The Nurse(38)

The stairway led down to another small corridor. Light shone from under the door facing me and before I could stop myself, I’d grabbed the handle and pushed. It opened into a large, bright open-plan kitchen-cum-living room with a stretch of glass doors overlooking the garden and that lovely view.

There was nothing exciting to be found in any of the cupboards apart from the usual plethora of stuff most people kept. There was a drawer stuffed with recipes torn from magazines, and another filled with odds and ends.

In the living room, I admired the artwork on the back wall and the view from the comfortable sofa across the terrace to the valley beyond. A wall-mounted TV and an open copy of a programme guide indicated that this was where Mrs Wallace sat in the evening.

I took a last look around. Apart from the view, there was nothing of interest.

Shutting the door behind me, I looked up the stairway, then to the other doors off this small space, one to the right of the kitchen and one to the left. One, I discovered, opened into a small windowless room with a toilet and tiny wash-hand basin. The other was locked.

Locked. Was there anything more tantalising than a locked door? From being vaguely interested in what was behind it, now I was consumed with curiosity. What was so important, on what was a domestic floor, that it needed to be kept locked away?

The door was old, probably original, and the lock the old-fashioned type. It was possible to peer through the keyhole but the room beyond was in darkness. The key to open it would be too big and awkward to fit on a keyring. I reached a hand to check above the door. All I found was some dust. Life was never that easy.

I was about to give up, take my curiosity and the stolen silver frame and get the hell out of there. But I did hate to give up. The key had to be somewhere handy. I checked above the other doors. Nothing.

My hand was on the newel post and my foot on the lower step before I had an epiphany. The newel post was set about half an inch from the wall. I slid my hand down it and almost laughed as my hand snagged on a nail and my fingers closed over the metal key hanging from it. I was right, it was big, old-fashioned and heavy.

The lock was well maintained, and the key turned without as much as a squeak. The door opened inward. Gentle as I was, it hit something behind with a loud thud. ‘Shit!’ I stopped; my breath caught in my throat. Then I gave a snort, Carol was two floors up, she was hardly going to hear.

I took a step into the dark room. If I’d been expecting treasures, I was sadly disappointed. Even in the dim light that filtered from under the kitchen door, I could see it was nothing but a storeroom.

It was time to go before Mrs Wallace arrived home and I had to explain my presence in the house. Carol would not be impressed if I was found down there, especially after all the fuss I’d made about her taking ten minutes of my time for free.

Yet, I stayed looking into the shady space. Why would a storeroom be kept locked? Did Mrs Wallace suspect her cleaner of making off with supplies? Or Carol, or any of the other staff who came in during the day. Supplies were locked away, yet silver frames were left for any thieving git to take. It didn’t make sense and if there was one thing I hated even more than locked doors, it was a mystery.

I felt along the wall till I found a switch. When I pressed it, the glaringly bright light from the single unshaded bulb illuminated the room without providing any clarity as to why this room should be locked. The shelves were full of random stuff… tins of soup, toilet rolls, bars of soap, cleaning products.

Nothing of any value.

The small table behind the door explained the thump. Moving into the room, I straightened the pestle and mortar that had been knocked over. ‘Well, well,’ I muttered under my breath. The reason for the locked door became apparent as I picked up packet after packet of medication with dawning incredulity.

Carol had said Mrs Wallace insisted on giving her husband his meals. Maybe I was being overly suspicious, but I thought I knew exactly why Mrs Wallace was keeping the door locked, and why her husband’s condition had deteriorated faster than the doctors had predicted.





27





After a night shift, I usually fell asleep on the bus journey home. Since most of my recent shifts had been in Bath, the regular drivers knew me. If I were asleep when the bus arrived at my stop, they’d simply give a yell to wake me up. Once, it was a replacement driver and I didn’t think to tell him – tiredness can make me stupid – and I ended up in the bus station in Chippenham.

That day, I had too much to think about to feel sleepy. I stared out the window as Bath was left behind and the bus barrelled through treelined streets that always seemed too narrow for its size.

Mrs Wallace intrigued me. I needed to know more about her to understand what I’d seen in that storeroom. It hadn’t shocked me. Not much did any more. I was the murdering daughter of a bigamous father – what could possibly shock me? Anyway, it was impossible to deal, not only with the sick and dying, but with their relatives too, without seeing the worst humanity had to offer. So, I wasn’t shocked, but I was intrigued.

Perhaps if I hadn’t been quite so bored with my dull mundane life, my going-nowhere career, the unedifying prospect of the same-old same-old for years to come, I’d have let it go. Perhaps too, if I hadn’t seen that photograph, if it hadn’t brought my father back into my head. He was never far away, but now it was the man he had been before I ever knew him that was invading my thoughts. What had made him choose to do what he’d done? Was it being married to my mother, or had it been my entrance to the world that had forced him to split his life? Did he look at me and worry about our future? Had he seen through to my soul and been afraid?