A Room Full Of Bones

CHAPTER 14

As soon as Ruth meets Janet Meadows she realises why Cathbad said that she was the perfect person to ask about Bishop Augustine. Janet, a tall elegant woman in black, is clearly a male to female transsexual. She tells Ruth as much, as soon they sit down in the refectory, a striking modern building built next to the medieval cathedral.

‘Think it’s best to get this out of the way. I used to be Jan Tomaschewski. I published quite a lot under that name. Five years ago I became Janet. It’s better to say so straight away, otherwise you’ll be thinking to yourself “Isn’t she tall? Hasn’t she got big hands?” I used to be a man. End of story.’

Ruth, who had been looking at Janet’s hands, blushes. ‘Why Meadows?’ is all she can think of saying.

‘Well, Tomaschewski was such a mouthful and it was very patriarchal. Comes from the name Thomas. I was fed up with being named after someone called Thomas so I decided to name myself after something I liked. I live near the water meadows so I thought – meadows.’

‘It’s lovely,’ says Ruth. ‘I used to hate my name. Too plain and biblical. Maybe I should change it.’

‘No,’ says Janet decidedly. ‘Ruth Galloway suits you. I understand you’re a friend of Cathbad’s? There’s another one who changed his name.’

‘Yes,’ says Ruth. ‘I can never think of him as Michael.’

‘Well, Michael was an archangel,’ says Janet. ‘A rather ambivalent figure.’

Ambivalent in what way, thinks Ruth. Angels are famously sexually ambivalent, of course, and Lucifer was an angel before going over to the dark side. Again the line between saints and sinners is rather blurred.

‘So you want to know about Bishop Augustine,’ says Janet. ‘He’s the flavour of the month with you archaeologists. I wanted to be at the opening of the coffin. I came to the first event but it was cancelled. They wouldn’t let me come to the second, said it was private.’

‘You would have enjoyed it,’ says Ruth. Briefly, she tells Janet about her discovery. It goes down big. Janet gasps, putting her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it.’

‘Can’t you?’ asks Ruth, rather disappointed.

‘Well, I suppose I can,’ Janet is recovering. ‘Augustine is a fascinating figure but there are some gaps in his biography. Or her biography. My God! I’m the last person who should start getting stuck on personal pronouns.’

‘What do we know about the bishop?’ asks Ruth tactfully, finishing her (delicious) coffee. The refectory really is a very pleasant place. It’s all glass and polished wood with high soaring ceilings, rather like a cathedral itself. A cathedral of food; that’s Ruth’s kind of worship.

‘We know a fair amount thanks to Prior Hugh. He was the prior when Augustine was bishop. The prior would have been responsible for the day-to-day running of the cathedral and Hugh left an incredibly detailed account of his work – how many candles were used, what the monks ate, how much was given in alms – all that sort of thing. But he was also a chronicler and he wrote about prominent figures of the times, principally Bishop Augustine.’

‘Do we know anything about Augustine’s childhood?’

‘Well he… I’m going to call him “he” if that’s OK, it’ll take some time to get used to the other… he came from a relatively humble background. The Smiths weren’t nobility then. They made their money in the 1500s, they were one of the families that got rich from the dissolution of the monasteries, but in the 1300s they were just ordinary craftsmen, guild workers. Augustine’s father was a stonemason. Augustine was an only child, something that was quite unusual then, though he may have had siblings who died in infancy. Now I’m wondering whether there was a son who died and that Augustine in some way assumed his identity.’

‘We’ll never know I suppose.’

‘I suppose not. Hugh writes a lot about Augustine’s holiness but there are no physical descriptions, no clues about his sexual inclinations.’

‘Sounds as if Prior Hugh was quite a fan.’

‘He’s almost Augustine’s hagiographer. I think he really felt that Augustine was a saint. There’s a lot about his good works, his visions, his battles with the devil.’

‘His battles with the devil?’

‘According to Hugh, Bishop Augustine was constantly tormented by the devil. Sometimes in the morning he was black and blue after having tussled with the devil all night. Augustine used to have terrible dreams apparently. His housekeeper used to hear him crying out with pain but no one was allowed to enter his private apartments.’

‘Perhaps that was because they would find out his secret,’ suggests Ruth.

‘Maybe. Prior Hugh also says that Augustine refused to have a body servant. He sees it as evidence of Augustine’s humility but, of course, there could have been another reason.’

‘Is there anything else about Augustine’s private life?’

‘Not really. In his will he left money to pay for masses for his soul, nothing else. Prior Hugh mostly writes about Augustine’s spiritual life – the torments, the visions – it’s all quite apocalyptic at times.’

‘I heard something about a great snake,’ says Ruth.

‘Well, his statue in the cathedral shows Bishop Augustine with his foot on a snake. It was thought to represent the devil, and during one of Augustine’s many exorcisms Hugh reports seeing a huge snake, a “mighty worm”, appear in the sky. Hugh thought it was the devil being vanquished.’

‘Have you met Ted from the Field Team? He says there was a curse on the coffin. Whoever opened it would be destroyed by the great serpent.’

Janet nods. ‘That’s in Hugh’s account. It was always believed that Augustine was buried in the cathedral and there’s a stone with an inscription saying “vex not my bones” and a warning about the snake. But when they excavated in the 1830s they found that the vault was empty. No bones at all.’

‘Because Augustine was buried in the other church? St Mary’s Outside the Walls?’

‘It’s possible. There was a family connection with St Mary’s. Augustine was christened there and it’s thought that his parents were buried in the graveyard. Of course, he might have left instructions to be buried there for precisely this reason, to prevent his body being examined after death.’

‘When did Augustine die?’

‘In 1362, the year that the great spire was destroyed by fire. Prior Hugh, of course, thought that was another omen. The devil getting his revenge. In fact, the cathedral was in for a rough few years. There was the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 and Augustine’s successor, Bishop Henry Despenser, the so-called “fighting bishop”, led the troops against the peasants.’

‘Very charitable.’

‘Bishops weren’t necessarily very charitable or even very religious in those days. They were usually the younger sons of great noblemen, only interested in power or money. That’s what makes Bishop Augustine so interesting. He was genuinely spiritual. Of course, we can laugh at it now, all the visions and the battles with the devil, but Augustine was obviously rather a tormented soul. He was a true friend to the poor though. He doubled the amount of alms given by the monks and he founded schools and hospitals. Prior Hugh really thought he was a saint. There are stories of Augustine being able to heal the sick, even of bilocating, being in two places at once. Hugh recalls watching him praying by the Lady Altar at the same time that he was apparently administering last rites to some old woman in the village.’

Ruth has been listening with the kind of trance-like interest that she remembers from her best lectures at university. She has almost forgotten about the coffin, Ted’s warning, the dead body of Neil Topham. Janet brings her back to earth by asking, rather abruptly, ‘Why are you so interested? Apart from the gender thing.’

The gender thing, Ruth muses, that’s one way of putting it. Aloud she says, ‘There were a few other odd things about the coffin. The body was wrapped in silk which had been coated with beeswax. There were the remains of a ceremonial crosier and a single shoe made of leather, very intricate. Why would the Bishop be buried with a single shoe?’

Janet looks at her consideringly for a minute, then she says, ‘There are two legends that might be linked to it. One is a bit like the Saint Nicholas story – Santa Claus, you know – he was a bishop too. In Turkey. Well, anyhow, in this story there are some penniless children and Bishop Augustine fills their shoes with money. Prior Hugh writes that children would leave their shoes outside their door and the Bishop would go through the town at night, filling them with coins.’

‘And the second story?’

‘Well, this one’s about the devil. You know that the statue shows Bishop Augustine with his foot on the snake? Well, in one of Hugh’s accounts, the devil in the form of a snake bites through Augustine’s shoe so he stamps on him with his foot. Henceforward, Augustine often walked barefoot. A form of mortifying the flesh possibly, especially when you think of the state of the roads in those days. There’s an inscription on the statue: You will tread on cubs and vipers. You will trample lions and asps.’

‘Psalms,’ says Ruth. ‘He will order his angels to guard you wherever you go.’

Janet looks surprised.

‘My parents are Born Again Christians,’ Ruth explains. ‘I know the Bible.’

‘Do you have any faith yourself?’

Ruth shakes her head. ‘There are people I respect who do believe but I don’t. What about you?’

Janet laughs. ‘I was brought up a Catholic. A Polish Catholic too, which is like being Catholic cubed. I’m a historian, I like evidence but… I don’t know. I think there are things that can’t be proved.’

Once Ruth would have disagreed violently with this, but after the last few years she isn’t so sure any more. About anything.

Janet stands up. ‘Let’s go and have a look at the old boy. Or girl, as the case may be.’

Judy arrives at the yard to find the gates open and Nelson nowhere in sight. She walks through the archway and comes face-to-face with a large chestnut horse whirling around on the end of a lead rope. Judy makes a wide arc round him. The stable girl is trying to get the horse into his box but he’s having none of it, throwing up his head and clattering round in furious circles. As Judy watches, two lads come up to help subdue the horse. ‘Steady, steady…’ she hears one of them say. The girl is almost in tears. ‘I can’t…’ she’s saying. ‘Don’t be such a girl,’ says one of the men, seemingly without irony. The horse continues to plunge and snort.

Judy makes her way towards the office where an older man is on the phone. He covers the handset and looks up enquiringly.

‘Detective Sergeant Judy Johnson,’ says Judy.

‘Len Harris, Head Lad. Can you excuse me a moment? I’m just getting the declarations done.’

Judy nods and settles down to read the Racing Post. Unlike Nelson, she does not feel at all out of place in these surroundings. Her father is a bookie and she comes from a horse-loving Irish family. She used to ride as a child and once even had ambitions to be a jockey. What was it that stopped her, she wonders now. Was it discovering boys or getting boobs? Come to think of it, the two things probably happened at the same time.

‘Sorry about that,’ says Harris. ‘Everything’s a bit frantic at the moment.’

Judy looks up from the paper. ‘Jumping Jack hasn’t got a hope in the 2.10 at Newmarket.’

For a second, Len Harris looks angry, then he grins. ‘No, but we don’t want him handicapped too heavily for Cheltenham. Do him good to lose a few races.’

‘What will the owners say?’

Len Harris shrugs. ‘They’re in Dubai. They won’t know.’

Judy stands up. ‘I’m sorry about your boss.’

Harris’s face doesn’t show emotions very easily but, for a second, he looks genuinely bereft. ‘It’s hard. He was a one-off, the governor. Some people thought he was stuck-up, but around the yard he was one of the lads. And he loved the horses, he really understood them.’

‘What will happen with the yard now?’

Harris’s face darkens. ‘That’s up to the kids, I suppose. Caroline would probably like to take over but she hasn’t got the experience. Randolph’s a waste of space. Tamsin’s up in London. I suppose the yard’ll be sold. Owners are already taking their horses away.’

‘Already?’

‘Oh yes. There’s not much sentiment in racing, you know.’

Judy does know. She wonders what will happen to Len Harris if the business is sold. Plenty of racing stables in Norfolk but he looks a little old to go job hunting.

‘I’ve been asked to look at the CCTV footage,’ she says. ‘Is there anywhere I can do that?’

‘Yes. There’s a room in Caroline’s cottage. I’ve got the key.’ He fumbles through sets of keys hanging over the desk. Not a very secure system, thinks Judy.

As they go out into the yard, there is a tremendous banging and clattering from one of the boxes in the far corner. Harris sets off at a run. Judy follows him.

Inside the box, a bay horse is sprawled awkwardly on the ground, almost sitting, front legs straight, back legs collapsed. Its eyes are rolling and it’s clearly in agony. Two stable lads are struggling to get the horse on its feet, hauling on ropes, pushing at its rump. Len goes into the box and joins in the effort, bracing his legs against the wall to push with his back.

‘What’s happened?’ asks Judy.

‘Cast himself,’ pants Len. ‘Probably colic.’

Judy can see that the animal’s stomach does look distended, a symptom of colic. The horse appears in terrible pain, almost bellowing, the white of his eyes yellow. She looks at the laminated card on the stable door. The horse is called Fancy, she reads, and he’s a four-year-old colt.

‘Shouldn’t you get the vet?’

‘He’s coming,’ says Len shortly. ‘Now, please, can you leave us to get on? The cottage is by the gates.’

Judy walks back through the yard with Fancy’s tormented neighing ringing in her ears. She feels very shaken. It’s part and parcel of looking after horses, she knows, but she can’t forget the look in the poor animal’s eyes. She hopes the vet gets there soon. She’d wanted to be a vet once too, before she’d realised that you needed three As at A-Level.

Judy had imagined Caroline very elegant, a grown-up version of the sort of girl who used to intimidate her in her pony club days. But the woman who greets her at the cottage door couldn’t be further from the twin-setted Home Counties lady of her imagination. To be frank, Caroline looks a mess; her dark hair is unbrushed and her eyes are red and swollen. She is wearing jeans and her top is on inside out. She hardly seems to take in Judy’s explanation about who she is and what she wants to do.

‘I thought you were my sister Tamsin,’ says Caroline. ‘She’s coming from London.’

‘I’m so sorry about your dad,’ says Judy.

Caroline’s eyes fill with tears. ‘It just doesn’t seem possible that he’s gone. I keep expecting him to walk in.’

‘It’s hard, I know,’ says Judy. Empathetic echoing, the books call it.

‘I just feel so terrible…’

It must be awful to lose your dad, thinks Judy, however old you are. She hopes that Caroline’s family gives her some support, but she doubts it somehow.

‘The tapes?’ she prompts gently.

‘Oh, yes…’ Caroline gives her a tremulous smile. She keeps looking towards the door, which is freaking Judy out slightly. ‘This way.’

The room by the front door is full of screens. There are five cameras in different parts of the yard: one by the main gates, one by the house gates, one in each quadrangle and one at the far gates, ‘where the original house once stood’ Caroline explains.

Judy settles down to look, gratefully accepting the offer of coffee. Look at last night’s footage, the boss said. She starts at eight p.m. It’s incredibly boring. Hours of night vision camera showing empty driveways. The only distraction is when Lester the cat appears, walking delicately along the footpath, sitting to wash himself in the empty courtyard. Occasionally a horse’s head looks out over one of the stable doors, but, for the most part, Lester is the only living thing to be seen. Judy’s eyes start to blur. She sips her cold coffee. Outside she hears a car draw up and voices talking. This must be the famous Tamsin. She hears a woman’s voice, very loud and upper-class. ‘For fuck’s sake have some respect, Randolph.’ Happy families.

She fast-forwards to ten o’clock. At twenty past midnight, the camera by the house starts to get interesting. A car draws up and a man gets out. He’s carrying a case, so Judy assumes he’s the doctor. The door opens to let him in. A few minutes later, a sports car screeches to a halt by the house. A Porsche, thinks Judy. She likes cars as well as horses. Really, there’s a speed demon in there somewhere trying to get out. A man gets out of the sports car. She can’t see his face but she thinks it might be the son. What was his name? Randolph. The one Len Harris thinks is useless. The one who needs to have more respect. Ten minutes later and an ambulance is through the gates. Lights, running footsteps, a sense of urgency. A figure is carried out on a stretcher. A woman climbs into the ambulance and the man follows in the Porsche. Then the gates shut behind them and she’s back to Lester and the empty yard. Where was Caroline when all this was going on? she wonders. More footage of silent horse boxes. What is she looking for anyway? The boss didn’t seem convinced that there was anything suspicious about Danforth Smith’s death. Does he really believe that someone sneaked in and shot him a poisoned dart or something? He’s getting fanciful in his old age. She’ll tell him so when she gets back to the station. She won’t, of course.

More empty pathways. An owl hooting. Lester prowling through the long grass. A clock striking. Then – Oh my God. The main gates opening and a man appearing.

Judy peers closer. ‘Bloody hell,’ she says aloud. ‘I don’t believe it.’