The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(16)

After supper, Ruth sits down with her Lean Journal.

‘Tuesday 25th February,’ she writes. ‘Breakfast: two slices toast and marmite. Cup tea. 11am: Cappuccino. Blueberry muffin. Lunch: Hummus and roasted vegetable wrap. Apple. Supper . . .’

She sighs and thinks of Kelly saying Alison must have lost five stone. Of Zoe saying, ‘It’s how you feel inside.’ Of Nelson’s face when he asked, ‘Why would you want to lose weight?’

And she tears the page into tiny pieces. Then she puts the journal in the bin.





Chapter 9


When Nelson gets into work the next morning – later than usual because he has had to wait for the dog walker to collect Bruno – he knows that the team have something to tell him. Tony Zhang looks exactly like Bruno when he’s discovered something to deposit at Nelson’s feet.

‘There’s been another one,’ says Tony, as Nelson makes his way through the open-plan area.

‘Another what?’ says Nelson. He wants to get into his office and have his first coffee of the day. He still can’t get used to not seeing Cloughie at his desk, demolishing a McDonald’s breakfast. But Clough is a DI now and has his own team in Cambridgeshire. Rumour has it that he’s even given up junk food. The team also still feels the loss of Tim, who died five years ago. For Nelson, thoughts of Tim resurrect so many different emotions that he tries to keep them suppressed.

‘Another suicide that looks slightly suspicious,’ says Judy, giving Tony a quelling look. ‘I’ll tell you at the briefing.’

‘You do that,’ says Nelson. Leah brings him a coffee and he drinks it while deleting most of his emails. Then he summons the team in.

‘Avril Flowers,’ says Judy, ‘aged sixty. Found dead yesterday in her bungalow near Hunstanton, probably from an overdose. She was in her bedroom, which was locked.’ She looks at Tony, daring him to give away the punchline. ‘From the outside.’

‘From the outside?’ says Nelson. ‘She was locked in?’

‘That’s what it looks like,’ says Judy. ‘Her body was found by her cleaner at midday yesterday. The pathologist thought she’d probably been dead for twenty-four hours. Case was passed to the Serious Crimes Unit this morning.’

‘We should interview the cleaning lady,’ says Nelson.

‘Who says the cleaner is a woman?’ says Judy.

‘But is she?’

‘Yes.’

Nelson breathes deeply. ‘Did this Avril Flowers have any family?’

‘A daughter,’ says Judy. ‘She lives in Scotland but she’s coming down today.’

‘We should talk to her too,’ says Nelson. ‘I’ll send SOCO in now. The scene will have been contaminated by the emergency services but they might find something. With any luck they’ll have finished by the time the daughter gets there. Did you find anything about cold cases from Intel?’

‘I spoke to Liz Forbes, the information analyst, ’ says Judy, ‘and she’s been going through suicides recorded in the last six months. I think there are three that we might look into.’ She opens her laptop and props it on Nelson’s desk. Her screensaver, Nelson notes, is her crazy-looking bull terrier.



Karen Head, aged 48. King’s Lynn. Cause of death: overdose.

Rosanna Leigh, aged 55. Snettisham. Cause of death: hanging.

Celia Dunne, aged 59. Terrington St Clement. Cause of death: suspected overdose.



‘I’ve chosen these three,’ says Judy, ‘because the deceased were all of a similar age and from the King’s Lynn area. Information is quite sketchy, but it appears that all three had jobs and families. Therefore, suicide might be seen as unexpected.’

‘Hanging’s very different from taking an overdose though,’ says Tanya, peering to look at the screen.

‘That’s true,’ says Judy, with just a touch of impatience. ‘But the other factors are there. Age, location, date of death. It’s about triangulation.’

‘Good work, Judy,’ says Nelson. ‘Tony, you can look into these. Talk to the families but be sensitive. These are recent tragedies. They’ll still be grieving. Judy and Tanya, you take the Avril Flowers case. Find out about the locked room. There may be an innocent explanation, but I can’t think of one right now.’

The team file out. Judy closes her laptop and seems to have something to say.

‘Yes?’ says Nelson, not very helpfully.

‘I was just wondering,’ says Judy. ‘Is Leah OK?’

‘I think so. Why?’

‘She seems a bit quiet, that’s all.’

‘She’s not one for chatting,’ says Nelson. But, as he says this, he remembers Leah talking to him about Samantha Wilson. You never know when people are desperate, do you? He resolves to pay more attention to his PA.



Ruth is in the café attached to Norwich Cathedral. It feels like skiving on a work day but, she tells herself, she has just visited the site where the body was found on Monday and she is talking to Janet Meadows about local history, something that might be seen as valid outreach work. True, she and Janet have also discussed children, pets and coronavirus but now Janet is asking about the Tombland skeleton.