The Turn of the Key(37)

“Jack, was that you, before?”

“Before when?” he asked, looking puzzled, and I opened my mouth to explain—and then thought better of it.

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. What can I help with?”

“I won’t keep you,” he said, “I just wanted to check you were all right, with it being your first day and all.”

“Thanks,” I said awkwardly, thinking of the awful afternoon and the fact that Petra was probably still sobbing into the baby monitor. Then, on an impulse I added, “Will you—I mean, do you want to come in? The kids are in bed. I was just getting myself some supper.”

“Are you sure?” He looked at his watch. “It’s pretty late.”

“I’m sure,” I said, standing back to let him inside the utility room. He stood, dripping onto the mat, and then stepped gingerly out of his boots.

“I’m sorry it’s so late,” he said, as he followed me into the kitchen. “I was meaning to come over before, but I had to take that bloody mower over to Inverness to be serviced.”

“You couldn’t fix it?”

“Oh, aye, I got it running. But it clapped out again yesterday. Whatever’s the matter, I can’t seem to get to the bottom of it. But never mind about that. I didn’t come to moan at you about my troubles. How was it with the kids?”

“It was—” I stopped, feeling, with horror, my bottom lip quiver treacherously. I wanted to put on a brave face—what if he reported back to Sandra and Bill? But I just couldn’t do it. And besides, if they looked at the security footage they would know the truth soon enough. As if to set the seal on it, Petra gave a long, bubbling wail of grief from upstairs that was loud enough to make Jack’s head turn towards the stairs.

“Oh God, who am I kidding?” I said wretchedly. “It was awful. The girls ran away from me after Bill and Sandra left, and I went to look for them in the woods and then that woman—what’s her name? Mrs. McKinty?”

“Jean McKenzie,” Jack said. He pulled his raincoat off and sat at the long table, and I found myself sinking into a chair opposite. I wanted to put my head in my hands and cry, but I forced myself to give a shaky laugh.

“Well she turned up to clean and found the girls sitting on the doorstep claiming I’d locked them out, which I absolutely didn’t, I’d deliberately left the door open for them. They hate me, Jack, and Petra’s been screaming for like an hour and—”

The wail came again, and I felt my stress level rise in tandem with its pitch.

“Sit down,” Jack said firmly, as I made to rise. He pushed me back into the chair opposite his. “I’ll see if I can settle her. She’s probably just not used to your face, it’ll be better tomorrow.”

It was in defiance of every safeguarding rule I’d ever been taught, but I was too tired and desperate to care—and besides, I told myself, Sandra and Bill would hardly have kept him on the premises if they thought he was a danger to their kids.

As the sound of his steps receded up the stairs, I switched on the baby monitor and listened to the door of Petra’s room swish gently open and her choking, gasping cries subside as her body was lifted from the crib.

“There, there, my little love,” I heard, a low, intimate croon that made my cheeks flush as if I were eavesdropping, though Jack must surely know the baby monitor was plugged in. “There, there, ma poor wee lassie.” Upstairs, away from me, his accent was somehow stronger. “Shh . . . shh now, Petra . . . there, there . . . what a fuss over nothing.”

Petra’s cries were lower now, more hiccups and grumbling than real distress, and I could hear the creak of the boards as Jack paced softly up and down, holding her, soothing and gentling the fretful baby with a surprisingly practiced touch.

At last she fell silent, and I heard his feet stop, and the rattle of the cot bars as he leaned over, lowering her gently to the mattress.

There was a long pause, and then the shush of the door against the carpet, and Jack’s feet on the stairs again.

“Success?” I said, hardly daring to believe it, as he entered the kitchen, and he nodded and gave a little wry smile.

“Aye, I think the poor wee thing was knackered, she was just looking for an excuse to put her head down. She fell asleep almost as soon as I picked her up.”

“God, Jack, you must think I’m a complete—” I stopped, not sure what to say. “I mean, I’m the nanny. I’m supposed to be good at this kind of stuff.”

“Don’t be silly.” He sat again at the table, opposite me. “They’ll be fine when they get to know you. You’re a stranger to them; that’s all. And they’re testing you. They’ve had enough nannies this past year to make them a bit mistrustful of a new one waltzing in and taking over. You know what kids are like—once they see you’re here to stay and won’t be off abandoning them again, it’ll get better.”

“Jack . . .” It was the opening I’d been waiting for, and yet now that it was here, I wasn’t sure how to phrase my question. “Jack, what did happen with those other nannies? Sandra said they left because they thought the house was haunted, but I can’t believe . . . I don’t know, it just seems preposterous. Have you ever seen anything?”

As I said it I thought of the shadow I’d seen outside the glass wall of the kitchen and pushed the image away. It was probably just a fox, or a tree moving in the wind.