The Silk Factory Read Online Free PDF Page A

house lay in bright lozenges on the sisal runner and motes of dust hung motionless and undisturbed in its shaft of light. Sam’s voice drifted up to her from the living room, saying, ‘No, Cara, don’t do that!’ She’d hurried down, shrugging the incident away as yet another oddity of her imagination.
    Tally was still speaking: ‘You know how it is with old people; they hide things in a safe place and forget where they put them …’
    Rosie nodded absently, trying to remember whether the back door had been unlocked. Was it possible that the girl had come in – just walked in uninvited? Surely a child of that age would know not to do that, would understand about privacy. Perhaps she wasn’t quite ‘all there’, as her mother would have put it. How weird! It made her feel uncomfortable, as though the peace of the house had been broken, her territory violated.
    ‘Once she had a roll of money propping up the cooker,’ Tally said. ‘Tucked under one foot to keep it level – more than two hundred pounds!’
    Rosie brought herself back to respond to her guest. ‘Poor May,’ she said, pouring coffee and then passing a mug to Tally. ‘Mum told me you rang her when May couldn’t cope any more but I never knew what actually happened.’
    ‘She got very confused: getting up in the middle of the night and doing her hoovering, setting off for town and then forgetting how to get home again, that sort of thing. We used to take her round a dinner but she wouldn’t eat it, said she could only manage tiny bits of soup. Then one day she turned the gas on and forgot to light it – bless her. Rob had to have the back door down to get in.’
    Rosie was shocked. ‘How awful! Mum never said!’
    ‘Once she was in hospital they did an assessment and sent her into care. I reckoned that if I went through May’s address book and rang everyone who was mentioned only by their Christian name I’d eventually hit a relative, and that’s how I found your mum. Rob was well impressed with my detective work.’ She grinned, that wide smile again. ‘He’s in the Force – Plod not CID but he’s working on it.’
    ‘I must visit her,’ Rosie said. ‘See how she is. That’s another thing I really must …’ She tailed off.
    Tally saw how her face clouded at the prospect, as if she felt so battered by events that it was hard to summon the strength to meet one more challenge. She’d noticed the nervous habit that Rosie had of undoing the hairclip that held her long hair in a twist at the back of her head, coiling it around her hand and then clipping and reclipping it back in place – an obsessive movement, patting and tidying an imagined disarray, restoring order. Her heart went out to her. On an impulse she said, ‘Look, why don’t you go and see her this afternoon and bring the kids round to me? It’d be easier on your own. You might find the visit quite difficult; she might not even recognise you, you know. She didn’t know me from Adam when I went.’
    Rosie assumed that the offer was made through politeness and thought that she shouldn’t impose. ‘Thank you, that’s really kind of you but …’
    Tally leant forward. ‘No, really, it’d be no trouble. Mine’ll be back at three. They’re on a summer play scheme doing football or rounders or somesuch, down at the Jubilee Fields. They’d love someone new to play with when they get back.’
    ‘Are you sure? Cara’s only a toddler; she might spoil their games.’
    ‘We’ll do play-dough.’ Tally smiled. ‘No problem.’ She finished her coffee. ‘That’s settled then. I’ll see you at three.’
    Rosie saw her to the door, Tally waving away her thanks. She felt her spirits lifting as she thought that Tally was someone that she might be able to confide in, someone who just might become a friend.
    In the town, Rosie was ushered into Holly Court by a woman in a blue nurse’s uniform who introduced herself as the senior carer, Julie Todd. As she led her through