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Down the corridor, Hester was sponging Martha Serrailler’s face and retying her ribbon
‘Make you look lovely for the ball, Your Royal Highness’
On a whiht red flowers out of the bouquet on the table and pinned it in the girl’s soft, blonde hair
‘You’re my beauty,’ she said ‘Who’s alow, the parrot ElvisRosa start in her chair They were playing Racing Deer off’
‘Elvis, I’ll put your cloth on I won’t have swearing’
‘God save the Queen’
‘Yes, that’s better We love Her Majesty, don’t we?’
‘Did you see that picture of Prince Williae of his mother, the way he looks down all shy, you know’
‘I like Willias you never hear about … all that stuff with young people, and trying to stop the up too ht, that’s it, I warned you’
Shirley picked up the red velour cover and dropped it on to the parrot cage
‘Never surrender,’ Elvis said before descending into silence and the dark
They stayed up until eleven, watching television, talking about royalty, playing cards At ten, Shirley had brought out the bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Creaht chapel people were teetotal,’ Rosa said
‘That’s Methodist chapel … English … that’s nothing to do with us’
‘Oh’
‘Wine that gladdens the heart of ood, it’s Huards,’ Rosa said as the news ca the trees One or two cars cahts One or two of the residents had visitors There were no rules, people could coo as they wished It made the place more like a home than a ‘home’, Matron Scudder said
The corridors were quiet Soiven out Lae and the conservatory were eainst the walls ready for the ly in their neon tank a the little trees of vivid weed
Shirley and Rosa were in bed by ten past eleven, asleep not much later They were on early shift, which was how the rota worked Both would finish at two the following afternoon and then have thirty-six hours off
The last visitor’s car drove away The lights began to go out
The stor and an overcast sky Rain threatening In Sorrel Drive a police van and two cars arrived at seven, a few yards frous In a blue Ford Focus behind the between his parents
‘I hate ’eh a mouthful of crisps ‘They spook everyone Poor kid’ He nodded towards the Pearses’ car
‘Yeah, well, but if it turns up so –’
‘Won’t’
‘How can you know? What’s up with you?’
Nathan scrunched the crisp packet ‘It’s got to me, this one … he’s in my head, knohat I mean? All day he’s there … it feels bad’
He had told Eht ‘He’s dead’
‘You don’t know that’
‘I do though So do you Don’t you?’
Eot out of the car into the dark avenue as the DCI pulled up just ahead of theether for a uses’ house, set behind its hedge The lights were on upstairs
‘Poor sods’
Serrailler shook his head ‘There’s got to be so,’ he said, half to hi on too long’
‘Anything coht?’
Serrailler barely shook his head, turned his collar up against the drizzle which had begun, and walked away towards the house
It’s got to hiht It’s in his head
A car slowed down on seeing the, but as Nathan ot back in beside DC Martin ‘You get his nuestured to his notebook
‘Bloody voyeurs’
The drizzle greased the car s It was still dark
In the bungalow, Shirley Sapcote scalded herher hair which was slippery and all over the place The parrot Elvis was silent, the cloth still over its cage
‘Like the ht,’ Shirley put a dribble of cold water in her tea
‘Roll on summer’
‘You want toast?’
‘No thanks’ Rosa came into the kitchen She went to theand twitched the corner of the curtain
‘Black as pitch Raining Days like this you feel like pulling the blanket over your head’
Shirley pulled the cloth off Elvis’s cage
‘Bugger er h the dark drizzle towards Ivy Lodge
‘Things can only get better,’ Rosa said
Shirley put her foot into a puddle of les and then into gasping laughter so that they had to stand just inside the door struggling for breath
Outside, the drizzle turned to heavy rain
It was not yet light when Shirley carried the tray into Martha Serrailler’s room, so she did not draw the curtains back, but switched on the bedside lamp and set down the tray
‘You’re in the best place there, , it’s horrible outside and I stepped up to my ankles in a puddle and you should have heard that parrot swear fit to make you blush … you’ve never heard words like it in your life … well, you haven’t, have you, sweetheart? Wake up’