The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(58)

Ruth’s cottage and its two neighbours are visible from miles away, bright spots in the gloom. Nelson sees immediately that Ruth’s car isn’t there. Where can she be? It’s lockdown, for God’s sake. She’s not allowed to be anywhere. Nelson parks by the gate and hammers on the door. ‘Ruth? Are you there?’

There’s no car outside Zoe’s house either. Nelson knocks on her door too. No answer. The marshland stretches around him, sullen and threatening. Nelson bangs on Zoe’s window and has the fright of his life when a huge animal – surely far bigger than a normal cat? – appears on the other side of the glass. The beast has stripy fur and huge, yellow eyes. There’s something very disconcerting about its stare.

Nelson turns back to the grey landscape.

Ruth and Katie have disappeared.





Chapter 30


Ruth is still not sure whether she was right to come. Her journey can hardly be described as necessary. What if she’s stopped by the police? Will name-dropping Nelson make it better or worse? But she is desperate for something to take her mind off Cathbad so, after her lecture – there’s still no sign of Eileen or Joe – she turns to Kate.

‘Fancy a drive to Norwich?’

Kate looks at her sceptically. ‘Are we allowed?’

‘Yes,’ bluffs Ruth. ‘It’s for work. Janet – remember her? – thinks she’s found a secret door into Steward’s House. We won’t have to go in. Apparently, you can see it from the road.’

Kate agrees. After all, she’s bored too. There’s a secretly festive feeling in the car as they drive along the coastal road, past the boarded-up pubs and the house with the mural of Rupert Bear. It’s usually a long and frustratingly slow drive to Norwich but, today, they slalom through the round­abouts and encounter almost no traffic on the A148. It feels strange, too, to drive straight into the Close and park in front of the cathedral. Janet is waiting for them by the doors of the great church, now firmly shut, between the statues of Mother Julian and St Benedict. Ruth is not sure how to greet her friend, but they compromise on an awkward two-metres-apart wave.

‘Is it shut?’ Ruth gestures towards the huge wooden doors.

‘Yes,’ says Janet. ‘So sad. It wasn’t even closed during the plague, you know. I still come into the grounds to meditate. I’m living here.’

‘In the cathedral?’ says Ruth. She remembers the laugh in Janet’s voice when she said that her new house was in the ‘dead centre’ of town. She wouldn’t put it past Janet to be living in the cathedral with its multiple graves and coffin-filled crypt. People must still be living in the close, although there’s no sign of life this afternoon. Kate runs across the manicured lawns like a captive freed from prison. Ruth and Janet watch her.

‘It’s good to have a child in the place,’ says Janet. ‘A few of the senior church-people live here but there are no young children.’

‘Where are you living?’ says Ruth. ‘It’s all very mysterious.’

‘I’ll show you,’ says Janet.

They pass through the stone archway and cross the empty street. In front of them is the famously crooked façade of Augustine Steward’s House, the timbers leaning so far to the left that you feel as if the earth has shifted on its axis. There’s a shop downstairs saying ‘Tourist Information’ with a closed sign across it. Janet points to an upstairs window, where the house joins another to form Tombland Alley.

‘There,’ she says.

‘You’re living in Steward’s House? Above the tourist centre?’

‘Yes. They wanted someone to live there and keep an eye on the place. I volunteered. There are lots of empty houses in Tombland Alley.’

Ruth remembers Janet telling her the story of the Grey Lady, the woman who died after being locked up in this building. I’ve often sensed something. A shadow, a presence, sometimes just a feeling of intense sadness. People don’t like to work there after dark. Ruth wouldn’t live above Steward’s House for a million pounds and an English Heritage grant.

‘So what have you discovered?’ she asks. She’s still feeling rather guilty about being out in the open, talking to someone outside her tiny family group (which now seems to include Nelson).

‘It’s this way.’ Janet leads them into the alleyway. The houses seem to lean in, as if glad of their company. A poster in the information centre offers ‘The Top Ten Places to Visit in Norfolk’. Ruth wonders if any of them are open to visitors now. Perhaps the abbey grounds at Walsingham or the beaches of Hunstanton. But all the stately homes and historic churches will be closed. Norfolk is closed.

Janet stops by a low wooden-framed window. ‘Look at the bricks there.’

Ruth peers down to examine the wall. She recognises the Tudor bricks immediately, shallow and uneven, filled with lime-rich mortar. Patterned brickwork was fashionable at the time and, for a moment, she thinks this is what she is looking at, but then she realises that the shape is actually that of a door, sunken into the ground.

‘The strange thing is,’ says Janet, ‘I can’t see where it comes out the other side. It should open into the undercroft but there’s no sign. It did make me think. There are stories about people being bricked up, about tunnels leading to the cathedral. All that stuff.’