A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation

tourists who take rocks from Australian national parks. Weeks, months, later they send the rocks back saying that they’ve had nothing but bad luck since they took them. When the rocks are back on native soil, the curse is lifted. Think how much worse it is to take the very bones of our ancestors and keep them on the other side of the world. That’s a lot of bad juju.’
    ‘Well, perhaps Danforth Smith will change his mind,’ says Ruth. ‘He can’t display the relics after all. What’s to be gained from keeping them shut up in a storeroom?’
    ‘You’d be surprised, Ruth,’ says Bob. ‘You must come to the meeting at the weekend. We’ll tell you stories about whole tribes being wiped out. About Victorian adventurers who hunted the Aborigine like animals. Fine gentlemen like Lord Danforth Smith.’
    ‘It’s incredible,’ says Ruth. ‘I had no idea.’
    ‘I once knew a whitefella who kept an Aborigine skull on his mantelpiece. Boasted about it. Used to put a Santahat on it at Christmas. Funny old Abo head to amuse the children.’
    ‘What happened to him?’ asks Cathbad.
    ‘He’s dead now,’ says Bob. ‘The ancestors are powerful.’
    Ruth feels a real shiver running down her spine. For a moment she is sorry that she ever saw the cellar room at the Smith Museum, with its boxes of bones. Did she handle them with enough reverence? Will ancestors be after her next? She is glad that penne with pesto contains no bones. She is about to say something – anything – to break the mood, when Kate causes a distraction by falling asleep with her head in her pasta.
    When Kate has been put to bed, Bob and Cathbad go into the garden to light the fireworks. Ruth watches from the window. Her excuse is that she wants to hear if Kate wakes up, but really she wants to keep away from the frightening little packages with their warnings of death and disfigurement. One large rocket even has a skull and crossbones on it. Surely this should warn any sensible person to steer clear? Besides, it’s freezing out there.
    Cathbad and Bob are having a great time though. Bob seems to have got over his moment of darkness. Ruth remembers how completely his face seemed to change when he talked about curses and ‘bad juju’. Ruth has known Cathbad long enough to understand that some people do believe in curses, in ill-wishing, in bad karma, but nevertheless the concept still disturbs her. Can there really be these malignant forces out there just waiting to strike or, worse, waiting to be directed? And can Bob,her smiling next-door neighbour, really direct death itself by pointing a bone? Ruth, who has spent years resisting her parents’ beliefs, is a resolute rationalist but, still, there is something troubling about a man who believes he can visit bad luck upon another human being. Or does he believe it? Maybe it’s all an elaborate joke. She watches Bob laughing as he hammers in a stake for the Catherine wheels. Who was Catherine and why did she have a wheel? Ruth has a feeling that the answer is sure to be nasty. She decides against asking Cathbad.
    But surely Bob is harmless. He’s just a passionate man, a poet, someone who believes in honouring the past and respecting the dead – just like Cathbad. And like Erik. Ruth wishes she could stop thinking about Erik, especially on the Saltmarsh late at night, times when, as Erik would have said, the restless spirits walk the earth looking for the light. She wishes she could just remember Erik as a brilliant archaeologist and her beloved mentor. But darker memories insist on emerging. A stormy night, lightning illuminating the sky like fireworks, a hidden room, a terrible secret. Ruth pushes these images aside with an effort. She must only think about the good things. With Bob too. He’s a good neighbour, a kind creative person who plays the didgeridoo and likes children. And Flint, whose judgment Ruth trusts, adores him. Flint is currently asleep on the spare-room bed. He hates firework night.
    Cathbad bends to light a fuse. Nothing happens. He goes back to try again. Ruth opens the back door.
    ‘You shouldn’t return to a lighted firework.’ She learnt that from
Blue Peter
.
    ‘It’s OK, Ruth.’ Cathbad brandishes his taper. ‘Fire always obeys me.’
    Famous last words, thinks Ruth. But she shuts the door again. The wind is getting up, making the whole lighting business more hazardous than ever. Maybe they’ll give up soon. She wonders if they’d notice if she