Elly Griffiths - A Room Full Of Bones

Len Harris looks in through the office door.

‘That new boy – Ali Baba or whatever his name is – thinks a lot of himself, doesn’t he?’

Danforth sighs. He’s not exactly politically correct himself but Len’s casual racism depresses him.

‘His name’s Mikelis,’ he says. ‘He’s from Latvia and he’s an excellent jockey.’

‘If you say so,’ grunts Len. He’s been at Slaughter Hill for twenty years and Danforth couldn’t run the place without him. Doesn’t stop him wishing that he could sometimes.

‘I’ve got to be at the museum this morning,’ he says. ‘Can you manage here?’

‘Course I can, governor.’ Sometimes Len gives a good impersonation of a faithful old retainer. He almost tugs his forelock. It doesn’t fool Danforth for a minute, but he needs Len. Caroline is a good manager but she’s too soft with the horses, and with the owners. Randolph… but Danforth doesn’t even finish this sentence in his own head.

‘I’m meeting some archaeologist woman,’ he says, turning back to his paperwork. ‘Hope she’s not the squeamish type.’

Ruth is not the squeamish type but she does hope, as she parks in front of the museum, that all traces of Neil Topham’s final agony have been cleared away. She has had roughly four hours’ sleep and doesn’t think she could cope with bloodstains or police tape. But as she approaches the entrance, the building has the smug, shuttered look of a place that has been empty for years. A sign on the door says ‘Closed Until Further Notice’.

It doesn’t seem possible that anyone could be inside, but almost as soon as Ruth has pressed the bell the door is opened. Almost as if someone was lying in wait for her.

‘Dr Galloway? Danforth Smith. Do come in.’

Ruth recognises Danforth Smith from Saturday but she can see that he has no recollection of ever having met her before. He’s polite though, almost gracious, as he ushers her through the dusty entrance hall. The museum, although it has only been closed for two days, already looks distinctly unloved. A pile of post has been pushed to one side of the door and cobwebs are starting to shroud the face of the Great Auk.

‘So good of you to come,’ says Danforth. ‘I’m sure you’re a very busy lady.’

Ruth smiles. She doesn’t deny that she is busy or mention that she doesn’t like the word ‘lady’. There’s no point; Smith, like Nelson, is probably beyond re-education. Besides she’s keen to see the infamous collection.

Danforth leads the way through the National History Room, their footsteps echoing on the black and white tiles. Ruth tries not to imagine the glass eyes following them.

‘When’s the museum opening again?’ she asks.

‘Lord knows.’ Danforth Smith stops to examine a particularly mangy badger who stares grimly back. ‘I’ve got to find a new curator and people might not be so keen to work here after what happened to poor Neil.’

‘Have you found out how he died? I found his body,’ she explains hastily, in case she is sounding ghoulish.

Danforth looks at her with new interest. ‘I’m sorry… I didn’t realise. No, they haven’t said for certain. DCI Nelson mentioned something about a pulmonary haemorrhage.’

‘Nelson?’

‘Yes. The detective chappie. Rather a rough diamond but bright enough, I think.’

‘I know Nelson.’

‘I suppose you do, in the course of your work,’

‘Yes.’

‘Well,’ Danforth turns back to the badger. ‘I got the impression that Nelson thought that Neil died from natural causes. It’s just that…’

Ruth waits. Knowing when not to speak is one skill that she shares with Nelson.

‘Doctor Galloway, have you heard of the Elginists?’

‘Someone mentioned them to me the other day.’

‘Really?’ Danforth looks up and Ruth thinks that he looks tired, almost haggard. She hasn’t much liked Lord Smith up until now but suddenly she feels almost sorry for him.

‘About a year ago I had a letter from a group called the Elginists demanding the return of the… the artefacts I’m about to show you. It turns out that they also wrote to Neil. Terrible letters, threatening him, saying that his life was in danger.’

Ruth’s head reels. She looks at the stuffed animals, envying them their painted idyll. Could Cathbad and his friends have written threatening letters to Neil Topham? It’s not impossible, and this realisation stirs memories that Ruth would rather have left undisturbed. Could Cathbad be involved in the curator’s death? And what about Bob Woonunga, her charming didgeridoo-playing neighbour? What’s his role in all this?

‘Does Nelson,’ her voice sounds high-pitched and odd, ‘does Nelson think that the letters had anything to do with Neil’s death?’

‘I don’t think so,’ says Danforth, ‘but it’s a strange coincidence, don’t you think?’

‘Very strange.’

‘The whole thing’s odd. Neil dropping dead like that beside the bishop’s coffin. I don’t believe in jinxes,’ he laughs, ‘but still, it’s odd.’

‘What’s happened to the coffin?’ asks Ruth. ‘It’s not still here, is it?’

Danforth Smith seems genuinely surprised. ‘I thought you knew. It’s at the university. Your university. Apparently it needs to be kept in a controlled environment. Phil Trent was talking about opening it next week. Just a lowkey affair this time. He said you’d be there.’

Thanks a lot Phil, thinks Ruth. He hadn’t mentioned the coffin when he’d spoken to her in the canteen, too busy going on about bananas and Natural Childbirth.

‘Where are these bones you wanted me to look at?’ she says.

‘This way.’

They pass through the Victorian study where Lord Percival Smith is frozen in the act of writing, wax hand holding wax quill. Danforth Smith leads the way into the long gallery where the portraits of long-dead Smiths look down their noses at them. The door to the Local History Room is firmly shut. Smith sees Ruth looking at it.

‘The police have finished with the room now. There’s nothing to see.’ But he doesn’t open the door.

At the far end of the gallery is the curator’s office, and at the opposite end a little door that Ruth hadn’t noticed before. Smith opens it now. ‘The storerooms are down here.’

The staircase leads down into a brick-lined cellar. Ruth has never liked underground spaces and now, after the events of two years ago, finds them almost unbearable. As she descends the stairs, the air seems to get thicker and hotter. Heating pipes snake overhead making a low humming noise. She takes a deep breath and tries to feel professional. This is a museum, not a dungeon. At the foot of the stairs, Danforth Smith stops to fumble for a key. Ruth only just avoids crashing into his tweed back.

‘Ah, here it is.’

In front of them is a plasterboard wall with two doors. Danforth is unlocking the left-hand door and reaching for a light switch. Rather reluctantly, Ruth follows him.

A flickering fluorescent light illuminates a narrow room with brick walls and cement floor. The walls are curved, a half-circle bisected by the plasterboard wall. The straight side of the room is lined with metal shelves and the shelves are stacked with cardboard boxes. Each box is scrawled with a single word. Bones.

The room is full of bones.

Ruth is an expert on bones; her students even once presented her with a life-size cardboard cutout of Bones from Star Trek . She has excavated mass graves, dug up prehistoric bodies, but she has never seen anything like this. Boxes of bones just piled up together in a cellar. No names, no dates, just ‘bones’. Are they all human? she wonders. There must be fifty, maybe sixty, boxes here.

She suddenly realises that Danforth is speaking to her and, incredibly, there is pride in his voice.