was exactly like the one Rowan and I had back in our flat in London. Ektorp, it was called, or something like that. It had been Rowan’s mum’s before she handed it down to us. Guaranteed to last for ten years, with a washable cotton cover that had once been red, in Jack’s case, but had faded to a slightly streaky dark pink with sun and repeated launderings.
Sitting on it was like coming home.
After the luxurious split personality of Heatherbrae, there was something not just refreshing, but endearing about this place. It was solidly built, and all of a piece—no sudden disorienting switches from Victorian opulence to sleek futuristic technology. Everything was reassuringly homey, from the mug stains on the coffee table, to the medley of photos propped on the mantelpiece—friends and their kids, or maybe nieces and nephews. One little boy cropped up more than once, clearly a relative from the family resemblance.
I felt my eyes closing, two sleep-deprived nights catching up with me . . . and then I heard a cough and Jack was standing in front of me, a dressing and some disinfectant in one hand, and two glasses in the other.
“D’you want a drink?” he asked, and I looked up puzzled.
“A drink? No, I’m fine, thanks.”
“Are you sure? You might need something to take the edge off when I put this stuff on. It’s going to sting. And I think there’s a wee bit of glass or something still in there.”
I shook my head, but he was right. It did sting like fuck, first when he dabbed it with antiseptic, and then again when he pushed a pair of tweezers deep inside the cut, and I felt the sickening grind of metal against glass, and the sting of a forgotten shard sliding deeper into my finger.
“Fuck!” The groan slipped out without my meaning to voice it, but Jack was grinning, holding something bloodstained up at the end of his tweezers.
“Got it. Well done. That must have hurt like a bastard.”
My hand was shaking as he sat down beside me.
“You know, you’ve stuck it out longer than the last few.”
“What do you mean?”
“The last couple of nannies. Actually, I tell a lie, Katya made it to three weeks, I think. But since Holly, they’ve come and gone like butterflies.”
“Who was Holly?”
“She was the first one, the one who stayed the longest. Looked after Maddie and Ellie when they were wee, and she stayed for nearly three years, until—” He stopped, seeming to think better of what he had been about to say. “Well, never mind that. And number two, Lauren, she stayed nearly eight months. But the one after her didn’t last a week. And the one before Katya, Maja her name was, she left the first night.”
“The first night? What happened?”
“She called a taxi, left in the middle of the night. Left half her things too; Sandra had to send them on.”
“I don’t mean that, I mean, what happened to make her leave?”
“Oh, well . . . that, I don’t really know. I always thought—” He flushed, the back of his neck staining red as he looked down at his empty glass.
“Go on,” I prompted, and he shook his head, as if angry at himself.
“Fuck it, I said I wouldna do this.”
“Do what?”
“I don’t bad-mouth my employers, Rowan, I told you that on the first day.”
The name gave me a guilty jolt, a reminder of all that I was concealing from him, but I pushed the thought aside, too intent on what he had been about to say to worry about my own secrets. Suddenly I had to know what had driven them away, those other girls, my predecessors. What had set them running?
“Jack, listen,” I said. I hesitated, then put a hand on his arm. “It’s not disloyalty. I’m their employee too, remember? We’re colleagues. You’re not shooting your mouth off to an outsider. You’re allowed to talk about work stuff to a colleague. It’s what keeps you sane.”
“Aye?” He looked up from his contemplation of the whiskey glass, and gave me a little wry smile, rather bitter. “Is that so? Well . . . I’ve said half of it already, so I might as well tell you the whole lot. You’ve maybe a right to know anyway. I always thought what scared them off—” He took a breath, as if steeling himself to do something unpleasant. “I thought it was maybe . . . Bill.”
“Bill?” It was not the answer I had been