A Room Full Of Bones

CHAPTER 7

Nelson drives back to the police station thinking about snakes, racehorses and the sheer arrogance of the British upper classes. Lord Smith had been polite, charming almost, but there’s no doubt that he thinks that he has a God-given right to do what he likes with his horses, his museum, his great-grandfather’s grisly trophies. Those heads belonged to my great-grandfather. It’s a short step from saying ‘those slaves belonged to my great-grandfather.’ Nelson can just see Smith as a plantation owner, slaves toiling in the fields, no-good son lolling about on the porch drinking Bourbon – or whatever they used to drink in Gone With The Wind (Nelson’s mother’s favourite film).

Could there be a link between the letters and Neil Topham’s death? Nelson thinks about the open window, the snake in the case, the words ‘now the dead will be revenged on you.’ But Nelson is not going to fall into the trap of assuming that the letter-writer is a killer. Like every detective in Britain, he remembers the Yorkshire Ripper and the infamous ‘I’m Jack’ tapes. The police had wasted valuable time assuming that the voice on the tape was the voice of the Ripper when, in the end, it had just been some nutcase wanting his moment of glory. Nelson has been there too. Years ago he started to receive letters about the disappearance of a little girl. Those letters had haunted his dreams for years. Were they from the killer? Did they contain cryptic clues which, if only he could crack the code, would lead him to Lucy Downey? It had been the letters which had formed the first real bond with Ruth. She had interpreted them, explaining arcane mythological and archaeological terms. Her expertise had almost cost her her life.

But Chris Stephenson thinks that Topham’s death was from natural causes. The coroner will probably find the same way. Neil Topham died from a sudden pulmonary haemorrhage which could have been brought on by his drug-taking. The letters, the snake, the strange tableau with the coffin – it could all be irrelevant. But Nelson knows, knows from the depth of his twenty-odd years with the force, that something is wrong. He saw it in Lord Smith’s face when he looked at the letters, the sudden shock of anger (or was it fear?) crossing the haughty features. He saw it in Neil Topham’s office, amongst the broken exhibits and unread paperwork. He saw it in the room with the coffin, the pages of the abandoned guidebook fluttering in the breeze.

The horses had been impressive. Before he left, Smith had taken him to watch them on the gallops. That had been some sight, seeing the horses coming up the hill, three abreast on the black all-weather track, steaming in hazy autumn sunshine. As they passed they had made a noise that was something between panting and snorting, heads straining against tight reins, manes and tails streaming out.

‘They’re beautiful,’ he hadn’t been able to stop himself saying.

Smith had looked at him with real pleasure. ‘They’re my pride and joy,’ he had said.

There was no doubt that Smith loved his horses but he was still an arrogant bastard. And there is something about the whole set up – the stables and the museum – that smells funny to Nelson. But is it enough? For the past three months Nelson and his team have been working flat out trying to crack a drug-smuggling ring. The county has suddenly been flooded with Class A drugs and no one really knows where they are coming from. Nelson has been liaising with a shadowy body called the Tactical Crimes Unit, but so far no one has been able to identify the tactics involved. Smuggling usually involves the ports, but though Nelson has been mounting round-the-clock surveillance nothing has turned up. And still the drugs keep surfacing. He can’t really afford to take officers off the case to investigate – what? Some crackpot letters? A feeling that things aren’t quite what they seem?

The first person he sees at the station is Judy Johnson. She looks exhausted. He knows that she was at the docks last night.

‘Any luck?’ he asks.

‘No.’ She yawns. ‘And I had to sit in a car with Clough all night.’

‘Did he eat all the time?’

‘Even when he was asleep.’

Clough’s capacity for food is legendary. He’s a good cop but Nelson wouldn’t like to spend the night in a car with him.

‘Go home after the meeting,’ he says. ‘Get some sleep.’

‘Thanks boss.’

Nelson keeps the briefing short. Judy Johnson gives an account of last night’s abortive stakeout. They discuss possible leads. Clough gives it as his opinion that the drugs are coming from Eastern Europe. Nelson shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Over the last few years, a great number of refugees from Eastern Europe have come to settle in King’s Lynn. It’s customary for the press, and some police officers, to blame every crime on the new arrivals. Nelson knows it’s his job to stamp on such talk. Didn’t he recently attend a briefing on ‘Policing in a Multicultural Society’? Actually, he had fallen asleep after ten minutes but he still knows that Clough’s comment isn’t helpful.

‘Have you got any evidence for that, Cloughie?’ he growls.

‘Well, Russians…’ says Clough unrepentantly. ‘The Russian mafia. They’re up to their necks in drugs. Like the Chinese triads.’

There’s a big Chinese community in King’s Lynn too.

‘Like I say,’ says Nelson. ‘No evidence.’

‘Not many boats in the port from Russia,’ says Judy.

Clough glares at her. ‘They use mules, don’t they? Some poor sucker forced to swallow the goods. Quick shit and bingo. Kinder Egg.’

‘Kinder Egg?’ repeats Judy faintly.

‘Yeah, that’s what they call it. Surprise every time.’

‘I’ll see what Jimmy has to say.’

Nelson has an informer who only speaks to Nelson and then only under conditions of elaborate secrecy. He trusts this man as far as he would trust any untrustworthy bastard.

‘OK,’ he says now. ‘We’ll give it another night at the port. Fuller, you can do a stint with Tom Henty.’ Tanya Fuller, an extremely keen DC, looks pleased. It’ll do her good to have some responsibility and Henty will keep an eye on her. Nelson turns to the Smith Museum, giving a brief description of events on Saturday. He tries to keep it as flat as possible but he can tell that the team are intrigued.

‘Were there clear signs of a break-in?’ asks Tanya.

‘Nothing definite. I’m sending some PCs house-to house and I’ll wait to see what the SOCOs come back with. Johnson, can you liaise with them?’

Tanya looks disappointed, Judy stifles a yawn.

‘So it may just be natural causes,’ says Clough, biting into a Mars bar.

‘Stephenson thinks so. Cause of death was pulmonary haemorrhage. Bleeding on the lungs,’ he explains for Clough’s benefit.

‘What could cause that?’

‘Lots of things including infection or drug-taking.’

‘Did he take drugs, then? This curator bloke?’

‘His body showed signs of persistent drugs use. And I found a hundred grams of cocaine in his office.’

Clough whistles. ‘That’s a lot of Charlie.’

‘Do you think it was natural causes, boss?’ asks Judy.

Nelson pauses. ‘Most likely. There are a couple of odd things though.’ He tells the team about the letters. ‘Fuller, can you do some digging on the Elginists? Find out if they’ve ever been involved in anything dodgy. Clough, you and I might pay Lord Smith another visit.’

‘Great,’ says Clough, to general laughter. ‘Might get a tip for the National.’

‘The Necromancer,’ says Nelson. ‘He’s got a lot of bone apparently.’

As Ruth nears her house, she is aware of a strange humming noise on the air. Is it a bird, a low-flying plane, the coastguard’s helicopter? Perhaps it’s a bittern, whose low, booming call she sometimes hears at night. Thinking of birds reminds her of David, her previous next-door neighbour, who was the warden of the marshes. David knew every stick and stone of the Saltmarsh, he could recognise the call of any one of the hundreds of birds that use these wetlands as a pit-stop on their journey south, he could find his way across the treacherous quicksand in the dark and had once saved Ruth’s life. But David has gone, and if there’s a new warden, she hasn’t met them yet. As Ruth gets closer she sees that the sound is coming from Bob Woonunga, who is sitting on the grass in front of his house playing something which, from memories of Rolf Harris, she recognises as a didgeridoo.

She parks outside her cottage and gets Kate out of her car seat. Kate is now walking. She started at ten months, which is early according to the books. And while Ruth was proud of her daughter for reaching this milestone ahead of time (walking at ten months = first class honours degree from Cambridge), she can’t help thinking that it was easier when she could carry her everywhere. Now Kate struggles to be put down and totters purposefully over to Bob and his didgeridoo. Ruth follows, more reluctantly. Flint, lurking by Ruth’s front door waiting for his dinner, jumps over the fence and is the first to reach their new neighbour, rubbing himself lovingly around his legs.

‘Want,’ says Kate, pointing at the didgeridoo. This is one of her new words.

Bob puts down the long wooden pipe and says, ‘Hallo little neighbour. You were asleep when I met your mum.’ He reaches out and strokes Flint, who arches his back appreciatively. Ruth is shocked at the cat’s infidelity.

‘Mum,’ says Kate, putting a hand on the painted wood of the didgeridoo. ‘Mum, mum, mum.’

‘Careful Kate,’ says Ruth.

‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Bob’s smile seems impossibly wide. ‘It’s good to touch things. That’s how we learn, right?’

Ruth agrees that it is. Touch is an important sense for an archaeologist. She remembers how Erik could tell just by holding a stone tool how it had been made, and what it had been used for. He used to shut his eyes, she remembers, while running his thumb along the sharp edges of a flint. She supposes that one day she’ll stop thinking about Erik.

‘Is it hard to play?’ she asks, indicating the didgeridoo.

‘Have a go.’ He grins his endless grin again.

Ruth sits down on the grass and puffs and puffs but all she achieves is a sort of feeble farting noise. Kate laughs delightedly.

Bob blows again, an undulating, reverberating sound that seems oddly right out here in the wind and sky.

‘I’m not an expert on the didge,’ he says, putting the instrument on the ground, ‘but it’s a way of keeping in touch with home.’

‘Where is home?’ asks Ruth, settling herself more comfortably. It’s a mild evening and it’s curiously pleasant to be sitting out here on the grass as if it’s summer. The moon is up but it’s still light over the sea, the waves breaking in bands of silver and grey. A pair of geese fly overhead, calling mournfully.

‘Our home is in Dreamtime,’ says Bob. Then, laughing, he relents. ‘I’m one of the Noonuccal people from Minjerribah, the islands in the bay. North Stradbroke Island to you.’

This doesn’t mean very much to Ruth, whose only contact with Australia is a friend who emigrated there and now sends her irritating Christmas cards featuring Santa in swimming trunks. The islands in the bay have an exotic, foreign sound that seems to belong more to the Caribbean than to the land of surf and barbecues and good neighbours becoming good friends.

‘I think you know a friend of mine,’ she says. ‘Cathbad.’

‘Cathbad. Yes. He’s a brother.’

‘A brother?’

‘In spirit. We belong to a band of brothers. A group of like-minded people.’

‘The Elginists?’

Bob doesn’t seem surprised. ‘That’s right. We’re committed to the repatriation of our ancestors.’

‘Like the skulls at the Smith Museum?’

A shadow crosses Bob’s face, or maybe it’s just the evening light. The sky seems to have grown much darker in the last few minutes. Kate climbs onto Ruth’s lap and starts pulling her hair experimentally. Flint has wandered away.

‘Right. But they’re not just skulls. They’re our ancestors. They need to be returned to their Spirit Land so they can enter the Dreaming.’

This is more or less what Cathbad had said but it sounds so much more impressive coming from Bob, out here under the darkening sky. Ruth shivers and holds Kate tighter.

‘Look out there,’ says Bob. He points over the Saltmarsh. You can’t see the sea any more but you can hear it, a rushing, urgent sound in the twilight. ‘This is sacred land. My people believe that the world was created in the Dreamtime when the spirit ancestors roamed the Earth. This place, it was made by the Great Snake. You can see its shape as it meandered over the land, creating all these little streams and rivers. That’s why I feel at home here. The Snake’s my tribal emblem. We need to take the Old Ones back so they can be at one with the Dreaming. For the Aborigines there’s no life and death, no yesterday and today, it’s all one. We need our ancestors with us so they can be part of the oneness. We can’t leave them to rot in some whitefella’s museum.’ He grins as he says the last bit, perhaps parodying himself, but Ruth doesn’t smile. She is thinking of Cathbad, all those years ago, demanding that the henge stay here, on the Saltmarsh, rather than be taken to a museum. ‘It belongs here,’ he had said, ‘between the earth and the sky.’ No wonder he and Bob are friends.

‘Won’t the museum return the… your ancestors?’ she asks, tentatively, thinking that she knows the answer.

‘No.’ Bob’s face darkens further. ‘I tell you Ruth, Lord Danforth Smith is a seriously bad man.’

Nelson sits at his desk, wondering whether it’s time to go home. It’s dark outside and there’s no real need to sit here, going over Chris Stephenson’s report and wondering what’s happening down at the docks. If there’s anything to report he’ll soon hear from Tanya and Tom Henty; he might as well wait in the comfort of his own sitting room. But still he sits in his office, drinking cold coffee and reading about pulmonary haemorrhage. The truth is that he doesn’t want to go home.

When Nelson had agreed not to see Ruth any more, he and Michelle had fallen into each other’s arms and into bed. It was the most emotional experience of his life. He had felt full of tenderness for Michelle, full of gratitude and remorse. At that moment, he would have promised her anything. But the euphoria hadn’t lasted. Michelle had not seemed able to stop talking about Ruth. ‘What was she like in bed? Was she better than me? What was it like sleeping with someone so fat?’ ‘Don’t,’ Nelson had begged. ‘Can’t we just forget it?’ But that, of course, was impossible. Now, six months later, Michelle fluctuates between tearful intensity (‘Promise you’ll never leave me’) and seeming indifference. Last night she had gone out with some of the girls at work and not returned until midnight. He had rung her several times but her phone was switched off. When she’d finally got in, he’d been sitting up waiting for her. In fact, he’d been wondering whether to call up a squad car. ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested,’ she’d said when he asked where she’d been. She had flounced off upstairs as if he’d been in the wrong, but later, in bed, had sobbed in his arms and asked if he thought she was too old to have another baby. Wondering which wife will be waiting for him at home – the frosty businesswoman or the reproachful angel – he decides to stay on and do some more work. He’ll find out some more about these Elginist people for a start.

Nelson is bad at technology but can just about manage to use Google. Soon the screen is full of pictures of marble horses, grinning skulls, totemic objects. There’s the logo again, the crescent moon with the snake beneath it. The Elginists, he reads, are dedicated to the return of cultural artefacts to their countries of origin. There is a bit about the Elgin Marbles and a whole site dedicated to someone called the Amesbury Archer, a Bronze Age skeleton found near Stonehenge whose return is demanded by a group of druids. Nelson immediately thinks of Cathbad. What had Tom Henty said? That Cathbad had wanted to talk to him about ‘skulls and the unquiet dead’. Could Cathbad be mixed up with these people? It seems only too likely. Nelson, who enjoys what can only be described as a friendship with Cathbad, decides to speak to him as soon as possible.

But most of the hits come up with the words ‘Aboriginal remains’. The Elginists have been active around the country, demanding the return of Aboriginal relics held in private collections. In some cases, it seems they have been successful, and the internet provides pictures of smiling Aboriginal chiefs in animal-skin cloaks embracing embarrassed-looking museum officials. But there are many reports of collectors refusing to hand over their ill-gotten spoils, of threatening behaviour, bitter recriminations. Nelson can’t see that the police have been involved but he’ll check the files. Could this group, who seem both organised and determined, be involved in Neil Topham’s death?

‘Boss?’ Judy Johnson is standing in the doorway.

‘I thought you’d gone home,’ says Nelson. ‘You look knackered.’ He realises that this is hardly tactful but Judy does look exhausted, grey-faced and almost shell-shocked.

‘I’m going in a minute,’ she says, ‘but I got the report from SOCO on the Smith Museum. There were some fingerprints found at the scene so I thought I’d run them through our database, see if there were any matches.’

‘And were there?’

‘Just one.’

She puts a print-out on Nelson’s desk. It informs him that fingerprints found at the scene match the prints of one Michael Malone.

Michael Malone. Alias Cathbad.