A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation

clapping sticks. A strange procession starts to form. Bob, in his cloak and now a feathered headdress, chanting, and occasionally shouting out strange staccato cries that echo in the cold air. Then Caroline and Randolph, carrying what looks like a rectangular box but which, Ruth supposes, is actually the coffin containing the skulls and bones of the ancestors. Then Alkira Jones and Derel Assinewai carrying a second box. They are followed by a little girl, as solemn as a bridesmaid, carrying a large feather, just like the one Ruth found on the spare-room bed.
    Caroline and Randolph place their box in front of the fire. Alkira and Derel follow suit. Randolph carefully unwraps an Aboriginal flag and places it over the coffins. Judy, watching from the back, thinks of the time when she imagined her funeral, the last post, the folded union jack. Next to her, Darren smiles and takes her hand. He’s so excited about the baby that he hardly likes to let her out of his sight. Judy squints through the smoke so that she can see Cathbad. He should look ridiculous in that cloak, but to Judy he looks wonderful, like an ancient warrior. Darren squeezes her hand. ‘Tired?’ Judy shakes her head.
    Randolph clears his throat and takes a piece of paperfrom his pocket. ‘On behalf of the Smith family, alive and dead …’ he begins. Ruth thinks of Bishop Augustine who was also, of course, a member of the Smith family. There is already a battle royal over his (or her) remains. Randolph wants them to be buried in the cathedral, near the statue with the warning about the great snake, but Janet Meadows and the other local historians want a private burial in accordance, they say, with the Bishop’s own wishes. The coffin will find a home in the Smith museum, though Ruth, who has heard about the poisoned spores from Nelson, thinks that she will probably give visiting it a miss. She looks at Phil, standing proudly beside Shona. Was his flu also courtesy of the Bishop? Trust Phil to come into contact with a deadly virus and still only suffer from man flu.
    ‘On behalf of the Smith family alive and dead,’ says Randolph, Lord Smith, ‘I would like to apologise, here and now, for the actions of my ancestor in removing these bones from their sacred place of rest.’ He pauses and looks at Caroline. ‘Our ancestor was wrong to remove the bones and my father was wrong to keep them here, in the museum, when they should have been returned to the fields of their fathers.’ That’s a nice phrase, thinks Ruth. Did he get it from Bob, who is smiling encouragingly, or from Caroline, who is gazing fiercely into the middle distance? Is she thinking that she is the one who should have made the speech? She was the one, after all, who lobbied for the return of the relics. Why should Randolph take centre stage, just because he’s a man? That much, at least, hasn’t changed since Bishop Augustine’s time.
    ‘We return the ancestors to Mother Earth and to the arms of their people. We remember those who have died, especially my father Lord Danforth Smith.’ He falters slightly and looks at Caroline again. Then his voice strengthens. ‘We also remember Neil Topham, who loved the museum and who, in his own way, honoured the ancient dead.’ He looks straight ahead, as proud as a French aristocrat making a speech at the foot of the guillotine. ‘We ask,’ he says, ‘that our family, the Smith family, should be free from the curse brought down upon the head of our father. We ask that we be free, as the ancestors are now free.’
    There is some applause, faint and tinny in the open air, but most people seem rather baffled by the mention of the curse. Ruth sees Phil laughing with Shona behind his hand and some of the reporters smiling as they think of an amusing new slant to give their articles. But Caroline squeezes her brother’s hand with what looks like genuine gratitude and Bob Woonunga smiles at them benevolently.
    Whitcliffe now begins an interminable speech about understanding between nations. Nelson, who has to stand at his side looking supportive, wishes that an Aboriginal thunderbolt would fall from the sky and transform his boss into a toad. He looks for Ruth in the crowd and sees her next to that other archaeologist, the one who gave him so much trouble a few years ago. Are they together now? He supposes he should wish them well; Ruth could do with some company and, after all, he’s married, more married than ever it seems, after his