A Room Full Of Bones

CHAPTER 8

The Newmarket pub is on a crossroads leading to King’s Lynn via one fork, Downham Market via the other. Rumour has it that there was once a terrible stagecoach accident at the junction, and even today Danforth Smith’s horses sidle and spook if they pass this way. Stories of spectral carriages and ghostly horses are almost certainly unsubstantiated but, nevertheless, there is something unsettling about the location of the pub, backed by woodland, dense and inhospitable, and the only other building in sight is a deserted garage, with rusty Esso signs that creak in the wind. Despite these drawbacks, the pub is the watering hole of choice for the staff of Slaughter Hill Racing Stables and tonight, Karaoke night, it is full to bursting. Caroline Smith and her friend Trace have just left the microphone to tumultuous applause following a spirited rendering of I Will Survive. They give way to four stable lads who share a love of Queen’s oeuvre and an almost total lack of musical talent.

‘What will it be this time,’ wonders Trace, as they fight their way to the bar, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody or We Will Rock You?’

‘I’ve got an awful feeling about Radio Gaga,’ says Caroline, pushing her damp hair back from her face. ‘We haven’t heard that for a while.’

But the quartet surprise them with We Are The Champions. Caroline and Trace escape with their beers to a relatively quiet corner of the pub.

‘We had a policeman round our place today,’ says Caroline. ‘Called Nelson. Do you know him?’

Although Trace, in her leather trousers and artfully ripped top, hardly looks like the sort of person who would be on cordial terms with the police, she is going out with Dave Clough and so is regarded as an expert on King’s Lynn’s finest.

‘Yeah, I know him. He’s Dave’s boss. Dave thinks a lot of him but he’s always seemed a bit of a Neanderthal to me. What did he want?’

‘I don’t know. He wanted to see Dad. I thought it might be about that thing at the museum.’

‘To do with the bishop’s coffin?’ Trace is part of the field archaeology team who first discovered Bishop Augustine.

‘Yes. You know the curator dropped down dead?’

‘I’d heard. Why are the police investigating? Do they think he was bumped off?’

‘I don’t know. I thought you might know.’

Trace shakes her head. ‘I try not to let Dave talk too much shop. If I wanted to know about police stuff, I’d watch CSI Miami. Much more interesting.’

Caroline laughs. ‘This Nelson guy seemed to be talking to Dad for an awfully long time, that’s all.’

‘Why don’t you ask your dad about it?’ asks Trace, though she thinks she knows the answer.

Caroline’s face darkens. ‘I can’t talk to him about anything at the moment.’

‘So you didn’t discuss the pay rise?’

‘No.’ Caroline stares into her lager in order to avoid Trace’s expression of amused exasperation. ‘I told you, it’s so hard to talk to him. He’s busy in the yard all day and he goes to bed straight after supper. He was in bed before I came out.’

‘Then make an appointment with him. You’re not just his daughter, you’re an employee, a valuable employee. You practically run that yard.’

‘Well, Len does a lot with the horses, especially the ones from abroad.’

Trace dismisses Len Harris with an airy sweep of the hand that almost knocks her glass to the floor. ‘But you do all the paperwork and you ride out and you look after all the press and publicity. You designed the website and you organised the open day.’

‘Len hated the open day. Said it upset the horses.’

‘Forget Len. He’s a miserable bastard. It was a great success. You should get more recognition for the things you do.’

‘I know. It’s just… things are difficult at the moment. Dad’s always arguing with Randolph and Randolph just lazes around winding Dad up. He doesn’t even ride any more, just sits around watching daytime TV and drinking vodka at lunchtime.’

‘What about your mum?’

‘She’s never home. She’s always at work or out with her friends. And she’s not interested in the yard anyway. She says it’s cruel to make horses race because they never jump over fences when they’re out in the fields, just when someone’s on their back hitting them.’

‘She’s got a point,’ Trace glances at her watch. She sympathises with her friend but she doesn’t want to listen to Caroline banging on about horses all night. There are limits after all. And she’d like to do another song.

‘Oh no,’ says Caroline earnestly. ‘Horses love to race. It’s in their blood.’

‘Maybe it’s not in yours. You’ve travelled, you’ve got loads of other experience. Why don’t you get out, get a job miles away? Forget about your mum and dad and Randolph.’

Caroline’s face takes on a closed, stubborn look.

‘I can’t. There are things I need to do.’

Trace is about to ask what things when a stable-girl called Georgina comes over to ask them to form a three-some to sing Material Girl. Trace jumps up at once; she’s always thought that she has a lot in common with Madonna.

Danforth Smith is, in fact, finding it hard to sleep. Usually he collapses into bed at ten, worn out by a hard physical day. His wife, Romilly, sleeps in another room and, anyhow, she’s out ‘seeing friends’. It occurred to Danforth recently that he no longer knows any of his wife’s friends. He looked on her Facebook page recently and didn’t recognise half of the names on it. ‘Business acquaintances,’ she had said airily but, if so, they are business acquaintances who send very unbusinesslike messages (‘love you babe’) and include pictures of themselves sunbathing topless in the Maldives. Romilly has her own life, her own job (as an interior designer), her own friends, her own bank account. She leaves the house at nine, driving her white Fiat 500, and is back at six, just when Danforth is organising the evening feeds. Then she is often out again, ‘networking’ at various arty parties. Danforth usually eats with the lads; Romilly, when she’s home, eats with Randolph in front of the TV. She gets on much better with Randolph than he does. ‘He’s resting,’ she says, whenever he raises the subject of their only son. ‘Resting? He’s not a bloody actor.’ ‘He might be,’ Romilly had countered. ‘He’s thinking of doing a course.’ Danforth had stomped off to the stables, disgusted. In his opinion, going on a course is only another word for being unemployed.

So Romilly is now out somewhere discussing French films or Italian wine (Danforth’s idea of these events is based on magazines his nanny used to read in the Fifties) and Danforth tosses and turns in the ancient double that once belonged to his parents. He gets up, goes to the loo, drinks some water, tries to recite bloodlines in his head. The house is silent; he can hear the occasional stamp and whinny from the stables, but these are soothing sounds usually guaranteed to make him feel that all is well with the world. Why does he feel tonight that there’s something very wrong with the world? Is it poor Neil’s death? He feels sorry for the curator certainly. Neil always seemed a nice guy, a bit nervous maybe but fundamentally decent and very bright, committed to turning the Smith Museum into something more modern and ‘interactive’ (whatever that might mean). But now Neil is dead, found lying beside the coffin of Danforth’s illustrious ancestor. Is it this gruesome scenario which is preying on his mind? The coffin and the snake. The Great Snake will have its revenge. Nonsense, of course. Neil died from natural causes. Absolute tragedy and all that but life must go on. He’ll offer the parents some money to fund some research or something in Neil’s name. Make sure his memory lives on. He shifts uncomfortably under the duvet. Why can’t he get to sleep?

And he’s worried about Caroline. Danforth might say to Nelson that Caroline has never caused him a day’s worry but the nights are another matter. Whenever he can’t sleep, Caroline’s face appears in front of him, reproachful and slightly angry. Why should she be angry with him? He’s always done his best, though the kids haven’t been easy at times. Tamsin was always the clever one, straight As, degree in law, now a successful career. Tamsin was always organised, the sort of girl who drew up a revision timetable in four different-coloured felt-tips. Randolph was another matter, brilliantly clever when he tried, infuriatingly stupid when he didn’t. But even he managed to get a degree, though what he’s going to do with it is another matter. Randolph isn’t helped by being so good-looking. All his life teachers, friends and, later, girlfriends, have fallen over themselves to make excuses for him.

Caroline doesn’t have that problem. She and Tamsin are actually very alike – striking without being beautiful – but where Tamsin’s dark hair is usually pulled back into a neat chignon, Caroline’s is often loose and slightly unkempt. And while Tamsin always looks smart, Caroline slops around in jodhpurs or weird hippy dresses. And Caroline is so intense, always getting into a state about something or another. Animal rights, racehorses shipped off to die in Belgium, abandoned greyhounds, the ageold wrongs of every godforsaken tribe in the world. Her schooldays were one long drama of tears and tantrums, professions of love and hate. Caroline hadn’t gone to university, she’d travelled the world instead and come back with a whole new list of things to care about. That’s all fine, but why does she look at him as if he’s the one responsible for the world’s ills? He didn’t wipe out the bloody American Indians, for God’s sake. And why hasn’t Caroline got a boyfriend? Always hanging out with that shaven-haired girl from the university. Maybe she’s… But Danforth’s imagination doesn’t stretch that far.

He sighs and goes downstairs to make some cocoa. He’ll put a swig of brandy in it too.

Randolph is in a bar, a very different drinking establishment from Caroline’s. The lighting is subdued, the ambiance expensive. Two burly bouncers at the door stop passing riff-raff getting further than the gold ropes. Randolph drinks a glass of champagne without noticing, as if it’s medicine. The first glass is free, to soften the fact that the rest of the drinks cost the equivalent of a two-bedroomed house (with garage). Randolph doesn’t really notice the prices either. There’s plenty in the bank, and if there isn’t, what are overdrafts for? He’s thinking about Clary, his current girlfriend. She’s developed an awful habit of ringing him up on a Monday night. Monday nights are meant to be sacrosanct. And she’s been making ominous noises about meeting his parents. Sunday lunch at home with Mummy and Daddy, Dad bellyaching about the cost of hay, Caroline brooding on the world’s wrongs, horse shit all over the place. It’s just not going to happen.

‘Drinking alone?’ The question comes from a young man in his twenties, vaguely Russian-looking, with a shaven head and definite biceps.

‘Not now,’ says Randolph.

Romilly Smith downs her beer in one gulp. She’d like another but she has to drive home and, besides, she needs her head to deal with this lot.

‘Violence has to be justifiable,’ she says. ‘I’m not against it. I just think we need to choose our moment. And we have to make a case for it.’

Her audience, two men and a woman, all in their twenties and dressed in various items of camouflage, look at her resentfully. Romilly, in her white trousers and grey cashmere jumper, could not look more out of place in the dingy pub with her dingy companions, but there is an air of authority about her, an indefinable sense of superiority that makes the woman address her almost respectfully as she says, ‘Who do we have to make the case to?’

‘To whom,’ corrects Romilly kindly. ‘To the public, of course. And to the press. Something like this can’t be hushed up and we wouldn’t want it to be. We need the publicity.’

‘What does it matter what the press think?’ says one of the men. ‘Bunch of Tory tossers.’

Romilly sighs. The group are really distressingly stupid sometimes. Not that she’s got any time for Tories. She was in the Socialist Workers’ Party before this lot were even born.

‘It matters because they control public opinion,’ she says. ‘We have to be clever. We have to play the game. We have to spin things our way.’

‘Nothing matters,’ says the woman mutinously. ‘Nothing matters except the cause.’

She sounds like Caroline in one of her sulky moods, thinks Romilly, except that Caroline would never have the guts for Direct Action. This group, for all their faults, don’t lack guts.

‘Of course dear,’ she says soothingly. ‘Nothing matters except the cause.’

Danforth makes cocoa in the empty kitchen. The time on the stainless steel range says 00.15. Fifteen minutes past midnight. Though the kitchen is deserted, it isn’t quite silent. Various machines whirr and hum. The dishwasher is still ploughing through its umpteenth cycle. Ecologically unsound, says Caroline. She does all her washing up by hand. Well, she’s welcome to it. Danforth rinses a cup, mindlessly rubbing a mark from one of the shiny red units. He’s never been keen on them himself but Romilly insisted. He’d prefer an Aga like his parents had, mismatched cupboards, an old oak table. But their kitchen lies in ruins in the grounds of the park, weeds growing through the sandstone tiles where he used to lie on a summer’s day, watching the ants march under the scullery door.

The milk starts to boil and Danforth removes it from the heat. A horse neighs outside, another answers. Danforth pauses, dripping milk onto the floor. It is rare for the horses to neigh at night. A neigh is often a warning, a signal to the rest of the herd. Perhaps he should check the CCTV cameras in Caroline’s cottage? No, it would be impossible for an intruder to get past the electric gates. Danforth pours the cocoa, blinking in the glare. Then he stops again. There shouldn’t be any glare, just the discreet spotlights above the range (Romilly is excellent at lighting). But the room is bathed in an unnatural white glow.

The security lights are on.

Danforth goes to the window. He can see through the arch and into the yard, see the horses heads silhouetted in the sudden brightness. Maybe a fox has got in. Only yesterday one of the lads had had some story about seeing a big cat ‘the size of a cheetah’ prowling on the edge of the wood. There are always stories about big cats, lions escaped from the nearby zoo, panthers living wild in suburban gardens. But a loose animal could disturb the horses. They need their sleep too.

Barbours and boots are kept by the kitchen door. Danforth shrugs on a coat and treads into his gumboots. He walks quickly across the carport where his Range Rover is parked in solitary splendour. Romilly’s Fiat and Randolph’s Porsche are both missing. Romilly is probably watching a dreary film with subtitles and doubtless Randolph is out with some highly unsuitable girl, two-timing that nice Clary. Danforth walks quickly around the house. The stable cat, Lester, appears from the darkness and rubs himself round his legs. Was it Lester who sparked the rumour about the big cat?

The yard is still lit up. Some horses are peering sleepily out of their stalls but most are hidden. The clock over the archway says twelve twenty-five. The grass is grey in the moonlight, the stable doors ghostly white. Lester runs happily along the plastic-coated hay bales, his tail in the air. There is nothing and nobody to be seen.

Danforth Smith stomps back to the house. Maybe now he’ll be able to sleep. He’ll definitely have a brandy, perhaps a double. He stops by the back door to take off his boots. It is some minutes before he notices the dead snake on the doorstep.