The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(46)

To escape from this train of thought, Ruth clicks on the email from Peter. There’s an attachment too. Should she open it? If so, there’s always a danger of disappearing down one of those rabbit holes that seem to be one of the hazards of a solitary life. You run the risk of becoming tangled in the hair of memory. Too late, she has already clicked on the icon. Thought you’d like to see this. It’s a photograph of Ruth in this very room, sitting on the sofa with a kitten on each shoulder. Flint and Sparky, ginger and black-and-white. Like the two ravens of Odin. The room hasn’t changed much, the same sofa and bookshelves, although there were more gaps then. The television is smaller and boxier and there’s a framed poster of Devizes on the wall. Peter, a Wiltshire boy, must have taken it with him when he left. Ruth herself looks almost unbearably young and happy. Her hair is longer and her cheeks rounder. She’s wearing a UCL sweatshirt and jeans. Ruth can almost hear Peter laughing as he took the picture. The Cabin.

Ruth looks at the picture until Kate tells her that the water is boiling. She and Kate eat their pasta in front of another quiz show. It’s not until Kate is upstairs having her bath that Ruth opens her laptop again. Now there’s a new message.

The Grey Lady can walk through locked doors. You can never be safe from her hunger. Beware.



Nelson doesn’t appear until nearly nine. Kate is in bed and Ruth is sitting at the window marking essays. She sees the white Mercedes parking outside and wonders if Zoe too is watching from her house. They are breaking the rules, even if you factor in the ‘divorced father’ clause. Lockdown is going to make adultery a lot more difficult, thinks Ruth, wondering where that Old Testament word has appeared from. Sent by divine email from her mother? A rhyme comes into her mind, even as she gets up to open the door. Do not adultery commit. Advantage rarely comes of it. Now, where did that come from? She’ll have to ask the English department quiz team.

Ruth expects Bruno to come bounding up the garden path, but Nelson emerges from the car on his own, gives a rather furtive look around him, and strides towards the cottage, head down.

Ruth opens the door before he can knock. ‘Safe from the adultery police?’

‘Bloody hell. That sounds like something my mum would say.’

‘Where’s Bruno?’

‘That’s why I’m a bit late. I dropped him off with a friend. Jan Adams. She’s going to look after him, just during lockdown. She used to be a dog-handler. Got a German shepherd too, Barney. He’s a distant relation of Bruno’s, actually.’

‘As long as he’s with family.’

Nelson laughs and sits down on the sofa. Flint immediately gets up to leave. It occurs to Ruth that Nelson could actually move in with her, at least while Michelle is away. That way they would be one household and so not breaking any rules. But she doesn’t say this. She asks Nelson if he wants supper. He says that he’s eaten.

‘Sure?’

‘Well, if it’s no trouble.’

Ruth goes into the kitchen to heat up the sauce and put the water on for more pasta. Flint follows, complaining loudly, probably about Nelson. She placates him with more gourmet cat food and pours two glasses of wine. When she comes back into the sitting room, Nelson is reading the back cover of Kate’s copy of The Hunger Games.

‘Is this for kids? It looks terrifying.’

‘Kids like to be terrified.’ Ruth hands him the wine. She thinks of the email. You can never be safe from her hunger.

‘Did you have any luck tracing Joe?’ she asks.

‘No. I tried the contact number you gave me. It was his dad but he says they’re estranged. He hasn’t seen Joe for almost a year.’

‘His mother died recently,’ says Ruth. ‘Maybe that’s why.’ She tells Nelson about Janet Meadows and her meeting with Joe.

‘A mother figure,’ says Nelson. ‘Jesus wept.’

‘Well, exactly.’

‘Mother wasn’t the word that came into my head when I saw those pictures,’ says Nelson. ‘It was as if he was obsessed with you.’

‘You’d better see this.’ Ruth hands him the laptop and leans over to show the Grey Lady email.

‘Who’s this from?’ says Nelson.

‘I’ve no idea. I had another one a few days ago telling me to beware of the Grey Lady.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’

‘I thought it might not be important.’

‘Bloody hell, Ruth,’ says Nelson. ‘Of course it’s important. Someone’s threatening you. Who is this Grey Lady anyway?’

‘She’s the ghost of a woman who was bricked up during the plague. Apparently, she ate her parents and then died herself.’

‘Jesus wept,’ says Nelson again.

Ruth goes to check on the pasta.



Much later, Ruth feeds the cat and double locks the front door. She can hear Nelson in the bathroom upstairs. The security light comes on outside but she knows that it’s just a fox. Or Derek. Or the Grey Lady. Nothing can scare her tonight.





Chapter 24


Judy is surprised when the boss says that he isn’t going to work at the weekend. They are still meant to be investigating the Avril Flowers case and Judy expected Nelson to be at the station every day, chivvying and chasing every last scrap of information. Instead, he told her, when she was leaving for the day, that he was going to take Bruno to Jan’s house and ‘have the weekend off’. Why is Nelson choosing this moment to slacken off from work? It’s not as if he has anything else to do. Has he?