A Room Full Of Bones

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘Great,’ says Clough, to general laughter. ‘Might get a tip for the National.’

  ‘The Necromancer,’ says Nelson. ‘He’s got a lot of bone apparently.’

  As Ruth nears her house, she is aware of a strange humming noise on the air. Is it a bird, a low-flying plane, the coastguard’s helicopter? Perhaps it’s a bittern, whose low, booming call she sometimes hears at night. Thinking of birds reminds her of David, her previous next-door neighbour, who was the warden of the marshes. David knew every stick and stone of the Saltmarsh, he could recognise the call of any one of the hundreds of birds that use these wetlands as a pit-stop on their journey south, he could find his way across the treacherous quicksand in the dark and had once saved Ruth’s life. But David has gone, and if there’s a new warden, she hasn’t met them yet. As Ruth gets closer she sees that the sound is coming from Bob Woonunga, who is sitting on the grass in front of his house playing something which, from memories of Rolf Harris, she recognises as a didgeridoo.

  She parks outside her cottage and gets Kate out of her car seat. Kate is now walking. She started at ten months, which is early according to the books. And while Ruth was proud of her daughter for reaching this milestone ahead of time (walking at ten months = first class honours degree from Cambridge), she can’t help thinking that it was easier when she could carry her everywhere. Now Kate struggles to be put down and totters purposefully over to Bob and his didgeridoo. Ruth follows, more reluctantly. Flint, lurking by Ruth’s front door waiting for his dinner, jumps over the fence and is the first to reach their new neighbour, rubbing himself lovingly around his legs.

  ‘Want,’ says Kate, pointing at the didgeridoo. This is one of her new words.

  Bob puts down the long wooden pipe and says, ‘Hallo little neighbour. You were asleep when I met your mum.’ He reaches out and strokes Flint, who arches his back appreciatively. Ruth is shocked at the cat’s infidelity.

  ‘Mum,’ says Kate, putting a hand on the painted wood of the didgeridoo. ‘Mum, mum, mum.’

  ‘Careful Kate,’ says Ruth.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Bob’s smile seems impossibly wide. ‘It’s good to touch things. That’s how we learn, right?’

  Ruth agrees that it is. Touch is an important sense for an archaeologist. She remembers how Erik could tell just by holding a stone tool how it had been made, and what it had been used for. He used to shut his eyes, she remembers, while running his thumb along the sharp edges of a flint. She supposes that one day she’ll stop thinking about Erik.

  ‘Is it hard to play?’ she asks, indicating the didgeridoo.

  ‘Have a go.’ He grins his endless grin again.

  Ruth sits down on the grass and puffs and puffs but all she achieves is a sort of feeble farting noise. Kate laughs delightedly.

  Bob blows again, an undulating, reverberating sound that seems oddly right out here in the wind and sky.

  ‘I’m not an expert on the didge,’ he says, putting the instrument on the ground, ‘but it’s a way of keeping in touch with home.’

  ‘Where is home?’ asks Ruth, settling herself more comfortably. It’s a mild evening and it’s curiously pleasant to be sitting out here on the grass as if it’s summer. The moon is up but it’s still light over the sea, the waves breaking in bands of silver and grey. A pair of geese fly overhead, calling mournfully.

  ‘Our home is in Dreamtime,’ says Bob. Then, laughing, he relents. ‘I’m one of the Noonuccal people from Minjerribah, the islands in the bay. North Stradbroke Island to you.’

  This doesn’t mean very much to Ruth, whose only contact with Australia is a friend who emigrated there and now sends her irritating Christmas cards featuring Santa in swimming trunks. The islands in the bay have an exotic, foreign sound that seems to belong more to the Caribbean than to the land of surf and barbecues and good neighbours becoming good friends.

  ‘I think you know a friend of mine,’ she says. ‘Cathbad.’

  ‘Cathbad. Yes. He’s a brother.’

  ‘A brother?’

  ‘In spirit. We belong to a band of brothers. A group of like-minded people.’

  ‘The Elginists?’

  Bob doesn’t seem surprised. ‘That’s right. We’re committed to the repatriation of our ancestors.’

  ‘Like the skulls at the Smith Museum?’

  A shadow crosses Bob’s face, or maybe it’s just the evening light. The sky seems to have grown much darker in the last few minutes. Kate climbs onto Ruth’s lap and starts pulling her hair experimentally. Flint has wandered away.

  ‘Right. But they’re not just skulls. They’re our ancestors. They need to be returned to their Spirit Land so they can enter the Dreaming.’

  This is more or less what Cathbad had said but it sounds so much more impressive coming from Bob, out here under the darkening sky. Ruth shivers and holds Kate tighter.

  ‘Look out there,’ says Bob. He points over the Saltmarsh. You can’t see the sea any more but you can hear it, a rushing, urgent sound in the twilight. ‘This is sacred land. My people believe that the world was created in the Dreamtime when the spirit ancestors roamed the Earth. This place, it was made by the Great Snake. You can see its shape as it meandered over the land, creating all these little streams and rivers. That’s why I feel at home here. The Snake’s my tribal emblem. We need to take the Old Ones back so they can be at one with the Dreaming. For the Aborigines there’s no life and death, no yesterday and today, it’s all one. We need our ancestors with us so they can be part of the oneness. We can’t leave them to rot in some whitefella’s museum.’ He grins as he says the last bit, perhaps parodying himself, but Ruth doesn’t smile. She is thinking of Cathbad, all those years ago, demanding that the henge stay here, on the Saltmarsh, rather than be taken to a museum. ‘It belongs here,’ he had said, ‘between the earth and the sky.’ No wonder he and Bob are friends.

  ‘Won’t the museum return the… your ancestors?’ she asks, tentatively, thinking that she knows the answer.

  ‘No.’ Bob’s face darkens further. ‘I tell you Ruth, Lord Danforth Smith is a seriously bad man.’

  Nelson sits at his desk, wondering whether it’s time to go home. It’s dark outside and there’s no real need to sit here, going over Chris Stephenson’s report and wondering what’s happening down at the docks. If there’s anything to report he’ll soon hear from Tanya and Tom Henty; he might as well wait in the comfort of his own sitting room. But still he sits in his office, drinking cold coffee and reading about pulmonary haemorrhage. The truth is that he doesn’t want to go home.

  When Nelson had agreed not to see Ruth any more, he and Michelle had fallen into each other’s arms and into bed. It was the most emotional experience of his life. He had felt full of tenderness for Michelle, full of gratitude and remorse. At that moment, he would have promised her anything. But the euphoria hadn’t lasted. Michelle had not seemed able to stop talking about Ruth. ‘What was she like in bed? Was she better than me? What was it like sleeping with someone so fat?’ ‘Don’t,’ Nelson had begged. ‘Can’t we just forget it?’ But that, of course, was impossible. Now, six months later, Michelle fluctuates between tearful intensity (‘Promise you’ll never leave me’) and seeming indifference. Last night she had gone out with some of the girls at work and not returned until midnight. He had rung her several times but her phone was switched off. When she’d finally got in, he’d been sitting up waiting for her. In fact, he’d been wondering whether to call up a squad car. ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested,’ she’d said when he asked where she’d been. She had flounced off upstairs as if he’d been in the wrong, but later, in bed, had sobbed in his arms and asked if he thought she was too old to have another baby. Wondering which wife will be waiting for him at home – the frosty businesswoman or the reproachful angel – he decides to stay on and do some more work. He’ll find out some more about these Elginist people for a start.

  Nelson is bad at technology but can just about manage to use Google. Soon th
e screen is full of pictures of marble horses, grinning skulls, totemic objects. There’s the logo again, the crescent moon with the snake beneath it. The Elginists, he reads, are dedicated to the return of cultural artefacts to their countries of origin. There is a bit about the Elgin Marbles and a whole site dedicated to someone called the Amesbury Archer, a Bronze Age skeleton found near Stonehenge whose return is demanded by a group of druids. Nelson immediately thinks of Cathbad. What had Tom Henty said? That Cathbad had wanted to talk to him about ‘skulls and the unquiet dead’. Could Cathbad be mixed up with these people? It seems only too likely. Nelson, who enjoys what can only be described as a friendship with Cathbad, decides to speak to him as soon as possible.

  But most of the hits come up with the words ‘Aboriginal remains’. The Elginists have been active around the country, demanding the return of Aboriginal relics held in private collections. In some cases, it seems they have been successful, and the internet provides pictures of smiling Aboriginal chiefs in animal-skin cloaks embracing embarrassed-looking museum officials. But there are many reports of collectors refusing to hand over their ill-gotten spoils, of threatening behaviour, bitter recriminations. Nelson can’t see that the police have been involved but he’ll check the files. Could this group, who seem both organised and determined, be involved in Neil Topham’s death?

  ‘Boss?’ Judy Johnson is standing in the doorway.

  ‘I thought you’d gone home,’ says Nelson. ‘You look knackered.’ He realises that this is hardly tactful but Judy does look exhausted, grey-faced and almost shell-shocked.

  ‘I’m going in a minute,’ she says, ‘but I got the report from SOCO on the Smith Museum. There were some fingerprints found at the scene so I thought I’d run them through our database, see if there were any matches.’

  ‘And were there?’

  ‘Just one.’

  She puts a print-out on Nelson’s desk. It informs him that fingerprints found at the scene match the prints of one Michael Malone.

  Michael Malone. Alias Cathbad.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Newmarket pub is on a crossroads leading to King’s Lynn via one fork, Downham Market via the other. Rumour has it that there was once a terrible stagecoach accident at the junction, and even today Danforth Smith’s horses sidle and spook if they pass this way. Stories of spectral carriages and ghostly horses are almost certainly unsubstantiated but, nevertheless, there is something unsettling about the location of the pub, backed by woodland, dense and inhospitable, and the only other building in sight is a deserted garage, with rusty Esso signs that creak in the wind. Despite these drawbacks, the pub is the watering hole of choice for the staff of Slaughter Hill Racing Stables and tonight, Karaoke night, it is full to bursting. Caroline Smith and her friend Trace have just left the microphone to tumultuous applause following a spirited rendering of I Will Survive. They give way to four stable lads who share a love of Queen’s oeuvre and an almost total lack of musical talent.

  ‘What will it be this time,’ wonders Trace, as they fight their way to the bar, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody or We Will Rock You?’

  ‘I’ve got an awful feeling about Radio Gaga,’ says Caroline, pushing her damp hair back from her face. ‘We haven’t heard that for a while.’

  But the quartet surprise them with We Are The Champions. Caroline and Trace escape with their beers to a relatively quiet corner of the pub.

  ‘We had a policeman round our place today,’ says Caroline. ‘Called Nelson. Do you know him?’

  Although Trace, in her leather trousers and artfully ripped top, hardly looks like the sort of person who would be on cordial terms with the police, she is going out with Dave Clough and so is regarded as an expert on King’s Lynn’s finest.

  ‘Yeah, I know him. He’s Dave’s boss. Dave thinks a lot of him but he’s always seemed a bit of a Neanderthal to me. What did he want?’

  ‘I don’t know. He wanted to see Dad. I thought it might be about that thing at the museum.’

  ‘To do with the bishop’s coffin?’ Trace is part of the field archaeology team who first discovered Bishop Augustine.

  ‘Yes. You know the curator dropped down dead?’

  ‘I’d heard. Why are the police investigating? Do they think he was bumped off?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought you might know.’

  Trace shakes her head. ‘I try not to let Dave talk too much shop. If I wanted to know about police stuff, I’d watch CSI Miami. Much more interesting.’

  Caroline laughs. ‘This Nelson guy seemed to be talking to Dad for an awfully long time, that’s all.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask your dad about it?’ asks Trace, though she thinks she knows the answer.

  Caroline’s face darkens. ‘I can’t talk to him about anything at the moment.’

  ‘So you didn’t discuss the pay rise?’

  ‘No.’ Caroline stares into her lager in order to avoid Trace’s expression of amused exasperation. ‘I told you, it’s so hard to talk to him. He’s busy in the yard all day and he goes to bed straight after supper. He was in bed before I came out.’

  ‘Then make an appointment with him. You’re not just his daughter, you’re an employee, a valuable employee. You practically run that yard.’

  ‘Well, Len does a lot with the horses, especially the ones from abroad.’

  Trace dismisses Len Harris with an airy sweep of the hand that almost knocks her glass to the floor. ‘But you do all the paperwork and you ride out and you look after all the press and publicity. You designed the website and you organised the open day.’

  ‘Len hated the open day. Said it upset the horses.’

  ‘Forget Len. He’s a miserable bastard. It was a great success. You should get more recognition for the things you do.’

  ‘I know. It’s just… things are difficult at the moment. Dad’s always arguing with Randolph and Randolph just lazes around winding Dad up. He doesn’t even ride any more, just sits around watching daytime TV and drinking vodka at lunchtime.’

  ‘What about your mum?’

  ‘She’s never home. She’s always at work or out with her friends. And she’s not interested in the yard anyway. She says it’s cruel to make horses race because they never jump over fences when they’re out in the fields, just when someone’s on their back hitting them.’

  ‘She’s got a point,’ Trace glances at her watch. She sympathises with her friend but she doesn’t want to listen to Caroline banging on about horses all night. There are limits after all. And she’d like to do another song.

  ‘Oh no,’ says Caroline earnestly. ‘Horses love to race. It’s in their blood.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not in yours. You’ve travelled, you’ve got loads of other experience. Why don’t you get out, get a job miles away? Forget about your mum and dad and Randolph.’

  Caroline’s face takes on a closed, stubborn look.

  ‘I can’t. There are things I need to do.’

  Trace is about to ask what things when a stable-girl called Georgina comes over to ask them to form a three-some to sing Material Girl. Trace jumps up at once; she’s always thought that she has a lot in common with Madonna.

  Danforth Smith is, in fact, finding it hard to sleep. Usually he collapses into bed at ten, worn out by a hard physical day. His wife, Romilly, sleeps in another room and, anyhow, she’s out ‘seeing friends’. It occurred to Danforth recently that he no longer knows any of his wife’s friends. He looked on her Facebook page recently and didn’t recognise half of the names on it. ‘Business acquaintances,’ she had said airily but, if so, they are business acquaintances who send very unbusinesslike messages (‘love you babe’) and include pictures of themselves sunbathing topless in the Maldives. Romilly has her own life, her own job (as an interior designer), her own friends, her own bank account. She leaves the house at nine, driving her white Fiat 500, and is back at six, just when Danforth is organising the evening feeds. Then she is often out again, ‘networking’ at various arty parties. Danfort
h usually eats with the lads; Romilly, when she’s home, eats with Randolph in front of the TV. She gets on much better with Randolph than he does. ‘He’s resting,’ she says, whenever he raises the subject of their only son. ‘Resting? He’s not a bloody actor.’ ‘He might be,’ Romilly had countered. ‘He’s thinking of doing a course.’ Danforth had stomped off to the stables, disgusted. In his opinion, going on a course is only another word for being unemployed.

  So Romilly is now out somewhere discussing French films or Italian wine (Danforth’s idea of these events is based on magazines his nanny used to read in the Fifties) and Danforth tosses and turns in the ancient double that once belonged to his parents. He gets up, goes to the loo, drinks some water, tries to recite bloodlines in his head. The house is silent; he can hear the occasional stamp and whinny from the stables, but these are soothing sounds usually guaranteed to make him feel that all is well with the world. Why does he feel tonight that there’s something very wrong with the world? Is it poor Neil’s death? He feels sorry for the curator certainly. Neil always seemed a nice guy, a bit nervous maybe but fundamentally decent and very bright, committed to turning the Smith Museum into something more modern and ‘interactive’ (whatever that might mean). But now Neil is dead, found lying beside the coffin of Danforth’s illustrious ancestor. Is it this gruesome scenario which is preying on his mind? The coffin and the snake. The Great Snake will have its revenge. Nonsense, of course. Neil died from natural causes. Absolute tragedy and all that but life must go on. He’ll offer the parents some money to fund some research or something in Neil’s name. Make sure his memory lives on. He shifts uncomfortably under the duvet. Why can’t he get to sleep?

  And he’s worried about Caroline. Danforth might say to Nelson that Caroline has never caused him a day’s worry but the nights are another matter. Whenever he can’t sleep, Caroline’s face appears in front of him, reproachful and slightly angry. Why should she be angry with him? He’s always done his best, though the kids haven’t been easy at times. Tamsin was always the clever one, straight As, degree in law, now a successful career. Tamsin was always organised, the sort of girl who drew up a revision timetable in four different-coloured felt-tips. Randolph was another matter, brilliantly clever when he tried, infuriatingly stupid when he didn’t. But even he managed to get a degree, though what he’s going to do with it is another matter. Randolph isn’t helped by being so good-looking. All his life teachers, friends and, later, girlfriends, have fallen over themselves to make excuses for him.