A Room Full Of Bones

Jimmy slumps forward on the slatted bench. Nelson sits opposite, breathing hard.

‘It’s just something the Vicar said.’

‘What?’

‘Well I met him one day down at the docks and I said how are you Vicar, friendly like, and he said he’d been to the Smith Museum. I thought he was joking because museums are for kids, aren’t they? So I says what were you doing at a museum Vicar, and he says I went to see a lady.’

‘A lady?’

‘Yeah. So I says, still thinking he was joking, was she in a glass case, like she was a mummy or something, and he says no she was flesh and blood alright.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No. On my mother’s life.’

‘Your mother’s dead.’

‘On her grave then.’

Nelson can’t stand it anymore. He pushes open the wooden door and heads for the showers. He stands under the blissfully cold water until he is sure that Olson has gone. Then he dives into the tepid pool and swims non-stop for twenty minutes.

Nelson is drinking overpriced cappuccino in the hotel lounge when he gets the call from Clough.

‘Hi boss. You home yet?’

Nelson has told the team that he’s going home early so that he can have a meal out with Michelle. He knows they are taking bets on whether he’ll come back to the office.

‘Almost. Have you got anything for me?’

‘Well, you know you said to check up on the Smith family, see if there were any convictions, anything like that?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well I’ve got one. A conviction for criminal damage. Part of an animal rights demonstration.’

Nelson thinks of a pale intense face fringed by dark hair. ‘Was it the daughter? Caroline?’

‘No.’ Clough is savouring the moment. ‘Romilly Maud Smith, aged fifty-five. Lady Smith to you.’

‘The wife?’

‘That’s right. Looks like Lady Smith was part of a group that broke into a pharmaceutical company to protest about animal testing.’

‘Jesus! Wonder what Danforth Smith thought about that.’

‘He must have known. It was in the papers. The Evening News described her as a “mother figure” to the group. Her code name was Big Mama.’

‘What did she get?’

‘Two hundred pound fine.’

‘Any other convictions?’

‘No, but according to the papers the group had been involved in lots of other demos. They’re organised, these animal rights nutters.’

Are they nutters thinks Nelson, as he drives home at only a few miles over the speed limit. In his experience, animal rights activists are highly principled people, which makes them dangerous. Even so, he can’t quite equate the elegant woman that he saw this morning with a camouflage-wearing extremist going by the name of Big Mama. What did Danforth Smith think about his wife’s activities? And what was an animal rights campaigner doing married to a racehorse trainer in the first place? Danforth obviously loved his horses, but in Nelson’s mind racehorses are linked to hunting and shooting and other bloodthirsty pursuits. He remembers his shock when Judy told him that she used to go hunting. ‘It was a pony club thing,’ she’d said. Pony club! Just when you thought you knew someone, they come out with something like that. Judy had done good work though, coming up with Cathbad on the CCTV. According to Judy, though, Cathbad had an alibi, which doesn’t surprise Nelson at all. Cathbad had been visiting Caroline Smith. Are they having an affair? Caroline is rather attractive in a slightly nutty way. Nelson imagines that she would be just Cathbad’s type.

So Caroline is having an affair with a druid and Romilly is a secret activist. How many other skeletons are going to tumble out of the Smith closet? Thinking of skeletons reminds him of Bishop Augustine and Ruth’s amazing revelation. How coolly she had put it. ‘Anything interesting?’ that slimy Phil had asked. ‘Rather interesting, yes,’ Ruth had replied. Nelson never admires Ruth more than when he sees her doing her professional stuff. She is so sure of herself, there is none of that ‘oh I don’t know’ nonsense that you get with some women, no trying to ingratiate herself with men by playing on their vanity. Ruth knows that she is as good as any man and she says so. It’s refreshing. Nelson does not want to admit, even to himself, that he finds it sexy.

Which ‘lady’ had the Vicar been meeting at the museum? Caroline? Romilly, Lady Smith? It could even be Bishop Augustine, the amazing transvestite bishop, herself. But ‘flesh and blood’ Jimmy had said. What is the link between the museum and the stables, apart from the Smith family? And the fact that two men, in perfect health a few days ago, are now dead.

Nelson reaches the King’s Lynn roundabout. After a moment’s hesitation, he takes the turn for the station. He’ll just pop in for a few minutes, talk to Judy and Clough about the case. He’ll still be back in plenty of time to take Michelle out for a meal.

CHAPTER 18

‘And here we have oak with recessed brass handles. This one has a rather nice inlaid cross in the middle. Very popular with Catholics.’

‘My husband wasn’t a Catholic,’ says Romilly Smith. Though the Smiths must have been Catholic once, she thinks, remembering Bishop Augustine. Dan had been so intrigued by that whole business with the coffin. It was just the sort of thing that interested him. Anything to do with the past, and especially his own ancestors, had him absolutely in thrall. Romilly was born in South Africa, and though she went to boarding school in England she still thinks of herself as a wanderer, stateless. Classless too, despite the ghastly upper-class accent that she’s stuck with. Still, there’s no denying that it comes in rather useful at times. She hates hearing herself braying away at assistants in shops, but when she was arrested the police treated her quite differently as soon as she opened her mouth. She despises the English class system. But Dan – Dan was an English aristocrat through and through.

‘Any special songs? My Way is still popular, though a lot of younger bereaved prefer The Wind Beneath My Wings or even Angels.’

Randolph said that it was too early to call in the undertakers. They don’t even know when Dan’s body will be released. But Romilly had been seized by a desire to do something – organise the funeral, sort out paperwork, sell the house, put the horses out to grass – anything rather than this ghastly sitting around, with everyone looking at her in that ridiculous way and the children either weeping or arguing. Tamsin, when she arrived, was an ally. ‘It’s no good moping,’ she had snapped at Caroline. ‘We’ve got to get organised.’ ‘Why?’ Randolph had asked, with that vagueness which everyone except his immediate family seemed to find so endearing. ‘For fuck’s sake, Randolph,’ Tamsin had exploded. ‘There are things to do.’

So now Romilly and Tamsin are sitting interviewing the undertaker, a vaguely sinister man in a snowflake- patterned sweater. Randolph has roared off somewhere in the Porsche and Caroline is in the office talking to owners, who are probably interspersing condolences with demands that their horses be moved to another trainer. Romilly despises owners. None of them love their horses. They just want the kudos of swanking around the racecourse in stupid hats, going into the Owners and Trainers bar and talking about ‘my horse’. Half of them wouldn’t recognise ‘their’ horse if it bit them, which it probably would, given the chance.

At least Dan had genuinely loved the horses. That’s how they had met. Romilly was working at a horse refuge near Norwich. Two horses had been brought in, unwanted and scared but otherwise completely fit. The refuge couldn’t afford to keep them (they needed to save their money for sick animals) so Romilly had been given the job of ringing round local horse owners to ask if they could give them a temporary home. They had all refused. Horses are expensive and no one wanted the two unknown quantities who would guzzle their hay and probably frighten