A Room Full Of Bones

PROLOGUE

31 October 2009

The coffin is definitely a health and safety hazard. It fills the entrance hall, impeding the view of the stuffed Auk, a map of King’s Lynn in the 1800s and a rather dirty oil painting of Lord Percival Smith, the founder of the museum. The coffin’s wooden sides are swollen and rotten and look likely to disgorge their contents in a singularly gruesome manner. Any visitors would find its presence unhelpful, not to say distressing. But today, as on most days, there are no visitors to the Smith Museum. The curator, Neil Topham, stands alone at the far end of the hall looking rather helplessly at the ominously shaped box on the floor. The two policemen who have carried it this far look disinclined to go further. They stand, sweating and mutinous in their protective clothing, under the dusty chandelier donated by Lady Caroline Smith (1884-1960).

‘You can’t leave it here,’ says Neil.

‘We were told “take it to the Smith museum,”’ says the younger of the two men, PC Roy ‘Rocky’ Taylor.

‘But you can’t just leave it in the hall,’ protests Neil. ‘I want it in the Local History Room.’

‘Is that upstairs?’ asks the older man, Sergeant Tom Henty.

‘No.’

‘Good, because we don’t do upstairs. Our union won’t allow it.’

Neil doesn’t know if they are joking or not. Do policemen have unions? But he stands aside as the two men shoulder their burden again and carry it, watched by myriad glass eyes, through the Natural History Room and into a smaller room decorated with a mural of Norfolk Through The Ages. There is a trestle table waiting in the centre of the room and, on this, the policemen lower the coffin.

‘It’s all yours,’ says Taylor, breathing heavily.

‘But don’t open it, mind,’ warns Henty. ‘Not until the Big Guns get here.’

‘I won’t,’ says Neil, although he looks with fascination, almost hunger, at the box, whose cracked lid offers a coy glimpse of the horrors within.

‘Superintendent Whitcliffe’s on his way.’

‘Is the boss coming?’ asks Taylor. Whitcliffe may be the most senior policeman in Norfolk, but for Taylor and others like him the boss will always be Detective Inspector Harry Nelson.

‘Nah,’ says Henty. ‘Not his type of thing, is it? There’ll be journalists, the works. You know how the boss hates journos.’

‘Someone’s coming from the university,’ puts in Neil.

‘Doctor Ruth Galloway, head of Forensic Archaeology. She’s going to supervise the opening.’

‘I’ve met her,’ says Henty. ‘She knows her stuff.’

‘It’s very exciting,’ says Neil. Again he gives the coffin a furtive, almost greedy, look.

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ says Henty. ‘Come on, Rocky. Back to work. No peace for the wicked.’