A Room Full of Bones (2 page)

And that’s the other reason. The Smith family are still alive and well and living in Norfolk. Along the way they have been Catholic martyrs and Protestant traitors, ennobled by Elizabeth I, and involved in a doomed attempt to hold King’s Lynn for the Royalists in the Civil War. Lord Danforth Smith, the current title holder, is a racehorse trainer and unwilling local celebrity. His son, Randolph, usually to be found draped around an American actress or Russian tennis player, is more relaxed about being in the public eye and is a regular feature of the gossip columns. Previous Smiths have been rather more serious-minded and evidence of their philanthropy is everywhere in Norfolk. As well as the museum there is the Smith wing in the hospital and the Smith Art Collection at the castle. Ruth’s university even has a Smith Professor of Local History, though he hasn’t been seen in public for years and Ruth thinks he may well be dead.

She parks her battered car in front of the museum. The car park round the side is empty. She’s early; it’s only two-fifteen but still not enough time to get home and back. She might as well go into the museum and look around. Ruth loves museums, which is just as well because, as an archaeologist, she’s done more than her share of looking in dusty glass cases. She remembers going to the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill as a child. It was a magical place, full of masks and stuffed birds. Come to think of it, the Horniman was probably the place where she first got interested in archaeology; they had a collection of flint tools, including some from Grimes Graves in Norfolk. She remembers the shock when she realised that these oddly shaped pieces of stone had actually been
held
by someone who had been alive thousands of years ago. The idea that you could actually go and dig up something that old – something that had been worked and honed by that mysterious creature known as Stone Age man – that idea still sends a shiver down her spine, and has sustained her through many a long and unsuccessful excavation. There is always the thought that under the next clod of earth there is the object – weathered and unrecognisable except to an expert – that is going to change human thought forever. Ruth has made a few lucky discoveries herself. But there is always the tantalising thought of the one big find, of the glass case with the inscription ‘discovered by Doctor Ruth Galloway’, of the articles, the book … She pushes open the door.

The Horniman is a small museum but impressive in its way, with a clock tower at the front and glass conservatory
at the back. The Smith Museum is something else. It’s a low brick building, squashed between two office blocks. Overhanging gables, painted dull red, make it look as if it’s wearing a hat pulled down low upon its head. Steps lead up to an arched red door with a promising sign saying ‘welcome’. Ruth pushes open the door and finds herself in a small entrance lobby dominated by a stuffed bird in a case and a picture of an angry-looking man in a wig. There’s a notice board adorned with a few faded flyers and a table containing some photocopied sheets labelled, somewhat optimistically, ‘For School Parties’, but no sign that a media event is taking place. No canapés or glasses of wine (Ruth is sure there was a mention of food), no press packs, not even a poster announcing the Grand Opening of the Bishop’s Coffin. A yellowing chandelier overhead is still jangling from the opening of the door. Otherwise there is complete silence.

Ruth pushes through the swing doors and finds herself in a long room, lined on both sides with glass cases reaching up to the ceiling. There are no windows and the only light comes from the cabinets themselves, which shimmer with an eerie phosphorescence. Ruth stops and peers into one of the cases. It is labelled ‘Eagle Owl’ and contains a large stuffed bird which peers at her accusingly. She moves on quickly, unable to shake the conviction that the owl’s eyes are following her. The next case, ‘Black-backed gulls’, shows a family of seagulls in the act of pecking a lamb to death. Painted blood smears
the birds’ beaks and the lamb looks up with an expression of resignation and cynicism. A few yards along and you are into woodland; dusty foxes gaze into brown-painted holes, squirrels are tied to tree trunks, badgers look glassily at moth-eaten rabbits, a three-legged deer is propped against a papier-mâché rock. Ruth finds herself walking faster and faster, the fur and feathers merging into one, her footsteps echoing on the tiled floor.

She crosses the room to look at the cases on the other side. Here, taxidermy gives way to Halloween. The animals on this side are skeletons, their thin bones dangling like children’s mobiles against walls painted blue to resemble the sky, with white clouds and v-shaped flocks of birds. Giant otter shrew, pigmy shrew, giant golden mole, European hedgehog. They all look the same and rather sad, hanging there beside their little typewritten name tags. In the biggest case is a skeleton that seems massive by comparison. Ruth is surprised to learn that, according to the label, it is only a domestic horse. The long skull and large teeth grin out of the gloom. Ruth, who rather likes horses, gives it a sympathetic smile and hurries on.

At the end of the gallery she steps from tile to carpet and, to her surprise, finds herself in a red-walled Victorian study. A stag’s head looms over a painted fireplace and a man sits at a desk, frowning fiercely as he dips his quill into an inkwell.

‘Excuse me …’ begins Ruth, before realising that the man’s eyes are dusty and one of his arms is missing. A
rope separates her from the figure and his desk but she leans forward and reads the inscription:

Funny way to show your love of the natural world, by shooting most of it, thinks Ruth. She notices a brace of guns over the head of the waxwork Lord Smith. He looks a nasty customer, alive or dead.

There are two ways out of Lord Smith’s study. One says ‘New World Collection’ and one ‘Local History.’ She pauses, feeling like Alice in Wonderland. A slight sound, a kind of whispering or fluttering, makes her turn towards Local History. She feels in the mood for a soothing collection of Norfolk artefacts. She hopes there are no more waxworks or embalmed animals.

Her wish is granted. The Local History Room seems to be empty apart from a coffin on a trestle table and a body lying beside it. A breeze from an open window is riffling through the pages of a guidebook lying on the floor, making a sound like the wings of a trapped bird.

The body is lying on its side, legs drawn up into an almost foetal position. Ruth touches a hand, which is still warm. Is there a pulse? She can’t find one but her own hands are suddenly slippery with sweat and she’s not really sure what she’s looking for anyway. Oh, why didn’t she go on that first-aid course? She realises that she is holding her breath and forces herself to exhale, in and out, nose and mouth. It won’t do anyone any good if she faints. Gently she turns the body over and has two shocks, so severe that she almost stops breathing again.

There is blood all over the face and the face is that of someone she knows.

Neil Topham, the curator, who once came to one of her lectures on the preservation of bones. Neil, polite and unassuming, who often asked her advice about exhibits. Neil, lying on the floor of his own museum, his nose and mouth covered in blood.

Hands shaking, Ruth reaches for her phone. Please God don’t let her have left it in the car. No, it’s here. She dials 999 and asks for an ambulance. She goes completely blank
when asked for the address and can only bleat, ‘The Smith Museum. Please hurry!’ The voice on the other end of the phone is calm and reassuring, even slightly bored. ‘A unit is on its way.’ Ruth bends her head close to Neil’s mouth. She can’t hear or feel any breathing. But when she puts her hand inside his shirt there is a heartbeat, very faint and unsteady, but unmistakably there. Hang on in there, Neil, she tells him. Should she move the body? But all the books tell you not to. She looks desperately round the room. The bishop’s coffin looms above them, dark and sinister. There is nothing else in the room apart from a glass display case in the corner and, by the window, a man’s single shoe.

What can have happened to Neil? Did he have a heart attack or a stroke? But he’s a young man. Young men don’t just fall down and die. It is only now that Ruth realises that what happened to Neil might not be due to natural causes. She looks around the room again. The pages of the book are still fluttering to and fro. From the open window she can hear traffic, the faint shouts of children in the park. Why is the window open anyway?

With shaking hands, Ruth reaches for her phone and calls the police.

‘It’s the Smith museum, boss.’

‘What?’

DCI Nelson is driving and his sergeant, DS Clough, is on the phone. This is a reversal of the normal order, it’s usually the junior officer who drives, but Nelson hates being a passenger. At this latest news, Nelson turns to
look at Clough and the car swerves across the traffic, narrowly missing a motorbike and an invalid car. Clough vows to be behind the wheel next time. His boss’s driving skills, or lack of them, are legendary.

‘The body. It’s at the Smith Museum.’

Nelson and Clough, driving back from Felixstowe where they were following an abortive lead about a drug-smuggling ring, received a call that a dead body had been found in King’s Lynn. The circumstances were suspicious and Nelson, who heads the county’s Serious Crimes Squad, was on his way. It is only now, on the outskirts of the town, that Clough has managed to get the full details. He grunts, maddeningly, into his phone and Nelson swerves wildly once more.

‘What? What?’

‘It’s the curator, boss. You know there was that big do at the museum, opening the coffin and all that? You refused to go, remember?’

‘I remember,’ growls Nelson.

‘Well, an hour before all the bigwigs were due to arrive, one of the archaeologists gets there early and finds this curator guy, Neil Topham, lying beside the coffin, dead as a doornail.’

‘Which archaeologist?’ asks Nelson. But he knows the answer. He knew as soon as Clough mentioned the Smith Museum.

Clough relays the question over the phone.

‘It was Ruth, boss. Ruth Galloway.’

The car swerves across the road.

When Nelson arrives at the museum, Rocky Taylor is standing by the front door, a circumstance that does nothing to ease Nelson’s troubled mind. He regards Rocky, a local lad, as a typical slow-moving country bumpkin. Nelson, who was born in Blackpool, still thinks of himself as a Northerner, which, in his mind, is synonymous with sharp wits and a proper sense of humour. On entering the lobby, he is slightly relieved to find Tom Henty in attendance. Tom, though born and bred in Norfolk, is Nelson’s idea of the perfect police sergeant – steady, tough, unflappable. He’s going to need all those qualities today. Tom is standing beside a glass case containing a particularly hideous stuffed bird. Next to him, on a hard chair, looking pale but in control, is Ruth Galloway.

‘Ruth,’ Nelson nods at her.

‘Hallo Nelson.’

Clough, following in Nelson’s wake, is rather more forthcoming. ‘Ruth! Long time no see. How’s that baby of yours?’

‘Fine. She’ll be one tomorrow.’

‘One! Can’t believe it. Seems like only yesterday that she was born.’

‘Less of the chatting, Sergeant,’ says Nelson, not looking at Ruth. ‘This is a crime investigation, not a coffee morning.’ He turns to Henty. ‘What happened?’

‘Got a call at two-twenty.’ Henty flips open his notebook. ‘Came through to the duty desk. Dr Galloway was at the museum and found the curator, Neil Topham, lying on the floor beside the coffin. The one that was due to be opened at three. Dr Galloway called the emergency
services – police and ambulance. Taylor and I got here the same time as the ambulance. Paramedics took him to hospital but he was DOA.’

‘Damn.’

That was bad news for Neil Topham admittedly, but also for the investigation. The body will be covered with the prints of the well-meaning paramedics. And the only evidence of the crime scene will be the one witness. Ruth Galloway.

‘Have next of kin been informed?’

‘DS Johnson’s at the hospital now.’

That’s good. Judy Johnson’s the best at that kind of thing. Get bad news from Clough and you might never recover.

Nelson looks at his watch. It’s now three-thirty. ‘Did you manage to stop the vultures descending?’

Henty coughs deprecatingly. ‘I rang Superintendent Whitcliffe and informed the local press.’

‘Whitcliffe isn’t coming is he?’

‘No. He said he’d let you deal.’

I bet he did, thinks Nelson savagely.

‘Rocky turned away the rest of the public,’ says Henty. ‘Your friend was there. The warlock.’

Nelson grunts, recognising the description without difficulty. ‘Cathbad? Of course he was there. Opening a coffin would be just his idea of fun.’

‘He said he wanted to talk to you,’ says Henty impassively. ‘Something about skulls and the unquiet dead.’

Nelson grunts again. ‘Well it’ll have to wait. Can you show me the room where the body was found? Clough,
wait here with Dr Galloway.’ And he stalks away without a backward glance.

There is something strangely calm about the Local History Room. It’s a long, narrow space, slightly too high for its width, as if it was once part of a larger room. The floor, like the rest of the museum, is covered in black and white tiles and the walls are painted in cheerful primary colours. The window is open and the breeze blows the dusty curtains inwards. The coffin, with its straining sides, stands four-square in the centre of the room. There is a single glass case in a corner containing what looks like a stuffed grass snake. The only other objects on the floor are a guidebook and a single shoe, a brown suede slipon, about a foot away from the coffin. Nelson stares at it dispassionately. Typical arty shoes. Real men – real Northern men – always wear lace-ups.