Sunday 24 March 2002
The bonfire is burning brightly now, its heart molten gold.
‘I’m a fire starter,’ says Cathbad.
‘Everything’s so dry,’ says Emad, ‘that’s why. It hasn’t rained all week.’
‘Boring.’ Emily throws leaves at him.
‘We should give thanks to the gods,’ says Leo. ‘We should pray to Grim, the hooded one.’
‘Leo,’ says Amber, who is sitting huddled in her blanket, ‘it’s nearly Easter. It’s Palm Sunday, for goodness’ sake. Have some respect.’
‘Easter was a pagan festival first,’ says Leo. ‘People have celebrated equinoxes and solstices since prehistoric times.’ But he smiles at Amber and, when the wine is handed round in plastic cups, his hand touches hers.
‘Grim’s Gaben.’ Leo gives the toast.
‘Grim’s Gaben,’ chorus the students. Only Mark mutters, ‘Grime’s Graves,’ rather defiantly. Cathbad is busy with the fire, using a long stick as a poker, allowing oxygen to feed the flames.
The barbecue is slower to ignite. It’s late by the time the vegetarian burgers are cooked. Crisps are circulated. Mark’s dog, Odin, comes to sit in the circle, tongue hanging out.
‘Don’t feed him,’ says Mark. ‘He’s on a diet.’
‘We shouldn’t be eating crisps,’ says Thomas. ‘It should be venison or haunches of lamb.’
‘I thought you were a vegetarian,’ says Amber.
‘I’m talking about the aesthetics of the thing.’
But when Cathbad takes the baked potatoes from the embers, they are found to be raw on the inside and generally inferior to the offerings from the Great God Walker. Leo opens another bottle of wine. Darkness falls over the strange pockmarked fields. The nearby pine forest murmurs. The campers move closer together. Thomas gets out his guitar and sings Beatles songs. All you need is love. Odin crawls towards Emily and starts eating her discarded burger bun.
Cathbad was right, thinks Emily, there is magic in a communal fire. Sitting with her friends in this sacred landscape, drinking warm wine and listening to Thomas trying to remember the words of ‘Eleanor Rigby’, she thinks she has never been happier in her life.
Then a hooded figure emerges from the trees.
Chapter 1
Friday 11 June 2021
The unassuming shop in a King’s Lynn backstreet has lived many lives. Once, beyond most people’s living memory, it was a bakery. The oven still remains and has, in successive iterations, been a focal point and dining nook and was also, for many decades, boarded up completely. The building has been a café, a greengrocer’s and an ‘Emporium of Wonder’ (a junk shop), and is now well on its way to becoming a café again. A sign outside says ‘The Red Lady Tea Rooms, opening August 2021’, and another informs interested passers-by that Edward Spens and Co are in charge of the renovation.
Gary Bright is enjoying his work. This is the part he likes, knocking things down. The rest – the rewiring, the replastering, the endless conversations with architects and owners – can be dull at best and frustrating at worst. But swinging your sledgehammer at a brick wall never gets old. Gary swings. The old wall trembles at first and then, as Gary lunges again, it caves inwards. Through the dust, Gary sees a black void. This is odd, because he had expected to see a chimney breast. The plans had shown that there was a fireplace in this semi-basement and the café owners wanted it opened up again. ‘It will give the place some character,’ says Elise Monkton, the terrifyingly enthusiastic new manager. ‘There’s probably a Victorian surround or some lovely tiles . . .’ But, as Gary moves forwards, all he can see is darkness. Cold air comes from the recently exposed space and suddenly, ridiculously, Gary feels afraid. Get a grip, he tells himself. This isn’t an episode of Most Haunted. You’re a builder and you’ve got a job to do. Looking through the gap, he sees something white, almost glowing. Is it chalk? Gary leans into the void and sees that what he is looking at is a complete human skeleton, laid out like a Hallowe’en prop.
Someone screams. It’s a few seconds before Gary realises that it’s him.
Dr Ruth Galloway is having a difficult day. Teaching is over and final papers are being marked. The students have had a tough year, mostly in lockdown, communicating with their tutors only via Zoom. But they have produced good work and Ruth is proud of them. This should be a time when she is getting ready for graduation ceremonies, planning for the next term and lobbying the university for more money and resources. Instead, graduations have been cancelled again and Ruth is waiting for a committee to decide if her department will even exist next year.
‘Any news?’ Dav
id Brown appears at her door with minimal knocking.
‘No,’ says Ruth. ‘The executive board have only just started their meeting.’
‘They should have invited you.’
‘Board members only,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s awful. Like being sentenced to death in your absence, without being able to plead your case.’
It’s a melodramatic analogy, she knows, but it’s how she feels. Her job is who she is. Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the University of North Norfolk. And now the university, in its wisdom, thinks that the department is ‘unprofitable’ and the board are considering closing it altogether.
‘It’s madness,’ says David, pacing around Ruth’s office which would, in ordinary circumstances, drive her mad. ‘I mean, you’re a renowned archaeologist. You’ve got an international reputation. You’ve been on TV.’
It sounds very racy, thinks Ruth, but she knows what David is trying to say. She is a fairly well-known archaeologist. She has consulted on Roman bones in Italy and appeared on television there. She has written three well-reviewed books and was also part of a rather lurid TV series called Women Who Kill, alongside her ex-partner Frank Barker, an American historian. It is largely due to Ruth that UNN has a good name for archaeology. But Covid has hit them hard. Most of their postgraduate students come from abroad and this income stream has disappeared overnight. Student numbers are also falling, the number of firm-offer holders for 2022 considerably down on 2021. When the board announced ‘major cost-cutting measures’, Ruth knew that she would be in the firing line.
‘They’ve said they’ll keep staff on,’ says Ruth. ‘Move us to history or geography.’
‘That’s an insult,’ says David. ‘I won’t stay here to be insulted. I’ll go back to Sweden.’
David used to work at Uppsala University and presumably they would have him back. Will Ruth stay and be insulted? She looks out of the window towards the artificial lake, at its best in the sunshine. Two students are playing frisbee, their laughter echoing around the low-lying buildings of the campus. Ruth rubs her eyes. Either her window is dirtier than usual or she is near to tears.
She’s relieved when the phone rings though she does wonder who could be contacting her on the landline.
‘Dr Ruth Galloway?’
The upper-class voice is vaguely familiar. A board member? A journalist from one of the posher papers?
‘Yes.’
‘This is Edward Spens. I run a building firm. You might remember me . . .’
‘Yes, I do.’ Ruth’s memories are almost entirely unpleasant. First there was the body under the door of an ex-children’s home. Then there was the Second World War plane with the pilot still inside. In Ruth’s experience, calls from Edward Spens are never good news.
‘Well . . .’ The embarrassed laugh suggests that Edward is remembering the same events. ‘It’s ironic really but I think we’ve found another body.’
Ruth is happy to escape from the university for a few hours. She resists David’s attempts to join her and drives the short distance to King’s Lynn. She parks at the station and walks through the narrow streets, following the directions given to her by Edward Spens. This is one of the oldest parts of town, the houses Victorian or older. But it’s not far from the shopping centre and the museum where the henge timbers are kept. Ruth might pop in and visit them later. Although her druid friend Cathbad thinks that the wooden posts should have been left in the sand, a prey to time and tide, Ruth approves of the way they have been displayed in the museum. She really must ring Cathbad. He’s still not fully recovered after nearly dying from Covid last year. A Victorian skeleton would definitely cheer him up.
The terraced house, now covered in scaffolding, stirs some memories for Ruth. Did she visit it once with Cathbad, when it was an antique shop or something similar? Cathbad loves truffling through o
ld photographs and random pieces of pottery.
There’s a newly painted sign above the door. The Red Lady Tea Rooms. This, too, sparks a memory and a feeling of slight unease. The Red Mount Chapel, a strange hexagonal building in the middle of a park, a path on the way to Walsingham. The site of another death. Ruth shakes her head to clear these thoughts and pushes open the door.
‘Ah, Ruth.’ Edward Spens is obviously expecting her. He looks older than when she last saw him, with a suggestion of thinning hair, but he’s still a tall commanding figure as he strides across the newly sanded floorboards. White teeth flash in a tanned face. Where has Spens acquired such a tan? Lockdown only ended in March and travel restrictions are still in place. Plus, the grin emphasises the fact that Spens isn’t wearing a mask. Ruth is wearing hers, complying with Covid rules about meetings indoors. Besides, it’s always a good idea to wear a mask when visiting a building site. The Red Lady Tea Rooms looks like just the sort of place where asbestos runs wild.
Edward steps forward as if to shake hands then makes a pantomime of remembering social distancing and bows in an ironical namaste.
‘Hallo, Edward,’ says Ruth. She assumes they are on first-name terms although she would really rather he addressed her as Dr Galloway.
‘How have you been in the crazy new world of ours?’ says Edward, managing to relegate Covid-19 to an amusing one-liner.
‘I’m coping,’ says Ruth. ‘Now where’s this skeleton?’
‘Typical Ruth,’ laughs Edward. ‘Forget the social niceties, where are the bones?’
There are many replies Ruth could make to this: he doesn’t know her well enough to say what is ‘typical Ruth’; she is working and not at a cocktail party and human bones are no laughing matter. But she just waits until Edward leads the way down a flight of picturesquely uneven stairs.
The downstairs room is a semi-basement, low-ceilinged and lit only by a sash window that looks out onto a wall. Edward presses a switch, hanging precariously from a cluster of wires, and artfully arranged spotlights illuminate the space. The floor is covered in sheeting and three walls have been stripped back to their original brickwork. But Ruth’s eyes are drawn to the fourth wall which has an uneven hole in the centre. She steps closer, avoiding the builder’s equipment which seems strewn everywhere. Archaeologists would be much neater, she thinks.
The cavity shows a boarded-up chimney breast. Next to this is a gap about half a metre deep, running the length of the room. In this space lies a fully articulated human skeleton.
‘Gave old Gary a shock, I can tell you,’ says Edward. ‘He’s gone straight home. What do you think? Is it Victorian? These houses were built in the 1860s.’
‘No,’ says Ruth, str
aightening up, ‘it’s modern.’
‘How can you tell?’ says Edward, sounding impressed and sceptical in equal measure. ‘I thought you had to do carbon-whatsit testing.’
‘Carbon-14 testing can help establish the age of bones,’ says Ruth, ‘though it can be skewed by natural phenomena like solar flares and can be out by as much as a hundred years. But I can see a metal plate on the distal fibula. This means that the person had fairly recent surgery on their ankle. I’m afraid we have to call the police.’
Before Ruth herself can consider the implications of this, her phone buzzes. David Brown.
They’re closing us down. Found out on f-ing twitter.
Chapter 2
Ruth drives back to the university in a state of barely contained rage. The brief thought comes into her head that this is how Nelson always feels when he’s behind the wheel. But she files Nelson away for another day. She left the Red Lady Tea Rooms as soon as DC Tony Zhang arrived. Tony, as ever, looked like he could hardly contain his excitement at the thought of a new case.
‘We’ll check the missing persons’ files,’ he told Ruth and Edward. ‘Can you say how old the skeleton is, Dr Galloway?’
Ruth was grateful for the respectful form of address although she actually wouldn’t have minded Tony calling her Ruth. He even babysat Kate last year.
‘I can’t be sure yet,’ she said. ‘But the metal in the foot looks fairly new. Inserted in the last twenty years, I’d say.’
‘Is it a complete skeleton?’
‘Yes, fully articulated, completely defleshed.’
‘I’ll inform the coroner,’ said Tony, sounding thrilled. ‘Can you excavate?’
‘You don’t really need me if it’s recent,’ said Ruth, ‘but given this is a historical site I’ll apply for a Home Office licence. I need to get back to my students now.’
‘But the boss is on his way,’ said Tony. ‘I’m sure he’d want to see you.’
‘Tell Nelson to send me an email,’ said Ruth. She allows herself a slight smile at the thought of Nelson’s face when he gets this message. Nelson is now living apart from his wife, Michelle, and Ruth knows that people are assuming that it’s only a matter of time before he moves in with her, Ruth. But it’s more complicated than that. Ruth and Nelson have a child together, but Ruth doesn’t want Kate to think that they are now one big happy family, if that’s not the case. Nelson also has three children with Michelle, two grown-up daughters and a young son. He wants to have what he calls a ‘proper chat’ about it but Ruth thinks it’s too soon. Which is partly why she’s now driving like a fury through King’s Lynn’s myriad roundabouts.
Only partly, though. Right now, Ruth’s main concern is her department and her livelihood. David sent her a screenshot of the announcement because Ruth does not have a Twitter account.
In the face of challenging economic pressures and declining interest in the subject, UNN regretfully announces the closure of its archaeology department.
We need to fight back, David texted. I’m starting a twitter account. Ruth sighs as she approaches the familiar sign for the Natural Sciences building. She fears and distrusts social media, but David is probably right. Perhaps they’ll have their own hashtag. It’s all very depressing.
As Ruth predicted, DCI Harry Nelson is not delighted to be greeted with the news that Dr Galloway has just left, nor is he mollified by the email suggestion. He paces the basement room several times, muttering.
‘Long time, no see,’ says Edward Spens, which doesn’t help the situation.
‘Every time I see you, Mr Spens,’ says Nelson, ‘there’s another bloody dead body. Anyone else would get suspicious. Maybe I should be suspicious?’
Edward Spens laughs although there’s no sign that this is a joke.
‘Dr Galloway says the body is relatively recent,’ says Tony Zhang. ‘There’s a metal pin in the ankle. She’s going to apply for a licence to excavate.’
‘We need to search the missing persons’ files,’ says Nelson, ‘and the title deeds to the shop. Who had it before you?’
‘It was an antique shop,’ says Spens. ‘The Emporium of Wonder. Owner went bust because of lockdown. I got it very cheaply.’ He grins like this is a good thing. Which it obviously is for him.
‘Bit of a new departure for you, isn’t it?’ says Nelson, who has come to a stop by the hole in the wall. ‘I thought you were all about building huge estates of hideous modern houses.’
‘Executive homes,’ corrects Spens, but without rancour. ‘This is for the wife really. Kids are growing up, she fancies getting into the catering business. I’ve bought two premises, one in King’s Lynn and one in Holt. They’ll both have managers but Marion will oversee things.’
Nelson has only met Marion Spens once, but he can imagine her being one of nature’s overseers.
‘I’ll need the name of the previous owner,’ he says.
‘Sharon Gleeson,’ says Edward promptly. ‘I’ve got her details here.’ He takes out an iPhone that looks as big as a laptop. Nelson remembers a time when they all assumed that phones would get smaller and smaller but now the latest ones barely fit in your pocket. His private phone is several years old and has a cracked screen. He has a more up-to-date version for work but he’s not about to tell Spens the number.
‘Give the details to my sergeant,’ he says. ‘I need to seal the site. It’s a crime scene now, until further notice. Tony, you wait here until the SOCO team arrives. I’m going to talk to Dr Galloway.’
They all know that he doesn’t mean via email.
Nelson arrives at the university intending to have a serious talk with Ruth, starting with the dead body and ending up with why the hell won’t she move in with him. But he finds her office full of people, all of them looking very glum, even for academics.
‘Oh, hallo, Nelson,’ says Ruth. ‘You’ve caught us at a bad time. The university’s closing us down.’
‘Closing you down?’ says Nelson. ‘What do you mean?’
It’s David Brown who answers. He’s not one of Nelson’s favourite people (it’s not a long list) but Nelson can understand why he’s feeling aggrieved. Nelson feels the same whenever his boss, Superintendent Jo Archer, mentions retirement.
‘It’s a disgrace,’ says David Brown. ‘They’re closing one of the most prestigious departments in the university.’
‘Who’s closing you?’ says Nelson. ‘I thought you lot had jobs for life.’
‘The academic board,’ says Ruth. ‘Some of us have tenure – which I imagine is what you mean by “jobs for life” – but that just means that they have to offer us posts elsewhere. They’re closing us down because, apparently, we’re too expensive.’
‘It’s political,’ says an intense-looking young woman. ‘This government doesn’t understand anything that isn’t about profit and loss. Anything that isn’t useful, in their terms. They don’t understand learning for its own sake.’
Well, neither does Nelson, exactly, but over the years he has definitely come
to appreciate Ruth’s knowledge and expertise.
‘But you’re famous,’ he says to Ruth. ‘You’ve been on TV.’
‘That’s what I keep telling her,’ says David. ‘She’s the most high-profile lecturer at UNN. She’s the jewel in the university’s crown.’
Steady on, Nelson wants to tell him. He’s not keen on the proprietorial note in Brown’s voice when he talks about Ruth.
‘And you’re a police consultant,’ Nelson says to Ruth. ‘That’s useful, if you like.’
Ruth gives him a reluctant smile. ‘Gee, thanks, Nelson. But the problem is, not enough people want to study archaeology. As Fiona says,’ she nods at the intense-looking young woman, ‘it’s all about money and an archaeology degree doesn’t exactly lead to a high-earning career. When archaeologists advise on new builds, they’re usually the lowest paid person on site.’
‘That reminds me,’ says Nelson. ‘I want to talk to you about a building site.’
‘OK,’ says Ruth. She turns to her team. ‘Let’s leave it for today. We’ve got the weekend to prepare our fight back.’
‘We can’t afford to take that long,’ says David. ‘I’ll start the Twitter campaign tonight. We won’t let them kill archaeology.’
Isn’t archaeology already dead? thinks Nelson. But he doesn’t say this aloud. He doesn’t want to break the suddenly more optimistic mood.
When the last of the team has left, Nelson sits down opposite Ruth. This is a different office – far bigger and grander – but it reminds him of the first time he met Ruth, when he came to the university to ask for her opinion on some buried bones. He feels a fresh surge of respect for her. David Brown is right. It would be a disgrace if all this specialist knowledge were lost to the world.
‘Tough day?’ he says.
‘I’ve had better. Sorry to leave the site but I really needed to get back here.’
‘That’s OK. Tony says you’re going to apply for a licence to excavate.’
‘Yes. I’ll do it later. It’s an awful thing, isn’t it? A bricked-up skeleton. Like something from a horror story.’
‘It’s certainly a suspicious death in my book.’
‘I’d better go,’ says Ruth. ‘I need to pick Kate up from Cathbad’s.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ says Nelson. ‘I’d love to see Katie. And we can have a chat.’
He can tell by Ruth’s face that this is what she has been dreading.
Chapter 3
Kate is now at secondary school, a large comprehensive just outside King’s Lynn. The logistics have proved complicated because Ruth’s cottage on the edge of the Saltmarsh isn’t on any public transport route. Ruth drives Kate to school in the morning but she finishes at three thirty, two hours before Ruth, and considers herself too old for a childminder. In the end, it was Cathbad who came up with a solution. Kate would take the bus to Wells and spend a few hours with Cathbad and his family until Ruth came to collect her. Typically, Cathbad refused to be paid (‘money poisons everything’) which leaves Ruth in the uncomfortable position of being grateful all the time. But the arrangement has worked well so far. Kate loves spending time with Cathbad’s children, Michael and Miranda. Michael, who is due to join her at the school later this year, hangs on her every word about Form 7EJ. Miranda, three years younger, is in awe of this new Kate with her blue blazer and tartan skirt (rolled over at the waist to shorten it). Cathbad dispenses healthy snacks and sometimes even helps Kate with her science homework.
Ruth spent many sleepless nights worrying about the transition from tiny, cosy primary school to Lynn High, with its endless corridors and baffling one-way systems. The previous summer had been blighted by these fears. Covid was still rife, although cases fell in July and August, and Ruth couldn’t face a holiday. Shona and Phil departed for Rome and sent hundreds of envy-making pictures in which it seemed that they had the Italian capital all to themselves. Ruth visited her father in London, the first time she’d seen him since the pandemic started, but she and Kate sat in the garden and didn’t risk going into the house. Still, home wasn’t a bad place to be. The weather was miraculously sunny, and Ruth and Kate spent a lot of time on the beach or taking Cathbad’s dog, ...
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