A Room Full Of Bones

CHAPTER 2

The body is lying on its side, legs drawn up into an almost foetal position. Ruth touches a hand, which is still warm. Is there a pulse? She can’t find one but her own hands are suddenly slippery with sweat and she’s not really sure what she’s looking for anyway. Oh, why didn’t she go on that first-aid course? She realises that she is holding her breath and forces herself to exhale, in and out, nose and mouth. It won’t do anyone any good if she faints. Gently she turns the body over and has two shocks, so severe that she almost stops breathing again.

There is blood all over the face and the face is that of someone she knows.

Neil Topham, the curator, who once came to one of her lectures on the preservation of bones. Neil, polite and unassuming, who often asked her advice about exhibits. Neil, lying on the floor of his own museum, his nose and mouth covered in blood.

Hands shaking, Ruth reaches for her phone. Please God don’t let her have left it in the car. No, it’s here. She dials 999 and asks for an ambulance. She goes completely blank when asked for the address and can only bleat, ‘The Smith Museum. Please hurry!’ The voice on the other end of the phone is calm and reassuring, even slightly bored. ‘A unit is on its way.’ Ruth bends her head close to Neil’s mouth. She can’t hear or feel any breathing. But when she puts her hand inside his shirt there is a heartbeat, very faint and unsteady, but unmistakably there. Hang on in there, Neil, she tells him. Should she move the body? But all the books tell you not to. She looks desperately round the room. The bishop’s coffin looms above them, dark and sinister. There is nothing else in the room apart from a glass display case in the corner and, by the window, a man’s single shoe.

What can have happened to Neil? Did he have a heart attack or a stroke? But he’s a young man. Young men don’t just fall down and die. It is only now that Ruth realises that what happened to Neil might not be due to natural causes. She looks around the room again. The pages of the book are still fluttering to and fro. From the open window she can hear traffic, the faint shouts of children in the park. Why is the window open anyway?

With shaking hands, Ruth reaches for her phone and calls the police.

‘It’s the Smith museum, boss.’

‘What?’

DCI Nelson is driving and his sergeant, DS Clough, is on the phone. This is a reversal of the normal order, it’s usually the junior officer who drives, but Nelson hates being a passenger. At this latest news, Nelson turns to look at Clough and the car swerves across the traffic, narrowly missing a motorbike and an invalid car. Clough vows to be behind the wheel next time. His boss’s driving skills, or lack of them, are legendary.

‘The body. It’s at the Smith Museum.’

Nelson and Clough, driving back from Felixstowe where they were following an abortive lead about a drug-smuggling ring, received a call that a dead body had been found in King’s Lynn. The circumstances were suspicious and Nelson, who heads the county’s Serious Crimes Squad, was on his way. It is only now, on the outskirts of the town, that Clough has managed to get the full details. He grunts, maddeningly, into his phone and Nelson swerves wildly once more.

‘What? What?’

‘It’s the curator, boss. You know there was that big do at the museum, opening the coffin and all that? You refused to go, remember?’

‘I remember,’ growls Nelson.

‘Well, an hour before all the bigwigs were due to arrive, one of the archaeologists gets there early and finds this curator guy, Neil Topham, lying beside the coffin, dead as a doornail.’

‘Which archaeologist?’ asks Nelson. But he knows the answer. He knew as soon as Clough mentioned the Smith Museum.

Clough relays the question over the phone.

‘It was Ruth, boss. Ruth Galloway.’

The car swerves across the road.

When Nelson arrives at the museum, Rocky Taylor is standing by the front door, a circumstance that does nothing to ease Nelson’s troubled mind. He regards Rocky, a local lad, as a typical slow-moving country bumpkin. Nelson, who was born in Blackpool, still thinks of himself as a Northerner, which, in his mind, is synonymous with sharp wits and a proper sense of humour. On entering the lobby, he is slightly relieved to find Tom Henty in attendance. Tom, though born and bred in Norfolk, is Nelson’s idea of the perfect police sergeant – steady, tough, unflappable. He’s going to need all those qualities today. Tom is standing beside a glass case containing a particularly hideous stuffed bird. Next to him, on a hard chair, looking pale but in control, is Ruth Galloway.

‘Ruth,’ Nelson nods at her.

‘Hallo Nelson.’

Clough, following in Nelson’s wake, is rather more forthcoming. ‘Ruth! Long time no see. How’s that baby of yours?’

‘Fine. She’ll be one tomorrow.’

‘One! Can’t believe it. Seems like only yesterday that she was born.’

‘Less of the chatting, Sergeant,’ says Nelson, not looking at Ruth. ‘This is a crime investigation, not a coffee morning.’ He turns to Henty. ‘What happened?’

‘Got a call at two-twenty.’ Henty flips open his notebook. ‘Came through to the duty desk. Dr Galloway was at the museum and found the curator, Neil Topham, lying on the floor beside the coffin. The one that was due to be opened at three. Dr Galloway called the emergency services – police and ambulance. Taylor and I got here the same time as the ambulance. Paramedics took him to hospital but he was DOA.’

‘Damn.’

That was bad news for Neil Topham admittedly, but also for the investigation. The body will be covered with the prints of the well-meaning paramedics. And the only evidence of the crime scene will be the one witness. Ruth Galloway.

‘Have next of kin been informed?’

‘DS Johnson’s at the hospital now.’

That’s good. Judy Johnson’s the best at that kind of thing. Get bad news from Clough and you might never recover.

Nelson looks at his watch. It’s now three-thirty. ‘Did you manage to stop the vultures descending?’

Henty coughs deprecatingly. ‘I rang Superintendent Whitcliffe and informed the local press.’

‘Whitcliffe isn’t coming is he?’

‘No. He said he’d let you deal.’

I bet he did, thinks Nelson savagely.

‘Rocky turned away the rest of the public,’ says Henty. ‘Your friend was there. The warlock.’

Nelson grunts, recognising the description without difficulty. ‘Cathbad? Of course he was there. Opening a coffin would be just his idea of fun.’

‘He said he wanted to talk to you,’ says Henty impassively. ‘Something about skulls and the unquiet dead.’

Nelson grunts again. ‘Well it’ll have to wait. Can you show me the room where the body was found? Clough, wait here with Dr Galloway.’ And he stalks away without a backward glance.

There is something strangely calm about the Local History Room. It’s a long, narrow space, slightly too high for its width, as if it was once part of a larger room. The floor, like the rest of the museum, is covered in black and white tiles and the walls are painted in cheerful primary colours. The window is open and the breeze blows the dusty curtains inwards. The coffin, with its straining sides, stands four-square in the centre of the room. There is a single glass case in a corner containing what looks like a stuffed grass snake. The only other objects on the floor are a guidebook and a single shoe, a brown suede slip-on, about a foot away from the coffin. Nelson stares at it dispassionately. Typical arty shoes. Real men – real Northern men – always wear lace-ups.

‘Think that’s his? Topham’s?’

Henty shrugs. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Did you see him earlier? You delivered this thing didn’t you? You and Rocky.’

‘Yes. I saw him. Only a few hours ago.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘I don’t know. A bit excited. Wound up. I suppose he was looking forward to the big event.’

Henty does good deadpan; Nelson approves. The man could be a Northerner.

‘No palpitations? Signs that he was going to drop down dead?’

‘No. He was youngish. Not overweight. Looked in reasonable health. A bit overwrought, as I say. Screamed at Rocky when he knocked something over.’

‘We all scream at Rocky. That doesn’t mean anything.’ Nelson looks around the room. ‘You haven’t touched anything in here.’ It’s a statement more than a question.

‘No, sir. Scene-of-the-crime boys are on their way.’

Quite right. That was the way modern policing worked. Don’t touch anything until the SOCO team get there with their space-age suits and brushes and little plastic boxes. In the old days, when Nelson was a young PC in Blackpool, they’d be in there right away, moving the body, getting their fingerprints over everything. Now Nelson rotates slowly on the spot, taking in the crime scene at a distance. If it is a crime scene.

There are a few streaks on the floor which might be blood and the tiles, though obviously recently swept, are still grubby in places. That’s good. The forensic boys love a bit of dirt, perfect for catching prints, DNA, all the stuff they like. The curtains flap more wildly. The wind is getting up.

Nelson turns to Henty. ‘Was the window open when you got here?’

‘Yes.’

Strange to have an open window in October. Nelson walks over to it and looks out. They are on the ground floor and it would be fairly easy to get in that way. Outside is the car park, a few dustbins and a charity recycling box. No handy soil for footprints but someone in the adjoining offices may have seen something. He’ll have to send Rocky house-to-house.

Nelson walks slowly round the room. He realises that the patterns on the walls are in fact a series of pictures. Norfolk Through The Ages. One scene in particular catches his eye: a circle of wooden posts on a beach, a crudely drawn figure in a white robe in the centre of the circle, arms stretched out like a scarecrow, an improbably yellow sun shining overhead. Nelson goes closer. ‘Bronze Age wooden henge on Saltmarsh Beach,’ he reads, ‘discovered in 1997 by Professor Erik Anderssen of the University of Oslo.’ And by Ruth Galloway, he thinks. He thinks also of the Saltmarsh, the bleak expanse of wind-blown grass, the treacherous stretches of quicksand, the tide rushing in across the mudflats, turning land into sea – a fatal trap for the unwary. Nothing could be further from the cheery blue and yellow beach scene on the wall. He looks at the next wall. ‘Roman Villa at Swaffham, believed to be part of a garrison town.’ A white-pillared house stands smugly in landscaped grounds, like something from an upmarket housing estate. Nelson frowns at it. He doesn’t like the Romans any better than he likes the Bronze Age idiots. Between the Roman Villa and the henge is a cartoon which could, if charitably interpreted, be said to represent a girl lying on her side. ‘Iron Age girl, discovered in 2007 by Dr Ruth Galloway of the University of North Norfolk.’

‘Boss?’

Nelson turns round, grateful that Tom Henty can’t see his thoughts.

‘Do you want to speak to Dr Galloway? Only she was saying something about having to collect her little girl from the childminder’s.’

Nelson sighs. ‘OK. When the SOCO boys come, get them to check over by the window. I think there may have been forced entry.’

‘Do you think it’s murder then, boss?’

‘I don’t know. Could have been natural causes, I suppose, but I don’t like the open window. Looks as if there may have been a break-in. Is Chris Stephenson on his way to the hospital?’

Chris Stephenson is the police pathologist. Not high on Nelson’s list of favourite people (admittedly, that’s not a long list).

‘Yes. Apparently he was at some Halloween party with his kids.’

‘Well, maybe he’ll fly there on his broomstick.’

Nelson doesn’t like Halloween. Old people frightened by feral teens in fright masks, eggs thrown at cars, bricks through windows. He thinks that Michelle may have taken their daughters trick-or-treating when they were little but it seemed a gentler affair in those days. The girls always refused to dress as anything as unaesthetic as witches anyway. He remembers a couple of Disney fairies dancing off to the neighbours to collect handfuls of Haribos. Admittedly, Rebecca did go through a vampire stage, but that was later.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Is there an office or something where I can talk to Dr Galloway?’

‘Curator’s office is just down the corridor.’

‘Grand. Send her down to me will you?’

He finds the office without difficulty. It’s at the end of a corridor that also doubles as an art gallery, another succession of gloomy oil paintings. Here there are trestle tables laid out with wine boxes and plastic glasses, the only signs so far that the museum was expecting visitors that day. Nelson takes a crisp from a bowl as he passes. He’s meant to be on a diet but murder always makes him hungry. Halfway down the corridor there’s a door marked ‘Fire Exit.’ Nelson tries the handle. Locked. A breach of health and safety rules. Or maybe someone wanted to block off possible escape routes?

Inside the curator’s office Nelson finds himself in a confused space of cardboard boxes and exhibits from the museum, maybe removed for repair or because they were in some way surplus to requirements. He pushes past a stuffed beaver and a wall-eyed Viking in a one-horned helmet. There’s a pile of DIY tools on the floor. Perhaps Topham meant to mend the exhibits himself.

The desk is covered with paper, which irritates Nelson whose desk at King’s Lynn Police Station is famously clear apart from his ever-present To Do List. Nelson loves lists and feels that a few lists would have done Neil Topham the power of good. Might even have stopped him being killed. 1. Come to work. 2. Tidy office 3. Avoid being murdered by a knife-wielding maniac. But there is no knife and he doesn’t even know for sure that Neil Topham was murdered. At some point he’ll have to search the office properly, but first, Ruth Galloway.

The door is pushed open. ‘You sent for me?’ Ruth’s voice is heavy with irony.

‘I just thought we should talk somewhere private.’

Ruth’s sarcastic expression is replaced by something a little more… what? Wary? Vulnerable?

‘So.’ Nelson clears a space on the desktop, pushing aside old editions of Museums Today, and gestures at Ruth to sit down. ‘You arrived at the museum when?’

‘Are you taking notes?’ The sarcastic note has returned.

Nelson produces a notebook with a flourish. He nods encouragingly.

‘I arrived at approximately two-sixteen p.m.-’

‘Bit early wasn’t it? I thought the bun fight started at three.’

‘I’d been to the supermarket. Didn’t think it was worth driving home and back.’ She looks at Nelson. ‘It’s Kate’s birthday tomorrow. I was shopping for her party.’

There is a long silence. Nelson flinches as if her words cause him actual, bodily pain. Then, as if continuing a conversation started a long time ago, they both speak at once.

‘I’m sorry…’

‘I didn’t…’

They both stop. Ruth’s face is flushed, Nelson’s very pale. She looks away. The window is high in the wall, too small to see out of if you’re sitting down, but she gazes at it anyway.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you don’t want to talk about her.’

‘It’s not that.’ Nelson looks down at the untidy desk, starts to move objects randomly. A fossil paperweight here, a pile of unopened bills there. ‘It’s just…’ He stops. ‘I promised.’

‘I know. You promised Michelle you wouldn’t see her.’ Ruth’s voice is flat. ‘Or me.’

‘It was the only way I could save my… make it up to her.’

‘I understand. I said so at the time, didn’t I?’

‘You’ve been great. It’s just me.’ He shifts the paperweight again and gives a sigh that is almost a groan. ‘I’ve messed things up for everyone.’

‘Oh, spare us the Catholic guilt Nelson.’ Ruth gets out her phone and checks the time. A new phone, Nelson notices. Rather a smart one. ‘Let’s get on with it. I thought you were meant to be conducting an investigation here.’

‘Fine.’ Nelson squares his shoulders. ‘You arrived at two-sixteen. Was anyone else here?’

‘No. I thought it was odd. After all, the event was in less than an hour’s time. Anyway, the place was deserted so I thought I’d just have a look round. I went through the Natural History Gallery…’

‘The one with all the stuffed animals?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Gives me the creeps.’

‘Me too. Then I went into the Local History Room and there he was, lying by the coffin.’

‘Did you recognise him?’

‘Not at first but when I turned the body over-’ She stops.

‘Are you OK? Do you want a glass of water?’

Ruth smiles faintly. ‘Is this your softly softly interviewing technique? No. I’m OK. I’d only met Neil once or twice before but I recognised him.’

‘Where was he lying?’

‘Next to the coffin. He was on his side, legs drawn up, one arm over his head.’

‘Was there any blood?’

‘Yes. On his face.’

‘As if he’d been battered around the head?’

‘No. Around his nose. Almost as if he’d had a nose bleed.’ She stops.

‘Did you touch him?’

‘Yes,’ Ruth’s voice is sharp. ‘Of course I touched him. I wanted to see if he was alive.’

‘And was he?’

‘I wasn’t sure,’ Ruth admits. ‘His skin was warm but I couldn’t find a pulse at first. I called an ambulance, then I thought I felt a faint heartbeat. I don’t know anything about first aid.’

‘When did you call the police?’

‘About a minute later. It suddenly occurred to me that someone might have done this to him.’

‘You thought he might have been murdered?’

‘I didn’t know what to think. He looked as if he might have had a fit. Maybe he was epileptic or something.’

‘We’ll find out if so. Chris Stephenson’s on his way to the hospital.’

Ruth grimaces. A dislike of Stephenson is something she and Nelson have in common.

‘Was the window open?’ asks Nelson.

‘What?’

‘The window in the room where you found the body. Was it open?

‘I think so, yes. There was a book on the floor and the breeze was turning the pages.’

‘I’ll get SOCO to look at the book. Might be prints on it, I suppose.’

‘Do you think he may have been murdered then?’

Nelson is about to answer when there’s a peremptory knock and the door opens to admit a man – tall, bronzed, grey-haired with a decided air of command. He has a large, hawk-like nose which seems to enter the room a few seconds before the rest of him. He also looks vaguely familiar. Rocky Taylor is hovering in the background.

‘I said I wasn’t to be disturbed,’ snaps Nelson.

‘Danforth Smith.’ The tall man holds out his hand. Nelson ignores him and looks at Rocky.

‘Lord Smith.’ Henty appears and makes an apologetic introduction. ‘The owner of the museum.’

‘I came at once,’ Danforth Smith is saying in confident upper-class tones that set Nelson’s teeth on edge. ‘Dreadful thing to have happened. Poor Neil. Is it true that he’s dead?’

Nelson’s holds up a hand. ‘How did you know about Mr Topham?’

‘Gerald told me.’

That figures. Gerald Whitcliffe, Nelson’s boss and a friend to the great and good.

‘I was all set to come to the opening when I got the phone call from Gerald. I’ve been trying to reach Neil’s parents. They’ll be devastated.’

‘Sergeant,’ Nelson addresses Tom Henty over Smith’s head. ‘I’m conducting an interview here.’

‘It’s OK, Nelson.’ Ruth stands up. ‘I’ve got to go anyway and we’ve finished, haven’t we?’

She looks at him, her chin lifted.

‘Yes,’ says Nelson. ‘We’ve finished.’

Lord Danforth Smith sits in Ruth’s vacated chair and stretches out his legs as if he owns the place. Which he does. Rocky scurries off to make coffee. Bloody serf. Come the revolution, he’ll be first against the wall. (The aristocrats will have scarpered long ago.)

‘DCI Nelson,’ Nelson introduces himself.

‘I know who you are,’ Smith says affably. ‘Gerald speaks very highly of you.’

‘Does he? Well, Lord Smith, you probably know as much as we do. Dr Galloway arrived at the museum early to find Mr Topham lying beside your ancestor’s coffin. She called an ambulance but he was dead on arrival at the hospital.’

‘How terrible. Does anyone know how he died? I mean, he was a young man.’

‘How young?’

‘Thirties I think. I’d have to check. Thirty sounds young to me these days.’ Lord Smith smiles, showing long, equine teeth. He is a racehorse trainer, Nelson remembers.

‘How long had Mr Topham worked for you?’

‘About five years. Absolutely super chap. Very enthusiastic.’

‘No health problems?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Was he in trouble of any kind? Anything worrying him?’

For the first time, Lord Smith looks slightly uneasy. He crosses and recrosses his legs. Handmade shoes, Nelson bets. Lace-ups.

‘Last time I spoke to him it was about the opening of the coffin. He seemed fine, very excited about having the event here. He hoped that Bishop Augustine could stay in the museum permanently.’

‘Must have been a strain, organising an event like that?’

‘Maybe, but that was Neil’s job. He loved it. He loved getting people to visit the museum. We’ve got a fine collection here and it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Look here, Inspector, what’s all this about? Is there something odd about Neil’s death?’

‘I’m not sure yet.’ Nelson looks at him blandly. ‘But you’ll be the first to know if so.’ He realises where he has seen that nose before. It’s in half the bloody oil paintings outside.

After Lord Smith has left, bowed out by Rocky and Tom Henty, Nelson does what he’s been waiting to do: opens the locked drawer in Neil Topham’s desk. The key had been hidden, rather inadequately he can’t help thinking, under the flint paperweight.

The drawer proves worth inspection. Inside, Nelson finds a plastic bag full of white powder and a pile of handwritten letters. No envelopes, but they are all on the same sort of paper, cream notepaper, expensive-looking. Love letters? Well, love is always a good motive for murder. Nelson smoothes out the first sheet and reads the bold, blue handwriting:

You have ignored our requests.

Now you will suffer the consequences.