Chapter 23
The half-hour drive was mostly winding country roads which were often too narrow for two cars.
Thankfully, Cal was driving. Jamie passed the time by chatting to Skye about her part-time jobs and her studying and how she found time for it all.
Her course in social care was mostly online apparently, and she could study at her own pace, so she slotted that in whenever she had time – often late at night from what Jamie could gather.
He envied her in some ways. Mostly for being at an age where it was still acceptable to be figuring out your career path. He’d have to figure that out for himself sometime soon, or go back to working in IT. Probably the more likely scenario.
“I had a thought about the cat,” Jamie said when the conversation wound down. “Do you think I should take it to the vet and see if it’s got a microchip? Maybe they could track down the owners that way.”
“Have you tried just kicking it out?” Cal asked.
“I’ve opened the door and suggested it leaves, but it doesn’t seem to want to go.”
“I reckon the vet would charge you for scanning the microchip,” Cal said.
“Really? Even though it’s not my cat?”
Cal shrugged. “Everyone wants money these days.”
Skye cleared her throat. “You could put up posters to say you’ve found a cat.”
“Do you think?” Jamie frowned. It had been enough of a task putting up posters for Misty. Doing it all over again wasn’t overly appealing.
“That’s what I’d do,” Cal said.
“Will you help me this time?” Jamie asked.
“No. I’ve got better things to do with my life.” He pointed through the windscreen to the gated entrance of Fernleigh House. “Here we are,” he announced and turned the car into the open gates, then followed the signs for guest parking.
“It’s not very secure,” Jamie said, peering out at the large white building which resembled a stately home.
“Again,” Cal said, “you seem to be confusing it with a prison. It’s just a big house where a bunch of old people live with people around to look after them.”
“You’d think there’d be some system to stop them wandering off.”
Cal snorted. “Back to my point that it’s not a prison. They’re allowed to leave.”
“Have you never been in an old people’s home before?” Skye asked.
“I haven’t actually. Have you?”
She nodded. “My grandma was in one. I used to like visiting her.” Her eyes flashed with surprise and then panic, as though the words had slipped out without her permission.
Jamie remembered Cal saying she’d grown up in foster care.
Was she talking about her biological grandmother, or was she referring to someone in one of her foster families?
“Do you still visit her?” Jamie asked.
Instead of a reply he got the back door of the car closing behind her.
“She doesn’t like questions,” Cal said quietly. “Occasionally she’ll open up and tell me something about her childhood, but I’ve learned not to question her too much.”
“Did she have a biological grandmother then?” Jamie asked.
“Not that I know of. She’s never mentioned her before. It’ll be from one of her foster families I guess.”
Skye knocked on the passenger window, making Jamie jump. “Hurry up!” she said, smiling playfully. “You’re moving so slowly you’ll be mistaken for residents. They might lock you up in here, Jamie!”
Amused, he stepped out of the car and the three of them walked towards the entrance.
Skye stopped before they got there. “I might explore the grounds,” she said. “I need to stretch my legs. I’ll catch you up.”
She pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail as she sauntered away. Cal shrugged and opened the front door.
Inside, a middle-aged woman sat behind a reception desk in a large foyer. She greeted them cheerfully and asked who they were visiting.
“We’re actually hoping to speak to the manager,” Cal said. “If that’s possible.”
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked, her hands moving to the computer keyboard in front of her.
“No.” Cal leaned on the reception desk. “We don’t have an appointment, but we’d really like to speak to him.”
“Mr Barker’s very busy this morning and I’m afraid that without an appointme—”
“We’ve driven all the way here,” Cal snarled. “It won’t take long. Just tell us where to find the manager.”
Jamie grimaced.
Surprisingly, the middle-aged woman didn’t cower, but slowly stood up, eyes locked with Cal’s.
“Sorry!” Jamie leaned in front of Cal. “Really, I’m sorry about him. He’s not usually so bullish. It’s just that his gran is struggling at home and he’s worried about her. We’ve been looking at care homes for her. He’s really close to her, so it’s quite stressful for him.”
Her features softened immediately. She peered around Jamie to look at Cal. “It’s good of you to look after your gran like that.”
“If there’s any way we might be able to speak to the manager today,” Jamie said, eyeing her pleadingly. “We’d be really grateful.”
She seemed to consider the request, then sighed heavily. “Let me go and see if Mr Barker’s got a few minutes.”
She’d just disappeared around the corner when Cal leaned close to Jamie’s ear. “My gran’s dead,” he whispered.
“She doesn’t know that,” Jamie hissed, shifting away from him.
“And you called me bullish. Which I don’t think is very nice.”
Jamie glared at him. “You can’t always just growl at people and expect to get what you want. Sometimes you need to read the room and—”
Cal cut him off. “Tell a bunch of lies while being all smarmy?”
“It worked better than your approach, didn’t it?”
When the receptionist came back they gave up on glaring at each other and smiled at her instead.
“You’re in luck. Mr Barker has a few minutes to spare.” She tapped a clipboard on the desk. “I’ll just need you to sign in, then I’ll point you in the right direction.”
They scrawled their names on a list, then thanked the receptionist and followed her directions to Mr Barker’s office along a short corridor.
The portly, balding man stood and shook both of their hands before gesturing to the chairs on the other side of his desk.
He clasped his hands together on the table in front of him. “I hear one of you has an elderly relative who isn’t managing well at home?”
“We’ll get to that later,” Cal said. “First, we want to ask you a few questions about Marguerite Langford.”
Confusion wrinkled his brow, before his eyes flashed with sympathy. “I had an email from Heather Langford yesterday. Very sad.”
“Yeah,” Cal agreed. “We heard you’d been speaking with the family about Mrs Langford possibly moving into this place.”
“Yes.” He folded his arms across his chest. “We’ve had several conversations.”
“And was it decided that she was going to move in here?” Cal asked.
Mr Barker sighed heavily. “I’d say that’s fairly irrelevant now, wouldn’t you?”
Unsure what to say, Jamie glanced at Cal, who looked unflustered as he rose from his chair and moved to the window.
After staring out for an intense moment, he picked up an ornament from the windowsill – a glass figure in the shape of a hedgehog that might have been intended as a paperweight.
He threw it in the air and caught it again.
Grimacing, Jamie reminded himself that Cal was a friend. Given how menacing he looked at that moment, he wouldn’t want him as an enemy.
“Look,” Mr Barker said, then cleared his throat. “I don’t know what Mr Langford has been saying, but I can assure you it’s not true.”
Impressed by how effective Cal’s intimidation technique was, Jamie jutted his chin out. “Really?” he asked, intrigued about what it was he thought Mr Langford had told them.
“I don’t discriminate over who we take in. If we’ve the capacity and the appropriate facility for care, then I won’t turn anyone down, but sadly we don’t always have the means to cater for everyone’s needs. Which means it’s in their best interest as well as ours to decline an application.”
“And you couldn’t cater for Marguerite?” Jamie asked.
“I couldn’t tell you.” He threw his hands up and cast Cal a wary glance. “Mr Langford wouldn’t be upfront with me about her health. I told him if he couldn’t be honest with me, I couldn’t accurately assess whether Fernleigh House would be a good fit for her.”
“What was he hiding?” Jamie asked.
He rolled his eyes. “He swore her needs were only physical. She had a weak heart and mobility issues due to her hip, but I met her and it was clear that wasn’t all that was going on. I deal with dementia every day and that was obviously Mrs Langford’s main issue, but he outright denied it.”
“She had dementia?”
“Yes. I assume that was the real reason he was looking for a home. As I told him, we’re a small facility and unfortunately we can’t accept everyone who applies.
The problem is he’d heard that we have a few residents with dementia.
But they developed it after they arrived here.
In those cases, we’ll continue to care for residents for as long as we’re able to. ”
“You’re sure Marguerite had dementia?” Jamie asked. That did actually explain a lot. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t considered that earlier.
“Reasonably,” Mr Barker said, leaning back in his chair. “But from what the daughter said, it sounds as though Fernleigh House wouldn’t have been the right place for Mrs Langford anyway.”
“Why not?” Cal asked, still lingering by the window, turning the hedgehog in his hand.
“Heather had concerns about money. It’s often the case – kids see the price and panic about their inheritance being used up.
She seemed fairly practical though – she came to see me on her own just a few weeks ago and went through the numbers.
She was concerned her dad wasn’t being realistic about their finances.
” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s not an issue anymore.
It sounds harsh but this might have been a blessing in disguise.
For her family, anyway. It’s hard to watch someone you love disappear into dementia. ”
Jamie felt a stab of annoyance that he hadn’t considered that was the issue earlier. Dementia seemed pretty obvious now that Mr Barker had suggested it.
They thanked him for his time and were at the door when he spoke again. “Didn’t you want to talk about your grandmother?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Cal said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I reckon she’s pretty peaceful where she is, so we’ll leave her be.”
Jamie managed to keep his smile at bay until he was out in the hallway. He exchanged an amused look with Cal as they strode towards the exit.
He was surprised by how useful the trip to Fernleigh House had been.
But they were still no closer to finding out how Mrs Langford had fallen.