The Turn of the Key

by Ruth Ware

  “Maddie,” Sandra said, “what have I told you about slamming doors?”

  “I didn’t.” The voice came small and tinny from the iPad speaker.

  “You did, and I saw you. You could have hurt Ellie. Now get your clothes on and you can watch some TV. They’re all laid out on your chair, I put them out this morning.”

  Maddie said nothing, but she got up and pulled off her pajama top, and Sandra shut down the screen.

  “Wow,” I said, slightly taken aback. “Impressive!”

  It was not the word I was thinking. Stalkerish was closer to the mark, though I wasn’t completely sure why. Plenty of places I’d worked had nanny cams, or baby monitors with built-in speakers and cameras. Perhaps it was the fact that I hadn’t known about it until now. I hadn’t noticed any cameras last night, so wherever they were, they must be well hidden. Had Sandra watched me go up to bed last night? Had she seen me look into Petra’s bedroom? The thought made my cheeks flame.

  “The whole house is wired up,” Sandra said casually, dropping the iPad back onto the counter. “It’s very handy, especially in a place with several floors. It means I don’t have to always be running up and down to check on the girls.”

  “Very handy,” I echoed faintly, suppressing my unease. The whole house? What did that mean? The children’s rooms, clearly. But the reception rooms? The bedrooms? The bathrooms? But no, that was beyond possibility. And illegal, surely. I put the remaining bit of toast back on the plate, my appetite suddenly gone.

  “Finished?” Sandra said brightly, and when I nodded she swept the bit of toast into a waste-disposal unit and put the plate with the girls’ porridge bowls by the sink. The ones from last night had disappeared, I noticed. Had the mysterious Jean come and gone already?

  “Well, if you’ve had enough, let me give you the grand tour while the girls get dressed.” She scooped Petra out of her high chair, scrubbed her face with a damp washcloth, hitched her onto her hip, and together we reentered the old part of the house and crossed the stone-flagged entrance hall to the two doors on each side of the front door.

  “Right, so just to give you the layout—the hall is the center of the house—out the back is the kitchen, and leading off that is the utility room, which you’ve already seen, of course. That was part of the old servants’ quarters, the only bit that survived, actually. The rest we had to pull down. At the front of the house we have the grander rooms—that’s the old dining room”—Sandra waved a hand at an opening to the right of the front door—“but we found we were always eating in the kitchen, so we’ve converted it into a study slash library. Have a peek.”

  I put my head around the door and saw a smallish room with paneled walls painted a beautiful rich teal color. Ranged at one end were bookshelves from floor to ceiling covered in a mix of fiction paperbacks and hardback books on architecture. It could have been a small but perfectly formed library in a National Trust historic property—except that in the middle of the room was an enormous glass desk with a huge double-screen iMac sprawling across it, and a kind of aeronautical ergonomic chair facing the screens.

  I blinked. There was something disconcerting about the way the old and new combined in this house. It wasn’t like most homes, where modern additions rubbed up alongside original features and somehow combined into a friendly, eclectic whole. Here there was a strange impression of oil and water—everything was either self-consciously original or glaringly modern, with no attempt to integrate the two.

  “What a beautiful room,” I said at last, since Sandra seemed to be waiting for some kind of response. “The colors are just . . . they’re fabulous.”

  Sandra smiled, jiggling Petra on her hip in a pleased sort of way.

  “Thank you! Bill does all the technical layout stuff, but the interior design is mostly me. I do love that shade of teal. This particular room is really Bill’s domain, so I reined myself in, but you’ll see I’ve gone a bit to town on it in the living room. I figure, it’s my house, I don’t have to please anyone else! Come through and have a look.”

  The room she led me into next was the living room she had mentioned, a cluster of deep button-backed sofas arranged in a square around a beautiful tiled fireplace. The ceiling and woodwork were the same shade of teal as the paneling in the study, but the walls themselves were startling—covered in a rich, intricate wallpaper with a design almost too convoluted to make out in deep blues, emeralds, and aquamarines. As I peered closer I saw that it was a mix of brambles and peacocks—both stylized and intertwined to the point of being practically unrecognizable. The brambles were dark green and indigo black, the peacocks iridescent blue and amethyst, their tails curling and spreading and tangling with the brambles into a kind of nightmarish labyrinth—half aviary, half briar thicket.

  The design echoed the tiles around the fireplace, which were two peacocks standing tall on each side of the grate, their bodies on the bottommost tile, their tails spreading upwards. The fire itself was dead, but the room was not cold, far from it. Wrought iron Victorian radiators around the walls gave it a cozy warmth, and the sun slanted across another of the artfully faded Persian rugs. More books were strewn across a brass coffee table along with another arrangement of peonies, these ones drooping in a dry vase, but Sandra ignored them and led the way to a door on the left side of the fireplace, leading back in the direction of the kitchen.

  Behind it was a much smaller oak-paneled room with a scuffed leather sofa and a TV on the far wall. It was easy to see what this room was used for—the floor was covered with discarded toys, scattered Duplo, decapitated Barbie dolls, and a partly collapsed play tent slumped in one corner. The rather dark paneled walls had been decorated with stickers and children’s drawings, even the odd crayoned scribble on the paneling itself.

  “This was the old breakfast room,” Sandra said, “and it was rather gloomy, as it faces north and that pine tree blocks out a lot of the light, so we made it into a media room, but obviously the children ended up completely taking over!”

  She gave a laugh and picked up a stuffed yellow banana, handing it to Petra.

  “And now, to complete the circuit . . .”

  She led the way through towards a second door concealed in the paneling—and again I had the feeling of tripping and finding myself in a different house entirely. We were again in the glass vault at the back of the house, but we had entered it from the opposite side. Without the big stove and the cupboards and appliances blocking the view, there was literally nothing in front of us but glass—and beyond that the landscape falling away, patched with forest and the faraway glimmer of lochs and burns. It was like there was nothing between us and the wilderness beyond. I felt that at any moment an osprey could have swooped down into our midst.

  In one corner was a playpen, carpeted with jigsaw-shaped rubber mats, and I watched as Sandra plopped Petra inside with her banana and waved her hand around the walls. “This side was the old servants’ hall, back in the day, but it was riddled with dry rot and the views were much too good to be confined to narrow little sash windows, so we made the decision to just”—she made a slitting gesture at her throat, and then laughed—“I think some people are a bit shocked, but trust me, if you’d seen it before, you’d understand.”

  I thought of my tiny flat in London, the way it could have fitted into even just this one room.

  Something inside me seemed to twist and break, just a little, and suddenly I was not sure if I should have come here after all. But I knew one thing. I could not go back. Not now.

  You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this, Mr. Wrexham. Because I know you’re busy, and I know that on the surface, at least, it seems as if this is nothing to do with my case. And yet . . . it’s everything. I need you to see Heatherbrae House, to feel the warmth from the heating striking up through the floor, the sun on your face. I need to you to be able to reach out and stroke the soft cat’s-tongue roughness of the velvet sofas and the silky smoothness of the polished concrete
surfaces.

  I need you to understand why I did what I did.

  * * *

  The rest of the morning seemed to pass in a blur. I spent the time making homemade Play-Doh with the children and then helping them fashion it into a variety of lumpy, lopsided creations, most of which Petra mashed into shapelessness again with crows of laughter and howls of annoyance from Ellie. Maddie was the one who puzzled me most—she was stiff and unyielding, as if determined not to smile for me, but I persisted, finding little ways of praising her, and at last, in spite of herself, she seemed to unbend a little, even going as far as laughing, a little unwillingly, when Petra unwisely shoved a handful of the pink dough into her mouth and spat it out, retching and gagging at the salty taste, with a comical expression of disgust on her chubby little face.

  At last Sandra tapped me on the shoulder and told me that Jack was waiting to take me to the station, if I was ready, and I stood up and washed my hands and gave Petra a little chuck under the chin.

  My bag was beside the door. I had packed before I came downstairs for breakfast, knowing that I might not have much time later, but I had no idea who had brought it down from the spare room. Not the unseen Jean, I fervently hoped, though I did not know why the thought made me uncomfortable.

  Jack was waiting outside with the silently idling car, his hands in his pockets, the sunshine finding specks of deep auburn and red in his dark hair.

  “Well, it was a total pleasure to meet you,” Sandra said, and there was a genuine warmth in her eyes as she held out her hand. “I’ll need to discuss things with Bill, but I think I can say . . . well, let’s just say, you’ll be hearing from us very soon with a final decision. Very soon. Thank you, Rowan, you were fabulous.”

  “It was lovely to meet you too, Sandra,” I said. “Your girls are lovely.” Ugh, stop saying lovely. “I hope I get the chance to meet Rhiannon sometime.” I hope I get the job, that meant, in code. “Goodbye, Ellie.” I stuck out my hand, and she shook it gravely, like a five-year-old businesswoman. “Goodbye, Maddie.”

  But Maddie, to my dismay, did not take my hand. Instead, she turned and buried her face in her mother’s midriff, refusing to meet my eyes. It was a curiously childish gesture, one that made her seem much younger than her age. Over the top of her head, Sandra gave a little shrug as if to say, What can you do?

  I shrugged back, ruffled the back of Maddie’s hair, and turned towards the car.

  I had stowed my luggage in the back seat, and was just walking around the opposite side of the car to climb into the front passenger seat when something hit me like a small, dark hurricane. Arms wrapped around my waist, a hard little skull digging into my lower ribs.

  Wriggling round in the fierce embrace I saw, to my surprise, that it was Maddie. Maybe I had won her over after all?

  “Maddie!” I said, but she did not answer. I was unsure of what to do, but in the end I bent down to give her a little hug back. “Thank you for showing me your lovely house. Goodbye.”

  I hoped that the last word might make her let go, but she only tightened her grip, squeezing me uncomfortably tight, making my breath come short.

  “Don’t—” I heard her whimper into my still-damp top, though I couldn’t make out the second word. Don’t go?

  “I have to,” I whispered back. “But I hope I’ll be able to come back very soon.”

  That was the truth, all right. God, I hoped so.

  But Maddie was shaking her head, her dark hair swishing against her knobbly spine. I felt the heat of her breath through my top. There was something strangely intimate and uncomfortable about the whole thing, something I could not put my finger on, and all of a sudden I very much wanted her to let go, but mindful of Sandra’s presence, I did not prize Maddie’s fingers away. Instead, I smiled and tightened my arms around her momentarily, returning her hug. As I did, she made a little sound, almost a whimper.

  “Maddie? Is something wrong?”

  “Don’t come here,” she whispered, still refusing to look at me. “It’s not safe.”

  “It’s not safe?” I gave a little laugh. “Maddie, what do you mean?”

  “It’s not safe,” she repeated, with a little angry sob, shaking her head harder so that her words were almost lost. “They wouldn’t like it.”

  “Who wouldn’t like it?”

  But with that, she tore herself away, and then she was running barefoot across the grass, shouting something over her shoulder.

  “Maddie!” I called after her. “Maddie, wait!”

  “Don’t worry,” Sandra said with a laugh. She came round to my side of the car. It was plain that she had not seen anything apart from Maddie’s sudden hug and her subsequent flight. “That’s Maddie, I’m afraid. Just let her go, she’ll be back for lunch. But she must have liked you—I’m not sure she’s ever voluntarily hugged a stranger before!”

  “Thank you,” I said, rather unsettled, and I let Sandra see me into the car and slam the door shut.

  It was only as we began to wind slowly down the drive, while I kept one eye out for a fleeting child among the trees, that I found myself replaying Maddie’s final remark, wondering if she had really said what I thought I’d heard.

  For the thing she had called over her shoulder seemed almost too preposterous to be true—and yet the more I brooded over it, the more I was sure of what I’d heard.

  The ghosts, she had sobbed. The ghosts wouldn’t like it.

  “Well, seems it’s goodbye for now,” Jack said. He stood at the barrier to the station, holding my bag in one hand, his other outstretched. I took it and shook it. There was oil deeply ground in around the nails from yesterday, but his skin was clean and warm, and the odd intimacy of the contact gave me a little shiver I couldn’t explain.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, a little awkwardly, and then, with a feeling that I might as well because I’d regret it if I didn’t, I added, a little rashly, “Sorry I didn’t get to meet Bill. Or . . . or Jean.”

  “Jean?” Jack said, looking a little puzzled. “She’s not about much in the day. Goes home to her dad.”

  “Is she . . . is she young, then?”

  “No!” He gave that grin again, the sides of his mouth curving into an expression of such beguiling amusement that I felt my own mouth curve in helpless sympathy, even though I didn’t really understand the joke. “She’s fifty if she’s a day, maybe more, though I’d never dare ask her age. No, she’s a—what’s the word. A carer. Her father lives down in the village; he has Alzheimer’s, I think. He can’t be left alone for more than an hour or two. She comes up in the morning before he’s awake and then again first thing in the afternoon. Does the dishes and that.”

  “Oh!” I felt my face flush, and I smiled, absurdly, and gave a little laugh. “Oh, I see. I thought . . . never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  I did not have time to analyze the relief I felt, but it gave me a strange sense of being off-balance, struck by something I had not expected to encounter.

  “Well, good to meet you, Rowan.”

  “Good to meet you too—Jack.” The name came off my tongue a little awkwardly, and I blushed again. Up the valley I heard the sound of the approaching train. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.” He held out the case, and I took it, still echoing his curving, beguiling smile, and began to walk to the platform, giving myself a stern injunction not to look back. When at last the train had drawn in and I had climbed aboard and settled myself in a carriage, I did risk one last glance out the window, to where he had been standing. But he was gone. And so, as the train pulled out of the station, my last glimpse of Carn Bridge was of an empty platform, crisply clean and sun-soaked, awaiting my return.

  * * *

  Back in London, I prepared myself for an agonizing wait. Very soon, Sandra had said. But what did that mean? She’d clearly liked me—unless I was deluding myself. But I’d done enough interviews to be able to pinpoint the feeling in the air as I left. In recent months I’d experienced both the tr
iumph of having done myself justice and the furious disappointment of having let myself down. I’d felt much closer to the first one on the train back down to London.

  Did they have other people to interview? She had seemed so very desperate to have someone start soon, and she must know that every day that ticked past without me giving notice was a day I couldn’t work for her. But what if one of the other candidates could start immediately . . . ?

  Given Sandra’s emphasis on very soon, I had dared to hope for something on my phone by the time I got home, but there was nothing that evening, nor the next day when I left for work. We had to leave our phones turned off in our lockers at Little Nippers, so I resigned myself to a long morning, listening to Janine rattling on about her boring boyfriend and bossing Hayley and me about, while all the time my head was elsewhere.

  My lunch shift wasn’t until one, but when the clock ticked over I hastily finished the nappy I was changing and stood up, handing the baby to Hayley.

  “Sorry, Hales, can you take him? I’ve got an emergency I need to sort out.”

  I pulled off the plastic disposable apron and virtually ran to the staff room. There, I grabbed my bag from my locker and escaped out the back entrance, into the little concrete yard—far away from the gaze of the children and parents—that we used for smoking, phone calls, and other activities that we weren’t supposed to do on clock. It seemed to take an age for the phone to switch on and go through the endless start-up screen—but at last the lock screen came up, and I typed in my passcode with shaking fingers and pressed refresh on my emails, reaching as I did for my necklace, my fingers tracing the loops and ridges as the messages downloaded.

  One . . . two . . . three came through . . . all either spam or completely unimportant, and I felt my heart sink—until I noticed the little icon in the corner of the screen. I had a message.

  My stomach was turning over and over, and I felt a kind of fluttering nausea as I dialed into voice mail and waited impatiently through the automated prompts. If this didn’t work out . . . If this didn’t work out . . .