Nelson and Clough, driving back from Felixstowe where they were following an abortive lead about a drug-smuggling ring, received a call that a dead body had been found in King’s Lynn. The circumstances were suspicious and Nelson, who heads the county’s Serious Crimes Squad, was on his way. It is only now, on the outskirts of the town, that Clough has managed to get the full details. He grunts, maddeningly, into his phone and Nelson swerves wildly once more.

‘What? What?’

‘It’s the curator, boss. You know there was that big do at the museum, opening the coffin and all that? You refused to go, remember?’

‘I remember,’ growls Nelson.

‘Well, an hour before all the bigwigs were due to arrive, one of the archaeologists gets there early and finds this curator guy, Neil Topham, lying beside the coffin, dead as a doornail.’

‘Which archaeologist?’ asks Nelson. But he knows the answer. He knew as soon as Clough mentioned the Smith Museum.

Clough relays the question over the phone.

‘It was Ruth, boss. Ruth Galloway.’

The car swerves across the road.

When Nelson arrives at the museum, Rocky Taylor is standing by the front door, a circumstance that does nothing to ease Nelson’s troubled mind. He regards Rocky, a local lad, as a typical slow-moving country bumpkin. Nelson, who was born in Blackpool, still thinks of himself as a Northerner, which, in his mind, is synonymous with sharp wits and a proper sense of humour. On entering the lobby, he is slightly relieved to find Tom Henty in attendance. Tom, though born and bred in Norfolk, is Nelson’s idea of the perfect police sergeant – steady, tough, unflappable. He’s going to need all those qualities today. Tom is standing beside a glass case containing a particularly hideous stuffed bird. Next to him, on a hard chair, looking pale but in control, is Ruth Galloway.

‘Ruth,’ Nelson nods at her.

‘Hallo Nelson.’

Clough, following in Nelson’s wake, is rather more forthcoming. ‘Ruth! Long time no see. How’s that baby of yours?’