Page 122 of The Stranger in Room Six
‘Gerald,’ she says quietly.
Gerald?My eldest daughter has named her son after her father: the man I killed? The pain is so acute that I have toconcentrate on my breathing to calm down. That’s something I learned in prison. It stopped me hitting my head against the walls or thumping someone else’s.
I try to distract myself by concentrating on the practicalities. For a start, I need a mobile phone. My daughter goes with me to the shop, but getting a contract isn’t as easy as I thought. My bank account no longer exists and the young man looks uneasy when I give him the hostel address. In the end, I buy a cheap model from a supermarket. Elspeth also comes with me to the doctor’s, where I have to give a previous address. Reluctantly, I name the prison, and the receptionist visibly backs away. But, by law, she has to give me a doctor. I make an appointment for what they call a ‘general assessment’.
Elspeth takes me shopping and to the hairdresser. Afterwards she drops me back at the hostel, where she is clearly horrified at what she sees.
‘Our charity has a flat that might be available. I’ll come with you to your next probation meeting and we’ll talk about it.’
A fortnight later, it’s agreed. The flat is in a part of east London I’ve never been in before. But it’s clean and near a market where people are friendly. Where no one asks me questions. At first, the speed of life, the traffic that goes so fast, the people who push by, is all too much.
Often, I climb into bed at 7 p.m. and go to sleep, revelling in the luxury of clean sheets. But every morning I wake at 5.30 a.m. sharp, waiting for the ping of the electronic doors and the jostling queue for the bathroom. When it doesn’t come, it dawns on me that I am free.
Now that I have a phone and a laptop – Elspeth gave me her old one – I try to find Karen.
But I don’t know where to start. Technology has moved on so much in the last fifteen years.
I ask my daughter for help. ‘Mum,’ she says. ‘This isn’t a good idea. You know it isn’t.’
But I have to. I need peace of mind. I must find out exactly what happened. Only then can I attempt to forge ahead with my life.
At least, that’s what I tell her. The truth is that I want to make Karen pay, whatever the cost.
In the end, it’s easier than I thought to find a private detective online. When I explain, the woman at the other end seems to think my request is quite normal. I pay her with the money Elspeth has given me, plus my state benefits.
A month later, when I am at the universal credit office, my phone rings.
‘I’ve found her,’ says the woman. ‘Karen Greaves is in care, due to early onset dementia. You can find her at the Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart.’
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Of all the scenarios I’ve imagined (Karen marrying again; Karen moving abroad; Karen dying), this one has never crossed my mind. I think back to when I saw her in the street, just after I pushed Gerald. She looked at least ten to fifteen years younger than me, which would put her in her early fifties now. Yet I know that dementia can strike people earlier and earlier these days.
I Google the home, which appears to be in Devon. There’s an advert running down the side, looking for staff. I know that I can’t apply until I’ve passed my probation. So I wait.
I become a model ex-prisoner. Then, when the time is up, I apply. Sunnyside seems desperate for staff: I’m interviewed on the phone and then asked to provide a DBS certificate to show I have a clean record. What am I going to do? Then I remember the forger whom I’d helped as a Listener in prison. She had insisted on giving me her phone number ‘in case you ever need it’. She’s been released now and is happy to oblige for a fee. My DBS certificate duly arrives. I send it off to the home, convinced they’ll realize it’s a fake.
But within days, an email pings to say I have been successful in my application for a job as a carer.
It’s as simple as that.
Now
Mabel’s expression is as though someone has just stolen her last chocolate ginger biscuit, only to give her a whole packet instead.
‘Karen Greaves? That woman who throws food at people one minute and is all sweet the next, isyourKaren?’
I flinch. ‘Not mine.’
‘Your husband’s, then. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound insensitive.’
Not for the first time, I’m wondering why I’ve laid my soul bare to someone I barely know. Yet maybe that’s why; it’s a relief to tell someone who doesn’t seem to judge me. Besides, Idoknow Mabel, in a way, through her stories.
‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ says Mabel. ‘I think it was meant to be that you found Karen and then almost immediately there was a job going here at Sunnyside. Fate can be very clever sometimes.’
Her eyes sparkle with interest. ‘I was watching you with her last week. I noticed that when she reached out her hand for support, you didn’t want to take it. I thought it was out of character, but now I know she was the woman who had gone off with your husband, I understand.’
Mabel may be almost ninety-nine but she’s frighteningly quick on the uptake. Then her eyes narrowed. ‘Is that why you came here with that fake certificate of yours? To hurt Karen?’
