Page 61 of The Locked Room

‘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.

Chapter 31

At first, she thinks that he’ll be coming back. It’s all a mistake, she thinks. He can’t mean to leave her locked in the dark for ever. And it is dark. She doesn’t have her phone. Where did she leave it? There are blanks in her memory which scare her even more than the locked room.

She tries to pace it out. Eight paces forward, eight paces across. When she reaches a wall, it’s cold and clammy. There’s no window. The door is metal. She heard it clang behind him. She can’t remember entering the room. Did he drug her? She thinks, from the cold and damp, that she must be underground. She imagines earth above her head, fathoms of it. Is she in the basement of a house? Is anyone above her?

What did he say? That he’d be coming back later? Why can’t she remember any more than that?