The Turn Of The Key Quotes
"I started writing to you last night, Mr. Wrexham, and when I woke up this morning and looked at the crumpled pages covered with my pleading scrawl, my first instinct was to rip them up and start again, just like I had a dozen times before."
"But then I reread what I’d written and I thought, No. I can’t start again. I just have to keep going."
"All this time I have been telling myself that if only someone would let me clear my head and get my side of the story straight, without interrupting, maybe this whole awful mess would get sorted out."
"297 days. And they still keep pushing back the date of her trial."
"Either way, 100 days, 140 days, 297 days… that’s a lot of writing time, Mr. Wrexham. A lot of time to think, and remember, and try to work out what really happened."
"Because there’s so much I don’t understand, but there’s one thing I know. I did not kill that little girl. I didn’t."
"I will finish now, because I know I can’t make this letter too long—you’re a busy man; you’ll just stop reading."
"Please, come and see me, Mr. Wrexham. Let me explain the situation to you and how I got tangled into this nightmare."
"Sorry, I didn’t mean to end on a joke. It’s not a laughing matter, I know that. If I’m convicted, I’m facing—"
"Please, Mr. Wrexham, please say you’ll help. Please write back. I don’t want to be melodramatic about this, but I feel like you’re my only hope."
"What’s got into me? I’ve got a new job."
"You’re just pissed off that I got made head of the baby room."
"Thanks for the fag. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to phone up and accept a job."
"I want to slap her face and tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about."
"No amount of alleged 'haunting' was going to make me turn this chance down."
"I want to shake that smug young woman, sitting in her London flat, thinking she knew it all, had seen it all."
"I was wrong, Mr. Wrexham. I was very, very wrong."
"Slowly, I said honestly. And painfully."
"Do you understand what it’s like for people who don’t have your money, and your protection, and your privilege?"
"I felt one knee nudge, very gently, between mine."
"I hadn’t seen a whiff of the supernatural the whole time I was in Carn Bridge."
"Piece by piece, I was being torn apart."
"It was comic, and yet at the same time more than a little pathetic."
"I had just enough sanity left to know that if I started that way, I would never be able to dial it back."
"They’re too wee to be left alone wi’ the stove."
"The dogs’ eyes following her with puzzlement as she went."
"I was suddenly ravenous, light-headed, and desperate for food."
"The realization was unsettling. I could be being watched, right now."
"She fell asleep almost as soon as I picked her up."
"I was suddenly desperate not to be left alone in this house of hidden eyes and ears and speakers."
"The house felt very still and quiet somehow, without his presence."
"It was absurd—we were miles away from anywhere, behind locked gates, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep well if I felt the place was insecure."
"Smothering a yawn, I made my way up the stairs to bed, and was asleep almost before I had undressed."
"The house was quiet. But something felt... wrong, though I couldn’t put my finger on it."
"My phone on the bedside table said it was 3:16 a.m., and I groaned and let it fall back to the wood with a clunk."
"At last, suppressing a sigh, I got up, wrapped my dressing gown around myself, and went out onto the landing."
"The realization was like a little shock."
"I thought I could hear the footsteps start on one side of the ceiling and move slowly and implacably to the other."
"An image suddenly flashed into my head—the locked door in my room. Where did it lead to?"
"I swore, Mr. Wrexham. I’m not too proud to admit it. I swore, long and loud."
"But I could feel something. A cool breeze that made me blink and draw back from the keyhole."
"I felt nauseous with a mix of fear and tiredness, and dread of the day ahead."
"At last, when I heard a low fractious wail come from downstairs, I loosened my grip on my phone."
"I jumped and swung round, my nerves still jangling with the traces of last night’s stale fear."
"I bet. God, she was such a cow. I still can’t believe Val didn’t give you that job when I left."
"It is. I’m in a commune in India. Mate, it’s amazing here. And sooo cheap!"
"You can afford that? Wow! This post must pay really well. How did you swing that?"
"I’m done." Maddie’s voice came from the media room."
"I hate you too, you vile, creepy little shits!"
"But I hadn’t hit her. Which meant that, if nothing else, I had triumphed over my own worst instinct."
"Then he was gone, the door closed behind him, and the outside light clicked off."
"The sun of the morning had gone in, and I was cold by the time I reached the cobbled path that led to the poison garden."
"I changed position, kneeling on the damp cobbles, feeling the chill strike up through the thin material of my sheer tights."
"The final photograph was in color, and it was a shot that seemed to have been taken through the bars of a gate."
"Unable to sit in silence with my thoughts any longer, I got up, put the baby monitor in my pocket, and grabbing a ball of caterers’ string from the drawer by the cooker, I left the house by the utility-room door."
"And then, half as I’d feared, half as I’d been waiting for, it came again. Creeeeak . . ."
"But my senses were on high alert, and sleep seemed impossible."
"Petra slept soundly in her cot, blissfully unaware of the chaos around her."
"We hate you. The words had been bad enough, sliding in slimy orange juice across a plate."
"I swallowed in the darkness, my throat dry. My palms were sweating, and I could not finish the thought."
"Returning to the search screen, I typed in Elspeth Grant death Carn Bridge and waited as the links came up."
"I couldn’t bring myself to enter the house alone. It had come to something, I thought, that even fending off the dogs from trying to put their noses up my skirt would have been a welcome distraction from the silent watchfulness of that house."
"But who? And why? The thought nagged at me as I walked slowly back up the hill."
"Because I had made my bed, and I would have to lie on it."
"It was her wail, that awful sound, as she saw her sister’s body. I don’t think I will ever forget that."
"They think that Maddie went up to my room to find me missing, and that she saw something incriminating up there."
"I told her to fuck off. I’m not proud of that."
"You’re drunk," I said, and she gave a nasty laugh."
"She stole my fucking father, if you must know."
"I remember screaming, holding Maddie’s body for what felt like the longest time."