making some pasta. It’s only five o’clock but it’s dark outside. Kate must be tired, she has only had a tiny sleep in the car. Maybe last night will herald a wonderful new era of sleeping through the night. They’ll have supper at six, Kate will be in bed at seven and Ruth can have all evening watching television and drinking white wine. Heaven.
She has almost forgotten Cathbad and the horrors of last night. Nelson is going to be all right. Michelle let her see him, perhaps she might even allow Nelson to have regular contact with Kate. She admitted that he wants to see her. Ruth knows how much that admission cost Michelle, how much it cost Michelle to come to her house and beg her to visit her husband. She would do anything for him, she said. Ruth doesn’t know if she’s ever loved anyone that much. Except Kate, of course.
She half expects Max to ring but he doesn’t. After the last few days, it seems strange to have no one knocking on the door demanding help or babbling about the Dreaming. After supper, Ruth tries to read a Percy the Park- Keeper book to Kate but she’s more interested in charging around the room with her plastic vegetables. Ruth is determined not to switch on the TV but Kate does it for her (she loves the remote) and soon they are both dozing in front of
Ruth tiptoes out onto the landing. All evening she has avoided looking into the spare room but now she opens the door quietly. The bed is neatly made but lying on the cover is a single feather, long and beautiful, a pheasant’s perhaps. Ruth stays looking at it for a long time.
Nelson’s last visitor is the most surprising. Chris Stephenson, swaggering through the doors as if he’s paying a state visit. Disappointingly, two of the nurses recognise him and flutter around calling him ‘Doctor’ Stephenson. They even offer to get him a cup of tea, although the old woman with the trolley is long gone.
‘Hi Nelson,’ Stephenson greets him. ‘Not dead yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Bet you can’t guess why I’m here.’
‘Was it to bring me flowers?’
‘Not allowed. Health and safety.’ Stephenson hasn’t brought any sort of present, not even grapes. Nelson guesses that this call is about business rather than concern for his well-being.
The nurses bring tea in chipped green cups. Stephenson makes a big thing about not needing sugar because he’s sweet enough already. For the first time that day, Nelson feels sick.
‘Your friend Ruth Galloway,’ says Stephenson by way of introduction, slurping his tea.
‘What about her?’ asks Nelson cautiously. He doesn’t know how much his colleagues know about his relationship with Ruth. He thinks that Judy has suspicions about Kate’s parentage; Clough has probably never given it a thought.
‘Remember the bishop? The one that turned out to be a tranny? Well, Ruth sent off some of the material to be analysed. The silk stuff that was wrapped round the bones. Results came back today and guess what they found?’
‘Surprise me.’
‘Traces of a fungus called aspergillus.’
He leans back as if expecting a reaction. Nelson looks at him coldly. ‘That doesn’t mean a lot to me, Chris.’
‘They’re spores, incredibly toxic. They can stay alive for hundreds, thousands, of years. As soon as the spores come into contact with the air, they enter the nose, mouth and mucous membranes. They can cause headaches, vomiting and fever. In people with a weakened immune system, it can result in organ failure and death.’
Nelson looks at him, ‘Danforth Smith.’
‘Yes. He was diabetic, you say. That would have compromised his immune system. He died from heart failure. Could have been brought on by contact with these spores. If we’d done an autopsy, we’d have known.’ He sounds regretful.
‘And the curator,’ says Nelson, ‘Neil Topham. If he’d opened the coffin…’ He thinks of the DIY tools in Topham’s office, of the open window and the curtains blowing. If the spores had got into the air and into Topham’s mouth and nose…
‘He was a druggy,’ says Stephenson, with his usual sensitivity. ‘Immune system would have been shot to pieces. One whiff of aspergillus and he’d have been out like a light. Cause of death was lung failure. Spores would have gone straight onto the lungs.’
‘Is this asperthing, this spore, what made me ill?’
‘I think so. You were next to Lord Smith when the coffin was opened. You would have got a direct hit but you’re healthy, you were able to fight it off.’
Only just, thinks Nelson. Another thought strikes him. ‘What about Ruth? She was right there too.’
Stephenson laughs. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. She was about to look into the coffin when she got a phone call. She moved away and you and Lord Smith were the first to look inside. Whoever phoned Ruth probably saved her life.’
Nelson would be willing to place a large bet on the identity of Ruth’s caller. There’s only one person it could have been. Cathbad to the rescue again.
‘Would these spores… could they give you nightmares, delusions?’
Stephenson looks at him curiously. ‘I suppose so. One of the symptoms is a high fever. Why do you ask?’
‘Lord Smith’s wife mentioned that he had a terrible fever before he died, was seeing things, shouting out in his sleep.’
‘That was probably the aspergillus. Of course, we’ll never really know.’
Did the poison spores give Danforth Smith nightmares about snakes and ghostly horsemen? Did they plunge Nelson into a shadow world of sea and sky and a man calling from a stone boat? As Stephenson says, he’ll probably never know. But it seems that the Aborigines are innocent; it was the bishop who did it, after all.
‘I’m going to ask the docs to do a chest radiograph on you,’ says Stephenson cheerily. ‘Something might show up.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘Why should you worry? It’s a rest cure in here.’
Rest? This feels like the busiest day Nelson has ever had in his life. And as Stephenson saunters out of the ward, he sees Michelle and Maureen on their way in, both carrying covered bowls full of nourishing food.
CHAPTER 32
The Necromancer comes galloping around the corner of the all-weather track, the black earth flying up behind him. At the top of the hill, by the trees, a woman is standing. The horse starts violently at the unfamiliar figure, standing on his hind legs, nostrils wide with fear. But the horse’s rider just laughs and shifts his weight slightly in the saddle.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Romilly Smith. ‘Did I scare him?’
Randolph laughs. ‘He’s just playing silly buggers.’ He pats the animal’s shuddering neck. ‘Calm down horse.’
‘I’d forgotten what a good rider you are,’ says Romilly, falling into step beside the horse.
‘I’d forgotten too,’ says Randolph, loosening the reins so that The Necromancer can stretch his neck. ‘Not that I could ride but how much I enjoyed it. I was devastated when I got too tall to be a jockey.’
‘You wouldn’t want to be a jockey, darling. All that dieting plays havoc with your skin.’
Randolph laughs and turns the horse towards the stables. Romilly again falls into step beside them. There is still frost on the ground and her smart boots crackle over the grass.
‘Are you really going to run the yard?’ she asks.
