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
