‘If you take a seat there, I’ll just let Mrs Lance know that you’re here,’ the girl says.
‘Why, thank you, mam. This is just charming, darling, isn’t it?’
I nod again. OK, don’t go over the top, Mark.
‘I don’t like it in here,’ Ange whispers in my ear. ‘Old people give me the willies.’
‘So what do you think? Have you got anything yet?’ Mark whispers to me as we wait for the owner to show us around. Blimey, give me a chance!
‘Nothing yet,’ I say. For once, aside from Ange declaring how much the home gives her the willies, my mind is completely quiet and peaceful, which is a bit of a rarity for me.
Within minutes I notice a large woman walking towards us from the end of the hallway and I immediately have a feeling of nervousness in the pit of my stomach. The woman, who I assume to be Mrs Lance, barks an order at a young nurse in an adjacent room and then walks faster towards us. Mark and I stand up. Oh my God, she knows who we are.
‘Mr and Mrs Spears?’ the supersized woman asks.
We both nod. I suspect Mark is as nervous of this woman as I am. She looks like Miss Trunchball from Matilda, but on a bad day – the hair on her top lip is quite scary too.
‘Welcome to We Care Nursing Home. If you would like to follow me this way into my office, I will explain what our home can offer your mother. Sandra, get Mr Salmon off the commode, will you!’ she bellows to another nurse who is passing by in the corridor.
‘Of course, Mrs Lance,’ the nurse says as she scuttles away down another corridor. My eyes follow the nurse and I feel as though I should be following her.
‘Charming, utterly charming, and so quaint,’ Mark drawls as we follow the old dragon to her dungeon – the dungeon being a small office off to the right of the hallway. Two chairs have been placed in front of a desk and Mrs Lance waves her arm dismissively for us to sit in them. No amount of American charm is going to win this woman over, methinks.
Right, what can I do for you, Mr and Mrs Spears?’ Mrs Lance puts on a pair of glasses and clasps her hands in front of her.
‘Well, as I was saying to the lovely nurse who answered the door, we saw your charming little nursing home when we were passing through and thought, that’s the ideal place for my wife’s mother. She already lives in England, but is finding it hard to walk now, isn’t she, honey?’ Mark says. I nod.
Mrs Lance grunts as though she has heard this story a thousand times before, opens a drawer and pulls out a blue folder. She flicks through a few pages until she comes to the relevant form, unclips it from the folder and hands Mark a copy of the home’s terms and conditions. As I look at the woman’s gnarled hands, I suddenly get a vision flashing through my mind. I can see the same hands and then I smell something sweet, but I’m not altogether sure what it is. I sniff the air.
‘Isn’t that right, darling?’ Mark says. I haven’t a clue what Mark has just said to me, so I nod enthusiastically. As Mrs Lance goes to the adjoining office to photocopy some paperwork, Mark mouths, Are you OK?
‘I’ve got something,’ I whisper, ‘but it’s not …’
‘Here you are. This tells you a bit about the home and the care of our residents and these are our rates.’ Mrs Lance leans over Mark, almost smothering him with her ample bosom in the process, and places several sheets of paper in front of us.
‘Thank you, mam,’ Mark mumbles while being suffocated. ‘May we have a look around you wonderful home?’
‘Of course. I’ll get one of the nursing staff to escort you.’ Mrs Lance presses some buttons on her phone and requests a member of staff to come to her office immediately.
Within seconds the young nurse who opened the front door to us is at Mark’s side, ready to escort us around We Care Nursing Home.
The grand home is spread over four floors. I am desperate to go down the corridor where I saw the other nurse go earlier, but the nurse accompanying us takes us up the stairs and to the first floor.
I can feel many old spirits around me up here and a great deal of sadness. I can’t of course tell Mark any of this because he’s too busy, three steps ahead of me, chatting up the bloody nurse – see, I told you all men had a thing about nurses! As they turn left into another corridor, I take my chance and run back the way we came, down the stairs, into the hallway, and turn down the corridor I’ve been drawn to since we came here.
No sooner do I start walking down this corridor than I start to feel very distressed indeed.
‘Sam, I don’t think this is a good idea,’ Ange says.
She’s right. I feel as though I want to run back up the corridor and out of the house again. OK, keep calm, Sam, I tell myself over and over again, like a mantra. Just keep on walking. There’s a reason why I’m feeling like this and I need to get to the bottom of it. I just wish Mark was with me, because he’s the one with the flipping camera. Never mind, I’ll just have to talk into the microphone and hope that Maria and Georgia pick it up at the other end.
As I approach a row of doors to my right, I feel compelled to open the second one, with the number four marked on it. I look over my shoulder to make sure no one is coming and gingerly turn the brass door knob. I open the door and I feel as though I shouldn’t be entering this particular room, and yet I know that something in there holds the key to Petra’s mum’s death. I don’t know how I know, I just do.
I peer in through the gap in the door to make sure no one is in there. The room is dark and I notice that the curtains are closed. The bed is neatly made and yet the feeling I get from standing in this room is one of horror.
‘Pearl, are you here?’ I whisper.
‘This was my room. I can’t …’ a voice replies. It’s Petra’s mum, Pearl.
I suddenly get an overwhelming feeling as though I can’t quite catch my breath, as though something is preventing me from doing so. I can’t breathe and I struggle like a fish to gulp air into my lungs, but no matter how hard I try I can’t get any. I have crippling pains in my stomach and feel dizzy all at the same time. I feel as though I’m suffocating.
‘Help me, Ange!’ I gasp as I collapse by the bed on the floor.
‘I can’t help you until you can get out of that room!’ Ange says. ‘Sam, get out of the room!’
I still can’t breathe, I feel so sick and dizzy. The room spins above my head, but I use every ounce of strength in me to get to the gap in the door. As I crawl along the brown cord carpet, in my mind I can see Pearl doing exactly the same thing. She’s in a white nightdress and is desperately trying to get out of the room. She is desperately trying to get out so that she can scream and get someone’s attention. This is how she died. This is how Petra’s mum died. She couldn’t catch her breath. I can feel Pearl struggling to breathe and clutching at her throat and stomach.
The open door seems so far away and I don’t think I can make it. Oh shit!
‘Sam? Are you OK?’ I hear Maria ask in my earpiece. I desperately want to scream for help, but I can’t even breathe let alone say anything. As I make one final attempt to reach the door, I suddenly smell something familiar on the brown carpet and it is then that things start to click into place. Pearl didn’t die naturally. Something was preventing her from breathing properly. The sweet aroma I smelt in Mrs Lance’s office is the same smell that I can smell in this room. In room four. Pearl’s room. As I crawl back out of the room it’s like a rush of fresh air is filling my lungs. I can breathe again! Bloody hell! I’ve never been so grateful for that rush of air in my life.
I shove my sunglasses back up on to my nose, straighten my headscarf and look back at the carpet in the bedroom. Without really thinking about it I rummage about in my handbag for something I can use to cut the carpet. Pen, nope; collapsible hairbrush, nope; a packet of Wrigleys chewing hum, hardly a suitable cutting tool; Ruby Rush nail polish, no. It’s then that I find the tiny pair of silver nail scissors at the bottom of my bag. It was from one of last year’s Christmas crackers. In fact it originally belonged to
my brother Matt who swapped it for the silver bookmark that I had won, on the basis that Matt bites his fingernails and would have no use whatsoever for a pair of nail scissors. I doubt very much that he will find a use for the silver bookmark either, as I’ve never seen him read an actual book, unless it contains the words C++ programming in it.
I get on to my hands and knees and crawl back just inside the bedroom door and sniff the carpet until I find the spot where I smelt the strange odour. As I puncture a hole in the carpet and begin to cut roughly at the carpet, I hear Mark’s voice coming down the corridor. Oh bollocks! Quick, Sam! I snip as fast as I can and have to rip the final threads, ending up with a two-inch sample of brown cord carpet and a hole in the bedroom floor to boot - oh crikey, I hope they don’t notice.
‘Well, I’m sure she …’ I hear Mark’s voice as I back out of the bedroom on my hands and knees. ‘Honey?’ Mark, who is standing outside the bedroom door with Mrs Lance in tow, looks down at me. ‘What on earth are you doing down there, honey?’ Mark says, remembering his American accent just in the nick of time.
I look up at both him and the Trunchball and blush from head to toe. I wink at Mark in my best Velma Dinkley impression to give him a clue that I indeed have a clue to this mystery, and then I remember that unlike Velma my glasses are in fact shades and he can’t actually see me winking at him.
‘I …’
‘Oh, honey, have you had one of your funny turns again?’ Mark says, as he hooks his arms under my armpits and awkwardly pulls me to my feet. One of my funny turns?
‘I….’
‘I’m so sorry, mam,’ Mark says to Mrs Lance, who looks at me as though I should be committed - and she would be only too happy to oblige. ‘My wife loses her balance every now and again. The doctors have no idea what it might be; they think it could be all in the mind,’ Mark whispers, and winks at the old battleaxe. I steady myself under Mark’s grip and stamp on his left foot as I regain my ‘balance’ – good job I’m wearing my pointy heels, eh?
‘Ouch! Oops, now let’s get you back to the hotel, honey,’ Mark winces. ‘I’m sorry about this, mam. Perhaps we could make another appointment to see you. I will call you to arrange a more convenient time,’ Mark says, as he ushers me down the corridor and into the hallway. Mrs Lance just looks at the two of us. I can feel her eyes penetrating into my back. Oh dear God, please don’t let her notice the hole in the carpet until we get out of here!
‘Mr and Mrs Spears!’ Mrs Lance bellows from the corridor. Oh shit, oh shit. She’s noticed.
Mark turns round.
‘Mrs Spears left her handbag on the floor.’ Mrs Lance grunts and hands Mark my bag, which is a good job because it has my only piece of evidence in it.
‘Ah, thank you, mam,’ Mark says, and winks at her as the two of us hobble out of the nursing home – him from having a four-inch heel dug in his foot, me from having one of my ‘funny turns’.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘What did you stand on my foot for?’ Mark says as he quickly bundles me into the car and hops into the driver’s seat.
‘Oh, did I stand on your foot? Sorry,’ I smile sweetly at him.
‘Yes, you did and it bloody well hurt,’ Mark winces.
‘Oh, it must have been when I had one of my ‘funny turns’.’
‘Well, I had to think of something. What on earth were you doing on the floor anyway?’ Mark says as we pull out of the car park.
‘As a matter of fact, I was getting evidence.’ I pull out the small sample of carpet and show Mark.
‘A piece of carpet. You ripped up their carpet?’
‘Not just any old piece of carpet. Smell.’ I shove my carpet sample under Mark’s nose. He sniffs it.
‘What’s that?’
‘Does it smell familiar?’
Mark nods.
‘I’m not sure what it is though,’
‘Neither am I but I smelt the same smell when we were in Mrs Lance’s office. This carpet came from room number four – Pearl’s room.’
‘How do you know it was her room?’
‘She told me. You can check it out with Petra if you like, but I bet you anything room four was Pearl’s room. I think that whatever it was that was spilt on the carpet in her room was what killed her. If you get this checked out by a chemical lab, they will be able to tell us what the chemical on it is.’ Ooh, the Scooby Gang would be proud of me.
‘Right. I’ll get someone on to this and we hope to begin recording next week if you’re free?’ Mark says, looking at the carpet sample.
‘Yes, no problem, as long as I don’t have to go into that bloody home again.’
As I head back home I can’t help but glance at the high street to see if Marjorie or Marjorie’s double is still begging outside McDonalds. Nope, the street is deserted, free from beggars and vagrants. Maybe it was just my imagination.
I drive back home and as I drive up the hill to my house I look at Gem’s house, which is in complete darkness. The curtains are closed and I guess that Gem must still be staying with her mum.
‘Go on, off with you, or I’ll skin your hide, so I will!’
The sudden shouting from Mr Brent’s house stops me in my tracks and I slam on my brakes.
‘Go on, get out of here!’ I hear Mr Brent shout.
As I step out of my car to see what on earth is going on, I see Mr Brent, dressed in what looks like a brown skirt and a pair of rope sandals, swinging a mace around his head and chasing a middle-aged couple down his garden path. The woman with a backpack on her shoulders looks absolutely petrified and screams for someone to call the police. Her husband, also sporting a backpack and interestingly dressed in an anorak that matches the woman’s - please shoot me the day me and Jack start wearing matching anoraks – shouts back at Mr Brent, but thinks better of it when he sees him bend down to pick up a rock from his ornamental rockery and set about putting it into a makeshift slingshot to throw after the couple, and it’s not long before he’s outrunning his wife, leaving her running after him, screaming, Brian, wait for me!
‘Go on your bastards! You’ll be skinned alive! You mark my words you will!’ Mr Brent shouts, opening his garden gate and starting to run down the hill in hot pursuit of the couple.
Oh my God!
‘Mr Brent!’ I shout after him. It’s no good; I’m going to have to go after him.
‘Mr Brent! Stop!’ I wail as I try to run after the old-age pensioner in my high heels. I knew it was a mistake to wear these today, but Ange insisted, saying my legs look like tree trunks when I wear flatties – who does she think she is, bloody Gok Wan?
‘Mr Brent!’ I shout again as he turns the corner, armed to the teeth and still in hot pursuit of the couple. Blimey, I am so unfit it’s unreal! I can’t even keep up with a bloody pensioner.
By the time I round the corner, the couple are nowhere to be seen. Mr Brent turns and walks towards me. Oh crikey, I hope he’s not as cross with me as he was with that couple.
‘Afternoon Samantha,’ Mr Brent smiles. ‘Lovely day,’ he says as he strolls back up the hill, slingshot slung casually over his shoulder as though he was just returning from a long day on the battlefield.
‘Er, afternoon Mr Brent,’ I say cautiously and watch him walk back to his cottage as though nothing has happened. I look around to see if I can see any evidence of bloodshed, but the couple are nowhere to be seen. Mr Brent obviously drove them out of the village – big time!
‘Uh-oh! Something’s not right here!’ I hear Ange sing in my head. And I think she might just have a point.
As soon as I get in to the safety of my own cottage I flop down on the sofa. It’s been a long day, what with one thing and another, and I forgot to switch the timer on the heating system to on, so it’s bloody freezing in the house. Before I go upstairs to switch the heating and the hot water on I must phone my mum to see if she has tracked down Marjorie – I’m sure there must be some good explanation as to why she was begging in the high street. Mayb
e she was doing it for charity? You hear of middle class people doing this sort of thing, don’t you? I also want to see if Missy has wandered back to the love of her life again because she isn’t in her cat bed. She’s become a feline aborigine and I do wish she wouldn’t keep going walkabout all the time. One of these days she is going to get herself lost and then who will she come meowing to, huh?
‘It’s only me,’ I say cautiously as my mum answers the phone, thankfully in her normal telephone voice.
‘Oh, hello darling, how are you? How did the TV thing go?’ My mum sounds very cheerful today.
‘Oh, good, yes, very good. Are you OK? Did you go to the high street?’ I venture.
‘Well I did, but I couldn’t see Marjorie. I phoned her when I got home and she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Are you sure it was her you saw?’
‘Yes, I’m sure, Mum. It was Marjorie, I’m positive.’
‘Oh well, perhaps it was just someone who looked like her. One of those double clangers, dear.’
‘A what?’
‘You know, a double clanger, someone who looks just like another person,’ my mum says.
‘You mean a doppelganger, Mum.’
‘Whatever. Anyway, come to think of it, I was walking by Marjorie’s house the other day and you wouldn’t believe the number of wine bottles that were on her doorstep! Hundreds of them. Maybe she’s having a clear out,’ my mum muses. ‘Oh, and you’ll never guess what …’ she begins again.
‘Go on.’ I hate my mum’s guessing games. No sooner do I start guessing than she gets excitable and says things like, “No, guess again.” This time, however, she doesn’t ask me to play the guessing game, so it must be some good newsworthy gossip.
‘Well, you know Mrs Horsham – the one who came to the séance the other week?’
‘The one with one leg shorter than the other?’
‘No, that’s Mrs Samuels. No, Mrs Horsham, you know, short brown hair, has one of those funny gold clips in the side all the time. The one whose husband goes sleepwalking at night.’
Oh Great, Now I Can See Dead People Page 10
