Elly Griffiths - A Room Full Of Bones

Janet looks at her consideringly for a minute, then she says, ‘There are two legends that might be linked to it. One is a bit like the Saint Nicholas story – Santa Claus, you know – he was a bishop too. In Turkey. Well, anyhow, in this story there are some penniless children and Bishop Augustine fills their shoes with money. Prior Hugh writes that children would leave their shoes outside their door and the Bishop would go through the town at night, filling them with coins.’

‘And the second story?’

‘Well, this one’s about the devil. You know that the statue shows Bishop Augustine with his foot on the snake? Well, in one of Hugh’s accounts, the devil in the form of a snake bites through Augustine’s shoe so he stamps on him with his foot. Henceforward, Augustine often walked barefoot. A form of mortifying the flesh possibly, especially when you think of the state of the roads in those days. There’s an inscription on the statue: You will tread on cubs and vipers. You will trample lions and asps.’

‘Psalms,’ says Ruth. ‘He will order his angels to guard you wherever you go.’

Janet looks surprised.

‘My parents are Born Again Christians,’ Ruth explains. ‘I know the Bible.’

‘Do you have any faith yourself?’

Ruth shakes her head. ‘There are people I respect who do believe but I don’t. What about you?’

Janet laughs. ‘I was brought up a Catholic. A Polish Catholic too, which is like being Catholic cubed. I’m a historian, I like evidence but… I don’t know. I think there are things that can’t be proved.’

Once Ruth would have disagreed violently with this, but after the last few years she isn’t so sure any more. About anything.

Janet stands up. ‘Let’s go and have a look at the old boy. Or girl, as the case may be.’

Judy arrives at the yard to find the gates open and Nelson nowhere in sight. She walks through the archway and comes face-to-face with a large chestnut horse whirling around on the end of a lead rope. Judy makes a wide arc round him. The stable girl is trying to get the horse into his box but he’s having none of it, throwing up his head and clattering round in furious circles. As Judy watches, two lads come up to help subdue the horse. ‘Steady, steady…’ she hears one of them say. The girl is almost in tears. ‘I can’t…’ she’s saying. ‘Don’t be such a girl,’ says one of the men, seemingly without irony. The horse continues to plunge and snort.

Judy makes her way towards the office where an older man is on the phone. He covers the handset and looks up enquiringly.

‘Detective Sergeant Judy Johnson,’ says Judy.

‘Len Harris, Head Lad. Can you excuse me a moment? I’m just getting the declarations done.’

Judy nods and settles down to read the Racing Post . Unlike Nelson, she does not feel at all out of place in these surroundings. Her father is a bookie and she comes from a horse-loving Irish family. She used to ride as a child and once even had ambitions to be a jockey. What was it that stopped her, she wonders now. Was it discovering boys or getting boobs? Come to think of it, the two things probably happened at the same time.

‘Sorry about that,’ says Harris. ‘Everything’s a bit frantic at the moment.’

Judy looks up from the paper. ‘Jumping Jack hasn’t got a hope in the 2.10 at Newmarket.’

For a second, Len Harris looks angry, then he grins. ‘No, but we don’t want him handicapped too heavily for Cheltenham. Do him good to lose a few races.’

‘What will the owners say?’

Len Harris shrugs. ‘They’re in Dubai. They won’t know.’

Judy stands up. ‘I’m sorry about your boss.’

Harris’s face doesn’t show emotions very easily but, for a second, he looks genuinely bereft. ‘It’s hard. He was a one-off, the governor. Some people thought he was stuck-up, but around the yard he was one of the lads. And he loved the horses, he really understood them.’

‘What will happen with the yard now?’

Harris’s face darkens. ‘That’s up to the kids, I suppose. Caroline would probably like to take over but she hasn’t got the experience. Randolph’s a waste of space. Tamsin’s up in London. I suppose the yard’ll be sold. Owners are already taking their horses away.’

‘Already?’

‘Oh yes. There’s not much sentiment in racing, you know.’

Judy does know. She wonders what will happen to Len Harris if the business is sold. Plenty of racing stables in Norfolk but he looks a little old to go job hunting.

‘I’ve been asked to look at the CCTV footage,’ she says. ‘Is there anywhere I can do that?’

‘Yes. There’s a room in Caroline’s cottage. I’ve got the key.’ He fumbles through sets of keys hanging over the desk. Not a very secure system, thinks Judy.

As they go out into the yard, there is a tremendous banging and clattering from one of the boxes in the far corner. Harris sets off at a run. Judy follows him.

Inside the box, a bay horse is sprawled awkwardly on the ground, almost sitting, front legs straight, back legs collapsed. Its eyes are rolling and it’s clearly in agony. Two stable lads are struggling to get the horse on its feet, hauling on ropes, pushing at its rump. Len goes into the box and joins in the effort, bracing his legs against the wall to push with his back.

‘What’s happened?’ asks Judy.

‘Cast himself,’ pants Len. ‘Probably colic.’

Judy can see that the animal’s stomach does look distended, a symptom of colic. The horse appears in terrible pain, almost bellowing, the white of his eyes yellow. She looks at the laminated card on the stable door. The horse is called Fancy, she reads, and he’s a four-year-old colt.

‘Shouldn’t you get the vet?’

‘He’s coming,’ says Len shortly. ‘Now, please, can you leave us to get on? The cottage is by the gates.’

Judy walks back through the yard with Fancy’s tormented neighing ringing in her ears. She feels very shaken. It’s part and parcel of looking after horses, she knows, but she can’t forget the look in the poor animal’s eyes. She hopes the vet gets there soon. She’d wanted to be a vet once too, before she’d realised that you needed three As at A-Level.

Judy had imagined Caroline very elegant, a grown-up version of the sort of girl who used to intimidate her in her pony club days. But the woman who greets her at the cottage door couldn’t be further from the twin-setted Home Counties lady of her imagination. To be frank, Caroline looks a mess; her dark hair is unbrushed and her eyes are red and swollen. She is wearing jeans and her top is on inside out. She hardly seems to take in Judy’s explanation about who she is and what she wants to do.

‘I thought you were my sister Tamsin,’ says Caroline. ‘She’s coming from London.’

‘I’m so sorry about your dad,’ says Judy.

Caroline’s eyes fill with tears. ‘It just doesn’t seem possible that he’s gone. I keep expecting him to walk in.’

‘It’s hard, I know,’ says Judy. Empathetic echoing, the books call it.

‘I just feel so terrible…’

It must be awful to lose your dad, thinks Judy, however old you are. She hopes that Caroline’s family gives her some support, but she doubts it somehow.

‘The tapes?’ she prompts gently.

‘Oh, yes…’ Caroline gives her a tremulous smile. She keeps looking towards the door, which is freaking Judy out slightly. ‘This way.’

The room by the front door is full of screens. There are five cameras in different parts of the yard: one by the main gates, one by the house gates, one in each quadrangle and one at the far gates, ‘where the original house once stood’ Caroline explains.

Judy settles down to look, gratefully accepting the offer of coffee. Look at last night’s footage, the boss said. She starts at eight p.m. It’s incredibly boring. Hours of night vision camera showing empty driveways. The only distraction is when Lester the cat appears, walking delicately along the footpath, sitting to wash himself in the empty courtyard. Occasionally a horse’s head looks out over one of the stable doors, but, for the most part, Lester is the only living thing to be seen. Judy’s eyes start to blur. She sips her cold coffee. Outside she hears a car draw up and voices talking. This must be the famous Tamsin. She hears a woman’s voice, very loud and upper-class. ‘For fuck’s sake have some respect, Randolph.’ Happy families.