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Cheryl rolled her eyes and flicked the switch on the kettle. ‘That’s an understatement! Mind you, he’s an ornery old sod at the best of times, doesn’t like change. He’s been like a cat on a hot tin roof ever since the building work started. Can’t get his head around it and it upsets him no end. Mind you, I’d feel the same if I was him – seeing your land sold off like that must be hard. Still, it’s her what has the purse strings, not him. You’ll have your work cut out, mark my words – he don’t take to strangers. None of us do.’ She said it as if it was a matter of intractable fact.
Maura gave her a wry smile in appreciation of her message of doom. In her ten years as a psychiatric nurse she had been spat on, sworn at, hit and generally abused on a daily basis. She felt confident that a stroppy old man wouldn’t prove difficult. ‘I’m sure I’ll manage.’ It was what she did and why she’d chosen to work in mental health: she had the ability to tame people and absorb their distress. It was what she was good at, even if she struggled to tame her own. When it came to other people, she cared, even when nobody else did. Sometimes even when she shouldn’t.
Cheryl heaved a large teapot onto the table. ‘Going to have to, aren’t you? Don’t suppose any of us has any choice but to make the best of a bad do. As long as you don’t interfere with me we won’t fall out. I have my jobs, you stick to yours. Just do as you’re told and we’ll all be fine.’ As she spoke, her eyes flickered towards the ceiling and a slight frown settled on her forehead.
Maura followed her gaze and saw nothing but cracked and flaking plaster. She had no intention of poking around where she wasn’t wanted – the woman could clean the depressing house to her heart’s content for all Maura cared. The way she was feeling, she wouldn’t be staying long anyway. The prospect of her own, lonely, memory-filled house was becoming more appealing by the second. But she’d been paid in advance – it made it awkward. And there was the old man with no one to care for him other than Cheryl, a woman who made Maura look positively cheerful in comparison.
As Cheryl poured the tea in weak, steaming streams, Maura said, ‘You do know I won’t be here on Mondays and Tuesdays? Well, during the day anyway. I’ll also be out on Thursday afternoons.’
Cheryl slopped milk into the cups ‘They said, but it’s mainly nights you’re needed anyway. I’m here every day so I can see to him then as long as you get him up. I’ve been coming in more since she had the fall, someone had to, but I’ve got me own mother to see to so I can’t be here all the time. Just stick to your duties. We’ve managed fine without till now, so I’m sure we’ll manage when you’re not here.’
Maura took her tea and didn’t wonder at why the woman seemed so frazzled. It must have been hard work dividing her loyalties. ‘Is your mother ill?’ she asked, imagining what it must be like to be in this house day after day, having its atmosphere soak into your skin and mess with your temperament. No wonder Cheryl was so gritty.
‘Nope, just old and lonely. Mind you, aren’t we all?’
Maura wasn’t sure how to take that. She knew that what she saw in the mirror, when she deigned to look, wasn’t what she wanted to see – a face made gaunt by loss and shame. She hadn’t thought she wore her unhappiness so blatantly so she chose to take Cheryl’s words as a general observation on life rather than a direct assessment of her personally, and any similarities to the harried housekeeper and her burdened state. ‘I was told you’d run me through his routines and show me where everything is.’
Cheryl laughed and pulled a sheaf of papers towards her. ‘Her ladyship made me write it all down ages ago, as if I don’t know all their foibles already. He’s a very particular man, likes things just so – as does she, so you’d be wise to remember it. No one in this house likes change.’ She said it with a hard stare, which did nothing to reassure Maura. ‘They are people who demand perfection, so make sure you get things right first time.’
The list went on and on: how he liked his bread cut (in quarters with the crusts cut off, butter – not margarine – thinly spread right to the edges), the precise consistency of his hot drinks (tea, weak, a splash of ice-cold milk and a quarter of a level teaspoon of sugar. At night, cocoa, not drinking chocolate, made in a pan with full-cream milk, to be served at precisely 9.30 p.m.), his medication (pills to be given in precise colour order beginning with the small blues ones and ending with the white). By the end of it, Maura was heartily relieved that Cheryl had written it down; the whole thing might have been a disaster if she hadn’t. ‘I think I’d better make a copy of that and carry it around with me!’ she quipped as Cheryl explained exactly how many loops Gordon preferred in the Windsor knot of his tie, before adding that he rarely got dressed at all these days so not to worry too much about that.
Cheryl didn’t catch the joke and frowned. ‘Might not be a bad idea. Anyway, I’ll show you around and then take you to meet him.’
Maura drained the last of her piss-weak tea and followed Cheryl out into the chill grasp of the house. She was about to ask where Dr Moss had gone, but realised this would reveal she’d been listening outside doors. Cheryl was abrasive enough, without Maura rubbing her any further up the wrong way. The woman’s hostility already came off her in sharp spikes, like static electricity that snapped and bit whenever anyone got too close. Cheryl’s welcome had been as bitter and cold as the house itself. For Maura, it didn’t bode well, but she had to admit she felt sorry for the woman.
Chapter Two (#ulink_28e8179f-dcc2-5be3-8c85-52db73105569)
‘Got to watch yourself. It’s not such a big place, but there’s nooks and crannies and it’s not hard to lose your bearings. Sometimes I think they just tacked this place together without rhyme or reason. Just stick to where I show you, and don’t wander off. There’s nothing to see anywhere else anyway and some bits are dangerous so you’d be wise to not stray,’ Cheryl said as she led the way past an array of rooms, few of which seemed to be in regular use. They were too tidy, too quiet and seemed to be holding their breath as if waiting for someone else to breathe first. The creeping sensation of waiting for that breath to linger on the back of your neck was a haunting thought, forcing Maura to view the rest of the building with a fair degree of caution. She wasn’t easily spooked, but the atmosphere was solemn, giving the place a sepulchral feel that settled into her bones like a deep-seated and ice-cold itch that had burrowed into the marrow and would not be shifted. She was being dramatic and she knew it, but Cheryl had an air about her that was echoed in the feel of the house, as if they shared a twin, hollow soul.
Maura’s bedroom was a pink-chintz nightmare that looked as if it had last been decorated somewhere circa 1935. Faded, overblown roses scrambled across the wallpaper in a busy tangle, while the ditsy curtains looked as if they were succumbing to a slow death from the constant onslaught of sunlight and moth. She couldn’t anticipate trying to close them without the thought that they would disintegrate at her touch. The room might have been quaint and charming in any other house but here it made Maura long for her ten-tog duvet and central heating. As she looked around she felt a pang of homesickness and a hunger for the comfort of familiar things.
It seemed that Cheryl had read her thoughts. ‘Don’t mess with the curtains, will you? They’re a bit delicate, ever so old they are, but her ladyship calls them vintage. You can use the bed curtains if you want to shut out the light.’
Maura eyed the four-poster with its swags and tails and thought that the last thing she’d want to do in a house like this was shut out the light. ‘Do you have to address her as your ladyship?’
‘Good Lord, no, that’s what I call her behind her back. She’s got a few too many airs and graces for my liking. No, I call her Miss Hall. Her ladyship indeed…’ Cheryl scoffed, shaking her head.
‘Fair enough,’ Maura said, feeling slightly embarrassed at her assumption. Cheryl was a strange woman, prickly and intense one minute, warm and friendly the next. It was an intriguing yet repellent mix and reminded her of why she’d wanted to become a nurse. People were fascinating in all their shades of light and dark.
Back on the landing Cheryl pointed down the hall. ‘They don’t use that part of the house, it’s not safe, so don’t be going wandering. There’s nothing for you down there. His room is there, opposite yours, but he sleeps downstairs most of the time. We just use it to store his clothes – he can’t be trusted with them downstairs. Hers is two doors down from you.’ She led the way, their footsteps inducing creaks of protest from the old stair treads as they descended. Cheryl pointed to the one room she hadn’t already shown to Maura. To her dismay the door had a security chain attached to the outside. ‘Make sure to put that on at night – he likes to wander,’ Cheryl said.
Maura couldn’t help herself. ‘I’m not sure I’m keen on the idea of locking him in his room!’ The idea was abhorrent to her. She hadn’t come to the Grange to look after the man by shutting him away and denying him his freedom. She’d hoped to bring him care and comfort. She wanted to give the best of herself, not be a jailer.
Cheryl’s eyes widened, as if she was surprised to be dealing with someone who could be so naïve. ‘It’s either that or chase him around the bloody estate in the dead of night. If you know what’s good for you and him, you’ll put the chain on. Besides, we don’t want him taking a tumble too, do we? You mustn’t let him near the stairs. Like I said, the old part of the house is dangerous.’ She said this as if Maura might not have heard her the first time.
Maura saw the wisdom in keeping her mouth shut at this, but she remained unhappy about the use of the chain. She forced a smile. ‘I suppose I’d better meet him, hadn’t I?’
Cheryl chuckled. There was no warmth to her laugh and it sounded as mean and thin as her tea. ‘Suppose you better had. Brace yourself.’
Gordon Henderson was on the floor, sitting in a puddle of his own urine and looking up at the two women with the innocence of an untrained puppy when they entered the room. ‘Don’t be fooled, this is all for your benefit,’ Cheryl whispered.
Maura was too busy trying not to gag on the stench of ammonia that stung her eyes and burned her nose to pay much attention to Cheryl. This wasn’t the first time the old man had peed himself by the smell of it. She glanced at Cheryl, who seemed to be immune to the fumes.
‘Best get you up, Mr Henderson, eh?’ Cheryl said, speaking to the man as if he was a deaf five-year-old.
He raised a thin hand and pointed a wavering skinny finger at Maura. ‘She can do it, not you.’
Cheryl sighed. ‘Whatever. I’ll get you some clean clothes.’
Maura knew instinctively that she was being tested, perhaps by both of them. ‘OK, but introductions first. I’m Maura. I’m going to be staying with you until Miss Hall is recovered. I’m a nurse, I’ve come to take care of you, and Miss Hall when she comes home. I’ll be here until she gets better.’ She added what she hoped was a reassuring and confident smile. ‘Right, I’m going to crouch in front of you and I want you to put your arms around my neck. Then I’m going to lift you into a standing position. Do you think we can do that?’
The old man nodded, but there was a cold sparkle in his eye that invited caution. Maura was not unfamiliar with the wiles of awkward patients, and the likes of Gordon Henderson were ten a penny, nasty old men with a touch of the vicious. Not all of them could be changed by good nursing and a dose of compassion but she was prepared to give it her best shot. She crouched down in front of him and placed her arms around his back under his arms – he had the thin frame of a waif, but looked tall. She hunkered in, ready to lift from her knees to save her back. It wasn’t ideal, but he couldn’t stay on the floor, so she had no choice but to lift him badly. He slipped his arms around her neck and leaned in. His breath was sour and smelled of pear drops – ketones, which told Maura he wasn’t eating well, so no wonder he was so thin. She tightened her hold and began to lift, hauling him to his feet in one deft move. Once upright, he turned his lips to her cheek and, for a fraction of a second, she thought he was going to kiss her. Then he opened his mouth and took the flesh of her cheek between his teeth and bit down, holding her skin at a point where damage might be done if he felt the urge for it.
She didn’t flinch. It was an old trick. ‘Mr Henderson, if you continue, and you bite me, I will drop you straight back on your backside, call the police, tell them I’ve been assaulted, and they will come here and take one look at you, and you’ll be in a psychiatric unit quicker than either of us can reconsider our decisions. Do you understand me?’ They were harsh words, but she needed to set some boundaries if they were to come to terms with each other. She’d never be able to nurse him if he thought she was afraid. She was, but he didn’t need to know that.
He didn’t move. His teeth remained on her skin and she could feel his thin body quivering with malice. ‘I’m here to care for you, not to put up with abuse. I don’t care how ill you are, I will not put up with abuse – do we understand each other?’ She had come full of good intentions, hung on to them despite her instincts, but they were waning fast. Maybe she wasn’t ready for this after all. The sight of the little girl and all the reminders of why Maura had become a nurse had fuelled her enthusiasm and conviction and made her remember her compassion. She’d wanted to be kind, to show she was still a decent person and could still care, but this man was sucking it all away by the second.
It took a moment, but eventually he relaxed both his grip around her shoulders and his hold on her cheek, but it bothered her that he’d had to think about it for so long. There seemed to be a streak of cruelty in Gordon Henderson that had the potential to send shivers crawling down the spine. He stank, not only of piss, but of evil, and the combination made Maura’s gut churn again. The feeling did not abate when he whispered in her ear, ‘There’s bad in this house, mind you be careful of it. It gets us all eventually. Ask the nurse, she’ll tell you.’
‘I am the nurse, Mr Henderson,’ she said. Her instinct was to shove him away from her, but she couldn’t. He was old, frail and demented if the agency was to be believed. No wonder they were paying so well; no one in their right mind would have taken this job on. But Maura wasn’t in her right mind – the pack of Prozac that lay in her bag unopened was proof of her own GP’s belief in that. Maura was desperate and lonely and full of self-pity. The depression was telling her she wanted to foist that pity onto someone else so she didn’t have to feel it herself any more. Coming to the Grange hadn’t been an act of altruism, it had been an escape route. She had hoped this elderly man would an eager recipient of her willingness to care, no matter how poor the reason, but it seemed she had made a mistake there too. She wasn’t ready, and no matter how mean and vile Gordon Henderson appeared to be, he deserved better. Everyone deserved better.
Instead of pushing Gordon away she held firm, resolving to call the agency the next day and ask to be replaced by someone who was up to the job. They could have the money; she didn’t want it. She just wanted to feel useful again and keep hold of a good mood when it came along.
Cheryl came back into the room carrying clean underwear, trousers and a pack of baby wipes.
‘Soap and water would be better,’ Maura said, which got her an impatient scowl from Cheryl and a smug smile from Gordon Henderson.
‘You can always go and fetch some if you’re so keen,’ Cheryl said impatiently. ‘I’ll hold him, you clean him up.’
For the sake of cordiality, Maura caved in and took the baby wipes. No wonder the salary for this job had been so generous. She assumed it was Dr Moss who had wanted private nursing care; he must have known that whoever he hired would have their work cut out. If the bastard had asked for her by name, she would make him pay. They had never seen eye to eye and his presence in the house earlier had felt like much more than a coincidence. She didn’t know who she was most angry with, herself or Dr Moss.
Gordon stood patiently and compliantly while Maura stripped him of his trousers and underpants, a smile of victory playing around his mouth. She asked him to step out of his wet clothes and he did so without complaint, holding on to Cheryl’s shoulders while she looked away in disgust. The only frisson of trouble occurred when Maura pulled a few baby wipes from the packet and asked him to clean himself up. He hesitated, looked confused, then angry. ‘I do not do these things for myself,’ he said with more coherence and pomposity than she’d expected from a man who was supposedly terminally demented.
‘And I don’t get paid to do things for people who are perfectly capable of doing them for themselves, Mr Henderson.’ She held the wipes out. He stared at them for a moment, glowered at her, then took them and did as he was asked.
It was a dance, a setting out of the rules of engagement, and it happened with everyone. Maura was used to it, wise to it, and, nine times out of ten, could outstep the opposition in three moves flat. With Gordon Henderson it just took the two, but there was a good chance he would muster and try it on again. She wasn’t being cruel, far from it. Despite her feelings about the Grange and its owner, she’d be a poor carer if she did too much for him. The goal was independence and her job was to help him maintain it.
She helped him into his clothes while Cheryl fetched tea and he was as docile as a lamb the whole time. Once she’d got him settled in his chair she sat down opposite him. ‘So, Mr Henderson, is there any particular reason you couldn’t make it to the toilet?’
He looked away from her and mumbled something she couldn’t quite make out. ‘I didn’t quite hear you.’
‘I said I find you very rude.’
‘And I find you very difficult, Mr Henderson, so we can either battle it out while we both have a really horrible time or we can call a truce and try and work with each other – what’s it to be?’
‘If either of us lasts that long,’ he said, avoiding her gaze. She was in no mood for amateur dramatics and chose to ignore him, busying herself tidying the dirty clothes. Feeding into it would do neither of them any good.
By the time Cheryl had come back with his tea – weak, splash of milk and precisely a quarter level teaspoon of sugar – he seemed to have got the measure of Maura and decided to play ball. For now.
According to Cheryl’s crib sheet, Gordon normally took a nap after his afternoon cuppa, so they left him to doze in his armchair.
As they walked back to the kitchen, Maura asked Cheryl what had happened to Miss Hall. ‘Daft old bat took a tumble down the stairs, broke her hip, bashed her face into the newel post and bust her jaw, according to Dr Moss,’ Cheryl said, painting the picture for Maura. ‘Nasty do, I reckon. Mind you, it isn’t half quiet round here without her – quite demanding is our Miss Hall.’
Maura seized her chance. ‘I don’t know of any local GPs of that name. The only Dr Moss I know is a consultant in psychiatry.’
‘Yes, that’s him. He’s their doctor, has been for years. They go private, see?’
It seemed an odd set-up to Maura. OK, all psychiatrists had to have basic medical training before they specialised, but it was the first time she’d heard of one dealing with general medicine privately. ‘They don’t have contact with a local GP?’
Cheryl paused by the door and turned to Maura, a puzzled look on her face. ‘Why would they? There’s no need. Dr Moss takes care of everything for them.’
Maura could bet he did, and no doubt he billed them handsomely for it. He was notoriously flash, which was why she’d been surprised not to see his sleek Lexus parked outside.
They made for the kitchen via the bloody baize door and all it represented. Maura knew she was about to be abandoned and the thought filled her with the kind of anxiety she hadn’t felt since she was a child.
‘Right, that’s me done for the day. I’ll be back in the morning at nine so all you have to do is make his porridge like I told you, and don’t forget he likes his toast with the crusts cut off. Don’t forget his cocoa at nine-thirty, and his hot water bottle, and I need to give you the key for the medicine cupboard,’ she said, slipping her arms into a faded blue mac. ‘His pills come in one of those reminder thingies, so all you have to do is dole them out in the right colour order – don’t get them mixed up or he’ll refuse to take them. And make sure the old sod doesn’t palm them or hide them under his tongue – he’s a bugger for that and a nightmare if he doesn’t take them.’
Maura nodded and held her hand out for the small key that Cheryl had taken from the bunch in her pocket. Abrasive though the woman had been at times, Maura felt a ripple of trepidation at the thought of her departure and the prospect of being left alone in the house. None of it had turned out as she had expected: the house was a maze, the patient was a nightmare and, despite the new housing estate being less than a quarter of a mile away in any direction, she felt as though she might as well have been abandoned in some remote castle in the middle of nowhere. ‘Who do I contact if anything goes wrong or there’s a problem?’
Cheryl looked heavenwards in a gesture that smacked of sheer despair and judgement. ‘There’s a list of phone numbers stuck on the side of the fridge. Don’t call me because I won’t come out at night. If anything goes wrong with him just call the doctor. If it’s anything else you can call Bob, the gardener and odd-job man – lives in a bungalow at the bottom of the orchard. He’ll come out if you need him. Just stick to what you’ve been told, don’t go poking around, and nothing will go wrong.’
Maura glanced at the list and wondered whose name had been scribbled out and why they were no longer a contact. The paper itself was old, yellowed and curling at the edges, yet the name and number had been obliterated recently judging by the bright colour of the pen marks. It seemed someone had fallen out of favour. She contemplated ringing Bob to see if he wanted to come and keep her company, which was an utterly ridiculous idea and more pathetic than she wanted to admit. The sound of his name, its ordinariness, had implied something comforting, something normal, something she instinctively felt was rare in the Grange. ‘Thanks, Cheryl, I appreciate your help.’
Cheryl gave her a brief nod and a “huh” then left unceremoniously. Leaving Maura standing in the brightly lit kitchen, hugging herself and wondering what on earth she was going to do until Gordon needed something and she had a purpose again.
Without Cheryl’s shrill voice to dominate her attention, the house was far from silent. In fact, now she was listening, it seemed to be cracking its knuckles and flexing its muscles through a series of creaks and groans, as if it was getting ready to tussle with her. The Grange struck her as a place where it would be easy to lose your sense of self and your grip on real time. It was old and grudging, full of dogged antiquity in the form of ancient furniture, faded formality and pointless knick-knacks. Maura hadn’t paid detailed attention to them but she knew they were there, oozing claustrophobia and gloom. The place felt as though it was stuffed to the gills with the collected kitsch of generations and all those long-dead Hendersons still making their presence felt, lurking in the shadows and breathing down her neck.
Maura took a breath – she had lived with worse shadows than the phantoms of dead gentry. It was going to take more than an ugly house and an overwrought imagination to faze her. Her logic agreed, her instinct did not – it was still grumbling away and sulking in her gut.
Though Cheryl had shown her around, it had hardly been a detailed tour, just a quick glimpse into too many rooms, most of which had seemed to be swathed in dustsheets. It seemed sensible to make a more exacting trip around the place, familiarising herself with the layout and the lifestyle. If she was going to look after Gordon in any meaningful way, it might help to get to know how they’d lived before he’d been confined to a single, stinking room and old age had got the better of him. Even if she was going to abandon ship, she would have to do something about that room, and not just the smell. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Gordon was a hoarder and had crammed his room with all manner of detritus. Given the ordered clutter of the rest of the house, it was clear to Maura that interfering with his living space was likely to upset him. As abrasive as Cheryl had been, she didn’t seem the type to leave a room unclean if she could help it, and from the little Maura knew of Estelle Hall, she didn’t come across as the type of woman who would tolerate disorder unless it had been foisted upon her. Gordon seemed to have entrenched himself in his pit and surrounded himself with things that brought him security, things that would distress him if they were interfered with, just as altering his routine, his food and his medication were likely to disturb him. Though it wasn’t Maura’s role to diagnose, it was certainly her job to assess, and in her opinion Gordon was suffering from obsessions and compulsions just as much as he might be from dementia. He also seemed to suffer from terminal unpleasantness, something that wasn’t entirely unexpected but that might prove to be a stumbling block to even the shortest therapeutic relationship.
She pondered this a while as she re-explored the house, taking her time on this occasion, not prying where she’d been told not to but soaking the whole place up and making peace with it in her mind. Weeks of being afraid of a building were not an item on her agenda and she refused to allow the atmosphere of the place to get any further under her skin. She had suffered enough cowed defeat lately; there was no way she was going to let a pile of bricks and mortar rattle her, no way on earth. If she and the house were going to engage in a battle of wills over whose personality was going to win, Maura was going in all guns blazing. Its shadows were just shadows, its creaks and moans just its twisted old bones settling, its air of impending menace just her imagination running away with her. Its residents? Just an elderly, frail man in need of her help and a slightly bonkers housekeeper who seemed to have learned her people skills from the Mrs Danvers school of charm. Despite that, Maura had quite taken to Cheryl, even if it was with the utmost caution.
‘Get a grip, Maura,’ she said to the empty kitchen. ‘You’re getting far too cynical and curmudgeonly. Make yourself a cup of decent tea and crack on with it, kid. You’re moving on, remember?’
The statement was as hollow as the echo in the empty room and, despite her bravado, Maura couldn’t stand it. There was a radio standing on the kitchen counter – old and grubby, but functional. She switched it on and cranked up the volume a couple of notches, smiling at the irony of the song that was playing. “I Put a Spell on You…”
And now you’re mine…
Chapter Three (#ulink_c5b89078-4a63-528d-89f5-b9ce2ce25b8b)
Maura lay in her bed clutching the camphor- and lavender-scented sheets to her chin and listened – it was a beautifully clichéd dark and stormy night, one that rattled the windows in their frames and caused draughts to lick across the skin in unseen malevolent caresses. For fear he’d go on a midnight wander, get outside and blow away like some pyjama-wearing woebegone Mary Poppins, she had even resorted to putting the chain on Gordon’s door. She’d hated doing it – she was supposed to be his nurse, not his keeper.
The only thing in the house that hadn’t felt it necessary to make its presence felt that night by rattling, creaking, clanking (or bizarrely pinging) was the chain on Gordon’s door. He seemed to be sleeping soundly, which wasn’t surprising given the heap of pills she’d been obliged to pile into him. In fact, he’d been unexpectedly compliant when she’d taken in his cocoa, sat with him and helped him to prepare for bed. He hadn’t even flinched when she’d cleaned the rug with white vinegar to neutralise the smell of pee, or batted an eyelid when she’d found the major source of the stench – the several vases that had been used as impromptu receptacles for Gordon’s urinary urges. Maura was sure that Moorcroft, Crown Derby and Minton had not intended their delicate and beautiful wares to be used for such purposes. Had they not been worth a small fortune she might have thrown them in the bin, but instead she’d borrowed Cheryl’s rubber gloves and had scoured them clean while praying she wouldn’t ruin them.
Sleep proved elusive and all she had done was toss and turn on the lumpy mattress, trying to find the sweet spot. The camphor was intrusive too, a particularly vile smell reminiscent of frugal old ladies and the bad old days. It reminded her of staying with her grandmother when she was little, of secondhand shoes and hand-me-down clothes, of having her face washed with carbolic soap and being expected to clear her plate because people were starving in Africa. It reminded her of the instruction to make do and mend, a philosophy she felt she was being forced to live by. How did you make do with nothing and mend a broken spirit? More to the point, how did you begin in a house that was so depressing it seemed to suck the joy out of everything?
Cheryl had said that parts of the place were dangerous, and Maura had assumed rotten boards and woodworm-savaged beams, but as she lay beneath the pungent sheets she began to wonder if the danger wasn’t from something else entirely – the bad that Gordon had been so eager to tell her about. The look of the place made it feel as if no Henderson, in the history of Hendersons, had brought a good intention to the place. It seemed to have been pieced together with menace and meanness – no one period predominated, no one style. Just a building stitched together by time, passing fashions and a family who had been custodians out of habit and grudging obligation rather than pride and heritage. All speculation on Maura’s part, of course, but Gordon was hemmed in a single room full of filth and clutter, and she had to contend with a mothball-sodden bed and a ceiling that was so creaky it seemed as if it would cave in at any moment. It was as if the house was trying to corner them both.
Why on earth hadn’t they sold up and left? Why stay in a place that exuded such misery?
They were good questions, ones she could apply to herself – why had she stayed with Richard when it had been patently clear he was a self-serving, booze-dependent dickhead? Why hadn’t she thrown him out the moment she’d caught him in bed with her sister? Why, after she finally had thrown him out, had she pitied him, looked after him and cried when he finally drank himself to death?
Sometimes there were no answers, or none she wanted to face. Maybe it was the same for Gordon Henderson and Estelle Hall; there were just things they didn’t want to deal with.
Annoyed with herself for being maudlin, she threw off the sheets and moved towards the window to watch the storm play out. The lights of the estate surrounded the Grange, but at a distance, like the lit torches of an angry mob encamped and holding the house under siege. It felt so lonely and she wondered if that was another reason Gordon had taken to his clutter and his room, like children did when they built pillow forts to keep the adult world at bay. Would she wake him if she crept downstairs and made herself a drink? It seemed unlikely. She had given him a hefty dose of Zopiclone, enough to fell an elephant for the night, let alone a frail old man. Too much in her opinion, but she’d always found Dr Moss a bit heavy-handed with the meds. They had butted heads many times over his prescribing at the hospital, and bitter experience had shown her he didn’t like to be questioned – especially by nurses. Nurses were a lowly sort in Philip Moss’s eyes.
Despite Gordon’s drug-fuelled repose, she felt the need to creep through the house, pausing once to glance out at the storm as it crackled across the sky and howled around the house.
The essence of a figure glimpsed through the landing window caught her eye. A dark, human shape standing under the trees, a shape that made her freeze, made her breath catch in her throat and caused her to clutch her dressing gown to her throat as if a handful of fleece could protect her.
Her instinct argued that only a madman would be out in the storm.
A madman in the middle of nowhere, staring at a house containing only a feeble old man and a lone female.
A madman lurking in the dead of night with no innocent reason to be there.
The builders had gone home, the houses near to the Grange were far from finished, and it was hard to believe anyone would be lost around here when the house was the only thing they could be looking for. If it had been Bob, the handyman, surely he would have called, or at least come to the back of the house? If it was Cheryl, or even Dr Moss, they would have just come in or knocked – they’d have no reason to lurk outside.
The clock in the hallway below chimed midnight, scaring the bejesus out of her and diverting her attention from the window. When she looked again, the figure was gone, and she had to question whether it had ever been there at all – though her heart still pounded with a violence that argued it had. She peered out, trying to pick up movement, but there was nothing. Just the storm and the wind forcing the trees into a frenzied ballet of whipping branches and whirling leaves. Whatever. Whoever had been there was gone, leaving no trace other than the mild panic of a woman who was to all intents and purposes alone in a house that appeared to be straight from the pages of some Gothic horror novel.
Pulling herself away, she made her way down the stairs, trying to recall if she had locked the house as per Cheryl’s instructions. Her memory was playing tricks on her. She knew for a fact that she had locked up properly, but a midnight maggot of irrational fear wriggled and writhed, making her doubt her recall. She stamped on the little bugger and forced herself to snap out of it and think like a functional adult. There had been no figure under the tree – just a shadow or an illusion conjured by lack of sleep and unfamiliar surroundings. The house was creeping her out and hooking shadows from the dark corners of her imagination. She had come to the Grange to escape all that, not to bring it with her and have it enhanced by noisy floorboards and a high wind. Coffee and a flick through one of Cheryl’s magazines would banish such thoughts and entrench some good sense. There was nothing like perusing pictures of airbrushed women wearing clothes you could never afford (or get away with wearing in public) to slam a person back into the realms of insignificance. To Maura it was the mental equivalent of a strong black coffee after a drinking binge – it might make you sick and keep you awake, but it did you good. With resignation and as much composure as she could muster, she defied the house and its air of doom and strode through the passage into the kitchen, where she filled the room with light, filled the battered old kettle and settled down with a magazine.
When the rock hurtled through the window it didn’t just shatter the glass, it shattered every shred of equilibrium that Maura had managed to cling on to.
Breath froze in her throat as the glass exploded inwards, shards of it hurtling towards her like a thousand shining knife blades, the rock landing on the table like an unexploded bomb of dread.
Instinct took over and she dropped to the floor, covering her head as glass glittered her hair and clung to the fleece of her dressing gown. Tiny slivers found their way inside her sleeves and down the back of her neck, nicking her skin, biting deeper and drawing small beads of blood.
The boom was fading, but the shock hadn’t – adrenaline had coursed through her, making her heart lurch and her limbs shake. She knew she had to move, yet she couldn’t. She knew she had screamed – it had emerged as a deep bellow, and now that she tried to call out, it felt as if her entire voice had been emitted with it and was rattling around the room, unable to find its way back.
There had been a figure, and it had meant her harm. It had done her harm and there was a good chance it wanted more.
The kitchen phone was attached to the wall, too close to the door and window to be safe to run to. The only other she had seen was in another room, back beyond the passage and the door and located in the heart of the house.
She ran through the route in her mind, begging her limbs to comply and help her to move. Her own phone was locked in her car where she had thrown it in disgust, so as not to have to see her sister’s name flashing up and demanding her attention every five minutes. But what did that matter now? She had to get out of the kitchen and away from the broken window, and the rock that had damned near taken her head off.
Pressing her shaking hands to the floor, knowing they would be cut on the fallen glass but having no choice, she pushed backwards, scooting towards the door that led to the corridor beyond the kitchen. She dared not try and stand – not only did she doubt her legs would take it, but while she was on the floor, with the table in front of her, she felt she had some kind of shield from what might be coming after the rock. With her senses ratcheting up and beyond red alert she shuffled through the door, ignoring the glass that grazed her hands. Once into the shade of the passageway she shuffled onto her knees and slammed the door shut, groping with bloodied and shaking fingers for the bolt she knew must be there and ramming it home before she dared to take a breath.
In a film she might have leaned against the door, caught that breath and thought she was safe. But Maura had watched dramas where that kind of stupidity had cost people dearly – she was no fool and immediately launched herself towards the morning room where she had spied a phone earlier on. Panic still engulfed her and, as she lurched, dripping blood, shedding glass and looking half drunk and half crazed, she became convinced that the assailant would have cut the phone lines and that she’d be trapped in the house with a maniac who could burst through locked doors, or worse still – axe their way through them yelling “Here’s Johnny!”.
Once at the morning room door she dropped to her knees again and crawled towards the low table that held the phone, not even daring to look towards the long windows, not daring to imagine a face pressed against the panes and the hot breath of the intruder blooming on the glass…
There was a dial tone.
The buttons didn’t stick, even though they always did in her nightmares.
She bashed 999 into the keypad.
