A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation

the baby up so he can see her. Kate claps her hands and, right on cue, announces, ‘Dada.’
    ‘Just for a few minutes then,’ says the nurse. Nelson’s eyes are full of tears. ‘She called me Dad.’
    Ruth doesn’t tell him that Kate has said it to every male within a twenty-mile radius. She is perilously close to tears herself.
    ‘How are you?’
    Nelson frowns. ‘I don’t know. Last thing I remember we were driving home from Brighton.’
    ‘You’ve been in a coma. Everyone’s been worried sick.’
    ‘Michelle told me.’
    ‘She’s been incredible,’ says Ruth softly. ‘She’s hardly left your side.’
    ‘I know,’ says Nelson. ‘The nurses say she willed me back to life.’
    ‘Do they know what was wrong with you?’
    ‘No. I’m a medical miracle.’ He closes his eyes.
    ‘Are you still feeling bad?’ Ruth looks around nervously for a nurse but they are all standing by the door talking about
The X Factor
.
    ‘A bit odd. I had all these weird dreams. Cathbad was in them.’
    ‘Cathbad?’
    Ruth must have spoken sharply because Kate, fretful after her early start, begins to cry. Ruth tries to distract her with her black cat key-ring. The nurses are looking over now.
    Nelson is gazing at Kate. ‘She’s got so big.’
    ‘She can say sixteen words.’
    ‘That’s more than me.’
    They smile at each other and suddenly the atmosphere becomes charged with something more than goodwill. Ruth looks at Nelson’s hair, now quite grey around the temples. She has an insane desire to stroke it.
    Suddenly, though, sexual attraction is blown away as if by a whirlwind. A large woman wearing a purple coat erupts into the ward.
    ‘Harry! How’s my boy?’
    Nelson winces. ‘Hallo Mum.’
    Maureen Nelson advances on her son, her black eyes taking in every detail of his appearance and that of the ward. ‘You should have water by your bed,’ she says. ‘It’s a basic human right.’
    ‘I’m OK, Mum.’
    ‘OK? Michelle says you nearly died. She’s been out of her mind with worry. How could you do this to her?’
    ‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ says Nelson, rather sulkily.
    Maureen’s laser-beam gaze now takes in Ruth and Kate, who is chewing furiously at the key-ring.
    ‘Who’s this?’
    ‘This is Ruth. A … a friend.’
    ‘What a lovely baby,’ says Maureen. She pronounces it ‘babby’. She has a distinct Irish accent, something Ruth did not expect.
    ‘Better take the baby home,’ says Maureen, settling herself at Nelson’s bedside. ‘These places are full of germs, you know.’

CHAPTER 31
     
    Ruth doesn’t want to go home. She rings Sandra to say she won’t be bringing Kate in today, then she and Kate have breakfast in the hospital canteen, a dreamlike world of patients with drips attached and nurses coming off the nightshift. Ruth drinks black coffee and consumes eggs and bacon, Kate eats a piece of toast. Then Ruth drives to the university, taking Kate with her. She finds the place in uproar.
    The science buildings have been sealed off and the grounds are full of students and lecturers standing around looking scared and intrigued in equal measure. Ruth hears talk of parcel bombs, of anthrax spores, of masked men scaling the walls at night. The students are all on their phones, updating their Facebook statuses.
Bomb scare at the uni!!!
    Phil, who is sitting under a tree eating a banana, tells Ruth a different story.
    ‘A
snake
?’
    Ruth’s head feels like Medusa’s, swarming with snakes. She thinks of Bob Woonunga.
The Snake’s my tribal emblem
.She thinks of the poems about the Rainbow Serpent, of the stone grass-snake crushed under Bishop Augustine’s foot.
    ‘An adder, apparently,’ says Phil. ‘Just posted in a padded envelope. They think some animal rights group sent it.’
    Kate points at the banana. ‘Want.’ Phil laughs and breaks off a piece. He is in high spirits and seems completely recovered from yesterday’s flu. Ruth is rather embarrassed by Kate’s forceful tendencies but impressed at her success with Phil. Ruth has never once succeeded in making her own wishes so clear to her head of department.
    ‘You’ll never guess who it was addressed to,’ says Phil.
    The awful thing is that Ruth thinks she can guess.
    ‘Not Cathbad?’
    ‘Yes. The police have been trying to trace him all morning. Have you any idea where he is?’
    ‘No,’ says Ruth. She has no intention of telling Phil that Cathbad is currently in her spare room, sleeping off a