Deadly Errand by Christine Green

Author:Christine Green [Green, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Reference
ISBN: 9781906288754
Publisher: Ostara Publishing
Published: 2012-04-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

So scared, that although I forced myself to stand at the bottom of the stairs, all I could do was stare up into the darkness and the closed door at the top.

Once when I was a student nurse working on the private wing I'd gone into a room to check on a patient at two a.m. The bed was empty, the window open and the curtains fluttered. I had rushed to the window dreading what I would see. And then the door had closed behind me. And behind the door a bald woman laughed maniacally. In her hand she held a wig, waving it in the air. I had thought it was a severed head.

I climbed the stairs slowly, each footstep a creak as loud as a whiplash. I don't believe in ghosts, I told myself, I don't believe in ghosts. And I didn't. But there always comes a time, just like not believing in God, when you say – I could be wrong.

At the top of the stairs there were four closed doors. I opened each door quickly and loudly, letting the door bang against the wall and standing well back – just in case. But the emptiness of the rooms stared back at me, an emptiness that was strangely disappointing, like being given a large chocolate Easter egg and opening it carefully and finding it hollow.

Two of the rooms contained beds; in the smaller room the bed was simply a bare mattress on a divan bed. But in the larger front room, Ada's, a double bed covered with a maroon bedspread dominated the room. On the bedside cabinet a paperback novel lay open, jacket up, showing a handsome couple locked in an embrace. Dream of Love it was called. I had been in this room before, but it was as if I were seeing it for the first time. Ada alive in the house had lent the room life, had given the room its persona. Now the room and the house were as dead as Ada.

I crouched down to search the bedside cabinet. There were two shelves, the top one stacked with romantic novels, the bottom one with pain-relief sprays, and a writing pad and envelopes – new and unused. As I stood up my arm caught Dream of Love. I was about to put it back when I noticed she'd used a bookmark. A slip of paper, a receipt. On the top in bold black script was the name Adam Angel – Antiques of Quality; beneath, it said, Chamber-pot – £50. I knew immediately I'd found what I was looking for. Thank you, Ada.

I folded the receipt carefully and put it in my jacket pocket. I closed all the doors as quickly as I'd opened them and it was only at the front door that I paused. I breathed in fresh air that was warmer outside than in and then I slammed the front door hard. As if in final salute.

Gwenda Carey watched from her front window but came out as I walked into her front garden.

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