A Room Full of Bones (31 page)

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.’

‘You … came to …’ Nelson is speechless. He has always known that Cathbad is more or less mad but this? This seems to be pure delusion. He wonders if Cathbad is on drugs.

Cathbad’s next words don’t exactly put him at his ease. ‘I prepared a libation and took certain substances. I entered a dream state and I came to rescue you.’ He smiles kindly at Nelson.

‘Well I’m very grateful,’ says Nelson sarcastically. ‘I hope I said thank you at the time?’

‘You think you don’t remember,’ says Cathbad, ‘but you do. You remember the water and the darkness and Erik guarding the portal to the afterlife.’

Cathbad doesn’t seem to expect any answer to this, which is lucky because Nelson shows no sign of giving one. Instead, Cathbad leans over and takes a handful of the grapes that he has brought with him.

‘Did you know someone tried to kill me last night?’ he says chattily.

‘Is this something else that happened in your bloody dream world?’

‘No. Someone sent me a poisonous snake.’

‘What?’ Nelson struggles to sit up. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘A venomous snake was sent to the university, addressed to me. I got a call from the police as I was on my way here. I told them I was a friend of yours.’

Nelson groans inwardly. That’s all he needs. Head office thinking that he’s best mates with a warlock in a purple cloak. And what the hell’s this about another bloody snake? He thinks of the warnings in the letters about the Great Snake. Could this be the work of the Elginists? But Cathbad’s one of them, isn’t he?

‘Do they know who sent it?’

‘They think it’s some animal rights group but I have my doubts. I have a lot of enemies. The snake’s fine,’ he adds. ‘They’ve sent it to a zoo near Great Yarmouth.’

There’s not a lot Nelson can say to that. He looks at Cathbad, who is calmly finishing off the last of the grapes. The ward is quiet; all the other patients seem asleep. The afternoon sun makes squares on the worn lino floor. A very old woman is pushing a trolley laden with tea, coffee and squares of cake. Is Cathbad mad or is he?

One thing is certain: Nelson will never tell a living soul that he did see Erik.

Kate wants to see the stuffed animals again so Ruth is forced to run the gamut of the glass eyes. Kate stands for ages, breathing heavily on the glass, watching the foxes
looking into their
trompe l’oeil
den. A squirrel teeters precariously on the branch above.

‘Fox,’ says Kate in ecstasy.

‘Yes, fox,’ says Ruth, who wants to get home. ‘Like Fantastic Mr Fox. Say goodbye to the fox, Kate. We’ve got to get home to Flint.’

‘Fox,’ says Kate, ignoring her. ‘Fox, box.’

‘She’s a poet,’ says a voice behind them. Ruth can see Bob Woonunga’s smile reflected in the cabinet doors. Ruth, instinctively, moves between him and Kate. Behind her, Kate starts making the didgeridoo sound.

‘Don’t be scared, Ruth.’ Bob sounds amused. ‘I’m your friend. Your friendly neighbour.’

Is he her friend? He has certainly always been friendly towards her. Didn’t he find Flint that first night? In fact, both Flint and Kate seem entranced by him. And Cathbad likes him, though Cathbad also seems believe that he was capable of casting a spell that killed a man.

‘I heard that the skulls are going back,’ says Ruth. ‘You must be pleased.’

Bob is playing peek-a-boo with Kate, but when he looks up to meet Ruth’s eyes his face isn’t playful in the least. ‘I’m pleased, of course,’ he says. ‘But I’ve just been down to the cellars. The way those bones were kept! There’s no respect, no reverence, not even an acknowledgement that they’re human. I tell you, Ruth, it turned my stomach.’

‘I did say in my report that they weren’t kept in appropriate conditions,’ says Ruth weakly.

‘I know you did,’ says Bob, his voice softening. ‘I knew all along that you were on our side.’

Is that why you put me under a circle of protection, thinks Ruth. But she doesn’t believe in the curse, does she? Surreptitiously, she takes Kate’s hand.

‘We’d better be going.’

‘I hope you’ll come to the repatriation ceremony. It’ll be something else, I promise you.’

‘I’d like to come. Thank you.’

‘Bye Ruth,’ Bob stands aside. ‘Bye Kate.’

As they go out of the room, Ruth sees the case containing the grass snake, its glass eyes winking in the afternoon sunlight.

Up next is Judy. She hasn’t brought flowers or grapes.

Instead she dumps a couple of lurid-looking paperbacks on his locker.

‘Thought you might want something to read.’

Nelson isn’t much of a reader. One of the books has a skull on the cover, the other a swastika. He squints at the blurbs: conspiracy … war … torture … blackmail … death. Judy really has him down as the sensitive type, doesn’t she?

‘I heard all about last night,’ he says.

‘Who from? Oh, Clough’s been in has he? What did he tell you?’

‘Just that you solved Operation Octopus.’

Judy seems to relax slightly. ‘It was a lucky guess. A series of lucky guesses.’

‘Sounded like good police work to me.’

Judy looks away. ‘I messed up. Clough had to save me.’

‘He saved me once,’ says Nelson. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘I should never have gone there without back-up but I wanted to solve it on my own.’

‘Policing’s about teamwork,’ says Nelson, who has never waited for back-up in his life.

‘You’re right,’ says Judy, fiddling with a hand sanitiser. ‘Clough’s a better team player than me.’

‘I hear he wrestled a mad horse to the ground.’

Judy laughs. ‘He was scared stiff. Did he tell you that? Mind you, it was terrifying, shut in a small space with a horse like that. I like horses but I’m not sure I ever want to see one again.’

‘So you’re not going to go back and see Randolph Smith?’

‘Did Clough tell you I fancied him? I don’t. He was brilliant last night though. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t turned up when he did.’

‘So the older sister turned out to be the black sheep?’

‘Yes. She was the clever one, despised the other two. Hated the dad too, by all accounts. Mind you, Caroline, the younger sister, is a bit mad too.’

She tells Nelson about the dead snakes and the men dancing in the woods.

‘Snakes again,’ says Nelson.

‘Yes, turns out that Danforth Smith was terrified of them.’

With reason, thinks Nelson. Aloud he says, ‘And this Caroline’s a friend of Cathbad’s? Figures.’

‘She wanted her father to give back the Aborigine bones. It sounds like she was obsessed with them.’

‘Do you think she wrote the letters to the curator? And
there was a snake found in the room with the body. Maybe that was her too.’

‘I don’t know. She didn’t mention the curator. It seemed to be all about her dad. Like it was all his fault.’

‘It’s always the dad’s fault,’ says Nelson.

Judy thinks of her own genial, horse-loving father. ‘I think dads are OK,’ she says.

She sounds so like her old self that Nelson begins to hope that the silent, withdrawn Judy has gone for good. Maybe now they can get back to police work. He’ll give her some more responsibility. She didn’t do so badly with Operation Octopus, after all. Then she spoils everything by telling him that she’s pregnant.

Flint is delighted to see Ruth and Kate. He has been alone all day, he tells them, purring sinuously about their ankles, starving and neglected. He has, in fact, been asleep in the airing cupboard. Ruth feeds her cat and starts making some pasta. It’s only five o’clock but it’s dark outside. Kate must be tired, she has only had a tiny sleep in the car. Maybe last night will herald a wonderful new era of sleeping through the night. They’ll have supper at six, Kate will be in bed at seven and Ruth can have all evening watching television and drinking white wine. Heaven.

She has almost forgotten Cathbad and the horrors of last night. Nelson is going to be all right. Michelle let her see him, perhaps she might even allow Nelson to have regular contact with Kate. She admitted that he wants to see her. Ruth knows how much that admission cost Michelle, how much it cost Michelle to come to her house
and beg her to visit her husband. She would do anything for him, she said. Ruth doesn’t know if she’s ever loved anyone that much. Except Kate, of course.

She half expects Max to ring but he doesn’t. After the last few days, it seems strange to have no one knocking on the door demanding help or babbling about the Dreaming. After supper, Ruth tries to read a Percy the Park-Keeper book to Kate but she’s more interested in charging around the room with her plastic vegetables. Ruth is determined not to switch on the TV but Kate does it for her (she loves the remote) and soon they are both dozing in front of
In the Night Garden
. Ruth forces herself to her feet. She’s got to keep Kate awake for a little longer. Routine, she tells herself sternly, it’s all about routine. She puts Kate in her cot while she runs the bath and they both have a strenuous half-hour playing with water. Kate’s eyes start drooping as soon as Ruth puts her into bed. She is asleep before Ruth has read two pages of
After the Storm
. Ruth finishes the book anyway. She loves it that all the animals find a home in the big tree. She doubts that Norfolk Social Services will be so efficient after last night’s high winds.

Ruth tiptoes out onto the landing. All evening she has avoided looking into the spare room but now she opens the door quietly. The bed is neatly made but lying on the cover is a single feather, long and beautiful, a pheasant’s perhaps. Ruth stays looking at it for a long time.

Nelson’s last visitor is the most surprising. Chris Stephenson, swaggering through the doors as if he’s paying a state visit. Disappointingly, two of the nurses
recognise him and flutter around calling him ‘Doctor’ Stephenson. They even offer to get him a cup of tea, although the old woman with the trolley is long gone.