A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation

vaccinated against measles, resulting in a nightmare few weeks at university. Her parents’ imaginations also became markedly more apocalyptic, their conversation littered with references to death, judgement, heaven and hell. The devil became a regular correspondent. Is this why Ruth sometimes feels that some terrible catastrophe is just around the corner, or is this just normal paranoia?
    More coffee gets her through her first lecture and tutorial, but by lunchtime she is flagging. She breaks her own rule and keeps her phone on when she’s with her students. Every second she expects to hear Judy’s voice, ‘I’m sorry …’ Or perhaps she won’t ring at all. Perhaps she’ll just send a text massage.
N dead
. Maybe no one will bother to tell her and Ruth will have to struggle through this day and the next not knowing whether Nelson is alive or dead. She buys a sandwich from the canteen but can’t be bothered to eat it. She sits at her desk staring at her poster of Harrison Ford, the archaeologist’s pin up. She feels as if she’s in an Indiana Jones movie, running desperately through traps and obstacles, each one more cunning and improbable than the last. Should she go to see Nelson? On one level, her fear is completely irrational. Kate could easily catch a virus at Sandra’s, or at the doctor’s, or at one of the soft play areas that Ruth resorts to on rainy Saturdays.But that is different from Ruth herself passing on the infection, giving her child up to the danger, like Abraham taking Isaac to be sacrificed. Oh, bugger her parents and their Bible stories. She puts her head down on the desk.
    ‘Ruth!’
    Ruth jerks her head up. It’s Cathbad.
    ‘I’ve just heard,’ he says.
    Like Michelle – disconcertingly like Michelle – Cathbad looks stunned, as if he’s been involved in a car crash. This, and the fact that he’s dressed in ordinary clothes, has the effect of making him look diminished. Cathbad’s not a large man but he usually dominates any room he’s in; now he sinks into Ruth’s visitor’s chair looking almost like a
student
.
    ‘Who told you?’ asks Ruth.
    ‘Judy.’
    That figures. ‘Is there any news?’ Ruth asks.
    ‘No. He’s still in a coma. The doctors are completely baffled.’
    Ruth allows herself to relax very slightly. He’s not dead. Nelson’s still alive, and while he’s alive he’ll be fighting, whatever the doctors say.
    ‘I don’t think anyone knows what it is,’ she says.
    Cathbad looks up, his eyes wide. ‘I do,’ he says.
    Ruth almost laughs. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I know what’s wrong with Nelson,’ says Cathbad. ‘And, if you think about it, I think you do too.’
    Ruth stares. Perhaps tiredness is making her stupider than usual but she really has no idea what Cathbad istalking about. Since when has he been a medical expert?
    ‘What’s wrong with him then?’
    ‘He’s been cursed,’ says Cathbad.
    Ruth does laugh now, but inwardly she feels angry with Cathbad. This isn’t the time for his mystical new age nonsense. Nelson is ill. He’s in hospital. Nothing else matters. Then she looks at Cathbad and her anger fades. He really does look very upset. She supposes that, in his way, he’s trying to help.
    ‘Do you mean cursed by the bishop?’ she asks, thinking of Ted. ‘Vex not my bones and all that?’
    ‘No,’ says Cathbad, as if this is a ridiculous idea. ‘I think he’s been cursed by Bob.’
    ‘By
Bob
?’
    ‘Yes. Do you remember the evening at your house? Fireworks night? I said that Bob ought to point the bone at Lord Smith. Well, I think he did. That night, Lord Smith died.’
    And you were nearby, thinks Ruth, visiting his daughter. Caroline who loves Uluru Rock and the red heart of Australia. ‘But why would Bob curse Nelson?’ she asks.
    Cathbad frowns. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he was angry because the police hadn’t been able to get his ancestors back. Maybe Nelson was just near Smith at the time of the curse. Maybe it backfired on him.’
    ‘Backfired on him?’
    ‘That can happen,’ says Cathbad, ‘with a very powerful curse, and Bob is a proper shaman, a Wirinun they’re called. He has pretty devastating powers. Maybe he’s cursed everyone to do with the museum.’
    ‘What about me?’ says Ruth. ‘I was at the museum. I actually handled the bones.’
    ‘Oh, he’s put a circle of protection round you,’ said Cathbad. ‘He told me so.’
    Ruth supposes that she should be grateful but she just feels