The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths

Author:Elly Griffiths
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Quercus Editions Ltd
Published: 2022-01-04T18:39:10+00:00

Nelson doesn’t appear until nearly nine. Kate is in bed and Ruth is sitting at the window marking essays. She sees the white Mercedes parking outside and wonders if Zoe too is watching from her house. They are breaking the rules, even if you factor in the ‘divorced father’ clause. Lockdown is going to make adultery a lot more difficult, thinks Ruth, wondering where that Old Testament word has appeared from. Sent by divine email from her mother? A rhyme comes into her mind, even as she gets up to open the door. Do not adultery commit. Advantage rarely comes of it. Now, where did that come from? She’ll have to ask the English department quiz team.

Ruth expects Bruno to come bounding up the garden path, but Nelson emerges from the car on his own, gives a rather furtive look around him, and strides towards the cottage, head down.

Ruth opens the door before he can knock. ‘Safe from the adultery police?’

‘Bloody hell. That sounds like something my mum would say.’

‘Where’s Bruno?’

‘That’s why I’m a bit late. I dropped him off with a friend. Jan Adams. She’s going to look after him, just during lockdown. She used to be a dog-handler. Got a German shepherd too, Barney. He’s a distant relation of Bruno’s, actually.’

‘As long as he’s with family.’

Nelson laughs and sits down on the sofa. Flint immediately gets up to leave. It occurs to Ruth that Nelson could actually move in with her, at least while Michelle is away. That way they would be one household and so not breaking any rules. But she doesn’t say this. She asks Nelson if he wants supper. He says that he’s eaten.

‘Sure?’

‘Well, if it’s no trouble.’

Ruth goes into the kitchen to heat up the sauce and put the water on for more pasta. Flint follows, complaining loudly, probably about Nelson. She placates him with more gourmet cat food and pours two glasses of wine. When she comes back into the sitting room, Nelson is reading the back cover of Kate’s copy of The Hunger Games.

‘Is this for kids? It looks terrifying.’

‘Kids like to be terrified.’ Ruth hands him the wine. She thinks of the email. You can never be safe from her hunger.

‘Did you have any luck tracing Joe?’ she asks.

‘No. I tried the contact number you gave me. It was his dad but he says they’re estranged. He hasn’t seen Joe for almost a year.’

‘His mother died recently,’ says Ruth. ‘Maybe that’s why.’ She tells Nelson about Janet Meadows and her meeting with Joe.

‘A mother figure,’ says Nelson. ‘Jesus wept.’

‘Well, exactly.’

‘Mother wasn’t the word that came into my head when I saw those pictures,’ says Nelson. ‘It was as if he was obsessed with you.’

‘You’d better see this.’ Ruth hands him the laptop and leans over to show the Grey Lady email.

‘Who’s this from?’ says Nelson.

‘I’ve no idea. I had another one a few days ago telling me to beware of the Grey Lady.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’

‘I thought it might not be important.

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