A Room Full of Bones (18 page)

‘There must be something.’

A woman looks in through the glass door but decides against entering the sauna. Nelson doesn’t blame her. They must look an odd couple, the thin, red-eyed twenty-something and the tall, greying man in slightly too tight swimming trunks (they only had one size for sale in the lobby; cost a bomb too). They must look strange but they probably do look like a couple. Jesus wept, what a way to spend his birthday.

‘There’s a lot of charlie around. It’s good stuff, clean, but no one knows where it’s coming from.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Honest to God.’ Jimmy found God while serving time for dealing. He credits the Almighty for keeping him out of prison for the past three years but he would do better to thank Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson, who has got him off a number of smaller charges in return for information. And now Nelson is impatient; he is sure Olson must know something. He is close to a number of dealers, including a deeply unpleasant character known as the Vicar. Yet here’s the market being flooded by cheap foreign cocaine and no one knows anything about it. Call themselves businessmen.

Jimmy gets up to put water on the hot coals. The room is filled with steam and Nelson catches a whiff of Jimmy’s body odour over the smell of pine and lemongrass. He starts to feel slightly sick.

‘Do you know a character called Neil Topham?’ asks Nelson.

He can’t see Jimmy very well but he’s sure that he’s looking shifty.

‘Why?’

‘I ask the questions.’

‘I think I may have heard the name. He’s a customer.’

‘Of yours?’

‘No! I swear to God, Inspector Nelson, I haven’t dealt for years. No, a customer of a friend of mine.’

‘Good customer?’

‘I think so. Why? What’s he done?’

‘He’s dead.’

Jimmy’s mouth opens in a silent O.

‘Would your dealer friend have anything to do with that? Has he been hanging round the Smith Museum?’

Jimmy starts violently then tries to conceal the fact by jumping to his feet.

‘Getting a bit hot in here,’ he says.

Nelson pushes Jimmy back down into his seat. He looms over the cringing younger man. The woman, who has reappeared in the window, beats a hasty retreat.

‘What do you know about the Smith Museum?’

‘Me? Nothing. What would a bloke like me know about a museum?’ Olson reminds Nelson of a character in a classic TV serial, years ago. Uriah something. Always banging on about being humble, but evil through and through.

‘Why did you jump like a cat on hot bricks when I mentioned it?’ The simile is all too apt. Nelson feels the sweat running down his back. He feels more nauseous than ever.

Jimmy slumps forward on the slatted bench. Nelson sits opposite, breathing hard.

‘It’s just something the Vicar said.’

‘What?’

‘Well I met him one day down at the docks and I said how are you Vicar, friendly like, and he said he’d been to the Smith Museum. I thought he was joking because museums are for kids, aren’t they? So I says what were you doing at a museum Vicar, and he says I went to see a lady.’

‘A lady?’

‘Yeah. So I says, still thinking he was joking, was she in a glass case, like she was a mummy or something, and he says no she was flesh and blood alright.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No. On my mother’s life.’

‘Your mother’s dead.’

‘On her grave then.’

Nelson can’t stand it anymore. He pushes open the wooden door and heads for the showers. He stands under the blissfully cold water until he is sure that Olson has gone. Then he dives into the tepid pool and swims nonstop for twenty minutes.

Nelson is drinking overpriced cappuccino in the hotel lounge when he gets the call from Clough.

‘Hi boss. You home yet?’

Nelson has told the team that he’s going home early so that he can have a meal out with Michelle. He knows they are taking bets on whether he’ll come back to the office.

‘Almost. Have you got anything for me?’

‘Well, you know you said to check up on the Smith family, see if there were any convictions, anything like that?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well I’ve got one. A conviction for criminal damage. Part of an animal rights demonstration.’

Nelson thinks of a pale intense face fringed by dark hair. ‘Was it the daughter? Caroline?’

‘No.’ Clough is savouring the moment. ‘Romilly Maud Smith, aged fifty-five. Lady Smith to you.’

‘The wife?’

‘That’s right. Looks like Lady Smith was part of a group
that broke into a pharmaceutical company to protest about animal testing.’

‘Jesus! Wonder what Danforth Smith thought about that.’

‘He must have known. It was in the papers. The
Evening News
described her as a “mother figure” to the group. Her code name was Big Mama.’

‘What did she get?’

‘Two hundred pound fine.’

‘Any other convictions?’

‘No, but according to the papers the group had been involved in lots of other demos. They’re organised, these animal rights nutters.’

Are they nutters thinks Nelson, as he drives home at only a few miles over the speed limit. In his experience, animal rights activists are highly principled people, which makes them dangerous. Even so, he can’t quite equate the elegant woman that he saw this morning with a camouflage-wearing extremist going by the name of Big Mama. What did Danforth Smith think about his wife’s activities? And what was an animal rights campaigner doing married to a racehorse trainer in the first place? Danforth obviously loved his horses, but in Nelson’s mind racehorses are linked to hunting and shooting and other bloodthirsty pursuits. He remembers his shock when Judy told him that she used to go hunting. ‘It was a pony club thing,’ she’d said. Pony club! Just when you thought you knew someone, they come out with something like that. Judy had done good work though, coming up with Cathbad on the CCTV. According to Judy, though, Cathbad had an alibi,
which doesn’t surprise Nelson at all. Cathbad had been visiting Caroline Smith. Are they having an affair? Caroline is rather attractive in a slightly nutty way. Nelson imagines that she would be just Cathbad’s type.

So Caroline is having an affair with a druid and Romilly is a secret activist. How many other skeletons are going to tumble out of the Smith closet? Thinking of skeletons reminds him of Bishop Augustine and Ruth’s amazing revelation. How coolly she had put it. ‘Anything interesting?’ that slimy Phil had asked. ‘Rather interesting, yes,’ Ruth had replied. Nelson never admires Ruth more than when he sees her doing her professional stuff. She is so sure of herself, there is none of that ‘oh I don’t know’ nonsense that you get with some women, no trying to ingratiate herself with men by playing on their vanity. Ruth knows that she is as good as any man and she says so. It’s refreshing. Nelson does not want to admit, even to himself, that he finds it sexy.

Which ‘lady’ had the Vicar been meeting at the museum? Caroline? Romilly, Lady Smith? It could even be Bishop Augustine, the amazing transvestite bishop, herself. But ‘flesh and blood’ Jimmy had said. What is the link between the museum and the stables, apart from the Smith family? And the fact that two men, in perfect health a few days ago, are now dead.

Nelson reaches the King’s Lynn roundabout. After a moment’s hesitation, he takes the turn for the station. He’ll just pop in for a few minutes, talk to Judy and Clough about the case. He’ll still be back in plenty of time to take Michelle out for a meal.

‘And here we have oak with recessed brass handles. This one has a rather nice inlaid cross in the middle. Very popular with Catholics.’

‘My husband wasn’t a Catholic,’ says Romilly Smith. Though the Smiths must have been Catholic once, she thinks, remembering Bishop Augustine. Dan had been so intrigued by that whole business with the coffin. It was just the sort of thing that interested him. Anything to do with the past, and especially his own ancestors, had him absolutely in thrall. Romilly was born in South Africa, and though she went to boarding school in England she still thinks of herself as a wanderer, stateless. Classless too, despite the ghastly upper-class accent that she’s stuck with. Still, there’s no denying that it comes in rather useful at times. She hates hearing herself braying away at assistants in shops, but when she was arrested the police treated her quite differently as soon as she opened her mouth. She despises the English class system. But Dan – Dan was an English aristocrat through and through.

‘Any special songs?
My Way
is still popular, though a
lot of younger bereaved prefer
The Wind Beneath My Wings
or even
Angels
.’

Randolph said that it was too early to call in the undertakers. They don’t even know when Dan’s body will be released. But Romilly had been seized by a desire to do
something
– organise the funeral, sort out paperwork, sell the house, put the horses out to grass – anything rather than this ghastly sitting around, with everyone looking at her in that ridiculous way and the children either weeping or arguing. Tamsin, when she arrived, was an ally. ‘It’s no good
moping
,’ she had snapped at Caroline. ‘We’ve got to get organised.’ ‘Why?’ Randolph had asked, with that vagueness which everyone except his immediate family seemed to find so endearing. ‘For fuck’s sake, Randolph,’ Tamsin had exploded. ‘There are things to
do
.’

So now Romilly and Tamsin are sitting interviewing the undertaker, a vaguely sinister man in a snowflake-patterned sweater. Randolph has roared off somewhere in the Porsche and Caroline is in the office talking to owners, who are probably interspersing condolences with demands that their horses be moved to another trainer. Romilly despises owners. None of them love their horses. They just want the kudos of swanking around the racecourse in stupid hats, going into the Owners and Trainers bar and talking about ‘my horse’. Half of them wouldn’t recognise ‘their’ horse if it bit them, which it probably would, given the chance.

At least Dan had genuinely loved the horses. That’s how they had met. Romilly was working at a horse refuge near Norwich. Two horses had been brought in, unwanted and
scared but otherwise completely fit. The refuge couldn’t afford to keep them (they needed to save their money for sick animals) so Romilly had been given the job of ringing round local horse owners to ask if they could give them a temporary home. They had all refused. Horses are expensive and no one wanted the two unknown quantities who would guzzle their hay and probably frighten their own animals. Except Danforth Smith. He had arrived that very afternoon with a smart blue horsebox emblazoned with the words Slaughter Hill Racing Stables in gold. He had spoken gently to the frightened animals, loaded them with infinite patience, and by the time that he turned to Romilly with a courteous query about her availability for dinner that night, she was his for the asking. They were married six months later. Maybe it didn’t hurt that, as well as an obvious love for animals, Danforth had limitless money and was building a large modern house which clearly needed a woman’s touch. Romilly was getting tired of mud and dirt and encrusted denim; all the perks of working with horses. She wanted animals, but luxury too – a package that seemed to be offered by the tall, beaky-nosed man who knew how to talk to horses.

And now, after a lifetime of doing the conventional thing, Dan has finally surprised her. He has died, leaving her with three grown-up children, a house that is decorated to within an inch of its life, and a stable full of horses. Funny, Romilly had always thought that Dan would go on forever. Despite his diabetes he had seemed indestructible, part of an unchanging landscape. Whatever happened, Dan would always be there, getting
up at five with the horses, going to bed by ten. Romilly feels unreasonably angry with him for letting her down like this. She needed him; she needed him there in the background, a soothing presence when she returned from her adventures, which are becoming more frequent of late. These days Romilly cares even less about the day-to-day business of looking after horses but even more about animal welfare in the abstract. Her activism lapsed when the children were growing up but in the last few years she has become involved again. Will the police find out about her criminal past? Will they find out about the group? She smiles, causing the undertaker to look shocked and Tamsin to lean over and ask if she’s all right. ‘I’m fine,’ she says. She hates solicitude. From humans anyway.

‘I think Dad would have liked opera,’ Tamsin was saying. ‘Something tasteful.’

Tasteful has become Tamsin’s middle name. Her house in London is a monument to quiet good taste, her clothes are designer with just a hint of Boden, and even her dog is colour-coordinated (chocolate Lab). Romilly approves of all this (especially the Labrador) but she does wish that good taste wasn’t also the abiding principle of Tamsin’s personal life. It is years since Romilly has heard her elder daughter laugh or cry. Even Tamsin’s children seem remarkably free from emotion. Romilly wants to love her only grandchildren but Emily and Laurence seem pallid little creatures, always doing their homework or practising their violins. At their age Romilly was running a full-scale hedgehog rescue in the school grounds. She
supposes that there aren’t many hedgehogs in Notting Hill. They simply aren’t tasteful enough.

Romilly agrees that Dan liked opera and they settle for
E lucevan le stelle
from
Tosca
for the cremation. The church organist can be relied upon to muddle through
Sheep May Safely Graze
for the church service.

‘When will we know if the police want a post-mortem?’ Tamsin asks, when the undertaker has bowed himself out.

‘I don’t know,’ says Romilly. ‘Detective Inspector Nelson was here this morning but the hospital don’t think Dan’s death was suspicious. Heart attack, they said. They’ve issued an interim death certificate.’

‘I know.’ Tamsin has already been to the hospital. She declined the invitation to view her father’s body – ‘I’d rather remember him alive’ – though Caroline has already paid a tearful visit. Now Tamsin is keen to get on with the business of burying her father – tastefully, of course.