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

the Old Ones back so they can be at one with the Dreaming. For the Aborigines there’s no life and death, no yesterday and today, it’s all one. We need our ancestors with us sothey can be part of the oneness. We can’t leave them to rot in some whitefella’s museum.’ He grins as he says the last bit, perhaps parodying himself, but Ruth doesn’t smile. She is thinking of Cathbad, all those years ago, demanding that the henge stay here, on the Saltmarsh, rather than be taken to a museum. ‘It belongs here,’ he had said, ‘between the earth and the sky.’ No wonder he and Bob are friends.
    ‘Won’t the museum return the … your ancestors?’ she asks, tentatively, thinking that she knows the answer.
    ‘No.’ Bob’s face darkens further. ‘I tell you Ruth, Lord Danforth Smith is a seriously bad man.’
    Nelson sits at his desk, wondering whether it’s time to go home. It’s dark outside and there’s no real need to sit here, going over Chris Stephenson’s report and wondering what’s happening down at the docks. If there’s anything to report he’ll soon hear from Tanya and Tom Henty; he might as well wait in the comfort of his own sitting room. But still he sits in his office, drinking cold coffee and reading about pulmonary haemorrhage. The truth is that he doesn’t want to go home.
    When Nelson had agreed not to see Ruth any more, he and Michelle had fallen into each other’s arms and into bed. It was the most emotional experience of his life. He had felt full of tenderness for Michelle, full of gratitude and remorse. At that moment, he would have promised her anything. But the euphoria hadn’t lasted. Michelle had not seemed able to stop talking about Ruth. ‘What was she like in bed? Was she better than me? Whatwas it like sleeping with someone so fat?’ ‘Don’t,’ Nelson had begged. ‘Can’t we just forget it?’ But that, of course, was impossible. Now, six months later, Michelle fluctuates between tearful intensity (‘Promise you’ll never leave me’) and seeming indifference. Last night she had gone out with some of the girls at work and not returned until midnight. He had rung her several times but her phone was switched off. When she’d finally got in, he’d been sitting up waiting for her. In fact, he’d been wondering whether to call up a squad car. ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested,’ she’d said when he asked where she’d been. She had flounced off upstairs as if he’d been in the wrong, but later, in bed, had sobbed in his arms and asked if he thought she was too old to have another baby. Wondering which wife will be waiting for him at home – the frosty businesswoman or the reproachful angel – he decides to stay on and do some more work. He’ll find out some more about these Elginist people for a start.
    Nelson is bad at technology but can just about manage to use Google. Soon the screen is full of pictures of marble horses, grinning skulls, totemic objects. There’s the logo again, the crescent moon with the snake beneath it. The Elginists, he reads, are dedicated to the return of cultural artefacts to their countries of origin. There is a bit about the Elgin Marbles and a whole site dedicated to someone called the Amesbury Archer, a Bronze Age skeleton found near Stonehenge whose return is demanded by a group of druids. Nelson immediately thinks of Cathbad. What had Tom Henty said? That Cathbad had wanted to talkto him about ‘skulls and the unquiet dead’. Could Cathbad be mixed up with these people? It seems only too likely. Nelson, who enjoys what can only be described as a friendship with Cathbad, decides to speak to him as soon as possible.
    But most of the hits come up with the words ‘Aboriginal remains’. The Elginists have been active around the country, demanding the return of Aboriginal relics held in private collections. In some cases, it seems they have been successful, and the internet provides pictures of smiling Aboriginal chiefs in