A Room Full Of Bones

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Judy. ‘There isn’t going to be any later.’

  Ruth approaches the bed. Nelson lies with his eyes shut, his chin dark with stubble. He has surprisingly long eyelashes, thinks Ruth, as she has thought before. A wire extends from a clip on his finger and a nurse is fiddling with a blood pressure cuff. She looks up.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t bring the baby in here.’

  ‘Just for a minute,’ pleads Ruth. ‘She’s his daughter.’

  The nurse looks at her sceptically, obviously remembering Michelle, and Nelson’s other, older, daughters. At that moment, Nelson opens his eyes.

  ‘Hi Ruth.’

  ‘Hi Nelson.’

  ‘Is that Katie?’

  Ruth holds the baby up so he can see her. Kate claps her hands and, right on cue, announces, ‘Dada.’

  ‘Just for a few minutes then,’ says the nurse. Nelson’s eyes are full of tears. ‘She called me Dad.’

  Ruth doesn’t tell him that Kate has said it to every male within a twenty-mile radius. She is perilously close to tears herself.

  ‘How are you?’

  Nelson frowns. ‘I don’t know. Last thing I remember we were driving home from Brighton.’

  ‘You’ve been in a coma. Everyone’s been worried sick.’

  ‘Michelle told me.’

  ‘She’s been incredible,’ says Ruth softly. ‘She’s hardly left your side.’

  ‘I know,’ says Nelson. ‘The nurses say she willed me back to life.’

  ‘Do they know what was wrong with you?’

  ‘No. I’m a medical miracle.’ He closes his eyes.

  ‘Are you still feeling bad?’ Ruth looks around nervously for a nurse but they are all standing by the door talking about The X Factor.

  ‘A bit odd. I had all these weird dreams. Cathbad was in them.’

  ‘Cathbad?’

  Ruth must have spoken sharply because Kate, fretful after her early start, begins to cry. Ruth tries to distract her with her black cat key-ring. The nurses are looking over now.

  Nelson is gazing at Kate. ‘She’s got so big.’

  ‘She can say sixteen words.’

  ‘That’s more than me.’

  They smile at each other and suddenly the atmosphere becomes charged with something more than goodwill. Ruth looks at Nelson’s hair, now quite grey around the temples. She has an insane desire to stroke it.

  Suddenly, though, sexual attraction is blown away as if by a whirlwind. A large woman wearing a purple coat erupts into the ward.

  ‘Harry! How’s my boy?’

  Nelson winces. ‘Hallo Mum.’

  Maureen Nelson advances on her son, her black eyes taking in every detail of his appearance and that of the ward. ‘You should have water by your bed,’ she says. ‘It’s a basic human right.’

  ‘I’m OK, Mum.’

  ‘OK? Michelle says you nearly died. She’s been out of her mind with worry. How could you do this to her?’

  ‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ says Nelson, rather sulkily.

  Maureen’s laser-beam gaze now takes in Ruth and Kate, who is chewing furiously at the key-ring.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘This is Ruth. A… a friend.’

  ‘What a lovely baby,’ says Maureen. She pronounces it ‘babby’. She has a distinct Irish accent, something Ruth did not expect.

  ‘Better take the baby home,’ says Maureen, settling herself at Nelson’s bedside. ‘These places are full of germs, you know.’

  CHAPTER 31

  Ruth doesn’t want to go home. She rings Sandra to say she won’t be bringing Kate in today, then she and Kate have breakfast in the hospital canteen, a dreamlike world of patients with drips attached and nurses coming off the nightshift. Ruth drinks black coffee and consumes eggs and bacon, Kate eats a piece of toast. Then Ruth drives to the university, taking Kate with her. She finds the place in uproar.

  The science buildings have been sealed off and the grounds are full of students and lecturers standing around looking scared and intrigued in equal measure. Ruth hears talk of parcel bombs, of anthrax spores, of masked men scaling the walls at night. The students are all on their phones, updating their Facebook statuses. Bomb scare at the uni!!!

  Phil, who is sitting under a tree eating a banana, tells Ruth a different story.

  ‘A snake?’

  Ruth’s head feels like Medusa’s, swarming with snakes. She thinks of Bob Woonunga. The Snake’s my tribal emblem. She thinks of the poems about the Rainbow Serpent, of the stone grass-snake crushed under Bishop Augustine’s foot.

  ‘An adder, apparently,’ says Phil. ‘Just posted in a padded envelope. They think some animal rights group sent it.’

  Kate points at the banana. ‘Want.’ Phil laughs and breaks off a piece. He is in high spirits and seems completely recovered from yesterday’s flu. Ruth is rather embarrassed by Kate’s forceful tendencies but impressed at her success with Phil. Ruth has never once succeeded in making her own wishes so clear to her head of department.

  ‘You’ll never guess who it was addressed to,’ says Phil.

  The awful thing is that Ruth thinks she can guess.

  ‘Not Cathbad?’

  ‘Yes. The police have been trying to trace him all morning. Have you any idea where he is?’

  ‘No,’ says Ruth. She has no intention of telling Phil that Cathbad is currently in her spare room, sleeping off a drugs trip. ‘I expect he’ll turn up.’

  ‘He always does, doesn’t he?’ says Phil, standing up and brushing grass from his trousers. ‘Looks as if they’ve opened the doors at last.’

  Lectures have been cancelled so Ruth takes Kate up to her office to collect some exam scripts. She has so far resisted the temptation to bring her daughter into the university. When Kate was born there were numerous invitations from female members of staff (and from Phil, of course) but Ruth had been wary about letting the two sides of her life overlap. But now, watching Kate toddle around her office, pulling books from the shelves, it feels oddly right to have her here. Because, whether she likes it or not, Ruth is both things now, archaeologist and mother. She smiles, moving a flint hand-axe out of Kate’s reach.

  Debbie, the department secretary, offers to take Kate to the canteen. Ruth privately feels that Kate has had enough stimulation for one day but everyone is being so nice that she can’t refuse. There’s a febrile, unreal atmosphere about the university today. No one is doing any work; they are all just standing around talking about the poisonous snakes and parcel bombs. Elderly professors whom Ruth hasn’t seen for years have crawled out of the woodwork to enjoy pleasurable discussions about death, murder and mayhem. Phil is in his element, pressing shoulders reassuringly and talking about his contacts in the police force.

  After Debbie has disappeared, carrying a thoroughly over-excited Kate, Ruth rifles through her desk collecting scripts and lecture notes. There, under a dissertation on Syphilis, Yaws and Diseases in Dry Bones, Ruth finds an article on Bishop Augustine, sent to her by Janet Meadows. She glances at the first lines and instantly is transported back to that Halloween afternoon: the empty room, the open window, the pages turning in the breeze.

  She picks up her phone. ‘Hallo,’ she says. ‘It’s Ruth Galloway. Could we meet up? Yes, that would be fine.’

  Ruth drives to a park in the centre of King’s Lynn, called The Walks. It’s very old and contains a fifteenth-century chapel, said to be haunted. There’s also a children’s playground and a river with ducks on it. It’s a bright afternoon so there are a few people wandering about, the sort of people who don’t have to be at work at two in the afternoon. Pensioners, mothers with pre-school children, a bird-watcher whom Ruth eyes with distrust. Predictably, Kate ignores the more picturesque birds in favour of staggering about after a mangy pigeon and is soon joined by two other yelling toddlers. Ruth watches them with pleasure, until it becomes too cold to stand still and she persuades Kate to move on. They pass Red Mount Chapel, a strange hexag
onal building said to contain a relic of the Virgin Mary. Ruth thinks of Bishop Augustine and her visions. Really, religion is so strange – virgin births, the devil disguised as a snake, bread turning into flesh – if you believe all that you can believe anything. And maybe that’s the attraction.

  They cross the bridge and walk, through streets that become increasingly less green and pleasant, to the Smith Museum. To Ruth’s surprise, a woman is by the front steps, sweeping up leaves. Getting closer she sees that it’s Caroline Smith. She doesn’t think that Caroline will recognise her, but in answer to Ruth’s hesitant hallo, the other woman says, ‘It’s Ruth, isn’t it? Cathbad’s friend?’

  Ruth cautiously admits that she’s Cathbad’s friend.

  ‘Have you heard?’ asks Caroline, pushing her dark hair back behind her ears. She seems very friendly, almost manic.

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘The skulls are going back,’ says Caroline. ‘Randolph agreed last night. We’re going to have a repatriation ceremony. It’ll be wonderful. Bob’s here now.’

  Ruth doesn’t quite know how she feels about seeing Bob. She doesn’t believe that Bob was responsible for Lord Smith’s death and Nelson’s illness but, all the same, thinking of the mysterious figure in her garden last night, she still doesn’t quite trust him. She remembers his face when he told her about the fate of the man with a skull on his mantelpiece. He’s dead now. The ancestors are powerful.

  ‘You must be pleased about the skulls,’ she says to Caroline.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Caroline grins at her. ‘The wrong will be righted. Mother Earth will be satisfied. Everything will be all right now.’

  Ruth thinks of Mother Julian’s adage: All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. Why is it so hard to believe this?

  ‘What’s going to happen to the museum?’ she asks.

  ‘Oh, I’m going to manage it,’ says Caroline, with another wide smile. ‘I’ve got great plans. It’ll be a different place.’

  ‘What about the stables?’

  ‘Well, after that drugs business…’

  ‘What drugs business?’ Ruth wants to scream, but she carries on standing there smiling, holding Kate by the hand. There’s too much going on here that she doesn’t understand.

  Caroline switches the smile back on. ‘If the stables stay in business, Randolph will be in charge. It’s what he’s always wanted. He’s a genius with horses. And I’m going to make the museum a real success. We’re going to have proper local history exhibitions starting with “Augustine: the first woman bishop.”

  ‘Sounds great,’ says Ruth. ‘I’m meeting someone. Is it OK to go inside?’

  ‘Of course! She’s waiting for you.’

  The museum seems deserted but benign in the afternoon light. There’s a room by the entrance lobby which Ruth hadn’t noticed before but which is full of butterflies, impaled upon pins and labelled with spidery Victorian writing. Kate loves the butterflies but her real enthusiasm is reserved for the stuffed animals. She runs delightedly from case to case shouting ‘Fox!’ ‘Dog!’ ‘Cat!’ Her range of animals may be limited but her enjoyment is not. Ruth finds herself looking at them all, even the murderous gulls, with a kinder eye.

  Eventually Kate allows herself to be led through the study of Lord Percival Smith (‘Man!’) and into the long gallery. In the Local History Room, Janet Meadows is looking out of the window.

  ‘Hallo Ruth,’ says Janet.

  ‘Hi. Thanks for meeting me.’

  ‘No problem. Is this your little girl?’

  ‘Yes, this is Kate.’

  ‘Hallo Kate.’

  ‘Fox,’ says Kate.

  Ruth looks at Janet and remembers her comment when Ruth had remarked flippantly that Augustine’s snake didn’t look very terrifying:

  He’d subdued it. Evil has been defeated. He was a great saint.

  She thinks of the room as she saw it that day: coffin, guidebook, grass snake and a single shoe.

  ‘You were here, weren’t you,’ she says, ‘the day Neil was found dead.’

  Janet suddenly looks wary. ‘I told you I was. I came to see the opening of the coffin but the place was closed off.’

  ‘But you came earlier, didn’t you? You put the snake in here and a single shoe, to remind people about Augustine.’

  Janet either brought a spare pair of shoes or she walked home barefoot. Ruth bets on the latter. Janet would have walked barefoot to emulate the man she called a ‘great saint’.

  ‘They had no right to desecrate his grave,’ says Janet. ‘He… she didn’t want anyone to open the coffin. That’s why it was buried where it was. So I put a snake there, a grass snake in a glass case, to remind them of Augustine’s warning. The shoe too. It was one of Jan’s shoes…’ For a second Ruth wonders who Jan is but then she remembers. Jan is, or was, Janet. Her old self, Jan Tomaschewski. ‘I dressed as Jan too,’ Janet is saying now, ‘in one of my old suits. The museum was deserted. I got the snake from the Natural History Room and carried it in here. The coffin was on a trestle in the middle of the room – open.’

  ‘Open?’

  ‘Yes, slightly open. I think the curator must have prised it open. I could hear him moving about in his office. So I put the snake and the shoe on the floor. I left the guidebook too, with a few words highlighted, just as a warning. Then I heard someone coming so I climbed out of the window. I don’t think anyone saw me and, if they did, they saw a man in a suit and a hat. Not a woman.’ She turns and does a mock twirl.

  It must have been only seconds later that I came in and found Neil Topham dead, or nearly dead, thinks Ruth. Why on earth had he opened the coffin? But it was closed when she saw it. She remembers how easy it was for Phil to prise up the nails, far easier than it should have been. The coffin had already been opened, just days before.

  Why would Neil open the coffin?’ asks Ruth.

  Janet shrugs. ‘Search me. Perhaps he just wanted a look. Perhaps he just got impatient. Either way, it did for him, poor guy. Bishop Augustine had his – her – revenge.’

  By afternoon Nelson is well enough to be moved to another ward. He enjoys the trip. It’s good to see a different view and, as the porters seem determined to take the longest route possible, he gets to see quite a lot of the hospital. Also, the move gave him an excuse to suggest to his mother that she go back to his house and get some rest. She agreed reluctantly, saying that she’d be back in the evening with a proper meal for him. ‘The muck they serve in these places is enough to kill you, so it is.’ As Michelle has also promised to bring him some food, Nelson foresees a clash of wills over the shepherd’s pie. Perhaps Michelle will be so tired that she’ll be happy to let Maureen do the honours. She’s good with his mum. Better than he is, anyway.

  The new ward is much more relaxed. Nelson’s bed is by the window and the nurses’ station is right at the other end of the room. He guesses, correctly, that this means that he is considered to be out of danger. His recovery really has been remarkable. He has been able to eat, drink and have a pee – the three measures of achievement in a patient. No one really knows why he has got better so quickly or what was wrong with him in the first place. ‘Last night we thought you were a goner,’ one of the doctors tells him cheerfully. Nelson smiles faintly. He likes a near-death experience as much as the next man but it worries him that so much could have happened while he was out of the picture, asleep, unconscious. He has thought about the prospect of death, all policemen have, but he’d always thought that he’d have a leading role in the drama: negotiating the release of hostages, foiling a terrorist plot, saving children from a burning house. He never thought, when the Grim Reaper came knocking, that he’d be fast asleep.

  Nelson’s first visitor of the afternoon is Clough. He comes bearing a bunch of flowers which he is told to leave in the lobby ‘due to health and safety regulations’. Nelson doesn’t know where to look. Cloughie bringing him flowers! He’ll be making him a friendship bracelet next. Still,
he appreciates the chance to catch up. Clough tells him all about Operation Octopus, dwelling on his own heroism, and Nelson is suitably impressed. He always knew that there was something funny about the stables but he never thought that it would turn out to be the centre of an international drugs ring. That was smart detective work from Judy. Less smart, of course, to go skipping off in the middle of the night, alone, as a result of a text message. She was lucky that the whole thing turned out so well. Nelson particularly enjoys the bit about The Necromancer and the horse walker.

  ‘Honestly, boss, he was as big as an elephant. And his teeth! He attacked me but I managed to hold him off. I’m pretty strong when I’m roused. Bastard took a chunk out of my leg though. Do you want a look?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘I think Johnson was pretty shaken by the whole thing.’

  ‘I bet she was.’

  ‘Some people thought I should have been put in charge but I don’t know…’ Clough trails off modestly. Nelson says nothing, though he would have put Clough in charge. Judy may be the better detective but Clough is senior and that counts for something. Nelson is a great believer in fairness; it comes of being the youngest of three.

  No sooner has Clough disappeared through the swing doors than another figure appears, a figure wearing a rather crumpled purple cloak.

  ‘Hallo Cathbad.’

  ‘Hi Nelson. You’re looking better.’

  ‘You didn’t see me when I was ill. At death’s door I was, wasn’t I love?’ Nelson appeals to a passing nurse.

  ‘So I hear,’ she says, straightening his sheet. ‘They’d given him up for dead in ICU.’

  ‘Quite an experience,’ says Cathbad, when the nurse has gone.

  ‘I can’t remember any of it,’ says Nelson. ‘I had these weird dreams though. You were in some of them.’

  ‘I know,’ says Cathbad.

  ‘What do you mean you know?’ says Nelson. He’d forgotten how infuriating Cathbad could be.

  Cathbad leans forward. He looks tired, Nelson realises, and rather unhappy, but still has plenty of his old force.

  ‘I know what was wrong with you, Nelson. You were cursed. You got in the way of a curse meant for Danforth Smith. It killed him but you were too strong for it. You were lost in the Dreaming, between life and death. So I came to rescue you.’