Judy rolls her eyes although there’s no one in the room to see it. Once again, the boss has gone rushing off after a phone call from Ruth, something about a student possibly being at risk. The best thing to do, in Judy’s opinion, would have been to call campus security but Nelson muttered that it was quicker to go himself. Then he charged out of the office, knocking over a small table on his way. Judy heard his car roaring in the car park – she recognised the slightly dodgy exhaust – and then everything was silent.
Judy sighs and goes back to her Lean Zone notes. She has texted Barb Blakeborough and arranged to call at eleven. Barb answers her phone immediately, obviously ready and waiting.
Judy explains about following up on the death of Avril Flowers.
‘Poor Avril,’ says Barb. ‘I was so shocked when I heard. Do you know what happened to her?’
‘It’s an ongoing investigation,’ says Judy, ‘but I’m very keen to find out about Avril’s state of mind in the days and weeks leading up to her death. I understand that she used to attend your Lean Zone meetings.’
‘Yes,’ says Barb. ‘She was one of those women who never really seemed to lose weight, but she said the group helped stop her putting too much on. Not like me. I lost six stone in 2015 and I’ve kept it off. Thanks to Lean Zone.’
She says this like she’s said it many times before. It sounds like a huge weight loss to Judy. Six stone is a small child, isn’t it? She wonders if Barb expects congratulations, or at least amazement.
‘Did Avril have any friends in the group?’ she asks instead.
‘I’m not sure,’ says Barb. ‘I think there were a few of them that used to have coffee together sometimes.’
‘Well, can you text me if you remember any names?’ says Judy. ‘How was Avril’s mood when you last spoke to her?’
‘She seemed very cheerful,’ says Barb. ‘She was going on a trip with her friend Hugh.’
‘I spoke to Avril’s vicar,’ said Judy, ‘and she thought Avril might have been worried about something.’
‘Mother Wendy?’ says Barb. ‘She’s a regular at my Friday morning group.’
It’s only when Judy asks Barb’s whereabouts on the 25th and 26th of February, that the breezy voice falters. ‘I had a 7pm group on the Tuesday and a 9am on the Wednesday. Why do you need to know? There’s nothing criminal, is there?’
Judy thinks of the way Tony had pronounced the words ‘foul play’, with ill-concealed excitement. Barb sounds more fearful than anything and is not reassured when Judy says again that it’s an ongoing investigation.
Nelson steps closer to the noticeboard. Ruth’s face stares up at him, from a newspaper cutting about the excavation of murder victims, from the UNN archaeology prospectus, from the dust jacket of one of her books. There’s even a screenshot from the TV series Women Who Kill, where Ruth was a – sometimes unwilling – expert witness. More worryingly, there are some photographs that were clearly taken from a distance, one showing Ruth and Katie outside the cottage. In the middle of the display – or shrine – there is a yellow Post-it note. Nelson leans forward to read the words written on it.
Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage.
Nelson turns to Eileen, who is still keeping her distance.
‘Did you know about this?’
‘No,’ says Eileen. ‘I mean, I knew he liked her, thought she was a good teacher but . . . I never came into his room. I didn’t know about this.’
‘I’m going to call campus security,’ says Nelson. ‘And I really think you should find somewhere else to stay.’
‘I’ll be OK,’ says Eileen. ‘There’s a lock on my door.’
Nelson remembers how easily he was able to break into Joe’s room. The young really are astonishingly stupid sometimes. If Michelle were home, he’d be tempted to offer Eileen a bed for the night. But she isn’t and he can’t. Besides, they are in the middle of a pandemic. And he’s planning to slope off to Ruth’s as soon as he’s collected Bruno.
‘I’ll speak to the university,’ he says. ‘They’ve got a duty of care.’
‘They did send me a food parcel,’ says Eileen. ‘It had a Cup-a-Soup and two cans of baked beans in it.’
‘Pictures of me?’ says Ruth. She looks round the room. Kate is constructing the tower containing Dumbledore’s study. Ruth remembers that the spiral staircase is very tricky. Flint is stretched out in a patch of sunlight. He seems to like having them both at home all day. They are all safe, Ruth tells herself.
‘It was like a bloody shrine,’ says Nelson. ‘Newspaper cuttings, stuff from the internet. Even some photos that look as if he took them himself. One had Katie in it.’
‘Kate?’ Ruth can’t stop her voice sounding sharp and anxious. Kate looks up and even Flint twitches in his sleep.
‘What do you know about this lad?’ Nelson is asking.
‘He’s one of my first years. He seems keen. Intelligent.’ Ruth sees the dark-bearded face. Lytton Strachey. She thinks about Joe going to see Janet to talk about the Grey Lady. Beware the Grey Lady.
‘Have you got a home address for him?’ asks Nelson.
‘There’ll be one on the files. I’ll check.’
‘There was a Post-it note too. It said: “Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor iron bars a cage.” Do you know what that’s all about?’
‘It sounds like a poem.’
‘It is. I googled it. By someone called Richard Lovelace.’
‘I’ve never heard of him. I’ll ask Shona.’
‘Don’t tell her too much.’ Nelson is not the greatest fan of Shona, Ruth’s friend in the English department. Ruth is fond of Shona but has to admit that discretion is not her strongest suit.
‘I spoke to the campus security,’ says Nelson, ‘but they were bloody useless. There’s a warden but it turns out he doesn’t even live on site.’
‘Most wardens don’t.’
‘I spoke to him too. I’m a bit worried about the girl. Eileen.’
‘Me too.’
‘I spoke to some of the other students in the halls. There are only a few of them. One of them, a nice Chinese girl, offered to keep an eye on Eileen. As well as she can from two metres away.’
‘I’ll check in with her regularly too,’ says Ruth. ‘I wish she could go home but she says she doesn’t get on with her mother. I don’t think the government have thought about students like Eileen. They think everyone has a nice safe home to go back to.’
‘Home isn’t always safe,’ says Nelson. ‘I’d better get back to the station now. Text me Joe McMahon’s address. He’s not necessarily a danger to you but I’d like to have a word with him.’
Not necessarily. It’s not the most reassuring phrase, thinks Ruth. But Nelson’s next remark is better.
‘See you later,’ he says.
After lunch, Ruth and Kate go for a windy walk across the Saltmarsh. Kate finds some crab claws and is ghoulishly pleased at the thought that a bird must have dropped them after feasting on the creature’s insides. Back at home, she goes to give them pride of place on her nature table. Ruth takes the opportunity to ring Shona.
‘Hi. How are you?’ She’s guiltily aware that she hasn’t contacted her friend since the start of lockdown.
‘OK. I’m going mad trying to keep Louis and Phil entertained. When you think we should have been halfway across Thailand by now.’
Shona and her partner Phil – Ruth’s ex-boss – had been planning to take a year off and go around the world with their ten-year-old son, Louis. Phil had taken early retirement after a heart attack two years ago and Shona had managed to secure a sabbatical. Strictly speaking, they weren’t planning to leave until July, but Ruth forgives Shona the slight exaggeration.
‘It’s awful the way everything’s on hold now,’ she says.
‘It’s the not knowing,’ says Shona. ‘Will everything be back to normal by the summer? Phil says not but he’s being very gloomy.’
Shona sounds thoroughly fed up and Ruth doesn’t blame her. Being locked down with Phil must constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Louis is not exactly easy company either.
‘Maybe Louis and Kate could do something on Zoom one day,’ she says, although she knows that the two do not always see eye to eye.
‘That would be lovely,’ says Shona. ‘And the English department are having an online quiz tomorrow. Perhaps you could join in with that?’
‘Perhaps,’ says Ruth. She needs to think of an excuse, but she can hardly say that she’s out that evening. She’s not keen on quizzes at the best of times and doesn’t fancy the idea of listening to the English department one-upping each other on Shakespeare quotations. Still, it reminds her of the purpose of her call.
‘Richard Lovelace,’ says Shona. ‘He was one of those Cavalier poets.’
For a moment Ruth thinks Shona means ‘cavalier’ in the sense of being offhand, but then she realises that Lovelace must have been writing at the time of the English Civil War between the Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers). Ruth is a bit vague on the detail but she knows that King’s Lynn was besieged first by the Royalists and then by the Parliamentarians, led by the Earl of Manchester who always sounds made-up. Who was it that called the Parliamentarians ‘right but repulsive’? She questions Shona, who laughs.
‘That’s from 1066 and All That. The Royalists were “wrong but romantic”. That’s pretty much how I see the two sides. Lovelace was a Royalist, imprisoned by the Parliamentarians. Why are you interested in him? He’s a minor poet, really.’
Ruth knows that Shona has her own literary hierarchy, headed by Sylvia Plath and Shakespeare. Other dead white men are near the bottom.
‘One of my students quoted something by him,’ says Ruth, which is more or less true. ‘“Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor iron bars a cage.”’
‘That’s probably Lovelace’s most famous poem,’ says Shona. ‘“To Althea, from Prison”. I’ll email you a copy if you like.’
‘It’s not that obscure then?’
‘God no. You can probably get it on a mug or embroidered on a cushion.’
‘Did he die in prison?’ asks Ruth. ‘Was he executed?’
‘Oh no,’ says Shona. ‘He lived to fight another day.’
Ruth feels oddly comforted by this. They chat for a few more minutes before Ruth rings off, promising to think about the quiz.
Kate has gone back to her Lego so Ruth goes into the kitchen to ring Janet Meadows. She opens the back door and looks out into the garden. Once again, the small patch of green is extremely soothing. She can hear Zoe talking to Derek in her garden. A blackbird sings loudly from the apple tree.
Janet, too, seems pleased to hear from her.
‘I’m already fed up with lockdown. There’s only so much yoga and baking you can do.’
Ruth remembers that she included yeast and bread flour in her mammoth shop on Tuesday. Had she really been intending to bake bread? Things aren’t that desperate yet. But then it’s only been a week.
‘I wanted to talk to you about one of my students,’ says Ruth. ‘Joe McMahon. He was the one who came to see you about the Tombland skeleton.’
‘I remember. Chap with a beard.’
‘That’s right. I just wondered if you remembered anything specific about the conversation.’
Janet must wonder why she’s asking but, unlike Shona, she doesn’t press the matter.
‘He wanted to know why a skeleton would be buried on its own like that. He thought it might mean that she was an outcast. Or a suicide.’
Eileen had said something similar, Ruth remembers.
‘I don’t think it was a deviant burial,’ says Ruth. ‘The body was wrapped in a shroud and was probably just interred in the graveyard. I told the students that.’
‘He was quite intense,’ says Janet. ‘He told me that his mother had died recently. I felt quite sorry for him. Actually, hope this doesn’t make you feel old, but he said he thought of you as a mother figure.’
Old isn’t what this makes Ruth feel.
‘I showed Joe the original plans to Augustine Steward’s House,’ says Janet. ‘He seemed very interested. He said he was thinking of writing his dissertation about Tombland.’
‘He’s only a first year,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s a bit early to be thinking of dissertations.’
‘Really? I thought he seemed older. But, seriously, I don’t think there’s any harm in him. He’s just a bit sad and a bit intense. We’ve all been there.’
Ruth definitely knows what it’s like to be eighteen and intense. She thinks of the days when she was dating Daniel, reading The Brothers Karamazov in the library and dreaming of escape. Life for Janet, pre-transition, must have been difficult in ways that Ruth can’t even imagine. Maybe she’s being a bit hard on Joe. After all, it’s his business what he puts on his walls. She decides to change the subject.
‘Have you found somewhere to live?’ she says. ‘When we last spoke you said you had to move out of your flat.’
‘Yes, I’ve found somewhere.’ Janet gives a little laugh.
‘Is it in the centre of town?’
‘Oh yes,’ says Janet. ‘Dead centre.’
Isn’t that the punchline of a joke? Janet doesn’t seem to want to explain so, after a few minutes’ desultory chat, Ruth says goodbye and rings off.