The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(57)

‘And I can’t see him?’

‘I’m afraid not. No visitors allowed on the Covid wards.’

Judy sits at the workspace she created only a week ago. What would Cathbad do now? Pray to the healing spirits? Light a ceremonial bonfire? Bake some brownies? Instead Judy googles the hospital, planning to check the ICU success rates. If they are poor, maybe she can get Cathbad moved elsewhere. Along with complaints about parking charges and maps showing new building works, she sees news stories from the past, the hospital’s name highlighted. One of them includes a photograph.



Nurse cleared of killing patients.

Nurse Dawn Stainton, 32, was yesterday cleared of killing patients Bill Grimes, 86, Edna Bates, 91, and Margaret Loomis, 88 . . .



Judy looks again at the photograph. She remembers the yoga picture and the slight unease she’d felt at the laughing face on the other side of Ruth’s fence. Because Dawn Stainton is, without doubt, Ruth’s new neighbour, last seen gatecrashing Cathbad’s online class.





Chapter 29


‘Dawn? That’s not her name. Can’t remember what it is but it’s something different.’

‘It’s the same person, Nelson. I’m sure of it.’

Nelson tries to recall Ruth’s neighbour. He remembers the two women sitting in the darkness drinking wine, the face at the window when he left on Sunday morning. What was she called? One of those short names. Chloe? Zoe. That was it. Why does the name Dawn also strike a faint, but slightly sinister, bell?

‘Zoe,’ he says. ‘Her name’s Zoe. She is a nurse though. Ruth told me.’

‘Zoe,’ says Judy. ‘Does she work at the surgery in Wells? Westway?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I think she does. I think I spoke to her yesterday about Cathbad.’

‘Is there any news?’

‘They’re moving him to the ICU.’

‘That’s OK. He’ll get good care there.’

‘Yes.’ There’s a pause. Nelson thinks he can hear stirring filmic music in the background.

‘It might be nothing,’ says Judy. ‘After all, she was cleared of any wrongdoing. I do remember the case though. It was before you came to Norfolk. There were several patients involved. I thought I remembered the woman’s face when I saw it in that photo.’

It might be nothing, thinks Nelson, but the fact remains that Ruth and Katie are locked down in the middle of nowhere, next door to a woman once accused of murder.

‘I spoke to Hugh Baxter yesterday,’ says Judy.

‘Who?’

‘He was a friend of Avril Flowers. He said that Avril had a friend at Lean Zone who was a nurse.’

‘And you think it could be this Dawn? Zoe? That’s a bit of a stretch.’

‘I know it is, but it might be worth checking up.’

‘I’ll certainly be having a chat with her,’ says Nelson.

‘Have you met her?’ asks Judy.

‘Just briefly.’ Nelson still doesn’t want Judy to know just how familiar he is with Ruth’s house and her neighbour.

‘I’ll go around later,’ he says.

‘I thought you would,’ says Judy.

Nelson doesn’t know how to respond to this.

‘Give Cathbad my best,’ he says. ‘My mum’s praying for him. And she’s got a hotline to the big man.’

‘I’m praying too,’ says Judy, ‘and I haven’t prayed for years.’

‘Me too,’ says Nelson. He has to stop himself saying ‘God bless’ when he rings off.



Nelson rings Ruth but there’s no answer. Where can she be at four o’clock in the afternoon? That’s the thing about lockdown. There’s nowhere people can be. He’s very jolted by the news that Ruth’s apparently charming neighbour was once charged with murder. But didn’t he always feel that the woman was a little odd, a little encroaching? He gets out his phone and finds the photograph of Ruth and Katie doing yoga in their garden. Ruth is laughing as she tries to stand on one leg. Katie is deadly serious. He loves the way her tongue is protruding slightly as she lunges forward. Zoe’s face appears on the other side of the fence, her hair tied up in a spotted scarf. Is there something strange in her expression, something intent, almost greedy? Nelson looks on the Westway surgery website and learns that Zoe Hilton is the Lead Practice Nurse. He asks Tony to check whether Zoe was a member of any Lean Zone groups and the answer comes back that, for a while, she attended the same meetings as Avril Flowers. Could this be a link? One way or another, Nelson needs to speak to Zoe. And Ruth too.

‘I’m off out,’ he says to Tony. ‘You can go home when you’ve finished there.’

‘I’m just going through the reports on the suicide cases,’ says Tony. ‘Seeing if we’ve missed anything.’

‘You keep on with that,’ says Nelson. ‘Leah! I’m off.’

As far as Nelson can see, the only people on the roads are those in some sort of uniform: delivery drivers, paramedics, nurses or carers. Nelson wonders idly how long it will take local drug dealers to don PPE before setting out to ply their trade. They can even wear masks. But there’s no doubt that it makes driving easier. In less than fifteen minutes, he’s driving over the Saltmarsh. It’s one of those grey days when the land and sea merge together. Nelson thinks of the Golden Mile in Blackpool. Even in winter there is noise and colour, shouts from the Pleasure Beach, lights glowing on the piers. What crime did Nelson commit in a former life to be exiled here? ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ Cathbad always says but now Cathbad is seriously ill in hospital and nothing makes sense any more.