by Agatha Frost
“And you think it was the nurse?”
“I saw her,” – Adrienne snapped the lid back on – “creeping around in here the other night.”
“Haven’t you told anyone?” Percy urged. “That’s theft.”
“They think I’m crackers!” Adrienne laughed. “My family tells me I’m losing my mind, I’m not what I was. I’m being difficult. I’ll admit, these stronger pills they’ve had me on since then feel great, but I know what I saw.”
“Which nurse?”
“Hannah.” Adrienne nodded at the door. “We should go through. Bingo is starting soon, and all the good tables will be taken.”
Despite not having played bingo in years, it only took Dot the first card to find her mojo again. Most of the local bingo halls had shut down years ago – the game wasn’t as fashionable as it once was – but Dot had always loved the excitement. The race to find the numbers, the thrill of getting so close to completing a line, the frustration of being just one number away when somebody else shouted—
“Bingo!” Adrienne called out, jumping up and waving her card in the air. “Third time lucky!”
Adrienne headed down the middle aisle with a spring in her step as people clapped. The announcer checked over her card and, after a few awkward moments, handed it back to Adrienne with a forced smile and gave her one of the shower-gift-set prizes. When she came back, Dot glanced at her card, sure half of those numbers hadn’t been called out in that round.
If they had, she’d missed them herself.
The more relaxed they became around each other, the more Adrienne talked. She was clearly occupied with her cat-burglar. The more she talked, the more Dot realised it was a serious problem for her, and when they finished their final card hours after their first, Adrienne slid the cap onto her dabber and said, “It’s just … I fear absolutely nobody is on my side.”
That wouldn’t stand. Dot had to do something.
Leaving Adrienne to go back to her room, Dot walked Percy to the front door.
“I need to stay and see if I can help her,” she said after hugging him on the doorstep. “She needs to have someone on her side.”
“But visiting is almost over.”
“I’ll blend in.” She glanced over her shoulder as more families made their way through the foyer. “As you said, these are our people. I’ll call if anything happens.”
“Stay safe, my Dorothy.” Percy clutched her hands and kissed them. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
While Percy walked the short distance back to the centre of the village, Dot took advantage of all the comings and goings and snuck back in. Rather than lingering around the recreational area, she returned to Room 31.
“Dorothy?” Adrienne gasped as Dot slipped through the door. “You’re still here?”
“Thought I’d spend the day with you,” she said, closing the door. “Like old times. If it’s not too much trouble?”
Adrienne’s face lit up. Dot wasn’t leaving Oakwood Nursing Home until she was sure her old friend was safe.
Blending in wasn’t quite what Dot expected.
First, it was scarily easy. Neither staff nor residents spared her a second look, so it was a good job she was there for a noble cause. The ease with which she could go unseen added more credibility to Adrienne’s accusations, as did her observations of Hannah.
From bingo to chair aerobics to singing show tunes around the piano, Dot kept her eyes trained on the nurse. Hannah showed very little patience, snapping and raising her voice more than once.
Phil the Pill Man was another of Dot’s targets.
Earlier, he’d come across as jolly.
Too jolly.
Too keen to get Dot to move in, and too quick to dismiss Adrienne when she brought up the topic of Hannah. He brought pills twice more during the day, and neither acknowledged the accusations.
The topic barely came up between Dot and Adrienne, either, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They had a lot of fun reminiscing about experiences long past sunset. When it came time for Dot to enact the plan she’d cooked up throughout the day, she didn’t regret anything about how she had spent Boxing Day.
“Admit it,” Adrienne said as they hugged at the side door through which Dot was sneaking, “you’ve had fun.”
“I can’t deny it.”
“Say you’ll consider it.”
Dot inhaled deeply, but she couldn’t bring herself to make such a promise. Adrienne had spent a good deal of the evening bemoaning her lot, complaining how little she liked the other residents, and repeating how terribly dull and boring her life had become, evidently to convince Dot to give the place a chance.
“Maybe one day,” Dot replied evasively as she pulled away from the hug. “I’ll let you get to bed. It’s getting late.”
“Don’t be a stranger.” Adrienne clutched Dot’s arms, her eyes pleading. “You’re welcome to visit any time.”
That promise was one Dot was happy to make before she walked off into the night. Instead of following the directions Adrienne had given her to join up with the road back to the village, Dot stuck to the shadows and circled the building, checking the windows as she went. Through one, she saw Hannah and Phil in a quiet corner, laughing – something she’d witnessed several times already.
In position, Dot checked her watch. She ducked behind a bush when, bang on at quarter past, another nurse, Stephanie, came out for her hourly cigarette. The grizzled nurse barely seemed to work and was closer in age and mobility to the residents than her co-workers, but she didn’t miss her quarter past the hour cigarette for anything.
After Stephanie tossed the cigarette into the dark, she shuffled back into the recreational room, letting the heavy door close itself, just as she had done every other time. Dot snuck through before it closed and headed straight for the hiding spot behind the large sofa that she’d staked out earlier.
Peeping over the top, she saw three residents still sitting in front of the flickering television. Whether by design or coincidence, they were all fast asleep. On the other side of the room, Phil and Hannah continued to talk and laugh in hushed tones. Hannah was behind the nurses’ station, flicking through a magazine, but her gaze never shifted away from Phil.
Dot remained in her spot, struggling to stay awake as she waited for the room to clear – long enough for Stephanie to come out for another cigarette. Close to midnight, the three sleeping tods were finally woken and relocated to their bedrooms.
With the television turned off, only the odd, low-watt table lamp lit Dot’s way. Luckily, her vision was still spot on – not that she knew where to go. She’d enacted all the points of her plan; the rest was up to her intuition.
Crouched as low as she could, Dot scurried behind the nurse’s station the moment Hannah walked towards the corridor containing Adrienne’s room. Perhaps Hannah was planning another theft. Dot rummaged around in the mess, searching for clues. There were magazines, tonnes of patient files, and random medical items. She came across some change, but not enough worth claiming it had been stolen.
Leaving the station empty-handed, she continued around the room and pressed against the wall next to the corridor. Craning her neck, she watched Hannah pop her head into each room. She reached Room 31 and did the same; she didn’t enter.
Sensing that Hannah might be planning to commit her theft in the dead of night, Dot turned on her heel and headed to the cleaning cupboard she’d staked out as another potential hiding spot.
“He bought me the cheapest necklace,” a youthful voice said, closer than Dot felt comfortable with. “Tacky, too. It was probably on sale. Glad I never bought him anything now.”
A young nurse turned into the recreational room, stopping dead in her tracks when faced with Dot. She quickly lowered the phone that had been to her ear.
“You alright?” she asked. “Are you lost?”
“Yes,” Dot replied quickly, deciding to play into it. “But I’ve just remembered where my
room is. This way.”
“There are no rooms that way,” the girl said, stepping to the side and blocking Dot’s path. “Back down there and take a left. What number are you in?”
“Ah, you’re right!” Dot turned, lowering her head so the girl couldn’t take too long a look. “Silly me.”
Scurrying off as fast as she dared, Dot cast a swift glance at Hannah, back at her station, but the nurse was engrossed in her mobile phone. Once down the corridor, Dot opened the first door that didn’t have a room number on it and stepped into total darkness, hoping for another cleaning cupboard.
Unlike the rest of the big building, this was the first room she’d entered that didn’t have the radiators blasting. Not that she knew for certain she was in a room at all from the total darkness engulfing her. She waited for her eyes to adapt, but nothing happened. When she tried to leave, the door was locked behind her.
Had she just gone through a fire door?
Inching her foot forward, the toe of her shoe kicked something. A step. She lifted her leg, and then again, and her fingertips found the wall. She climbed the pitch-black staircase, following as it wrapped around itself and back up again. When she felt she’d climbed as high as the building would go, a faint green light finally gave her straining eyes a reprieve.
Teeth chattering, she pushed her hands out in front of her and went through another metal fire door. Dot let out a strained laugh as the icy December air stung her cheeks.
“Of course I’m on the roof,” she whispered as she stepped through and let the door fall shut behind her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Dot was no fool.
Sneaking around was one thing, but this was another entirely. If she couldn’t find another way down, she’d start screaming bloody murder over the edge until someone found her.
Surely in a building this big, someone somewhere would hear her.
But that would put an end to her investigation, and she was still none the wiser as to what was going on. Putting a pin in the idea, she set off around the circumference of the roof. There were more one-way fire doors and ducts to who knew where, but no simple way out presented itself.
“What are you doing?” she moaned as the shivering became unbearable even through her heavy winter coat.
Panic rising, Dot crept to the decorative stone edge. She was just about to scream for help when movement below caught her eye. Lit only by the bright moon, a familiar navy-blue uniform hurried across the frosty grass. The nurse glanced around but never up at Dot. Curious, Dot followed Hannah’s progress all the way to the small bandstand tucked away under a canopy of stark, winter-bare trees.
There, Hannah embraced someone. Dot had a good idea who; she’d only seen one person with a bright white beard at the nursing home.
“So, that explains all the laughing when they think no one is looking,” Dot whispered, dropping her gaze to the more immediate vicinity. “If Hannah stole Adrienne’s things, then – Oh, hello!”
As she leaned further over the balustrade, she realised the balcony wasn’t as far down as she would have assumed. Making a jump for it would almost definitely have resulted in several broken bones – and if she missed and hit the ground, well. That wasn’t an option.
If she made it down the trellis, however, she might just keep her cover.
“I’ve lost the plot.”
Inhaling deeply, Dot climbed over the cold stone, glad of the clement weather. Given how much her fingers shook as she crawled down the trellis, one gust of wind would have blown her off. When her feet touched the stone beneath without incident, she let out the breath she’d held the entire way down.
“Was that you on the roof?” a woman in a nightie asked through the patio doors as she stared at Dot. “I heard banging.”
“It was,” she said, rubbing her icy arms. “Can I come in? It’s a little cold out here.”
Without thinking twice, the woman unlocked the doors. Before the questions could come, Dot zipped across the bedroom and through the door on the other side. This woman’s room was twice as grand as Adrienne’s, but evidently the upstairs residents paid double what those downstairs shelled out.
Heart racing and thankful for her return to the warmth of the radiators, Dot tried to find her bearings. She sighed her relief when the extensive network of staircases and corridors spat her back into the recreational room.
Hannah had returned to the nurse’s station, smiling as she looked down at her phone.
A guilty smile.
It was all so clear now.
Phil and Hannah were obviously lovers about to run off into the sunset with the money they’d raised from the stolen items. Just as Dot had done for much of the day, they could move around unseen and unnoticed, covering for each other to keep their evil plot under wraps until they were ready to make their big escape.
Dot would confront them about their antics.
But first, she had inform Adrienne that she wasn’t losing her mind.
Using the furniture for cover, Dot manoeuvred around the room. She paused for several minutes when another nurse came in with a portable vacuum cleaner and went over several armchairs. When she finally left, Dot ran for Adrienne’s corridor and straight down to her room.
She opened the door without knocking and immediately wished she hadn’t.
“Dot?” Adrienne, on her knees in the corner, held one corner of the peeled-back carpet. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone!”
“I stuck around,” Dot said, creeping into the dark. “I just saw Hannah and Phil being intimate. I was about to tell you I think they’re behind your missing items, but…”
Dot peered into the corner, where a missing floorboard revealed a small pile of money and jewellery concealed in the space between the beams. Adrienne let the carpet flap back into place and stood with Dot’s help. Once on her feet, she strode to the window and stared out into the darkness.
“You must think I’m an old fool,” she said, hugging herself.
“Aren’t we all?” Dot joined her at the window. “Are you the cat-burglar?”
“Oh, I feel so silly.” Adrienne covered her face with a hand. “What have I done?”
As Adrienne sank into her chair, Dot bid farewell to the fantastical plot concerning the staff; thinking about it, she had no evidence other than a secret smooch at the bottom of the garden, anyway.
“Yes, I’m afraid it is me,” Adrienne said finally. “You have to believe me, Dot, I never meant for it to go this far.”
“Tell me what happened.” She paused, and added, “I won’t judge.”
“I think I was sleepwalking the first time,” Adrienne said after gathering her thoughts. “Either that or I really am losing myself. I remembered seeing someone, a woman, so vividly. I thought it was Hannah. I was so sure.” Adrienne glanced at the corner, and then lifted her gaze to the large mirror on the wall above it. “One morning, the thought to check the corner came to me. I used to keep money there when I had enough savings to care about. I haven’t used it in years, but my stuff was there.”
“Why didn’t you just admit the truth then?”
“Because … because…” Adrienne inhaled deeply, her eyes finally landing on Dot. “Because for a moment, I felt like I had people’s attention. I didn’t realise how long it had been. It gets lonely here. I’ve slept alone, sandwiched between these same walls, every night since my family dumped me here nine years ago. And the gaps between visits only get longer.” She dropped her gaze. “I couldn’t seem to stop myself. The rush of being the only person who knew the truth was intoxicating. I feel so helpless sometimes, and it gave me some control. It was … exciting. I’ve missed excitement.”
“Oh, Adrienne.” Dot reached across the table and clutched her hand. “What about Hannah?”
“I wouldn’t have let it go that far,” she replied. “If trouble ever landed on her, I would have confessed. I should have confessed, but after all the time I’d spent shouting my mouth off about a thief, i
t was easier to keep going with it. I’m afraid I viewed the whole thing as a silly game.” She paused and allowed herself to smile. “I enjoyed today so much. I went back and forth on what I should do. I decided I would take them out and say someone had returned them to me to put the whole thing to bed. I had no idea you’d be here to catch me in the act.”
“I thought I was coming to tell you I’d figured it out. I saw Hannah and Phil embracing outside.”
“They’re always flirting with each other,” she said with a cheeky smile. “They think no one can tell. It’s sweet. Those days are long behind us, aren’t they? Well, not for you. You’ve gone and found yourself a husband at the eleventh hour, and I can’t say I blame you.” She exhaled heavily. “I’m sorry, Dorothy. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. Truth be told, I never thought you’d turn up today.”
“You invited me.”
“I invited a lot of people,” she said, casting an eye at the leftover pens. “I was sure no one would come. You were my wildcard invitation. I almost didn’t send it. I was ashamed of how long it had been since I contacted you.”
“Then I guess we’re both old fools,” Dot said, “because I felt the same.”
“We’re here now, though.” Adrienne turned her face towards the window and gazed up at the moon. “This view might be the same one I see every night, but it feels all the sweeter when I have someone here to enjoy it.”
Dot glanced at the door, a naughty idea forming.
“Can you be away from here for a night?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then pack an overnight bag,” she said, already standing. “We’re breaking you out – and believe me, considering what I’ve been up to tonight, this place is no Fort Knox.”
Dot awoke the morning after Boxing Day with a guest in her spare bedroom. Percy cooked a full traditional fry-up, and after calling Oakwood to stop them from sending out a search party, they spent the morning laughing and joking about old times. When Adrienne had pushed the upper limit of how long she could put off going back to take her medication, they called her a taxi.
