The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(89)

‘It’s all right, Thing. I’m home now.’

Judy pulls Thing away and Cathbad is embracing his children, a scrum of love and relief and tears.

When they pause for breath, Cathbad turns to Ruth, who is still keeping her socially approved distance. She and Kate are both smiling and suddenly seem radiantly alike.

‘It’s wonderful that you’re home,’ says Ruth.

‘I prayed for you,’ says Kate.

‘Thank you, Hecate,’ says Cathbad. ‘It helped. A lot.’

‘Go into the house,’ says Ruth, ‘and carry on getting better.’

Cathbad raises his hand and it seems that even the seagulls, high above, are welcoming him home in raucous chorus.



Ruth and Kate drive home still elated by the hero’s return. Kate talks excitedly about Cathbad. ‘Do you think it’s a miracle, Mum?’ Ruth doesn’t feel qualified to judge but she’s glad Kate is happy when she’s had so many disappointments recently. It’s become clear over the last few weeks that the Year 6 trip is not going to happen. ‘We hope to have the children in school for a week in June,’ said Mrs Obuya, ‘and we’ll have some socially-distanced celebrations.’ But it’s not the same as a trip or a disco or a prom. Ruth finds Kate’s stoic acceptance of this almost heartbreaking.

But Kate does have the excitement of a new aunt and, as they near the little cottages, they see Zoe in the garden. She has cleared the ground and has sown seeds with witchy names like salvia, scabious and zinnia. Sunflowers are growing in pots and Zoe is busy preparing hanging baskets for the summer. Derek and Flint are watching with interest from their respective doorsteps. They need no government directive to maintain social distancing.

Zoe has gone back to work, physically none the worse for her ordeal, but she’s told Ruth that she’s having nightmares about the underground room and Hugh Baxter’s soft voice urging suicide. Ruth finds it both stressful and touching to be receiving confidences of this kind. Is this what it means to be a sister? Simon has never confided in her and most of her friends have families of their own. Now Ruth has gained another close family member. It’s rather a responsibility.

Ruth told Simon of Zoe’s existence via Zoom. It was another one of those occasions where the discussion would have been easier face to face. Ruth looked at her brother’s baffled face on the screen and wished she had been able to give him a hug, or at least a hearty pat on the back. It’s been a hard time for Simon. Covid turned out not to be a government conspiracy and he’s locked down at home with his wife and adult sons. No wonder he looks greyer than when Ruth last saw him.

‘Mum had a daughter,’ he kept repeating. ‘Before I was born.’

Ruth was glad when Cathy appeared beside Simon. ‘These things happen,’ she said briskly.

‘You’ll like Zoe,’ Ruth assured Simon who, foregrounded against his record collection and abandoned teenage acoustic guitar, suddenly looked rather pathetic.

‘Does Dad know?’

‘No,’ said Ruth. ‘I think we should tell him later. When we can see him in person.’

She has no idea when that will be.

Zoe comes over to meet them, her hands dark with earth. ‘How was Cathbad? Everyone at the surgery is so happy that he’s out of hospital.’

‘He looked a bit frail but he was obviously delighted to be home,’ says Ruth. ‘He’s got nine lives, but I think this has used up one of them.’

‘My time-travelling cat has got ninety-nine lives,’ says Kate.

‘Have you written any more?’ asks Zoe. Ruth listens to Kate telling her aunt about Whittaker’s latest adventures. It takes her mind off the fact that Nelson is, probably at this very moment, being reunited with his wife.



Nelson has taken the day off work but now he wishes he hadn’t. The time seems to pass so slowly in the silent cul-de-sac. He can’t stop thinking about Cathbad coming home from hospital, about Ruth and Katie, about the team back at the station.

Hugh Baxter has been charged with unlawful imprisonment but he’s pleading memory loss and incipient dementia. Nelson has an awful feeling that he’ll get away with it all. There’s no evidence that Hugh persuaded Samantha, Avril and Karen to kill themselves. His fingerprints were on the handle of Avril’s bedroom but Hugh is sharp enough to say that they got there on one of his many visits to the house. ‘We were friends,’ he tells Tanya, ‘I loved Avril.’ Nelson, watching on the video link, isn’t convinced for a moment.

Hugh can’t deny trapping Zoe in the room below the information centre but he is saying that he was confused and didn’t know what he was doing. Against this is the fact that he visited Zoe several times, bringing food and pills and urging her to put an end to her life. He had obviously planned the whole thing, discovering the underground room when he was working as a volunteer in the shop. Kindly Hugh, with his interest in local history. Who would have thought that, not content with telling visitors the story of the Grey Lady, he seemed determined to re-enact it?

Zoe will be a good witness for the prosecution although Nelson knows that she’s worried about the earlier case being resurrected. ‘I don’t think I can quite face being the angel of death again,’ she said, with a brave attempt at a smile. Ruth will be a witness to the fact that she found Zoe in the cellar and was locked in by Hugh herself. Nelson doesn’t know why Hugh went to such extreme lengths with Zoe. He obviously knew her through the surgery. Did he know about the Dawn Stainton case too? Is this why he targeted her? Nelson has wondered if Hugh was the elderly man in the waiting room when he visited the surgery to enquire after Zoe. At the time, he had seemed a harmless, anonymous presence. The mask had helped too.