The Turn of the Key

by Ruth Ware

  It wasn’t. Just a child’s drawing. At least . . .

  I picked up the phone again, angling the torch at the page, looking more closely at the picture.

  It was hardly a work of art, just stick figures and thick crayoned lines. It showed a house with four windows and a shiny black front door, not unlike Heatherbrae. The windows were colored in black, all except for one, which showed a tiny pale face peeping out of the darkness.

  It was oddly disconcerting, but there was no name signed to it, and no way of knowing why it was in the bedside drawer. I turned it over, looking for clues. There was writing on the other side. It wasn’t a child’s but an adult’s—sloped and looping and somehow non-English in a way I couldn’t quite define.

  To the new nanny, it read in neat, regular italics. My name is Katya. I am writing you this note because I wanted to tell you to please be

  And then it stopped.

  I frowned. Who was Katya? The name rang a bell, and then I remembered Sandra’s voice at dinner saying but with Katya leaving—she was our last nanny . . .

  So Katya had lived here. Slept here even. But what had she wanted to say to her successor? And had she run out of time, or thought better of what she was about to say?

  Please be . . . kind to the children? Please be . . . happy here? Please be . . . sure to tell Sandra you like dogs?

  It could have been anything. So why was the phrase that kept hovering on the tip of my tongue please be careful?

  The two taken together, the eerie little drawing and the unfinished note, gave me a strange feeling that I could not put my finger on. Something like uneasiness, though I could not have said why.

  Well, whatever it was she had wanted to say, it was too late now.

  I folded the drawing and slipped it back into the drawer. Then I switched off my phone, pulled the covers up to my chin, and tried to forget everything that hung in the balance and sleep.

  When I woke, it was to the insistent shrill beep of my alarm, and for a moment I could not think where I was, or why I was so tired. Then I remembered. I was in Scotland. And it was 6:00 a.m.—a full hour and a half earlier than I was accustomed to waking up.

  I sat up, smoothing my rumpled hair and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Downstairs I could hear thumps and shrill sounds of excitement. It sounded as though the children were probably up. . . .

  The curtains were blackout, but the sunshine was already streaming through the gaps around the edges, and, forcing my legs out of bed, I walked across and tried to pull them open, before remembering the previous night.

  “Curtains open,” I said aloud, feeling more than slightly stupid, and they swooshed apart like a magician’s trick. I don’t know what I was expecting, but whatever it was, I was not prepared for the reality.

  The beauty of the scene in front of me took my breath away.

  The house had been perfectly sited by some long-dead Victorian architect to gaze out across an uninterrupted vista of blue hills, green valleys, and deep-verdant pine forests. On and on it stretched, the rolling foothills punctuated by little dark burns that rambled here and there, and the corrugated roofs of faraway crofts, and a few miles away a loch, reflecting the morning sun so brightly it looked like a patch of snow. In the distance, presiding above it all, were the Cairngorms—Gaelic for the blue mountains, according to Google.

  When I had looked up the origin of their name, the translation had seemed faintly absurd. The photos online showed all the colors you might expect—green grass, brown bracken, reddish earth with the occasional purple splotch of heather, and in winter a covering of crisp white. The idea that they were blue seemed fanciful in the extreme.

  But here, with the mist rising from their slopes in the morning sun, and the dawn pink still tingeing the sky behind them, they did look blue. Not the brackeny foothills, but the unforgiving granite slopes themselves, all jagged crags and peaks, far above the tree line. The highest peak looked like it was tipped with snow, even in June.

  I felt my heart lift, and then I heard a noise in the garden below and looked down.

  It was Jack Grant. He was walking across from a huddle of outbuildings tucked just around the corner of the house. His hair was wet, as if he had just showered, and he was holding a bag of tools in his hand. For a minute I watched him, staring down at the top of his dark head, before it began to feel more than a little voyeuristic, and I turned away from the window to head to the bathroom for my own shower.

  Inside it was dark, and I automatically felt around for a switch, before I remembered the damn panel. At my touch it leapt into life, presenting me again with that confusing mosaic of squares, sliders, and dots. I pressed one at random, hoping I wasn’t going to get more Miles Davis. I had been aiming for the same one I’d pressed yesterday, but evidently I’d missed my mark, because low blue lights suddenly illuminated the baseboards. Some sort of night setting, for if you wanted to go to the loo while your partner was asleep? Not bright enough to shower by, at all events.

  The next button I tried made the blue lights disappear, and two low, golden lamps came on over the bath, suffusing my skin with a warm, flattering glow. It was exactly what I would have wanted if I was soaking in a long bubble bath, but the shower enclosure was still dark, and I needed something brighter and more . . . well, more morningish.

  I found it on the fourth or fifth try—a setting that was bright, but not agonizingly so, with an illuminated rim around the mirror perfect for doing my makeup. With a sigh of relief I dropped my robe to the floor and stepped into the shower, only to be faced with a different challenge. There was a dazzling array of nozzles, spouts, and showerheads. The question was, how did you operate them? The answer seemed to be yet another panel, a waterproof one this time, set in among the shower tiles. When I touched it, letters appeared. Good morning, Katya.

  The name gave me a funny little jolt, and I remembered again that unfinished note on the child’s drawing, from the night before. There was a smiley face and little down button. Well, I wasn’t Katya. I pressed the down button, and the letters changed. Good morning, Jo. I pressed again. Good morning, Lauren. Good morning, Holly. Good morning, guest.

  There were no more options. Guest it was, then. I pressed the smiley face. Nothing happened. Instead, the display changed to those cryptic dots, squares, and sliders. I pressed one at random and screeched when about twenty forceful jets of ice-cold water blasted my stomach and thighs. Hastily I mashed the off switch to the left of the panel and the jets turned off, leaving me panting and shivering, and more than a little annoyed.

  Okay. Fine. Maybe I should try a preset option, until I had figured out how to work this thing. I touched the panel and Good morning, Katya flashed up again. This time with a feeling of slight trepidation, I pressed the smiley face, and the message We’re preparing your favorite shower. Wash Happy! appeared on the screen. As the message faded away, to my astonishment, one of the showerheads slid smoothly upwards to a preprogrammed height, tilted to an angle, and a jet of warm water began to gush out. I stood for a moment, gaping, and then tested the water with one hand. Whoever Katya was, she had been very tall, and she liked her showers a little bit hotter than I did. I could have put up with the heat, but unfortunately she was so tall that the jet missed the top of my head completely and bounced off the glass screen opposite, which was going to make washing my hair very tricky.

  I pressed the off button and tried again. This time I selected Good morning, Holly at random and waited, teeth gritted, for the result.

  Bingo. Holly’s setting turned out to be set to a kind of hot drenching rain from the grid overhead, which was . . . well, it was glorious. There was no other word for it. The water gushed out with an almost absurd abundance, soaking me with warmth. I felt the hot water drumming on the top of my skull, driving out the last remnants of my sleepiness and last night’s red wine. Holly, whoever she was, had clearly been a woman after my own heart. I shampooed my hair, conditioned, and then rinsed, and then stood, my eyes closed
, simply enjoying the feel of the water on my naked skin.

  The temptation to stay there, reveling in the luxury, was very strong, but it had taken me probably ten minutes to even figure out the bathroom. If I wasted any more time, I would render that early alarm pointless. There was no point in forcing myself out of bed at the crack of dawn if I didn’t make an appearance and ram my enthusiasm home to Sandra.

  With a sense of resignation, I pressed the off button on the panel, reached out for the fluffy white towel warming on the heated rail, and reminded myself that if I pulled this off, it wouldn’t be the last time I got to enjoy that shower. Very far from it.

  * * *

  Venturing downstairs, the first thing that greeted me was the smell of toast and the sound of children laughing. When I rounded the corner of the bottom of the stairs, I was met by a very small tartan dressing gown abandoned on the bottom step and a single slipper in the middle of the hall. Picking both up, I made my way through to the kitchen, where Sandra was standing in front of a huge gleaming chrome toaster, holding a piece of brown bread and waving it at the two little girls in bright red pajamas sitting at the metal breakfast bar. Their curly heads, one dark, the other white-blond, were tousled with sleep, and they were both giggling helplessly.

  “Don’t encourage her! She’ll only do it again.”

  “Do what again?” I said, and Sandra turned.

  “Oh, Rowan! Gosh, you’re up early. I hope the girls didn’t wake you. We’re still trying to train certain members of the family to stay in bed past six a.m. . . .” She nodded pointedly at the younger of the two girls, the one with white-blond hair.

  “It’s fine,” I said truthfully, adding, slightly less accurately, “I’m a naturally early riser.”

  “Well, that’s certainly a good talent to have in this house,” Sandra said with a sigh. She was wearing a dressing gown and looked more than a little harassed.

  “Petra threw her porridge,” said the girl, with a gurgling laugh, pointing at the pink-cheeked baby sitting in the high chair at the corner, and I saw that she was right. There was a dollop of porridge the size of an egg sliding down the front of the stove to plop onto the concrete floor, and Petra was crowing with delight and scooping up another spoonful, ready to throw it again.

  “Peta frow!” she said, and took aim.

  “Uh-uh,” I said with a smile, and held out my hand for the spoon. “Petra, give it here, please!”

  The baby looked at me uncertainly for a moment, sizing me up, her faint blond brows drawn into an adorable frown, and then her chubby face split in a grin and she repeated, “Peta frow!” and launched the porridge towards me.

  I dodged, but not quick enough, and it hit me full in the chest.

  At first I just gasped, and then a wave of absolute fury rose up inside me when I realized what she had done. Stupidly I hadn’t brought a spare outfit, and yesterday’s top was crumpled and had a red-wine stain on the top that I didn’t remember making but must have done so.

  I had literally no clean clothes left. I was going to be covered in porridge for the rest of the day. The little shit.

  It was the younger of the two girls who saved me. She burst out giggling and then clapped her hands over her mouth, as if horrified.

  I remembered who I was, where I was, why I was here.

  I forced a smile.

  “It’s okay,” I said to the little girl. “Ellie, isn’t it? You can laugh. It is pretty funny.”

  She took her hands away and gave a cautious grin.

  “Oh my God,” Sandra said with a kind of weary resignation. “Rowan, I am so sorry. They talk about the terrible twos, but I swear, Petra’s been auditioning for them for six months. Is your top okay?”

  “Sandra, don’t give it a second thought,” I said. The top was not going to be okay, at least not until I could wash it, and possibly not even then. It was a silk blouse, dry-clean only, a stupid choice for a nannying interview, but I hadn’t thought about the fact that I would be interacting with the kids. Maybe I could get a small moral advantage from the situation. “Honestly, these things happen when you have kids, right? It’s only porridge! However—” I leaned over and took the bowl of porridge away from Petra before she realized what was happening and put it out of her reach. “I think you’ve had enough, little Miss Petra, so maybe I’ll take charge of that while I clean up. Where’s your mop, Sandra, and I’ll clean up that blob on the floor before one of the girls slips on it.”

  “It’s in the utility room, that door there,” Sandra said, with a grateful smile. “Thank you so much, Rowan. I honestly wasn’t expecting you to start pitching in unpaid, this is beyond the call of duty.”

  “I’m glad to help,” I said firmly. I ruffled Petra’s hair as I passed with an affection I didn’t entirely feel, and gave Ellie a little wink. Maddie was not looking at me; she was staring down at her plate as though the whole thing had passed her by. Maybe she was ashamed at her earlier role, egging Petra on.

  The utility room turned out to be in the older part of the house—probably the original scullery judging by the Victorian sink and stone-flagged floor—but I wasn’t in the mood to appreciate architectural details. Instead, I shut the door behind me and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to rid myself of the last of my irritation, and then set to work trying to rescue my top. The worst of the porridge flicked off into the sink, but I was going to have to sponge the rest. After several tries that only succeeded in getting porridgy water onto my skirt, I pushed a mop against the handle of the kitchen door and peeled off my top.

  I was standing there in my bra and skirt, dabbing at the porridgy patch under the tap and trying not to get the rest of the shirt wetter than necessary, when I heard a sound from the other side of the utility room and turned to see the door to the yard open and Jack Grant come in, wiping his hands on his overall trousers.

  “Mower’s going, San—” he called, and then broke off, his eyes widening in shock. A vivid blush spread across his broad cheekbones.

  I gave a yelp of surprise and clutched my wet top to my breasts, trying my best to preserve my modesty.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Jack said. He was covering his eyes, looking at the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but me. His cheeks were flaming. “I’ll—I’ll be—so sorry—”

  And then he turned and fled, slamming the yard door behind him, leaving me gasping and not sure whether to laugh or cry.

  There was not much point in either, so I hastily dried my wet top with a towel hanging over the radiator, filled up the mop bucket, and then made my way back to the kitchen with my cheeks almost as pink as Jack’s.

  “Shirt fixed?” Sandra said over her shoulder as I came in. “Let me get you a coffee.”

  “Yes.” I was not sure whether to tell her what had just happened. Had she heard my squeak of surprise? Would Jack say something? “Sandra, I—”

  But then my nerve failed me. I couldn’t think of a way of saying, Sandra, I just boob-flashed your handyman, without sounding hopelessly unprofessional. I felt the blush on my face deepen in shame at the thought of it. I could not bring it up. I would just have to hope that Jack was enough of a gentleman not to refer to it himself.

  “Milk and sugar?” Sandra said absently, and I set the conversation aside.

  “Milk, thanks,” I said, and put down the mop bucket and began clearing up Petra’s missiles from the stove and floor, feeling my cheeks cool as I worked.

  At last, when the coffee had come through and I was seated at the table, eating a piece of excellent toast and marmalade, I was almost able to pretend it had never happened.

  “So,” Sandra said, wiping her hands on a cloth. “Girls. I didn’t get a chance to introduce you to Rowan. She’s come to have a look around our house and meet you. Say hello.”

  “Hi,” Maddie muttered, though she said it more to her plate than me. She looked younger than her eight years, with her dark hair and a sallow little face. Beneath the countertop I could see two skinny kne
es, covered in scabs.

  “Hello, Maddie,” I said, with what I hoped was a winning smile, but she kept her eyes firmly down. Ellie was easier; she was looking at me with frank curiosity from beneath her white-blond fringe. “Hello, Ellie. How old are you?”

  “I’m five,” Ellie said. Her blue eyes were round as buttons. “Are you going to be our new nanny?”

  “I—” I stopped short, not sure what to say. Would I hope so come across as too nakedly pleading?

  “Maybe,” Sandra cut in, firmly. “Rowan hasn’t decided yet whether she wants to work here, so we must be very well behaved to impress her!”

  She gave me a little sideways wink.

  “I tell you what, run upstairs and get dressed, and then we can show Rowan around.”

  “What about Petra?” Ellie asked.

  “I’ll sort her out. Go on—chop-chop.”

  The two girls slid obediently off the tall stools and pattered away across the hallway and up the stairs. Sandra watched them go, fondly.

  “Gosh, they’re very good!” I said, genuinely impressed. I had nannied enough children to know that five-year-olds getting dressed on command definitely wasn’t a given. Even eight-year-olds tended to need supervision. Sandra rolled her eyes.

  “They know not to play up in front of visitors. But let’s see if they’re actually doing as they’re told . . .”

  She pressed a button on an iPad lying on the counter, and a picture flickered into view. It was a children’s bedroom, the camera obviously sited up near the ceiling, pointing downwards at two little beds. There was no sound, but the noise of a door slamming was loud enough to filter down the stairs, and a teddy bear on the mantelpiece rocked and fell. As we watched, Maddie stamped angrily into view at the bottom of the screen and sat crossly on the left-hand bed, her arms folded. Sandra pressed something else and the camera zoomed in on Maddie’s face, or rather the top of her head, for she was looking down at her lap. There was a faint crackle coming from the iPad now, as if a microphone had been switched on.