The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(36)

Then it’s lunchtime. Ruth finds preparing a midday meal rather a strain. She’s running out of acceptable variants of beans on toast. Cathbad makes home-made soup every day but he’s a shaman in touch with earth magic and she . . . isn’t. After lunch Ruth and Kate have a walk across the marshes, collecting more items for their ‘nature table’. Then Ruth works while Kate reads or entertains herself. Ruth’s ‘no screens until six’ rule has already been abandoned. Suppertime happens rather earlier than usual. And, every day this week, Ruth has had a large glass of wine at six p.m.

On Thursday, after supper, there’s a variant. Ever since the Prime Minster’s announcement on Monday, Ruth has been obsessively scrolling for Covid news. She tries to stop herself but, late at night, she finds herself on news sites reading about death rates in Italy and China. Thank goodness she’s not on Facebook or Twitter because she’s sure that other people’s anxieties would finish her off altogether. Not to mention the Simon types saying that it’s all a conspiracy to kill off the elderly population. In one of her doom-scrolling sessions Ruth reads about ‘clapping for carers’, the idea that everyone should go outside at eight p.m. on Thursdays to clap the NHS heroes. There have been heart-rending stories in the news about doctors and nurses, clad in their inadequate protective clothing, struggling to cope with the rising tide of Covid cases, risking their lives to fight a virus that no one really understands, weeping over elderly patients dying alone because visitors are no longer allowed in hospitals, stopping at the supermarket after a twenty-four-hour shift to find that greedy shoppers have stripped the shelves of food.

‘Let’s clap too,’ says Ruth.

‘No one will hear us,’ says Kate.

This is true and the words give Ruth an unaccustomed shiver. Somehow, in the last three days, she has felt their isolation in a way that she never has before. Which is why, when Ruth and Kate step out into their front garden, Ruth is disproportionately pleased to see Zoe in hers, holding a saucepan and spoon. The marshes are dark, but Ruth can hear the sea in the distance, the waves breaking on the far-off sandbank.

‘I thought I’d make some noise,’ Zoe says. ‘Frighten the foxes a bit. Derek is terrified of them. He’s still scared to go outside.’ Ruth has only seen the beautiful Maine Coon cat in Zoe’s window.

‘We should be clapping you really,’ says Ruth. Zoe has changed out of her scrubs but she’s still a heroic figure to Ruth.

‘It’s eight o’clock,’ says Kate, who likes to keep track of time.

Feeling slightly ridiculous, Ruth starts to clap. Zoe beats time on her saucepan and Kate adds a few whoops. Birds fly up out of the reeds and seagulls call overhead but otherwise the only sound is the echo of their own applause, rolling back to them out of the darkness.



Judy is surprised, when she steps onto her doorstep, to hear the cheers echoing along the street. Cathbad and the children are already there, blowing whistles and clattering saucepans. Maddie whoops from an upstairs window. Judy looks towards the next-door house and is rather touched to see Steve and Whatsit applauding loudly. On the other side Jill and Fred (or is it Ned?) are clapping in a more restrained way, as if they are at a tennis match. Judy remembers what she said to Tanya about her neighbours. ‘I hardly ever talk to mine . . . I’d be hard put to tell you their names.’ She resolves to do better. There is something very moving about this moment, when they are united in admiration and respect, despite being locked down in their separate houses.

‘Isn’t it great?’ says Cathbad, turning to smile at her. ‘It’s real universal energy.’

‘Will universal energy fund PPE?’ says Judy, then feels churlish. She compensates by adding a whoop of her own to the dying chorus.



Nelson wonders why everyone in the cul-de-sac is standing in their front gardens. What are they playing at? What about ‘Stay Home’ don’t they understand? When he parks outside his house, he can hear Bruno barking but there’s another sound too, something that reminds Nelson of childhood football matches. Applause. It’s hesitant at first, a few staccato claps on the night air, and then it rises and swells. There are whoops too and someone rings a bell. What in God’s name is going on? Then he remembers. They are clapping for the carers. Leah was talking about it today. Nelson doesn’t want to look unsympathetic, so he stands on his doorsteps for a few minutes, joining in. His daughters used to complain that he clapped too loudly at netball matches and school plays and there is something particularly son­orous about the sound his hands make. He has big hands which is why he often had to play in goal rather than his preferred centre-forward glory-hunting position.

‘Well done, Harry,’ shouts someone.

Has he gone back in time and scored the winning goal for Bispham Juniors? Then someone else says, ‘Three cheers for the police.’ Jesus wept – they are clapping him now. Nelson knows this is unwarranted. He isn’t risking his life like doctors and nurses and hospital cleaners. But he knows, too, that people need an outlet for their sentiment. So, he raises his hand in a way that he hopes acknowledges the ovation whilst, at the same time, asking for it to stop. Then Nelson lets himself into his house.

Bruno comes racing to meet him, whimpering with happiness. He’s been with Maura all day, but he clearly wants another walk. Nelson slightly dreads marching past his suddenly admiring neighbours. He doesn’t want to take any of his usual routes. He wants to go somewhere wild and deserted.