A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation by Elly Griffiths

down and totters purposefully over to Bob and his didgeridoo. Ruth follows, more reluctantly. Flint, lurking by Ruth’s front door waiting for his dinner, jumps over the fence and is the first to reach their new neighbour, rubbing himself lovingly around his legs.
    ‘Want,’ says Kate, pointing at the didgeridoo. This is one of her new words.
    Bob puts down the long wooden pipe and says, ‘Hallo little neighbour. You were asleep when I met your mum.’ He reaches out and strokes Flint, who arches his back appreciatively. Ruth is shocked at the cat’s infidelity.
    ‘Mum,’ says Kate, putting a hand on the painted wood of the didgeridoo. ‘Mum, mum, mum.’
    ‘Careful Kate,’ says Ruth.
    ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Bob’s smile seems impossibly wide. ‘It’s good to touch things. That’s how we learn, right?’
    Ruth agrees that it is. Touch is an important sense for an archaeologist. She remembers how Erik could tell just by holding a stone tool how it had been made, and what it had been used for. He used to shut his eyes, she remembers, while running his thumb along the sharp edges of a flint. She supposes that one day she’ll stop thinking about Erik.
    ‘Is it hard to play?’ she asks, indicating the didgeridoo.
    ‘Have a go.’ He grins his endless grin again.
    Ruth sits down on the grass and puffs and puffs but all she achieves is a sort of feeble farting noise. Kate laughs delightedly.
    Bob blows again, an undulating, reverberating sound that seems oddly right out here in the wind and sky.
    ‘I’m not an expert on the didge,’ he says, putting the instrument on the ground, ‘but it’s a way of keeping in touch with home.’
    ‘Where is home?’ asks Ruth, settling herself more comfortably. It’s a mild evening and it’s curiously pleasant to be sitting out here on the grass as if it’s summer. The moon is up but it’s still light over the sea, the waves breaking in bands of silver and grey. A pair of geese fly overhead, calling mournfully.
    ‘Our home is in Dreamtime,’ says Bob. Then, laughing, he relents. ‘I’m one of the Noonuccal people from Minjerribah, the islands in the bay. North Stradbroke Island to you.’
    This doesn’t mean very much to Ruth, whose only contact with Australia is a friend who emigrated there and now sends her irritating Christmas cards featuring Santa in swimming trunks. The islands in the bay have an exotic, foreign sound that seems to belong more to the Caribbean than to the land of surf and barbecues and good neighbours becoming good friends.
    ‘I think you know a friend of mine,’ she says. ‘Cathbad.’
    ‘Cathbad. Yes. He’s a brother.’
    ‘A brother?’
    ‘In spirit. We belong to a band of brothers. A group of like-minded people.’
    ‘The Elginists?’
    Bob doesn’t seem surprised. ‘That’s right. We’re committed to the repatriation of our ancestors.’
    ‘Like the skulls at the Smith Museum?’
    A shadow crosses Bob’s face, or maybe it’s just the evening light. The sky seems to have grown much darker in the last few minutes. Kate climbs onto Ruth’s lap and starts pulling her hair experimentally. Flint has wandered away.
    ‘Right. But they’re not just skulls. They’re our ancestors. They need to be returned to their Spirit Land so they can enter the Dreaming.’
    This is more or less what Cathbad had said but it sounds so much more impressive coming from Bob, out here under the darkening sky. Ruth shivers and holds Kate tighter.
    ‘Look out there,’ says Bob. He points over the Saltmarsh. You can’t see the sea any more but you can hear it, a rushing, urgent sound in the twilight. ‘This is sacred land. My people believe that the world was created in the Dreamtime when the spirit ancestors roamed the Earth. This place, it was made by the Great Snake. You can see its shape as it meandered over the land, creating all these little streams and rivers. That’s why I feel at home here. The Snake’s my tribal emblem. We need to take