at Bad Nenndorf and Wildflecken and photographs, some innocent, some not so. Oh, and yes, a sweater and trousers with tell-tale stains that could reveal everything.
One more tug and down it must come, then. Evelyn gripped the side of the wardrobe with her right hand. That wrist had never been the same since her unfortunate fall – two years ago, was it? She pulled at the case again with her left hand and then it happened. High on the tips of her toes, she tottered on the ladder-back chair she had pulled across the room to stand on to help her reach up; she lost her balance and fell. She bumped her head on the mahogany frame at the end of the bed and hit her hip on the hard floor, only a threadbare Turkish rug cushioning her fall.
When she eventually opened her eyes, the room was dark and very cold. The blackbird who always sang just before dusk was long silent and through the window she could see the moon had risen. It had been early afternoon when she’d come into the bedroom, when she’d dragged the chair across the floor and stepped up in front of the mirrored door.
Perhaps I will die here, she thought. I might not be found for weeks if Pat doesn’t remember to phone or call round. She’s never been that attentive, with her busy life and demanding husband. And it won’t occur to my neighbours to check, unless the village shop begins to wonder why I’m not calling in for my paper and milk.
What a sad end! I’ll pass away unloved, unnoticed, unforgiven, in this room. It belonged to Charles once. When he was sent away to school I missed him so much at first, I crept in to feel the weight of his cricket bat, swing his tennis racket and bury my nose in unwashed whites smelling of his sweat and hair oil. But when he returned, he no longer wanted to play with me and barred the door to his little sister.
She tried to move, but her head felt heavy and her hip was hurting. This time I’ve really done it. This is more than just a fractured wrist, you foolish woman! All for the sake of your incompetence. You should have cleared out those cases years and years ago. Now what are you going to do?
She lay there on the hard floor, growing cold and thirsty, waves of pain throbbing around her hip, then suddenly she grew determined. She imagined she could hear Hugh, her darling husband Hugh, calling to her and a second voice echoed the first. Wasn’t that Charles as well? Both were shouting at her, telling her not to give up, that she must somehow get help. We may have died, they were saying, but we died fighting to the end. We didn’t just fall off a chair and lie there doing nothing till we had gasped our last breath.
So, with a tremendous effort, Evelyn rolled over onto her front and began to drag herself in the dark across the floorboards towards the door. There were no lights on in any rooms of the house, but she knew every tiny bit of the place and could picture each piece of furniture in all of the rooms. She pulled herself forward, one painful inch at a time, pausing to gasp for breath every minute or so as the agony engulfed her. She needed light, she needed to phone for help, but she couldn’t get either unless she could manage to get as far as her bedroom, down the corridor. Then she remembered Charles’s shooting stick, in an umbrella stand, along with his old golf clubs and hockey stick, in a corner by the door. Using her arms to support her body, she pulled her good leg up beneath her and managed to half kneel, her injured hip dragging her other leg behind her. Half crouching, half kneeling, she made better progress and found the stick, then jabbed upwards again and again at the light switch until finally light flooded the room and filtered out into the passageway and landing.
‘Ambulance,’ Evelyn gasped, after her long painful journey to the phone, dragging herself across the wrinkled rugs and dusty floorboards. ‘Tell them the back door isn’t locked.’ Country ways are so trusting that doors stay open long after dark, thank goodness.
And while she lay waiting for help to arrive, Evelyn prepared. She knew there would be much to occupy her