Ann Troup - The Forgotten Room - a gripping, chilling thriller that will have you hooked

Pulling herself away, she made her way down the stairs, trying to recall if she had locked the house as per Cheryl’s instructions. Her memory was playing tricks on her. She knew for a fact that she had locked up properly, but a midnight maggot of irrational fear wriggled and writhed, making her doubt her recall. She stamped on the little bugger and forced herself to snap out of it and think like a functional adult. There had been no figure under the tree – just a shadow or an illusion conjured by lack of sleep and unfamiliar surroundings. The house was creeping her out and hooking shadows from the dark corners of her imagination. She had come to the Grange to escape all that, not to bring it with her and have it enhanced by noisy floorboards and a high wind. Coffee and a flick through one of Cheryl’s magazines would banish such thoughts and entrench some good sense. There was nothing like perusing pictures of airbrushed women wearing clothes you could never afford (or get away with wearing in public) to slam a person back into the realms of insignificance. To Maura it was the mental equivalent of a strong black coffee after a drinking binge – it might make you sick and keep you awake, but it did you good. With resignation and as much composure as she could muster, she defied the house and its air of doom and strode through the passage into the kitchen, where she filled the room with light, filled the battered old kettle and settled down with a magazine.

When the rock hurtled through the window it didn’t just shatter the glass, it shattered every shred of equilibrium that Maura had managed to cling on to.

Breath froze in her throat as the glass exploded inwards, shards of it hurtling towards her like a thousand shining knife blades, the rock landing on the table like an unexploded bomb of dread.

Instinct took over and she dropped to the floor, covering her head as glass glittered her hair and clung to the fleece of her dressing gown. Tiny slivers found their way inside her sleeves and down the back of her neck, nicking her skin, biting deeper and drawing small beads of blood.

The boom was fading, but the shock hadn’t – adrenaline had coursed through her, making her heart lurch and her limbs shake. She knew she had to move, yet she couldn’t. She knew she had screamed – it had emerged as a deep bellow, and now that she tried to call out, it felt as if her entire voice had been emitted with it and was rattling around the room, unable to find its way back.

There had been a figure, and it had meant her harm. It had done her harm and there was a good chance it wanted more.

The kitchen phone was attached to the wall, too close to the door and window to be safe to run to. The only other she had seen was in another room, back beyond the passage and the door and located in the heart of the house.

She ran through the route in her mind, begging her limbs to comply and help her to move. Her own phone was locked in her car where she had thrown it in disgust, so as not to have to see her sister’s name flashing up and demanding her attention every five minutes. But what did that matter now? She had to get out of the kitchen and away from the broken window, and the rock that had damned near taken her head off.

Pressing her shaking hands to the floor, knowing they would be cut on the fallen glass but having no choice, she pushed backwards, scooting towards the door that led to the corridor beyond the kitchen. She dared not try and stand – not only did she doubt her legs would take it, but while she was on the floor, with the table in front of her, she felt she had some kind of shield from what might be coming after the rock. With her senses ratcheting up and beyond red alert she shuffled through the door, ignoring the glass that grazed her hands. Once into the shade of the passageway she shuffled onto her knees and slammed the door shut, groping with bloodied and shaking fingers for the bolt she knew must be there and ramming it home before she dared to take a breath.

In a film she might have leaned against the door, caught that breath and thought she was safe. But Maura had watched dramas where that kind of stupidity had cost people dearly – she was no fool and immediately launched herself towards the morning room where she had spied a phone earlier on. Panic still engulfed her and, as she lurched, dripping blood, shedding glass and looking half drunk and half crazed, she became convinced that the assailant would have cut the phone lines and that she’d be trapped in the house with a maniac who could burst through locked doors, or worse still – axe their way through them yelling “Here’s Johnny!”.

Once at the morning room door she dropped to her knees again and crawled towards the low table that held the phone, not even daring to look towards the long windows, not daring to imagine a face pressed against the panes and the hot breath of the intruder blooming on the glass…

There was a dial tone.

The buttons didn’t stick, even though they always did in her nightmares.

She bashed 999 into the keypad.

Someone answered and Maura finally found her voice, though it was greatly diminished by the experience and wobbled as if it had no legs. ‘Police, please. Someone just threw a rock through my window and I think they’re still outside,’ she babbled to the dispatcher.

Then she hid behind the sofa, keeping low and staying quiet until the police pounded on the door twenty minutes later. Each one of those minutes in horrified silence, waiting and listening for every creak, every groan and every shift in the building, and convinced she could hear the steps of the intruder – convinced Gordon would be murdered in his bed and that she would be the coward who let it happen.

I could see her through the kitchen window. Sipping her coffee, flipping through the pages of a glossy magazine, dreaming about how life could be if only she were thinner, or taller, or had bigger breasts, more money and less stress. That’s what those magazines did – taught you how to be dissatisfied with your lot. I know all about that, about settling for what life gives you – and hating it.

For a moment, when the upstairs light had flicked on, I thought the nurse might have spotted something, but if she had she didn’t seem to care. She hadn’t seen me, hadn’t noticed. She was warm in there with her hot drink and cosy dressing gown, while I was weathering the storm just to get a glimpse of her through the window. Like some poor relation swallowing my pride and begging for scraps at the back door.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be – I shouldn’t be some midnight stalker skulking in the shadows and seething with anger. I deserve better, after all I’ve done for them, I deserve better.

Anger and resentment moved my hand to a chunk of stone that had fallen from the rockery, forced my hand to pick it up, made my hand hurl it at the glass of the kitchen window. I paused for a second as the glass shattered in a beautiful shower of wanton destruction – a shock to wake the dead but not enough to kill the living.

Not yet.

Shocks take time to kill.

It was inherent cowardice that made me run and I hate my weakness more than I hate them. And I hate that I made my move too soon, I have a treat in store for the nurse. I shouldn’t drive her out just yet.

And they forget.

I have a key.

Chapter Four

A grizzled Bob picked up the stone, stared at it and shook his head again. He’d done it at least ten times and Maura was using the rhythm of his bemusement like a metronome; it was the only way she could get her heart rate to slow down. Despite the police checking the grounds, despite the presence of Bob, and even though Gordon hadn’t heard a thing, Maura’s senses were still on high alert and she was jumping at shadows. In a house that was riddled with them, it was doing little to calm her down.