Jen interrupted. “He’s not English. Eastern European, I think, and he doesn’t really talk. He says ‘Good Morning’ if you speak to him and it’s a very thick accent. I mean, very heavy. He only does a few days a week. I don’t see him every day. He’s not on the staff, I don’t think. He’d have been checked, though, DBS and all of that, so he’ll have passed various checks.”
“And there was that man who came and sang songs. From the 1960s,” Sally said. “On that Sunday teatime. Mr Lodge was at that because I remember him trying to sing along with some of the songs. The singer, I forget the name, got them all clapping. I hadn’t seen him before. He’s not a regular. He did one or two Elvis Presley songs and did an impression and jiggled about a bit … a few of the old folks seemed to remember him, Elvis, and laughed.”
“How old was the singer, young, old?” Carrie pressed.
Sally and Jen looked at each other. “Fifty?” said one. “Sixty?” said the other. They both smiled.
“He was in his fifties, maybe?” Jen said, glancing towards Gayther, who gazed back at her with a blank expression. “But he dressed quite young, in denims.”
“And this was the day before or the day after the fete?” quizzed Carrie.
“The day after,” both Sally and Jen said.
“You haven’t told anyone this before?” asked Gayther.
“Well, no,” replied Jen. “No one asked.”
“Oh, and there was that visitor who came to see Mrs Smith. Do you remember, Jen? Perhaps we should have mentioned him to someone before,” Sally said. “That would have been the day after the fete, her nephew, was it? He came to see her out of the blue. It was so sad. She had no idea who he was. I’m not sure he knew her very well either as he went into Miss Bright’s room first and was talking to her by mistake. He hadn’t seen her for years.”
“That’s right,” replied Jen. “I’d forgotten him. Karen had taken him in and thought it was very funny. She said he then started to ask if there was a vicar in the home who could say a prayer. Karen said there was one in the room above but that he couldn’t be disturbed as he’d be taking a nap at the time. He then left and said he’d come back. I don’t know that he did, though. Karen left a week or two after, so we can’t ask her for you.”
There was a moment’s silence and then, as Carrie, Sally and Jen all turned towards DI Gayther, expecting him to speak, to ask more questions, the door was opened again and Mrs Coombes was standing there. “All done?” she said. It was more of a statement of fact than a question. She stood in silence as Gayther thought and then slowly nodded his agreement, farewells were said, and Sally and Jen slipped away.
* * *
“All good?” said Mrs Coombes once Sally and Jen had left the room. “Are we finished now?” She smiled, her words sounding more like an instruction than a question.
Gayther nodded again and moved, with Carrie close behind, to the door and out. The three of them walked alongside each other towards the stairs at the far end of the corridor, taking them to the reception where they had entered the building.
As they were about halfway along, an elderly woman, in her late eighties or so, and using a frame, came out of her room, accompanied by a young, dark-haired female care assistant. The old woman stopped and peered at Mrs Coombes.
“Is my daughter dead?” she asked, her voice raised and cracking with emotion.
Mrs Coombes slowed in front of the old woman and then turned towards her. Gayther wondered, from her manner, whether she would have just brushed by and ignored the woman had they not been there.
“Jean says my daughter is dead. Is that true?” The elderly woman was close to sobbing out the words.
Mr Coombes looked at the care assistant. “Jean?” she asked.
The young care assistant shook her head, as if to dismiss the matter, then said quietly, “Miss Baker, Dot’s friend, can be …” her voice dropped and she mouthed the last word “… mean.”
“Who is your daughter?” asked Mrs Coombes. “What is her name? I will check for you.”
The elderly woman stopped and Gayther could see she was thinking, searching for a name or even a word or a phrase, something to say back. Mrs Coombes stood there, waiting, and Gayther could sense the impatience in this dismissive woman.
The elderly woman spoke again at last, bewildered now, uncertain. “I … I don’t know …” She thought for a while longer and Gayther could see Mrs Coombes’ patience running out. “Is my daughter dead?”
Mrs Coombes smiled tightly and answered her, “I’ll go and find out for you and let you know. Don’t worry. I’m sure all is well.”
As the three of them reached the doors to the stairs, Mrs Coombes pressed 6 9 2 1 on a keypad to let them through and then turned and said, “It’s sad, isn’t it, that they come to this?”
“Is her daughter dead?” asked Carrie.
Mrs Coombes laughed drily. “I doubt it … I’m not sure she even has a daughter. It’s something of a madhouse in here. An Alice in Wonderland world. We have an old headmistress who goes round opening and shutting windows for no apparent reason. Another old lady, strong as an ox, lets off fire extinguishers. Another who heads for the fire escape every chance she gets. That old woman … she’ll have forgotten all about it in five minutes, they always do.”
“Mrs Coombes,” asked Gayther as they walked down the stairs, “before we go, I have a couple of things I want to follow up.”
Gayther saw the flash of annoyance, anger even, in Mrs Coombes’ eyes as she turned and
