The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(2)

But there’s something wrong with the picture. The cottages are painted dull pink rather than white and are surrounded by a low hedge rather than a picket fence. The car parked in front of the last house looks boxy and strange. Ruth turns the photo over and sees, in her mother’s characteristically loopy handwriting: Dawn 1963.

Ruth was born in 1968. She looks again at the picture, taking in the sepia tones and the rounded edges. There’s no doubt about it. Her mother had a picture of Ruth’s cottage, taken thirty years before Ruth ever saw the place.

Ruth takes the shoebox of photos into her room and puts it by her case. She’s sleeping in her old childhood bedroom, barely big enough for a bed, bookcase and wardrobe. Kate has Simon’s old room which was bigger because he was older and a boy. ‘Boys need more space,’ Jean used to say, in answer to Ruth’s regular complaints. But Simon, unlike Ruth, was a neat, contained creature and would have fitted comfortably in the box bedroom. Ruth remembers that he never expanded to fill his room in the way that Kate has done over one night, clothes on the floor, open books on the bedside table. Ruth picks up the clothes, though she knows she should make Kate do it herself. Kate is eleven, after all.

Ruth has packaged her mother’s clothes into two bin bags, one for charity and one for recycling. There was nothing she wanted to keep. Arthur has already given Ruth her mother’s gold watch on a chain and her diamond engagement ring. Ruth keeps these in a wooden box with Kate’s pink hospital bracelet from when she was born (‘Girl of Ruth Galloway’) and a shepherd’s crown, a fossilised sea urchin meant to bring good luck. This last was a present from her druid friend Cathbad.

Looking through her mother’s belongings has made Ruth feel sad and restless. She needs some fresh air. The house is in a residential part of Eltham, rows and rows of Edwardian terraces and thirties’ semis, slightly smarter than in Ruth’s day but still presenting a rather grey and forbidding aspect. There’s nowhere very exciting to walk, unless you make the trip to the park or the cemetery. Ruth decides to go to the local shops. It’s a depressing little parade but it has a Co-op where she can buy a Guardian and a cake for tea. As Ruth walks, she thinks of taking this route with her schoolfriend Alison. When they were children, they went to the newsagents every Saturday to buy comics. Later, they both had paper rounds, slogging through the early morning streets delivering the South London Press. Later still, they lied about their age to buy alcohol from the sleazy off-licence on the corner. On impulse, as she passes this shop, now a Tesco Metro, Ruth takes a selfie and texts it to Alison. She’s not very adept at doing this and cuts off half her face but Ali will get the message.

When she gets back to the house, Cathy, Kate and Jack have returned from the zoo. Kate is full of information about tigers, sloths and an okapi called Meghan. Jack is quieter but, in between mouthfuls of cake, tells them a quite frightening number of facts about spiders. Cathy shudders but Ruth says that Cathbad apologises if he disturbs a spider’s web. ‘They are great works of art,’ he says.

‘Is that your wizard friend?’ says Cathy. She has refused cake because ‘it’s a five hundred calorie day’ but she’s not a bad sort really.

‘He’s a druid,’ says Kate.

‘What’s the difference?’ says Jack.

‘Druids are real,’ says Kate. She specialises in unanswerable replies which can sound rude if she’s not careful. Ruth is just about to plunge in with more questions about the zoo when her phone pings. It’s from Alison.

R U in Eltham?

Ruth types back ‘yes’ though she knows Kate wants to remind her about the ‘no phones at the table’ rule.

OMG. It must be a sign! School reunion tonite! U up for it?

Is she?





Chapter 2


Nelson is looking at a photograph of a dead woman. This is not normally something that he would do at home, on a Saturday, but his wife, Michelle, has taken their youngest child on holiday to their native Blackpool and so he has the house to himself. He had decided on an afternoon of watching rugby and drinking beer, but this was spoiled by his German shepherd dog, Bruno, who stood in front of the television, sighing. Eventually, Nelson took Bruno out for a walk and, when they returned, Nelson didn’t seem to be able to recapture that Saturday afternoon feeling. He thought about Michelle and Georgie. They were visiting Michelle’s mother and Nelson was pretty sure that they would be at the Pleasure Beach today. It wasn’t Nelson’s favourite place and he spent several minutes worrying about safety harnesses and passing child molesters. Then he thought about Ruth and Katie in London. Ruth had said that she was packing up her mother’s belongings which must be a sad task. Nelson can’t imagine life without his mother, although he’s glad she lives two hundred miles away. But thinking of his mother makes him think of a conversation he had with her at Christmas and a decision he needs to make. He can’t think about that now, not with Bruno staring at him trustingly and Georgie’s toy garage in the corner of the room. So he takes refuge in work.

Samantha Wilson was found dead yesterday at six p.m. She was lying on her bed beside an empty bottle of pills. Her body was found by her adult son, Brady, who had called in to the semi-detached house in Gaywood when he became concerned at Samantha not answering her phone. There will have to be a post-mortem but all the signs point to suicide. And yet . . .