Ruth is still not sure whether she was right to come. Her journey can hardly be described as necessary. What if she’s stopped by the police? Will name-dropping Nelson make it better or worse? But she is desperate for something to take her mind off Cathbad so, after her lecture – there’s still no sign of Eileen or Joe – she turns to Kate.
‘Fancy a drive to Norwich?’
Kate looks at her sceptically. ‘Are we allowed?’
‘Yes,’ bluffs Ruth. ‘It’s for work. Janet – remember her? – thinks she’s found a secret door into Steward’s House. We won’t have to go in. Apparently, you can see it from the road.’
Kate agrees. After all, she’s bored too. There’s a secretly festive feeling in the car as they drive along the coastal road, past the boarded-up pubs and the house with the mural of Rupert Bear. It’s usually a long and frustratingly slow drive to Norwich but, today, they slalom through the roundabouts and encounter almost no traffic on the A148. It feels strange, too, to drive straight into the Close and park in front of the cathedral. Janet is waiting for them by the doors of the great church, now firmly shut, between the statues of Mother Julian and St Benedict. Ruth is not sure how to greet her friend, but they compromise on an awkward two-metres-apart wave.
‘Is it shut?’ Ruth gestures towards the huge wooden doors.
‘Yes,’ says Janet. ‘So sad. It wasn’t even closed during the plague, you know. I still come into the grounds to meditate. I’m living here.’
‘In the cathedral?’ says Ruth. She remembers the laugh in Janet’s voice when she said that her new house was in the ‘dead centre’ of town. She wouldn’t put it past Janet to be living in the cathedral with its multiple graves and coffin-filled crypt. People must still be living in the close, although there’s no sign of life this afternoon. Kate runs across the manicured lawns like a captive freed from prison. Ruth and Janet watch her.
‘It’s good to have a child in the place,’ says Janet. ‘A few of the senior church-people live here but there are no young children.’
‘Where are you living?’ says Ruth. ‘It’s all very mysterious.’
‘I’ll show you,’ says Janet.
They pass through the stone archway and cross the empty street. In front of them is the famously crooked façade of Augustine Steward’s House, the timbers leaning so far to the left that you feel as if the earth has shifted on its axis. There’s a shop downstairs saying ‘Tourist Information’ with a closed sign across it. Janet points to an upstairs window, where the house joins another to form Tombland Alley.
‘There,’ she says.
‘You’re living in Steward’s House? Above the tourist centre?’
‘Yes. They wanted someone to live there and keep an eye on the place. I volunteered. There are lots of empty houses in Tombland Alley.’
Ruth remembers Janet telling her the story of the Grey Lady, the woman who died after being locked up in this building. I’ve often sensed something. A shadow, a presence, sometimes just a feeling of intense sadness. People don’t like to work there after dark. Ruth wouldn’t live above Steward’s House for a million pounds and an English Heritage grant.
‘So what have you discovered?’ she asks. She’s still feeling rather guilty about being out in the open, talking to someone outside her tiny family group (which now seems to include Nelson).
‘It’s this way.’ Janet leads them into the alleyway. The houses seem to lean in, as if glad of their company. A poster in the information centre offers ‘The Top Ten Places to Visit in Norfolk’. Ruth wonders if any of them are open to visitors now. Perhaps the abbey grounds at Walsingham or the beaches of Hunstanton. But all the stately homes and historic churches will be closed. Norfolk is closed.
Janet stops by a low wooden-framed window. ‘Look at the bricks there.’
Ruth peers down to examine the wall. She recognises the Tudor bricks immediately, shallow and uneven, filled with lime-rich mortar. Patterned brickwork was fashionable at the time and, for a moment, she thinks this is what she is looking at, but then she realises that the shape is actually that of a door, sunken into the ground.
‘The strange thing is,’ says Janet, ‘I can’t see where it comes out the other side. It should open into the undercroft but there’s no sign. It did make me think. There are stories about people being bricked up, about tunnels leading to the cathedral. All that stuff.’
‘The other side was probably just plastered over,’ says Ruth. ‘We can have a look inside when restrictions are lifted.’ If they ever are, she thinks. Will there ever be a time when Covid-19 is as distant as the plague?
The alleyway leads into a grassy space, fringed by lilac bushes and surrounded by topsy-turvy houses. Are they really all empty? Kate has wandered away and is picking lilac. Should Ruth tell her to stop? Is anyone watching?
‘I saw your student a couple of days ago,’ says Janet.
‘Which student?’ asks Ruth. Though she thinks she can guess.
‘The bearded one. Joe Whatshisname. The one you were asking about.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘Standing right here. Looking up at the houses. I waved but I don’t think he saw me.’
Who knows what he thought if he saw a woman waving from one of the sightless windows, thinks Ruth. Beware the Grey Lady.
The car smells strongly of lilac on the way home. Kate seems energised by the outing, singing along to the radio and telling Ruth a long story about a boy in her class who makes rude noises during Zooms. Then she picks up Ruth’s phone.
‘Mum. You’ve got loads of messages from Dad.’
‘Have I?’ says Ruth. Now that she has Kate with her all the time, she keeps her phone on silent. She left it in the car when they were with Janet.
‘Oh God,’ she says. ‘Is it about Cathbad?’
‘I don’t think so,’ says Kate. ‘“Where are you?”’ she reads. ‘“For F’s sake, pick up the phone.” Then there are lots of question marks and exclamation points.’ Clearly the grammar lessons are paying off.
‘Text him,’ says Ruth. ‘Say we went into Norwich and we’re on our way back.’
Kate texts at lightning speed. Will skeletons of twenty-first century humans show enlarged thumbs?
‘Shall I add a kiss?’ she says.
‘No,’ says Ruth.
She can see Nelson from a long way off, a dark shape standing by her fence. Typical of him just to stand there like a thundercloud. Maybe she should get him a spare key, but would this make their arrangement, whatever it is, too official? Besides, Nelson has moved back home now. He’s made his choice. Which means he can keep his disapproval to himself.
‘Where have you been?’ he says, as soon as Ruth gets out of the car.
‘We went to the cathedral,’ says Kate. ‘We saw a secret door.’
‘Sounds well worth breaking lockdown for,’ says Nelson.
‘Are you coming in?’ says Ruth, opening the front door. ‘Or are you going to stand there pontificating all night?’
Nelson glowers at her for a few minutes and then steps over the threshold, ducking as always at the low doorway.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he says quietly, as Kate runs upstairs in search of Flint.
‘OK,’ says Ruth. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘You sound like my mum,’ says Nelson. ‘When in doubt, make tea.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ says Ruth.
Nelson, as always, looks too big for the kitchen. He folds himself into one of the chairs and says, ‘How much do you know about your neighbour? The new woman?’
‘Zoe? Not much. She’s a nurse, divorced. She’s got a lovely cat called Derek.’
‘Is that the creature I saw at the window? It looked too big to be a cat.’
‘It’s a Maine Coon.’
‘If you say so. Well, for a start she isn’t called Zoe.’
For a moment, Ruth thinks he means the cat. She puts a mug of tea in front of Nelson.
‘What?’
‘Your neighbour. She isn’t called Zoe. She’s called Dawn Stainton and, in 1994, she was accused of murdering three patients in her care.’
Ruth feels her heart thumping. Various words rush into her head – neighbour, murdering, patients – but one keeps bumping up against the sides: Dawn.
‘Dawn?’ she says.
Nelson looks at her in confusion. ‘What?’
‘Dawn. Is her name really Dawn?’
‘Apparently so. She changed her name after the trial. You can’t blame her really.’
‘I take it she was found not guilty?’
‘Yes,’ admits Nelson.
‘How old was she in 1994?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Just tell me, Nelson. Please.’
Nelson gets out his phone and scrolls, much less efficiently than Kate, until he finds the relevant page.
‘She was thirty-two when it came to trial in 1995. She would have been thirty-one in 1994.’
Ruth does the sum in her head, never an easy task for her. ‘So, she was born in 1963?’
‘Yes. I suppose so. Why?’
‘Dawn 1963,’ says Ruth. ‘It was on that photograph I found in my mother’s belongings.’
‘I remember you saying something about it.’ Nelson dismisses this, as she knew he would. ‘The point is that your next-door neighbour is a murderer.’
‘No, she isn’t. I’m going to talk to her.’
‘She’s out,’ says Nelson. ‘I’ve been knocking all the time you were away. And a bloody long time it was too.’
‘She’s probably at work,’ says Ruth. But it’s six o’clock now and Zoe is normally home at half past.
‘Are you staying?’ she says to Nelson. For almost the first time since she’s known him, he looks awkward.
‘I’d like to,’ he says. ‘But it’s difficult with Laura . . .’
‘I understand,’ says Ruth. ‘Well, you’d better get back to her.’
Nelson stands up. ‘Lock your doors,’ he says. ‘And if Zoe comes back, let me know immediately.’
But, although Ruth watches the window all evening, her neighbour does not return.