is all unfamiliar to me.”

  “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t,” said Hynes. “And we’re grateful for your help.”

  “I’ll find the boys’ addresses for you, and return with them.”

  Hynes thanked Calley, and escorted her back inside. He watched her walk away, and tried to remember when last he’d met such an unhappy human being. A bell sounded, signaling the end of class, and he returned to the library before the corridors were swamped with kids. Inside, Gac-

  kowska was already halfway through a small Philip Pullman hardback entitled Lyra’s Oxford.

  “So,” she said, barely glancing up from its pages, “when are you two moving in together?”

  “Maybe when the missus passes away,” said Hynes. “Well, her and every other woman on the planet.”

  He shared with Gackowska all that Calley had told him, concluding with one final observation.

  “She tended to refer to Ryan Clifton by his last name,” said Hynes, “and just once or twice used his first name, but Holmby was either ‘Karl Holmby’ or just ‘Karl.’ ”

  “You think she likes him?”

  “Maybe enough to envy Romana Moon, whether Romana was really having an affair with Holmby or not.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him,” said Gackowska.

  “Neither can I,” said Hynes, “although perhaps for different reasons.”

  He ducked just in time to avoid being hit by a flying copy of Lyra’s Oxford.

  CHAPTER XLVIII

  At Worcester Cathedral, Sellars reached out a hand toward the carving of the Green Man, and time ceased to be of consequence. Then and now became one, so that he was both standing in an English cloister and lying on the cold stones of the Familist chapel in Prosperous, listening to faint disturbances from belowground. He thought that if one might have been permitted to hear the roots of a tree growing, the work of many years compressed into only a few moments, it would have sounded not unlike what he was hearing. He had a vision of a great dark organism concealed beneath the chapel, its branches forever reaching, seeking to devour.

  “Do you hear it?” Warraner asked.

  “Yes,” said Sellars, but the word caught in his throat, and he realized he was sobbing. He did not share all of the Familists’ beliefs—and by then he had met Mors, and knew there were greater deities than his—but in this ancient place of worship, he had at last found confirmation of his faith.

  “And do you see it?”

  “I think so. If I close my eyes, I see branches, so many branches. Branches like roots.”

  “And the fruit?”

  This, too, Sellars discerned, because the limbs of the great tree were adorned with the withered remains of the dead: women and girls, for the most part, and some males, though only children. A tree must be fed, and great old trees have great old appetites. For centuries, Prosperous had survived, indeed flourished, by tending the tree, acquiescing to its needs, and so the dead became part of it, and decorated its boughs.

  “Yes,” said Sellars. “And it is beautiful.”

  * * *

  HE WOULD HAVE STAYED longer with Warraner had Lauren not been waiting for him. He might have spent days, even weeks, in Prosperous, and never tired of it. He had barely passed an hour in the chapel, yet already he was “bowing down to the Green Man,” to use Warraner’s words.

  “If you stayed, you’d be lost to it,” said Warraner as they left the church behind them, and Sellars thought he detected just a hint of regret to the pastor’s voice.

  “Are you lost to it?” Sellars asked.

  “My family has always tended the chapel. It is our duty. We undertake it willingly, and we are not entirely alone. We have the board of selectmen to assist us, if needs be, and Morland, the chief of police, plays his part. At the same time, generations have lived and died in Prosperous without ever really understanding what it is that keeps their families in comfort and safety, or why they are so reluctant to leave the town for new lives elsewhere. It is the Green Man. We are his children, whether we know it or not. So, in answer to your question, we are all lost to it.”

  Warraner dropped Sellars off at the same corner, and the visitor returned to his wife inexpressibly altered. She detected the change almost as soon as they got in the car and began driving west again.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, after fifteen minutes had passed in uneasy silence.

  “No, I just liked Prosperous.”

  “Do you want to move there?” she joked.

  Sellars considered this for so long that Lauren began to grow concerned he might be giving serious consideration to the possibility. Had she asked him that question while they were in the coffee shop, or walking back to the car, he might have answered differently, but the more distance they put between themselves and Prosperous, the more its allure diminished.

  “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “These small towns, they close in on you.”

  * * *

  BACK IN WORCESTER, BACK in the cathedral.

  Prosperous was different now. Sellars wasn’t privy to all of the details, but some falling-out between the selectmen had ended in bloodshed, and a failed attempt to neutralize a private detective named Parker had resul
ted in the destruction of the shrine. Warraner was gone, and Morland, too. Sellars did not know what had become of the entity that dwelt in, and under, the chapel, but he supposed it to be no more. It must have been part of the building, its essence lodged deep in its stones, because it had traveled with the church when the blocks were transported across the Atlantic. Now that the building was only so much rubble, and those that had kept its spirit nourished were scattered or dead, the great tree below the ground had probably withered away and died.

  But it was only a single manifestation of an older, greater life force, one that had its origin back in Northumberland. In Prosperous, Sellars had been mistaken in accepting it as a lesser deity, a being inferior to the ones Mors referred to as the Not-Gods. It was different from them, that was all; its reality was as much physical as spiritual, and its appetites and desires mirrored those of the men and women who worshipped it. It blessed the land, and those that worked the fields. It gave life to many, and asked only for the lives of a few in return.

  Sellars wondered if, even as he left the chapel in Prosperous behind, Warraner was aware that the visitor had already fallen under its spell, just like the preacher himself. Perhaps that had been the Green Man’s intention all along, ever since that first encounter at Worcester. It had called Sellars to Prosperous so that he might be convinced of the truth of its existence, and thus be transformed. The Green Man had chosen him and, in a voice like dry leaves a-rustling, had entrusted itself to his care.

  Sellars left the carving to return to the main body of the cathedral, where he took a seat and waited. Some residue of the Old God, the God of crucified sons, of doves and saints, was present here, but it was faint, like the smell left by the dying in their final days, and so did not disturb him.

  Finally, a woman took the seat beside him, the pungency of her odor overpowering all else. He turned to look at her.

  “What,” said Pallida Mors, “went wrong?”

  CHAPTER XLIX

  Priestman spent an hour on the phone with detectives from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, and the London Metropolitan Police, discussing Helen Wylie, the young Londoner whose remains had been discovered in the grounds of the Church of St. Martin in Canterbury just over a week earlier. Wylie had been killed with a serrated knife, a single savage wound that had opened her vertically from her abdomen to her chest. But if neither the weapon nor the cause of death was identical to those in the Romana Moon case, the presence of misbaha linked both victims. Already Priestman had arranged for the ongoing exchange of all relevant information between the two forces, in addition to whatever was inputted to HOLMES2, the IT system used by UK police forces to collate information on serious incidents. For now, Priestman and her superiors concurred with the decision of Kent and Essex not to make public the detail of the misbaha. Priestman was also pleased to be remaining in overall control of the investigation in Northumbria, aided in part by two vacancies at detective chief inspector level. Effectively, she had been informed, she was now acting DCI, with the small print to be worked out later. Romana Moon was to be her primary focus, and everything else on her desk should be set aside or redistributed as she saw fit.

  Unfortunately, Nabih Uddin had no good news for Priestman about the prayer beads found lodged in Romana Moon’s throat. An initial check revealed that this particular example retailed for the grand sum of £2.99, and was available in three out of the five stores and mosques that Uddin and the Muslim officers assigned to him had visited so far that day. Similar beads were also sold through eBay and Amazon, although a single wholesaler—TaroBass Limited, based in Walsall—was responsible for their distribution throughout the United Kingdom.

  “I called TaroBass,” Uddin told Priestman, “and spoke to Jahan Badi, their head of sales. He says that the beads are acrylic, and imported from Zhejiang, China. They cost just a few pence each to manufacture. He couldn’t say for certain how many sets they sell each year, but he reckons it’s in the low to mid five figures.”

  “Let’s continue asking, just in case,” she said.

  Priestman wasn’t entirely surprised to learn that the beads were less than unique, but it was still disappointing. Examination of them had revealed no trace of fingerprints. They were waiting to find out if they contained any DNA other than Romana Moon’s, but Priestman wasn’t holding out much hope. In the meantime, she’d added a photograph of the misbaha found in Helen Wylie’s mouth to the accumulating array of evidence. It looked more ornate than the Hexhamshire set, although Uddin expressed the opinion that the Canterbury misbaha still probably hadn’t cost more than a fiver.

  Priestman hated this. The beads were the worst kind of complicating factor, and, at some point, the fact of their existence would have to be revealed, if someone didn’t leak it to the press first. With luck, the presence of the misbaha would only become public after they’d made an arrest, or during the trial. Either way, the police would be forced to weather a storm of criticism for not disclosing it earlier, but the ferocity would be greater if the killer turned out to be Muslim.

  And that possibility had to be considered. Hynes had already been in contact with Romana’s parents and ex-boyfriend to establish whether Romana had Muslim friends, or even enemies, but none of them could think of any. He’d done his best to muddy the waters slightly by asking about Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Bahá’ís as well, since they also used prayer beads, although Nabih had assured him that the kind found in Romana Moon’s throat was definitely a misbaha because of the number of orbs on the string. Obviously, Romana’s family wanted to know why Hynes was asking about religious types, but he told them he wasn’t at liberty to discuss procedural details at the present time, whatever that might mean. He’d also made it clear to the Moons, and to Simon Harris, that they were not to share with friends or others outside the immediate family any discussions with police on the progress of the investigation, for fear of jeopardizing it. All three assured Hynes that they’d remain silent, but Priestman still feared it wouldn’t be long before a journalist or blogger learned that the police were investigating a possible Muslim connection.

  Uddin went on his way, just in time for Priestman to take a call from Hynes himself.

  “We might have something,” said Hynes, and told her of Elspeth Calley’s suspicions about Romana Moon and Karl Holmby.

  “What do you think?” said Priestman, when he’d finished speaking. “You’ve met Ryan Clifton—and Elspeth Calley—while I haven’t.”

  “Calley’s sour as a bag of lemons, but I don’t see why she’d lie about what Clifton said to her. As for him, he’s a little shit. If I stepped in him, I’d throw away my shoe. We’re still at the school. Calley’s going to give us addresses for Holmby and Clifton, but we still have a couple more interviews to do before we leave.”

  The Holmby information was interesting, but tainted slightly by Hynes’s sense that Elspeth Calley was ambivalent at best about Romana Moon.

  “Do you think Calley was troubled enough by her to do something about it?” Priestman said.

  “We’ll check her alibi for the evening, but I’m pretty sure we won’t find she’s been lying. If Calley did want Romana Moon dead, she found someone else to do it for her. My gut feeling is that she limits her assassinations to character.”

  Priestman finished making notes. “We still need to establish if Romana might have argued with any of her Muslim students or their families,” she said.

  “I didn’t want to ask Calley directly,” said Hynes. “She’s too sharp. I kept it general, but if Romana did have any problems of that sort, I imagine Calley would have mentioned them. Still, there are a couple of Muslim teachers on the staff here. Might not hurt to have Nabih do a follow-up, just in case.”

  Hynes promised to call Priestman back once he and Gackowska were finished with the last of the school staff, but they agreed that Ryan Clifton and Karl Holmby would have to be interviewed separately but simultaneously, to prevent one from warning the other that the pol
ice were asking questions. Priestman was about to hang up when Hynes asked her to hold on for a moment, and she heard voices, one of them Hynes’s, the other female and unfamiliar.

  Hynes came back on the phone.

  “That was Calley,” he said, “with addresses for Ryan Clifton and Karl Holmby. She also confirmed Holmby’s course of study at Teesside. You’re going to love this. He’s a first-year student of forensic science.”

  CHAPTER L

  Marcus Godwin wasn’t found until four hours after he’d collapsed against the wall of St. Mary’s, Deerhurst, and then only because a resident of one of the neighboring houses chose to take a shortcut to the village by way of the cemetery. By the time he was discovered, it had been raining steadily for some time, and Godwin was very cold and wet. He was taken to Gloucester Royal Hospital, but he had only recently recovered from a bout of pneumonia, and exposure to the elements brought on a renewed attack. His condition deteriorated overnight and throughout the following day, to such an extent that his older daughter began sleeping by his bed, and his son traveled up from Cornwall, just in case the worst came to worst.

  Godwin regained consciousness in dimness. He stayed very still for a few moments before glancing to his left, where his daughter sat dozing in a chair, a blanket over her body and a pillow at her head. He called her name, but his throat was dry and the word was barely audible, even to himself.

  “Alyce,” he whispered. “Alyce.”

  She did not move, and Godwin returned his attention to the figure in the upper right-hand corner of the room. It resembled one of the Saxon beast heads from Deerhurst, carved from ancient stone yet now apparently emerging from the white-painted surroundings of his hospital suite. As he watched, another appeared in the opposite corner, and the paint on the walls began to blister and flake, falling to the floor like the sloughed flakes of an old skin. Revealed by the disintegration were rough-hewn blocks. As more paint vanished, further blocks began to show, and the temperature in the room fell so rapidly that Godwin could see his breath clouding before him.