“No.” Deniro frowns. “I saw Raff walk down to the kitchen earlier. He was looking a bit strange.”
“Strange, how?” Shirley looks up from her book.
“Dodgy.” Deniro mimes furtive glances from the side to side, slightly ducking his head.
“We should look for her. Would you help, my dear?” Gethin presses the lever and his electric wheelchair turns around. “I need you to hold doors open for me.”
I slip off my coat because as usual the place is stifling hot, and follow him.
We go up in the lift to the first floor where there are bedroom doors with numbers. When we get to number 17, he stops. “That’s her.” He points.
I knock but there’s no answer. “Hello? Philomena? Bill?”
Still no answer.
Behind us, the lift doors open again as Shirley, Vanessa and Deniro have followed us. All with worried expressions.
“You’d better go in,” Gethin tells me. “I can’t, it’s a woman’s room.”
I want to say Gethin doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to have scruples about entering a woman’s room, but in spite of myself I too am starting to worry. I turn the handle, knocking at the same time. “Philomena, are you here? Do you mind if—oh?”
The short scream escapes from my throat before I’ve even understood the scene in front of me.
The room is in disarray, clothes and books knocked off tables and shelves and strewn all over the floor. Philomena herself lies diagonally across her bed, a towel is stuffed in her mouth. Her skin is so pale it’s almost blue. There’s a red slash across her throat, and blood stains her neck and the front of her dress.
Before I can scream again, someone behinds me snorts, and I wheel around,, but it’s only Deniro. He coughs into his hand and doesn’t meet my eyes.
“He’s killed her!” Shirley wails, wringing her hands and staring with wide eyes.
I haven’t seen such bad acting since primary school nativity plays.
When I turn back to the bedroom, Philomena’s corpse is shaking with suppressed laughter.
My heart slows down from a fast panic. “Oh, you horrible people, that’s…that’s…” I can’t say what I really want because it would be rude to swear at elderly people. But in my mind there is a string of #$&%$#@!!!!!!
Gethin laughs so hard, he rocks back and forth in his wheelchair.
Vanessa, too, leans on the doorframe with one arm to stop herself doubling over. Even Deniro, serious, clever Deniro guffaws.
“Ho, ho! My goodness!” Shirley clutches her throat. “Sorry, my dear.”
“What the bloody hell?” Bill comes out of another door. He looks around. “You didn’t.” Then he glances through Philomena’s open door. “I said no, didn’t I?”
“Don’t be a spoilsport.” Gethin waves a hand. “When do we get to have fun around here?”
“At my granddaughter’s expense? No more biscuits for you. Ungrateful sods.” But he’s suppressing a smile.
And so am I.
“Where were you?” I ask. “They said you were looking for her.” I point back towards Philomena who’s sitting on the edge of her bed and still chuckling.
“I went to the loo.”
Gradually, everyone starts to calm down, and we head back to the lift. “You go down first.” I wave them in. “I’m never going to trust any of you again. Not in a closed space.”
They go down and I take the stairs. They’re lined in some sort of vinyl, speckled grey which doesn’t show dirt. Even so, the corners are dark from careless cleaning. Even the carpets in the hallway have that old smell. For a care home, the place isn’t exactly spotless.
Back in the games lounge, they’re still grinning happily.
