A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation

drugs trip. ‘I expect he’ll turn up.’
    ‘He always does, doesn’t he?’ says Phil, standing up and brushing grass from his trousers. ‘Looks as if they’ve opened the doors at last.’
    Lectures have been cancelled so Ruth takes Kate up to her office to collect some exam scripts. She has so far resisted the temptation to bring her daughter into the university. When Kate was born there were numerous invitations from female members of staff (and from Phil, of course) but Ruth had been wary about letting the two sides of her life overlap. But now, watching Kate toddlearound her office, pulling books from the shelves, it feels oddly right to have her here. Because, whether she likes it or not, Ruth is both things now, archaeologist and mother. She smiles, moving a flint hand-axe out of Kate’s reach.
    Debbie, the department secretary, offers to take Kate to the canteen. Ruth privately feels that Kate has had enough stimulation for one day but everyone is being so
nice
that she can’t refuse. There’s a febrile, unreal atmosphere about the university today. No one is doing any work; they are all just standing around talking about the poisonous snakes and parcel bombs. Elderly professors whom Ruth hasn’t seen for years have crawled out of the woodwork to enjoy pleasurable discussions about death, murder and mayhem. Phil is in his element, pressing shoulders reassuringly and talking about his contacts in the police force.
    After Debbie has disappeared, carrying a thoroughly over-excited Kate, Ruth rifles through her desk collecting scripts and lecture notes. There, under a dissertation on
Syphilis, Yaws and Diseases in Dry Bones
, Ruth finds an article on Bishop Augustine, sent to her by Janet Meadows. She glances at the first lines and instantly is transported back to that Halloween afternoon: the empty room, the open window, the pages turning in the breeze.
    She picks up her phone. ‘Hallo,’ she says. ‘It’s Ruth Galloway. Could we meet up? Yes, that would be fine.’
    Ruth drives to a park in the centre of King’s Lynn, called The Walks. It’s very old and contains a fifteenth-centurychapel, said to be haunted. There’s also a children’s playground and a river with ducks on it. It’s a bright afternoon so there are a few people wandering about, the sort of people who don’t have to be at work at two in the afternoon. Pensioners, mothers with pre-school children, a bird-watcher whom Ruth eyes with distrust. Predictably, Kate ignores the more picturesque birds in favour of staggering about after a mangy pigeon and is soon joined by two other yelling toddlers. Ruth watches them with pleasure, until it becomes too cold to stand still and she persuades Kate to move on. They pass Red Mount Chapel, a strange hexagonal building said to contain a relic of the Virgin Mary. Ruth thinks of Bishop Augustine and her visions. Really, religion is so strange – virgin births, the devil disguised as a snake, bread turning into flesh – if you believe all that you can believe anything. And maybe that’s the attraction.
    They cross the bridge and walk, through streets that become increasingly less green and pleasant, to the Smith Museum. To Ruth’s surprise, a woman is by the front steps, sweeping up leaves. Getting closer she sees that it’s Caroline Smith. She doesn’t think that Caroline will recognise her, but in answer to Ruth’s hesitant hallo, the other woman says, ‘It’s Ruth, isn’t it? Cathbad’s friend?’
    Ruth cautiously admits that she’s Cathbad’s friend.
    ‘Have you heard?’ asks Caroline, pushing her dark hair back behind her ears. She seems very friendly, almost manic.
    ‘Heard what?’
    ‘The skulls are going back,’ says Caroline. ‘Randolphagreed last night. We’re going to have a repatriation ceremony. It’ll be wonderful. Bob’s here now.’
    Ruth doesn’t quite know how she feels about seeing Bob. She doesn’t believe that Bob was responsible for Lord Smith’s death and Nelson’s illness but, all the same, thinking of the mysterious figure in her garden last night, she still doesn’t quite trust him. She remembers his face when he told her about the fate of the man with a skull on his mantelpiece.
He’s dead now. The ancestors are powerful.
    ‘You must be pleased about the skulls,’ she says to Caroline.
    ‘Oh yes,’ Caroline grins at her. ‘The wrong will be righted. Mother Earth will be satisfied. Everything will be all right now.’
    Ruth thinks of