A Room Full Of Bones

CHAPTER 15

Although Ruth has lived in Norfolk for thirteen years now, she has never before been to Norwich Cathedral. It’s more the sort of thing tourists do, and one way or another she isn’t really into churches, though she has a sneaking liking for vast Catholic edifices full of pictures of the end of the world. So, although she has often shopped in the lanes nearby, the evocatively named Tombland, and she has seen the cathedral’s spire pointing up through the rooftops like a medieval space rocket, this is the first time she has entered the building.

They walk through the cathedral close across manicured green lawns. Janet Meadows has absolutely no truck with any sign saying ‘Private’. At the main entrance, Janet points at two modern statues on either side of the door. One depicts a man, his finger on his lips in a rather threatening adjuration to silence, the other is a woman, head draped in a flowing scarf, holding a book.

‘Who are they?’ asks Ruth, peering up.

‘Saint Benedict and Mother Julian. Julian of Norwich. Another fourteenth-century holy woman.’

The name rings a faint bell with Ruth. ‘Who was she again?’

‘She was an anchoress.’

‘A what?’

‘A hermit if you like. She lived on her own in a cell attached to Saint Julian’s church. She spent her life praying and people used to come to her for advice. When she was about thirty she became very ill and had a series of visions of God. She wrote about them in a book called Revelations of Divine Love. It was the first book written in English by a woman.’

‘I don’t think that’s on my reading list somehow.’

‘There are some wonderful things in it. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Julian was incredibly optimistic given the times she lived in.’

‘Do you think she knew Bishop Augustine?’

‘I’ve been wondering about that. The dates just about coincide, though Prior Hugh doesn’t mention Julian much.’

‘Maybe Augustine pretended to be a man because her only other option was becoming an anchoress and shutting herself away from the world.’

‘Maybe,’ says Janet, looking up the statue. ‘But Julian’s name and her writing live on today. That’s more than can be said for most bishops.’

They enter through the visitor’s entrance, modern smoked glass fused onto ancient stone. Automatic doors glide open at their approach, and in the lobby interactive displays wink and hum. Ruth is surprised to see men busily erecting scaffolding outside.

‘They’re filming,’ explains Janet. ‘Lots of films are set in the cathedral.’

‘It’s all very commercial,’ says Ruth disapprovingly. She may be an atheist but she likes her churches traditional.

‘Wait till you get inside.’

Ruth ignores a sign asking for donations and follows Janet into the cathedral. At first she is simply struck by the height and space. The cathedral resembles the monastery it once was, long and narrow with a high gothic roof, stone pillars branching out like great trees. The air is cold and smells of candle wax. The stone floor is uneven, and with a slight jolt Ruth realises that she is walking over gravestones. ‘Dearly beloved… Here lies… Rector of this parish… Beloved father…’ A phrase from Ruth’s churchgoing days comes back to her: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

The high altar is at the back of the church, flanked by pillars, but around the outside there is a sort of pathway, like an arched cloister. Ruth follows Janet past tombs and statues, tiers of candles glittering with wax. Crusaders lie in stone splendour, gruesome crucifixes run with blood, the occasional piece of modern artwork looks small and rather sad. You need centuries to achieve gravitas.

‘Here’s Augustine,’ says Janet.

Bishop Augustine’s statue is in a shadowy corner, placed on a plinth so high that Ruth has to tilt her head back. It shows a figure in flowing robes with a mitre on its head, holding a crosier. It looks like hundreds of other such statues and reminds Ruth of visiting Rome with Shona – the cool of the churches after the heat of the day, the myriad stone effigies of saints, their names and deeds forgotten.

‘Look at the feet,’ says Janet.

Ruth looks. In contrast to his formal clothes, the Bishop is barefoot and from under his big toe peeps the head of a snake.

‘It’s hardly a great serpent,’ says Ruth. ‘Looks like a grass snake.’

‘He’d subdued it,’ says Janet. ‘Evil has been defeated. He was a great saint.’

Ruth squints up at the statue’s face. It’s rather beautiful, certainly, but she supposes that all such images are idealised. Shoulder-length curly hair flows from under the ceremonial headgear.

‘He could be a woman,’ she says.

‘The hair doesn’t prove anything,’ says Janet. ‘Look at all that fuss about St John in The Last Supper, people saying that he must be a woman because he’s so beautiful with such long flowing hair. Da Vinci just liked painting beautiful men.’

Ruth thinks about The Da Vinci Code which, reluctantly, she rather enjoyed. Is there a clue here? Is there something she’s missing? Something about a coffin, a snake and a shoe. About an anchoress and a bishop, a man who could be in two places at once. She walks on, deep in thought. A minute or so later Janet calls her back. She is standing by what appears to be a side chapel, a small altar surrounded by a few pews. Stained-glass windows turn the stones blue and green and gold.

Janet is pointing up at one of the windows.

‘Look. There’s Julian again.’

Ruth looks, and sees in the coloured glass a woman in nun’s habit, covered by a rather grand red cloak. But what makes her look twice is the creature at Julian’s feet.

‘It’s a cat!’ she says in delight.

‘Oh yes,’ says Janet. ‘I’d never noticed that before.’

But Ruth feels a new kinship with the fourteenth-century holy woman. Because Julian undoubtedly had a cat. A large ginger cat, just like Flint. Ruth is sure that Julian’s pet must have been important to her, because otherwise why go to the trouble of depicting it in yellow and orange glass? There can’t be very much wrong with anyone who loves their cat that much.

She is about to speak when her phone rings. Janet smiles but Ruth is extremely embarrassed.

It’s Cathbad. This is getting to be a habit.

‘Ruth, can you come? I’ve been arrested.’

‘Do I need my solicitor?’

‘Shut up, Cathbad. This is serious.’

Cathbad arranges his face in a serious expression. Judy glares at him. They are in Interview Room 1, the bigger of the two interview rooms at the station, but suddenly it seems far too small. Judy is acutely aware of Cathbad’s hands, the long fingers tapping gently on the arm of his chair. He has a leather bracelet round his wrist, the kind that surfers wear. No watch. He told her once that he didn’t believe in time.

‘You were at Slaughter Hill last night. I saw you on the CCTV footage.’

Cathbad smiles enigmatically. Judy explodes. ‘Don’t you see how this looks? What the hell were you doing at Slaughter Hill at one in the morning?’

‘Visiting a friend.’

‘Who?’

‘Caroline Smith.’

‘She must be a very good friend,’ says Judy coldly, ‘for you to be calling on her at one in the morning.’

She thinks of the tear-stained woman she saw that morning. She supposes that under normal circumstances Caroline might be considered attractive. Does Cathbad think so?

‘I was at Ruth’s,’ says Cathbad. ‘I left at about midnight. I like walking at night so I thought I’d walk to Caroline’s.’

‘All the way from the Saltmarsh to Slaughter Hill?’

‘I got a lift as far as Snettisham.’

‘Who from?’

‘A friend called Bob Woonunga.’

Another one of those people with ridiculous names, thinks Judy savagely. Why the hell can’t Cathbad have ordinary friends? Why does he have to go prancing around the countryside calling on women in the middle of the night?

‘Let’s get back to Caroline Smith,’ she says. ‘Was she expecting you?’

‘I’d said I might call in.’

‘Why?’ asks Judy. If Cathbad is having an affair with Caroline, she wants him to say it aloud.

Cathbad looks at her, a smile playing around his lips. Judy wants to hit him.

‘There’s nothing between us,’ he says gently. ‘She’s a friend, that’s all. And she’s a member of the Elginists. That’s why I was calling.’

‘You just popped in to discuss Aborigine relics?’

‘That’s it exactly.’

Judy has had enough.

‘You’ll need a better story than that,’ she says, ‘when this comes to court.’

‘When what comes to court?’

‘Danforth Smith died last night. We think it was murder.’

Ruth arrives at the police station, hot and stressed from her long drive, to be met by a grinning Tom Henty. ‘Come to post bail for Cathbad, have you?’

‘I suppose so.’

All Ruth has in her purse is seven pounds fifty and a lottery ticket. Her bank account is not looking too healthy either, what with Kate’s birthday and the cost of childcare. How much is bail, anyway?

Tom laughs even harder. ‘Don’t worry, Ruth. He hasn’t been arrested and there’s no bail been set. He’s just been helping us with our enquiries, that’s all.’ He manages to make the phrase sound even more sinister than usual.

‘Where is he?’

‘Interview Room 1. Detective Sergeant Johnson’s been speaking to him. I think they’re still in there.’

Ruth looks over to where Tom is pointing. The King’s Lynn police station is in an old Victorian house. Interview Room 1 looks as if it might have been the downstairs cloakroom. A green light shines above the door.

‘Can I go in?’

‘Be my guest.’

Ruth is surprised, but not as surprised as she is when she bursts into the room to find Judy and Cathbad locked in a passionate embrace.