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‘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. Sheisa 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 calledWomen 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 old 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, straightening 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.
