The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(70)

‘Thank Christ for that,’ says Nelson, aloud. ‘Where there’s life there’s hope.’ He imagines the ghost dog wagging its tail.



Kate emerges at nine looking, for a scary second, like a mini teenager.

‘How’s Uncle Cathbad?’ she says. She hasn’t called him Uncle for years. Cathbad isn’t Kate’s uncle but he is her godfather – through the pagan ceremony and in the eyes of the Catholic church – and she loves him.

‘He’s still very ill,’ says Ruth, ‘but the doctors and nurses are looking after him. Judy says he’s got a lovely nurse called Abbas.’

‘We should pray for Uncle Cathbad,’ says Kate. Ruth wonders again where Kate is getting this religious stuff from. ‘I like Bible stories,’ she’d said the other day. Ruth feels out of her depth although this would be familiar ground for Nelson. Last night he mentioned that he was praying to some entity called St Carlo, apparently on the advice of his mum. Ruth is always worried when Nelson takes his mother’s advice. But, then again, what harm can praying do?

‘Let’s pray silently for Cathbad,’ says Ruth. ‘And we’ll pray that Zoe gets home safely.’

‘If Zoe doesn’t come back,’ says Kate, ‘can we adopt Derek?’



Nelson has asked both Tanya and Tony to come in today. They have a lot to do, after all. Joe McMahon, Eileen Gribbon and Zoe Hilton are all still on the missing list. Then there’s the witness who saw a ‘bearded chap’ visiting Samantha Wilson. Was this Joe McMahon? Nelson doesn’t know but he would like to speak to the missing student as soon as possible.

Tony is in the kitchen and offers to make Nelson a cup of coffee. Nelson says yes although he knows he’ll be buzzing after three teas. Still, the day he goes caffeine free will be the day they nail down his coffin lid.

‘No Leah today?’ says Nelson.

‘I haven’t seen her,’ says Tony. ‘Sugar?’

‘No thanks.’ Michelle made him give up last year.

Tanya floats in carrying her own box of special tea bags. ‘This one’s called health and well-being.’ She waves a purple sachet at them.

‘Don’t know why the government bothers with all those health experts,’ says Nelson. ‘Send them a box and Covid will be finished. No more hands, face, space and all that bollocks.’ This reminds him that he really shouldn’t be in the small kitchen with two other people.

‘Meeting in the incident room,’ he says and goes to open some windows.

Tanya says that she’s contacted Eileen’s mother. ‘She hasn’t heard from Eileen in about a week. She didn’t seem worried though.’

‘Some people don’t deserve to be parents,’ says Nelson.

‘Could Eileen and Joe be together?’ asks Tony. ‘They’re in the same year at uni after all.’

‘It’s a possibility,’ says Nelson. ‘It was Eileen who first alerted us about Joe’s disappearance, but he could have been in touch since.’

Tony opens his mouth and Nelson dreads an anecdote about his own university days, possibly featuring friends made in freshers’ week and never forgotten, but he has underestimated the new recruit. ‘I was looking at Judy’s notes on the supposed suicides,’ says Tony, ‘and one of Karen Head’s friends mentioned her having a boyfriend with an unsuitable age difference.’

Nelson is impressed. ‘You think it might be Joe McMahon?’

‘It’s just a thought.’

‘A good one. See if Joe ever attended one of those slimming meetings. Lean Machine or whatever they were called.’

‘Lean Zone,’ says Tanya, zipping through her notes as though keen to match Tony for insights.

‘Ruth went to a Lean Zone meeting,’ says Nelson. ‘And McMahon seems to be obsessed with her. Her missing neighbour, Zoe Hilton, went too.’

‘Good for Ruth,’ says Tanya.

‘Why?’ says Nelson.

‘No reason.’ Tanya looks back down at her notes. ‘Judy thought there was a link with Lean Zone, didn’t she? I suppose we could ask her about it.’

‘She’s got enough on her plate at the moment,’ says Nelson.

And that’s the other reason for all the activity. To avoid thinking about Cathbad.



But Judy is, in fact, sitting at her home-office space in her bedroom. Maddie has taken the younger children to the beach and there is only one thing that can take Judy’s mind off the possible death of her life partner: work. Although she’s had messages today from Nelson, Clough, Tony and even Tanya, none of them have asked about the case. She wishes they would. She wishes that she could say something besides ‘no news yet, in ICU, holding his own.’ ‘I used to hold my own,’ Clough texted back, ‘until I was told it would make me go blind.’ She misses Clough.

There’s something there, some link that she’s not seeing. Judy leafs through her notebook.

She went to evensong at St Matthew’s sometimes.

Avril and Tony loved birdwatching. It was one of the reasons they moved here.

She was very devout in her quiet way.

People do become very close sometimes. We’ve even had a few romances.

I was a bit worried. I wish I’d asked more.