A Room Full Of Bones

But Harris says that it was all Tamsin, right down to the idea of using the horses themselves to smuggle the drugs. ‘She got a real kick out of that.’ Harris claims that Tamsin forced him to comply, he was only obeying orders. Judy, when she has heard more about the actual process involved, feels absolutely no sympathy for Harris. Sometimes the drugs were fed into the horses’ stomachs through a tube (hence the condom in the manure) but more often they were inserted vaginally into mares and sutured to keep them in place. Apparently stud mares routinely have vulval sutures so, even if the procedure had been discovered, it wouldn’t have seemed unduly suspicious. The whole thing makes Judy feel sick. Tamsin is currently denying everything.

Romilly Smith, who arrived home on Tuesday morning to find her driveway full of police cars, was even more interesting. She didn’t seem in the least surprised to find out that her eldest daughter had been drug smuggling or that she and her accomplice had tried to murder two members of the police.

‘Poor Tammy,’ she had said, sinking into a chair. ‘I never gave her enough attention.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Randolph, who was still charging around like Ben Hur. ‘She was just greedy. And she wanted to pull a fast one over us. Show how stupid we are.’

What Judy thought strangest of all was that no one enquired where Romilly had been all night. She was wearing jeans and a black jumper and looked, to Judy’s critical eye, rather dishevelled. Where had she been all night? With a boyfriend? Caroline had apparently been in the Newmarket Arms. When Tamsin hadn’t turned up she’d been unexpectedly joined by Trace, probably still seething at Clough’s desertion. Judy thought of the shabby little pub, lights blazing, music blaring, a beacon in the dark woods. She couldn’t quite imagine Caroline and Trace at the microphone, belting out I Will Survive. Well, maybe she could. Randolph had been at a ‘private’ club in King’s Lynn. Witnesses? Plenty, apparently.

When Judy got back to the station, she found, to her slight annoyance, that Operation Octopus had not been the only excitement of the night. Head office received a call at one o’clock in the morning, informing them that a suspicious device had been sent to the University of North Norfolk. A special squad had been dispatched and had discovered not a bomb but a poisonous snake in a jiffy bag. Who would send a snake to a university (apparently it was addressed to someone in the science department)? Animal rights nutters, says a laconic Tom Henty, this sort of thing has happened before. Judy feels that she would give a lot to know what Romilly Smith had been doing at one a.m.

Judy makes her report, skating over certain aspects such as her lack of judgment in going to the yard on her own in the first place. She does, though, give Clough full credit for rescuing her. Whitcliffe keeps trying to send Clough home to rest but he insists on hanging around, limping like Long John Silver and eating a vast McDonald’s breakfast. ‘Could be a commendation in this,’ Whitcliffe tells him. Clough grins at Judy, wiping ketchup from his chin. Typical. She cracks the case and Clough gets all the glory.

Forensics teams are currently swarming all over Slaughter Hill Stables and have unearthed enough drugs ‘to float the QE2’, though why an ocean liner would want to float on pure Colombian cocaine is a mystery to Judy. The Drugs Squad thinks that the cocaine came via Dubai. Presumably, whenever a batch of horses was flown over from the Middle East, one or two were carrying the drugs inside them. She wonders how many of the stable lads were involved. She remembers Billy’s anxious squint, the studied nonchalance of the jockeys. Quite a few of them would have had to be in on it, given the regularity with which the ‘mules’ were collapsing. Judy believes, though, that Randolph and Caroline were completely in the dark. Randolph might have a recreational drugs habit but Tamsin was the professional. Nelson told her about the mysterious ‘lady’ that the Vicar was meeting at the museum. Was that Tamsin? The museum, deserted and almost invisible in its colourless back street, might have been the scene for many such meetings. Neil Topham, another man with an expensive habit, was probably in on it too. And Danforth Smith, the man who apparently loved and understood his horses. Had he known?

Tanya Fuller has interviewed Randolph and has texted Judy to say ‘phwoar’. Very well put, thinks Judy, remembering Randolph in his white shirt, riding off into the night. The Highwayman. He’d a French cocked hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin. She would fancy him herself if she had the energy.

At half-past nine, Judy has finally finished writing reports and is just tidying Nelson’s office when Clough puts his head round the door. He’s still chewing, she notices.

‘I’ve just heard from Michelle. The boss is on the mend.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. He regained consciousness at about three this morning, apparently. The docs think he’s going to be OK.’

Three in the morning, thinks Judy. Half an hour after Randolph agreed to return the skulls to their ancestors. Not that she believes in any of that rubbish.

‘Are you going home now?’ she asks.

‘Think so. I need my beauty sleep.’

Judy does not make the obvious retort. Nor does she mention that Clough is now limping with the wrong leg. She owes Clough; she’s going to have to be nice to him for about a year. It’ll be tough, though.

She is just putting the Operation Octopus files in the Case Closed cupboard when her phone rings. Cathbad. She has been expecting this call, she realises, all night. She suddenly feels desperately tired, as if she could lie down on the dirty carpet tiles and sleep for a week.

‘Hallo Cathbad.’

‘Hallo Judy.’

‘Have you heard about Nelson?’

‘No. What?’

‘He’s regained consciousness. They think he’s going to be all right.’

‘I’m glad.’ Cathbad doesn’t sound surprised, she notices. But then he doesn’t really do surprise.

‘Where are you?’ she asks.

Cathbad laughs. ‘I’m at Ruth’s. It’s a long story.’

Isn’t everything, thinks Judy, straightening the pens on Nelson’s blotter.

‘Can I see you later?’ asks Cathbad. ‘I’ve got a lot to tell you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Judy. ‘There isn’t going to be any later.’

Ruth approaches the bed. Nelson lies with his eyes shut, his chin dark with stubble. He has surprisingly long eyelashes, thinks Ruth, as she has thought before. A wire extends from a clip on his finger and a nurse is fiddling with a blood pressure cuff. She looks up.

‘I’m afraid you can’t bring the baby in here.’

‘Just for a minute,’ pleads Ruth. ‘She’s his daughter.’

The nurse looks at her sceptically, obviously remembering Michelle, and Nelson’s other, older, daughters. At that moment, Nelson opens his eyes.

‘Hi Ruth.’

‘Hi Nelson.’

‘Is that Katie?’

Ruth holds the baby up so he can see her. Kate claps her hands and, right on cue, announces, ‘Dada.’

‘Just for a few minutes then,’ says the nurse. Nelson’s eyes are full of tears. ‘She called me Dad.’

Ruth doesn’t tell him that Kate has said it to every male within a twenty-mile radius. She is perilously close to tears herself.

‘How are you?’

Nelson frowns. ‘I don’t know. Last thing I remember we were driving home from Brighton.’

‘You’ve been in a coma. Everyone’s been worried sick.’

‘Michelle told me.’

‘She’s been incredible,’ says Ruth softly. ‘She’s hardly left your side.’

‘I know,’ says Nelson. ‘The nurses say she willed me back to life.’

‘Do they know what was wrong with you?’

‘No. I’m a medical miracle.’ He closes his eyes.

‘Are you still feeling bad?’ Ruth looks around nervously for a nurse but they are all standing by the door talking about The X Factor.

‘A bit odd. I had all these weird dreams. Cathbad was in them.’

‘Cathbad?’