A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation

sleep.’
    ‘That was probably the aspergillus. Of course, we’ll never really know.’
    Did the poison spores give Danforth Smith nightmares about snakes and ghostly horsemen? Did they plunge Nelson into a shadow world of sea and sky and a man calling from a stone boat? As Stephenson says, he’ll probably never know. But it seems that the Aborigines are innocent; it was the bishop who did it, after all.
    ‘I’m going to ask the docs to do a chest radiograph on you,’ says Stephenson cheerily. ‘Something might show up.’
    ‘Thanks a lot.’
    ‘Why should you worry? It’s a rest cure in here.’
    Rest? This feels like the busiest day Nelson has ever had in his life. And as Stephenson saunters out of the ward, he sees Michelle and Maureen on their way in, both carrying covered bowls full of nourishing food.

CHAPTER 32
     
    The Necromancer comes galloping around the corner of the all-weather track, the black earth flying up behind him. At the top of the hill, by the trees, a woman is standing. The horse starts violently at the unfamiliar figure, standing on his hind legs, nostrils wide with fear. But the horse’s rider just laughs and shifts his weight slightly in the saddle.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ says Romilly Smith. ‘Did I scare him?’
    Randolph laughs. ‘He’s just playing silly buggers.’ He pats the animal’s shuddering neck. ‘Calm down horse.’
    ‘I’d forgotten what a good rider you are,’ says Romilly, falling into step beside the horse.
    ‘I’d forgotten too,’ says Randolph, loosening the reins so that The Necromancer can stretch his neck. ‘Not that I could ride but how much I enjoyed it. I was devastated when I got too tall to be a jockey.’
    ‘You wouldn’t want to be a jockey, darling. All that dieting plays havoc with your skin.’
    Randolph laughs and turns the horse towards the stables. Romilly again falls into step beside them. Thereis still frost on the ground and her smart boots crackle over the grass.
    ‘Are you really going to run the yard?’ she asks.
    ‘I’m going to give it a go,’ says Randolph. ‘Do you mind?’
    ‘Not at all. I think I’m going to move out. Give you some space.’ Romilly looks up at her son, sitting so loosely on the great black horse. He really is lovely, she thinks. I’m glad I don’t have to share him with another woman.
    ‘Are you still involved with them? The group?’
    Romilly pauses with her hand on The Necromancer’s neck. ‘Well, the group’s rather gone into hiding … after that tip-off last night.’
    For a few minutes they walk in silence. Both know that it was Randolph who told the police. Eventually, Randolph says, almost apologetically, ‘You just can’t go round doing things like that, you know. Sending poisonous snakes to people.’
    ‘I know,’ Romilly sighs. ‘It would have shaken things up a bit though. Make people take notice.’
    ‘Do you think the police suspect you?’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure they suspect – I’ve got a record after all – but we’ve all got alibis for last night. Pity it didn’t come off. We’d been planning it for ages.’
    ‘An innocent man could have been killed.’
    ‘Innocent animals die every day,’ Romilly counters. But she says it without real heat, as if her mind is elsewhere.
    ‘And that Vicar person,’ continues Randolph. ‘He’s a psychopath.’
    ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ says Romilly triumphantly. ‘He absolutely refused to kill Neil.’
    Randolph reins in so sharply that the horse stumbles. ‘What?’
    ‘I asked him to give Neil some contaminated drugs but he refused. You see, he’s quite moral really. For a drug dealer.’
    ‘You asked him to kill Neil? Why?’
    Romilly looks up at him. ‘Because Neil got you into drugs. I’ll never forgive him for that.’
    ‘He didn’t. We spent a couple of nights together, that was all. I’d started taking drugs at school, for God’s sake. Neil was just a supplier. Like your mate the Vicar.’
    ‘I don’t care,’ says Romilly calmly. ‘He was a bad influence. I was glad he died. I tried to scare him off before. That’s why I wrote him those letters.’
    Randolph looks at his mother, her silvery hair blowing back in the wind. She looks beautiful but somehow frightening, as if he doesn’t really know her at all.
    ‘Which letters? The ones the police kept going on about?’
    ‘Oh, did the police find them? Yes. I wrote Neil some letters about the skulls, trying to scare him. I got the idea from