Martha was washing up when she heard the knock on the door. She jumped, still on edge despite the hours that had passed since finding the scourge. She’d had to work alone all day and she was tired. Chloe had texted her a little after eleven, apologising for missing her calls, explaining that she was ill and would have to miss work for a few days.
Martha hadn’t let her irritation show through in her replies, simply putting, “Get better,” and leaving it at that. It was annoying, the staffing levels and rota organisation left little room for manoeuvre at such short notice. She would normally leave such problems for Peter to deal with, passing them on up the chain of command.
But he was on his way home from the hospital and she wanted to keep his recuperation as stress free as possible.
So she had worked alone, snatching food and toilet visits during the few lulls during the day. She hadn’t found anything else on site when she’d locked up and for that she was grateful. The entire day, a little voice had whispered to her that he would arrive, brandishing a knife or maybe even a gun, force her to use the scourge again, to play his twisted games.
By the time she locked up, she had a stress headache and it was only just starting to fade by the time she was home. She saw the lights on across the courtyard and headed over in time to find the hospital transport driver was leaving, the door open ready for his assistant to follow.
“How is he?” Martha asked, catching them as they began to walk out of the courtyard towards the car park.
“He’s comfortable in bed,” the older man said. “Sorry, you are?”
“Martha Coleman. I work for Peter.”
“Right, great. We weren’t comfortable about leaving him alone in there so we were about to ring you from the van.”
“Well, I’m here now.”
“So you are. Did you not get the message that he needs someone to keep an eye on him? We rang his wife. Did she not pass it on?”
Martha shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
The man frowned. “He was asleep when we left him. We got him into bed and he’s had his evening painkillers so he should be all right for the night. You might want to think about moving his bed downstairs. With his leg like that, the stairs aren’t going to be easy.”
Martha smiled. “Wouldn’t let you do it, right?”
“Nope.”
“He can be a stubborn one sometimes. I’ll see what I can do. Anything else I need to know?”
“There’ll be a nurse coming out to check on him every other day. Just make sure he takes his medication and he should be all right. He was pretty lucky, all things considered.”
“I guess he was.”
“If you notice him getting worse, give us a ring straight away, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Great. Good night then, Martha was it?”
“Yep. Good night, and thank you.”
“Just doing our jobs.”
The men turned and headed away and Martha returned to the open door in the courtyard, passing through and listening for any noise upstairs. She could hear him breathing up there.
She walked up as softly as she could, tiptoeing onto the landing and peering in through Peter’s bedroom door. He had a bandage wrapped around his head, ending just above his eyes which were tightly closed. Next to the bed were a couple of crutches. Martha wondered if they’d tried to get him in a wheelchair. She could imagine what a pointless attempt it would be.
Peter had always shunned the help of others, wanting to keep on top of everything himself. It had taken two years of Martha working at the castle for him to start letting her do any of the paperwork. For six months after she began, he had double-checked her figures every night, his trust in her very slowly growing.
It felt strange to see him asleep in bed. She’d never seen his bedroom before. She’d been in his house, sitting at the battered old dining room table drinking tea and watching the sunset outside the mullioned windows.
He wasn’t moving in bed, the only sign that he was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. Martha turned away, suddenly feeling that she was intruding on his privacy.
She headed back downstairs and into the kitchen. The least she could do was wash up for him. She poured water into the sink and waited for it to fill up, glancing outside as a bat darted past the window, catching her eye.
She was halfway through when someone knocked on the door. Drying her hands on a towel, she crossed to the hallway before stopping, thoughts of the scourge coming back to her mind. She knew it wasn’t Samuel out there but she still slipped the chain across before opening the door and peering out.
There was a man standing there, half lit by the glow from inside the hallway, half in darkness. He was older than Martha but not by much. “Can I help?” she asked, her eyes moving down his checked shirt to his jeans, both looking shades of grey rather than colour in the gloom.
He was standing perfectly upright with his hands clasped behind his back. All at once Martha felt as if she was the one intruding even though he’d knocked on the door. It was a very odd feeling.
“I’m Benjamin Robertson,” he said, thrusting a hand towards her. “And you are?”
Martha couldn’t place the name for a moment but then it came to her. “You’re Ben?” she asked, taking his hand, feeling him grip her fingers. His skin was rough but warm. She liked the feel of it. At once she jolted her hand away from him. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
“Neither did I but here I am.” A half smile spread across his face, lighting it up despite the tiredness in his eyes.
“Was it a long journey?” As she asked the question, she pushed the door closed momentarily, sliding the chain off its hook before opening it wide again. “Can I make you a tea?”
“Is he here?” Ben asked, stepping inside and pausing in the hallway, suddenly looking like a wild animal that had become trapped. Unbidden an image came into Martha’s mind, an image of him if she shut the door. He would be sprinting around the walls, fighting to find a way to get outside to freedom.
A few years ago she had watched a film about a girl who tried to tame a wild fox. She had spent a long time patiently tempting it towards her, coaxing it with food and kind words. Eventually she had been able to persuade it to enter her house but of course it had wanted to escape as soon as she shut her bedroom door. After crashing into her furniture it had finally leapt out of the closed window, shattering glass and injuring itself whilst teaching the girl a lesson about trying to tame wild things.
Ben reminded her of the fox in the film. Not in appearance, in appearance he reminded her more of a grizzly bear. But in manner he looked tense as soon as he stepped inside. It wasn’t an overt display but after what had happened to her at the care home, she had learned to read the little signals people gave out.
His left hand was curling and uncurling as if he was trying to resist clenching it into a fist. His eyes were fixed on her but they kept darting to the sides of the hallway, as if he was looking for an exit.
“He’s upstairs,” she said, wanting to do something to ease the tension he was clearly feeling. “He’s asleep though.”
He was already heading upstairs, leaving her to close the front door and head back into the kitchen, putting the last of the pots onto the draining board. By the time she had done she could hear voices. Father and son were talking.
She didn’t want to listen but nor did she think it wise to leave. Peter sounded angry and she wanted to be nearby, ready to step in and separate them if needed.
“Bullshit,” Peter was saying. “You came back to take the place for yourself. Too bad for you I survived, hey?”
Ben’s voice replied, quieter, trying to keep calm. Martha stood in the hallway, straightening a picture on the wall that was already perfectly straight. “Is that what you think? Let me put your mind at rest on that one, Dad. I have no interest in this place or what happens to it. That isn’t why I’m here.”
“How did you even find out?”
“The hospital rang me.”
Martha was relieved her name hadn’t been mentioned. She had no desire to rush into the conversation she was going to have to have at some point, explaining to her employer her part in bringing Ben back home.
“Well, you’ve had a good look at me. You might as well get going. Drive carefully. It’s a long way back to Scotland.”
Martha was just able to get into the kitchen before Ben stamped back downstairs. He stopped in the hallway, rubbing his eyes and sighing. She coughed politely, letting him know she was there. “He’s glad you came,” she said, taking a step back as Ben walked into the kitchen. “You can tell by his voice,” she added in response to the look he gave her.
“I should go,” Ben said, sounding defeated. “I don’t know why I bothered.”
“He’s in a lot of pain,” she replied. “Give him some time to sleep.”
Ben shook his head. “All the sleep in the world won’t stop him being as stubborn as a mule.”
“Where are you going?” she asked as he headed towards the front door.
“I’m going home.”
“Listen,” she said, following him outside. “Why not stay the night? See what he’s like in the morning?”
“Why do you even care? What’s this got to do with you?”
“I don’t like seeing people argue.” A flash through her mind. Samuel screaming at her and Lisa. “You can stay in my house tonight. I’m only there.” She pointed at her front door. “I’ll sleep here and keep an eye on him overnight.”
Ben looked as if he was going to refuse but then all of a sudden he looked utterly exhausted. “Fine,” he said, the word more of an exhalation than anything else. “But I’ll watch him. You go home, you’ve done more than enough.”