by Ruth Ware
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump. I did knock, but you didn’t hear, so I let myself in. I’ve come to collect the dogs for their walk.”
“No problem,” I said, as I turned to take away Petra’s rice cakes. She had stopped eating them and was mashing one into her ear. Jack’s unexpected presence at least answered my question about whether I was also responsible for the dogs, and was one thing I could tick off my list. Claude and Hero were gamboling around, excited to get going, and Jack hushed them sharply. They fell silent at once, noticeably more quickly than they had obeyed Sandra, and he grabbed the collar of the largest one and began clipping on its lead.
“Sleep well?” he asked casually, as the lead slipped into place.
I turned, my hand frozen in the act of wiping Petra’s face. Sleep well? What did that mean? Did he . . . did he . . . know?
For a minute I just stood there, gaping at him, while Petra took advantage of my momentary lapse of attention to grab a particularly soggy rice cake and mash it into my sleeve.
Then I shook myself. He was just asking in the way people do, to be polite.
“Not particularly well, actually,” I said, rather shortly, wiping my sleeve on the dishcloth and taking Petra’s rice cake away from her. “I couldn’t find the key to the back door last night, so I couldn’t lock up properly. Do you know where it’s gone?”
“This door?” He jerked his head towards the utility room, one eyebrow raised, and I nodded.
“There’s no bolt on it either. In the end I wedged it with a bit of wood.” Though much good it had done. Presumably Jack had simply shoved the wedge aside without even noticing when he opened the door. “I know we’re in the middle of nowhere, but it didn’t make for a very comfortable night.”
That and the sound of footsteps, I thought, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell him about that. In the cold light of day it sounded crazy, and there were too many alternative explanations. Central heating pipes expanding. Joists shrinking as the roof cooled from the heat of the day. Old houses shifting. In my heart of hearts, I knew that none of those fully explained the sounds I had heard. But I didn’t know how to convince Jack of that. The key, however, was different. It was something clear . . . and concrete.
Jack was frowning now.
“Sandra usually keeps the key on the doorframe above. She doesn’t like to keep it in the lock in case the kids mess around with it.”
“I know that.” There was an edge of impatience in my voice that I tried to dampen down. It was not Jack’s fault that this had happened. “I mean, she told me that. It was in the binder. And I put it up there yesterday, but it’s not there now. Do you think Jean could have taken it?”
“Jean?” He looked surprised, and then gave a short laugh and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, why would she? She has her own keys.”
“Someone else then?”
But he was shaking his head.
“No one comes up here without me knowing about it. They couldn’t get through the gate for a start.”
I didn’t remind him that Jean had found the door locked when I came back from looking for Maddie and Ellie. I hadn’t locked it. So who had?
“Maybe it fell down somewhere,” he said, and went back through to the utility room to look, the dogs following like faithful shadows, sniffing around as he pushed aside the dryer and peered under the washing machine.
“I already looked,” I said, trying to keep irritation out of my tone. And then, when he didn’t straighten up or deviate from his search, “Jack? Did you hear me? I checked everywhere, even the bin.”
But he was shifting the washing machine aside, grunting a little with the effort, the castors screeching on the tiled floor.
“Jack? Did you hear me? I said I already—”
He ignored me, leaning over the counter, one long arm stretched down the back of unit.
“Jack—” There was real irritation in my voice now, but he interrupted me.
“Got it.”
He straightened, triumphantly, a dusty brass key in his fingers. I let my mouth snap shut.
I had looked. I had looked. I had a clear memory of peering under that washing machine and seeing nothing but dust.
“But—”
He came across, dropped it into my palm.
“But . . . I looked.”
“It was tucked behind the wheel. I expect you wouldn’t have seen. Probably fell out when the door slammed shut and skidded under there. All’s well that ends well, isn’t that what they say?”
I let my hand close around the key, feeling the brass ridges bite into my palm. I had looked. I had looked carefully. Wheel or no wheel, how could I have missed a three-inch brass key, when that was exactly what I was looking for?
There was no way I could have missed seeing that key if it was there. Which meant that maybe . . . it wasn’t there. Until someone dropped it down there.
I looked up and met Jack’s guileless hazel eyes, smiling down at me. But it couldn’t be. He was so nice.
Maybe . . . a bit too nice?
You went straight to the washing machine, I wanted to say. How did you know?
But I could not bring myself to voice my suspicions aloud.
What I actually said was, “Thank you.” But my voice in my own ears sounded subdued.
Jack didn’t reply; he was already dusting off his hands and turning for the door, the dogs wheeling and yelping around his feet.
“See you in an hour or so?” he said, but this time, when he smiled, it no longer made my heart leap a little. Instead, I noticed the tendons in the back of his hands, the way he kept the dogs leashes very short, pulled in against his heel, dominating them.
“Sure,” I said quietly.
“Oh, and I nearly forgot—today’s Jean’s day off. She won’t be coming up, so no point in leaving the dishes for her.”
“No problem,” I said.
As he turned and made his way across the courtyard, dogs firmly at heel, I watched him go, turning the sequence of events over in my mind, trying to figure out what had happened.
Although I’d suggested Jean’s name to Jack, I didn’t honestly believe she was responsible. I remembered putting the key on the frame after she had gone. So unless she’d come back—which didn’t seem likely—then she couldn’t be to blame.
What had happened after that . . . Jack had come in by that door, I recalled, but had I unlocked it? No . . . I was pretty sure I’d just opened it—presumably Jack must have unlocked it with his own set of keys. Or had I unlocked it then? It was hard to remember.
Either way, it was technically possible that he had pocketed the key at some point during his visit, and dropped it down there just now. But why? To freak me out? It seemed unlikely. What could he possibly gain by engineering another nanny’s departure?
Jean, I could have believed more easily. She had plainly disliked me. But even there—setting aside the likelihood of her creeping back to the house after she’d departed, which seemed more and more implausible the more I thought about it, she seemed to have a genuine affection for the children, and I couldn’t believe she would deliberately leave the house unsafe and unsecured while they were asleep.
Because that was the final, unnerving possibility. That someone had taken it to ensure access to the house in the night. Not Jean or Jack, who had their own sets of keys but . . . someone else.
But no—that was crazy, I was beginning to talk myself into hysteria. Maybe it had been there all along. Tucked behind the wheel, Jack had said. Was it possible I just hadn’t looked hard enough?
I was still thinking myself round in circles when there was an impatient noise from the kitchen, and I turned to see Petra kicking irritably against her high chair. I hurried back into the room, undid her straps, and dumped her into the playpen in the corner of the kitchen. Then I pulled my ponytail tighter, plastered on my best smile, and began looking for Maddie and Ellie.
They were in the playroom, huddled in
a corner, whispering something, but both heads turned when I clapped my hands.
“Right! Come on, girls, we’re going to go for a picnic. We can take sandwiches, crisps, rice cakes . . .”
I had more than half expected them to refuse, but to my surprise Maddie got up, dusting down her leggings.
“Where are we going?”
“Just the grounds. Will you show me around? I heard from Jack you have a secret den.” That was completely untrue—he hadn’t said anything at all, but I’d never met a child who didn’t have some kind of hidey-hole or cache.
“You can’t see our den,” Ellie said instantly. “It’s secret. I mean—” She stopped at a glaring, furious look from Maddie. “I mean, we don’t have one,” she added miserably.
“Oh, what a shame,” I said breezily. “Well, never mind, I’m sure there’s lots of other interesting places. Put your Wellies on. I’m going to put Petra in the pushchair so she doesn’t wander off, but then let’s set off. You can show me all the best picnic spots.”
“Okay,” Maddie said. Her voice was calm and level, even a little triumphant, and I found myself glancing at her suspiciously.
Even with Maddie’s cooperation, it took a surprisingly long time to make the picnic and get everyone out of the house, but at last we were done and heading off round the back of the house, along a bumpy pebbled path that crested a small hill and then led down the other side. The views from this side of the grounds were just as spectacular, but, if anything, even bleaker. Instead of the little crofts and small villages scattered between us and the distant mountains, here there was nothing but rolling forest. In the far distance some kind of bird of prey circled lazily over the trees, looking for its kill.
We wound our way through a rather overgrown vegetable garden, where Maddie helpfully showed me the raspberry canes and herb beds, and past a fountain, full of a slightly brackish scum. It was not working, and the statue on top was cracked and gray with lichen, and it occurred to me then what a strange contrast the house made with this rather wild, unkempt garden. I would have expected outdoor seating areas and decking and elaborate planting schemes, not this slightly sad, crumbling neglect. Perhaps Sandra wasn’t an outdoor person? Or maybe they had spent so long working on the house, they hadn’t had time to tend to the grounds yet.
There was a set of swings tucked behind a dilapidated kitchen greenhouse, and Ellie and Maddie leapt on them and began competing to go higher. For a moment I just stood and watched them, and then something in my pocket gave a buzzing, jangling leap, and I realized my phone was ringing.
When I pulled it out, my heart gave a funny little jolt as I read the caller ID. It was the last person I’d been expecting, and I had to take a deep breath before I swiped the screen to accept the call.
“Hello?”
“Heeeeey!” she shrieked, her familiar voice so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “It’s me, Rowan! How are you? Oh my God, long time no speak!”
“I’m good! Where are you? This must be costing you a fortune.”
“It is. I’m in a commune in India. Mate, it’s amazing here. And sooo cheap! You should totally resign and come and join me.”
“I—I did resign,” I said, with a slightly awkward laugh. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“What?”
I held the phone away from my ear again. It had been so long since we’d had an actual phone conversation, I’d forgotten how loud she could be.
“Yup,” I said, still holding the phone a few inches from my ear. “Handed my notice in at Little Nippers. I left a few days ago. The look on Janine’s face when I told her she could stick her stupid job was almost worth all the hours there.”
“I bet. God, she was such a cow. I still can’t believe Val didn’t give you that job when I left.”
“Me too. Listen, I meant to call you, I wanted to tell you—I’ve moved out of the flat.”
“What?” The line was crackly, her voice echoing across the long miles from India. “I didn’t hear you. I thought you said you’d left the flat.”
“Yeah, I did. The post I’ve taken up, it’s a residential one. But listen, don’t worry, I’m still paying the rent, the pay here is really good. So your stuff is still there, and you’ll have a place to come back to when you finish traveling.”
“You can afford that?” Her tinny faraway voice was impressed. “Wow! This post must pay really well. How did you swing that?”
I skated round that one.
“They really needed someone,” I said. It was the truth, at least. “But anyway, how are you? Any plans to come back?”
I tried to keep my voice casual, not letting on how important her answer was to me.
“Yeah, of course.” Her laugh echoed. “But not yet. I’ve still got seven months left on my ticket. But oh, mate, it’s good to hear your voice. I miss you!”
“I miss you too.”
Ellie and Maddie had got down off the swing and were walking away from me now, down a winding brick path between overgrown heathers. I tucked the phone under my ear and began pushing the buggy across the rough ground, following.
“Listen, I’m working right now actually, so . . . I should probably . . .”
“Yeah, sure. And I should go too, before this bankrupts me. But you’re okay, yeah?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
There was an awkward pause.
“Well, bye, Rowan.”
“Bye, Rach.”
And then she hung up.
“Who was that?” said a little voice at my elbow, and I jumped and looked down to see Maddie scowling up at me.
“Oh . . . just a friend I used to work with. We were flatmates, back in London, but then she went traveling.”
“Did you like her?”
It was such a funny question I laughed.
“What? Yes, yes, of course I liked her.”
“You sounded like you didn’t want to talk to her.”
“I don’t know where you got that idea.” We walked a bit farther, the buggy bumping over a loose brick in the path, while I considered her remark. Was there a grain of truth in it? “She was calling from abroad,” I said at last. “It’s very expensive. I just didn’t want to cost her too much money.”
Maddie looked up at me for a moment, and I had the strangest feeling of her black button eyes boring into mine, and then she turned and scampered after Ellie, crying out, “Follow me! Follow me!”
The path led down and down, away from the house, growing more uneven by the second. Once it had been herringbone brick, but now the bricks had cracked in the frost and grown loose, some of them missing altogether. In the distance I could see a brick wall, about six feet high, with a wrought iron metal gate, which seemed to be where the children were heading.
“Is that the edge of the grounds?” I called after them. “Hold up, I don’t want you going out onto the moors.”
They stopped and waited for me; Ellie had her hands on her hips and was panting, her little face flushed.
“It’s a garden,” she said. “It’s got a wall around it, like a room but no roof.”
“That sounds exciting,” I said. “Like the Secret Garden. Have you ever read that?”
“Of course she hasn’t, she’s not old enough to read chapter books,” Maddie said, repressively. “But we watched it on TV.”
We had drawn level with the wall now, and I could see what Ellie meant. It was a crumbling redbrick wall, slightly taller than I was, that seemed to be enclosing one corner of the grounds, forming a rectangular section quite separate from the rest of the landscaping. It was the kind of structure that might easily have enclosed a kitchen garden—protecting delicate herbs and fruit trees from frost—but the trees and creepers I could see emerging above the high walls didn’t look at all edible.
I tried the handle of the gate.
“It’s locked.” Through the twining metalwork I could see a wild, overgrown mass of bushes and creepers, some kind of statue partly obscured by green
ery. “What a shame, it looks very exciting in there.”
“It looks locked,” Ellie said eagerly, “but Maddie and I know a secret way of getting inside.”
“I’m not sure—” I began, but before I could finish, she wound her little hand through the intricate metal fretwork, through a space far too narrow to admit even a fine-boned adult’s hand, and did something I could not see to the far side of the lock. The gate sprang open.
“Wow!” I said, genuinely impressed. “How did you do that?”
“It’s not very hard.” Ellie was flushed with pride. “There’s a catch on the inside.”
Gently I pushed the gate open, listening to the hinges squeal, and pushed Petra inside, thrusting aside the trailing fronds of some creeper that was hanging overhead. The leaves brushed my face, tickling my skin with an almost nettlish sensation. Maddie ducked in behind me, trying not to let the leaves trail in her face, and Ellie came in too. There was something mischievous about her expression, and I wondered why Bill and Sandra kept this place locked.
Inside, the walls protected the plants from the exposed position of the rest of the grounds, and the contrast to the muted heathers and trees outside, and the austerity of the moors beyond, was startling. There were lush evergreen bushes studded with berries of all types, overgrown tangled creepers, and a few flowers struggling to survive beneath the onslaught. I recognized a few—hellebores and snowberries springing up from between dark-leaved laurels, and what I thought might be a laburnum up ahead. As we turned a corner, we passed underneath an ancient-looking yew so old it formed a tunnel over the path, its strange, tubular berries crunching underfoot. Its leaves had poisoned the ground, and nothing grew underneath its spread. There were more greenhouses in here, I saw, though they were smaller, still with enough glass in their broken frames to have built up an impressive amount of condensation. The inside of the glass was blotched with green lichen and mold, so thickly that I could barely see the remains of the plants inside, though some struggled up through the broken panes of the roof.