Elly Griffiths - A Room Full Of Bones

‘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?’

Ruth must have spoken sharply because Kate, fretful after her early start, begins to cry. Ruth tries to distract her with her black cat key-ring. The nurses are looking over now.

Nelson is gazing at Kate. ‘She’s got so big.’

‘She can say sixteen words.’

‘That’s more than me.’

They smile at each other and suddenly the atmosphere becomes charged with something more than goodwill. Ruth looks at Nelson’s hair, now quite grey around the temples. She has an insane desire to stroke it.

Suddenly, though, sexual attraction is blown away as if by a whirlwind. A large woman wearing a purple coat erupts into the ward.

‘Harry! How’s my boy?’

Nelson winces. ‘Hallo Mum.’

Maureen Nelson advances on her son, her black eyes taking in every detail of his appearance and that of the ward. ‘You should have water by your bed,’ she says. ‘It’s a basic human right.’

‘I’m OK, Mum.’

‘OK? Michelle says you nearly died. She’s been out of her mind with worry. How could you do this to her?’

‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ says Nelson, rather sulkily.

Maureen’s laser-beam gaze now takes in Ruth and Kate, who is chewing furiously at the key-ring.

‘Who’s this?’

‘This is Ruth. A… a friend.’

‘What a lovely baby,’ says Maureen. She pronounces it ‘babby’. She has a distinct Irish accent, something Ruth did not expect.

‘Better take the baby home,’ says Maureen, settling herself at Nelson’s bedside. ‘These places are full of germs, you know.’

Ruth doesn’t want to go home. She rings Sandra to say she won’t be bringing Kate in today, then she and Kate have breakfast in the hospital canteen, a dreamlike world of patients with drips attached and nurses coming off the nightshift. Ruth drinks black coffee and consumes eggs and bacon, Kate eats a piece of toast. Then Ruth drives to the university, taking Kate with her. She finds the place in uproar.

The science buildings have been sealed off and the grounds are full of students and lecturers standing around looking scared and intrigued in equal measure. Ruth hears talk of parcel bombs, of anthrax spores, of masked men scaling the walls at night. The students are all on their phones, updating their Facebook statuses. Bomb scare at the uni!!!

Phil, who is sitting under a tree eating a banana, tells Ruth a different story.

‘A snake ?’

Ruth’s head feels like Medusa’s, swarming with snakes. She thinks of Bob Woonunga. The Snake’s my tribal emblem . She thinks of the poems about the Rainbow Serpent, of the stone grass-snake crushed under Bishop Augustine’s foot.

‘An adder, apparently,’ says Phil. ‘Just posted in a padded envelope. They think some animal rights group sent it.’

Kate points at the banana. ‘Want.’ Phil laughs and breaks off a piece. He is in high spirits and seems completely recovered from yesterday’s flu. Ruth is rather embarrassed by Kate’s forceful tendencies but impressed at her success with Phil. Ruth has never once succeeded in making her own wishes so clear to her head of department.

‘You’ll never guess who it was addressed to,’ says Phil.

The awful thing is that Ruth thinks she can guess.

‘Not Cathbad?’

‘Yes. The police have been trying to trace him all morning. Have you any idea where he is?’

‘No,’ says Ruth. She has no intention of telling Phil that Cathbad is currently in her spare room, sleeping off a drugs trip. ‘I expect he’ll turn up.’

‘He always does, doesn’t he?’ says Phil, standing up and brushing grass from his trousers. ‘Looks as if they’ve opened the doors at last.’

Lectures have been cancelled so Ruth takes Kate up to her office to collect some exam scripts. She has so far resisted the temptation to bring her daughter into the university. When Kate was born there were numerous invitations from female members of staff (and from Phil, of course) but Ruth had been wary about letting the two sides of her life overlap. But now, watching Kate toddle around her office, pulling books from the shelves, it feels oddly right to have her here. Because, whether she likes it or not, Ruth is both things now, archaeologist and mother. She smiles, moving a flint hand-axe out of Kate’s reach.

Debbie, the department secretary, offers to take Kate to the canteen. Ruth privately feels that Kate has had enough stimulation for one day but everyone is being so nice that she can’t refuse. There’s a febrile, unreal atmosphere about the university today. No one is doing any work; they are all just standing around talking about the poisonous snakes and parcel bombs. Elderly professors whom Ruth hasn’t seen for years have crawled out of the woodwork to enjoy pleasurable discussions about death, murder and mayhem. Phil is in his element, pressing shoulders reassuringly and talking about his contacts in the police force.