A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation Read Online Free PDF

fascinated by this new, unexpected daughter. Kate was born after Ruth and Nelson spent one night together, a few hours stolen out of a horrendous sequence of events which had begun with a murdered child. Ruth had always known that Nelson would never leave his wife and his other daughters, and she had prided herself on asking him for nothing. But Nelson hadn’t been able to leave the situation alone, had wanted to give Ruth money, had wanted to be part of Kate’s life. He had even insisted that Ruth have the baby christened and that he and Michelle should be godparents. But at the christening, Michelle had found out.
    Ruth still doesn’t know how it happened, but two days after the short ceremony at a Catholic church, Nelson had turned up on her doorstop, so ashen-faced that for a second she had barely recognised him. Michelle knew that he was Kate’s father. ‘She asked me a straight question and I couldn’t very well lie, could I?’ Ruth had her own opinion on that but she had wisely kept silent. Nelson had admitted everything and he and Michelle had ‘had it out’. They had argued furiously (‘It was terrible, Ruth, we argued for two days. We never argue.’ ‘Really?’) and the upshot was that Nelson had agreed not to see Ruth or Kate again. Ever. ‘It was the only way I could save our marriage. I’m sorry.’ What if they met in the course of work, Ruth had asked, stony-faced. ‘She accepts that that might happen, of course.’ Nelson had wanted to make a‘financial provision’, to give her money every month, but Ruth had refused. She hadn’t realised how far Nelson would go to save his marriage. Or how much it would hurt.
    Seeing Nelson at the museum had been worse, far worse, than seeing poor Neil Topham’s body curled up beside the bishop’s coffin. Her feelings for Nelson are so complicated that she has long since stopped trying to make sense of them. As soon as she sees him she always feels, in quick succession: irritation (he’s the bossiest person she knows), respect (he’s very good at his job), pleasure (he makes her laugh), and undeniable attraction. Does she love him? She has stopped asking herself this question too. She knows that she never wants to live with a man again. Ten years ago, when Peter moved out, she remembers the way the house itself seemed to sigh with relief. It was just Ruth and the cats and the wild skyline, alone at last. And now it’s just Ruth and Kate and Flint. But it had been nice having Nelson around. He may be a male chauvinist pig but he’s quite useful in a crisis.
    Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my Bonnie to me …
    She has reached the Saltmarsh. It is dark now but she can hear the sea sighing in the distance. The road is raised up over the flat marshland, and at times like this it feels as if you are arriving at the end of the world. She may have left the plastic ghouls and miniature witches behind but this is the real thing. The dark, the unknown. Ruth has known real terror on the Saltmarsh but still she loves it. Her cottage is one of three but one is empty and theother is a holiday home, seldom occupied. It’s a lonely place but, on the whole, Ruth enjoys the solitude. So, when she parks outside her house and the security light (installed two years ago by Nelson) illuminates the Sold sign on the house next door, she feels a familiar irritation, almost anger. The house has been bought for rental, she knows, and any day now she’ll have some trendy couple leaning over the fence and inviting her round for sushi, or some bearded loner who wants to show her his dried seaweed collection. Or some—. Stop, she tells herself, unlocking the door and carrying Kate inside. It may well be a new soul mate, or someone with children the right age to play with Kate, but the truth is that Ruth doesn’t really want any new friends. She has enough trouble with the ones she’s got.
    Nelson drives to the hospital in a similarly uncomfortable state of mind. Seeing