A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation

he keeps appearing whenever her life is in danger. How he has appointed himself as unofficial guardian angel, not just to Ruth and Kate, but also to a markedly ungrateful DCI Harry Nelson.
    ‘He’s Kate’s godfather,’ she offers.
    ‘Oh.’ The mother looks relieved, as if Cathbad’s presence has at last been satisfactorily explained. Ruth doesn’t think it’s worth mentioning that Cathbad is also a druid. Thank God he’s not wearing his cloak.
    Cathbad proceeds to eat most of the party food and to initiate a game of throwing quavers in the air. Ruth looks at her watch. Five o’clock. Surely they’ll all be going home soon? She decides to open the wine.
    ‘Not for me,’ says Cathbad, who is performing conjuring tricks with scotch eggs. ‘I’m driving.’
    ‘You’re high on E numbers anyway.’
    ‘Just having fun.’
    ‘It was nice of you to come.’
    Cathbad grins. He has a rather piratical face, dark-skinned, with greying hair in a ponytail. ‘All part of my godfatherly duties. As you know, I’m always on the side of chaos. Tell me, Ruth …’ He lowers his voice. ‘What really happened at the museum yesterday?’
    Ruth is instantly on her guard. As an expert on forensic archaeology she has been involved in three police investigations. Each time, Cathbad managed to get involvedas well, once to devastating effect. She finds it suspicious that he already knows about the death at the museum.
    ‘How do you know about that?’ she asks, rather sharply.
    ‘I came for the opening of the coffin and was turned away by PC Plod. I heard that the curator was found dead.’
    ‘Yes.’ Ruth doesn’t see any point in denying it as the story will be in the papers tomorrow. ‘There’s not necessarily anything suspicious about it though. Poor guy may have had a heart attack.’
    Cathbad looks at her. ‘Is that really what you think?’
    A typical Cathbad response. Trying to get her to say more than she wants to.
    ‘I don’t think anything,’ she says, starting to collect squashed sandwiches. There is definitely more food on the table and on the floor than in the kids, though Daisy is slowly working her way through the chocolate fingers. ‘Why are you so interested anyway?’ she asks.
    Cathbad throws a cocktail sausage into the air and catches it in his mouth. It’s quite a neat trick. Daisy, the only child still sitting at the table, watches him with awe.
    ‘Have you heard of the Elginists?’ he asks, when he has finished with the sausage.
    ‘No,’ says Ruth. ‘Should I have?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ says Cathbad maddeningly. ‘Should you?’
    Ruth is about to tell him not to be so bloody enigmatic when Kate wanders up, holding a balloon and a scotch egg. She hands both to Cathbad before climbing purposefully onto his knee.
    ‘Dada,’ she says.
    It is seven o’clock before everyone goes home. Daisy was sick on the stairs and Kate is spark out on the sofa, still holding a piece of birthday cake. Ruth covers her with a blanket and carries on tidying up. She is aware of two specific concerns fighting their way to the surface of her ever-present amorphous mass of worries (Who will look after Kate if she falls ill or dies? When will she ever have time to write an article or a paper and will Phil fire her if she doesn’t? Why can’t she lose weight? Who is Kerry Katona and what’s happening to the world?). The first is a nagging feeling that Nelson should have rung. She knows what he said about no contact but she just can’t believe that he would ignore his own daughter’s birthday. On Kate’s ‘naming day’ he and Michelle had turned up with an embarrassingly large present. But that was before Michelle had found out. Before Ruth was officially the scarlet woman of North Norfolk. She feels sad for Kate. Everyone should have a present from both parents on their birthday. Even her parents had given presents, though after they found God these did take the form of Children’s Bible Stories or gruesome books about missionaries in China. But even Bible stories are better than nothing. What will she say to Kate when she is old enough to notice this lack? Perhaps she’ll have to pretend that Cathbad is her father.
    Cathbad had left without expanding on the Elginists. Elgin composed music didn’t he? No, that was Elgar. Elgin was the guy with the marbles. What could the Elgin Marbles have to do with the Smith Museum in King’s Lynn? As far as she could see the place was full of stuffed