Free Thieving Fear by Ramsey Campbell

not just by Mrs Stevens but by the framed photograph on the desk. She was about to favour it with a remark when she heard sounds overhead: a heavy thud followed by a cry. The proprietor of the Peacebrook Home didn't react, and nobody seemed to have gone to the aid of the injured, even once the cry was repeated with additional anguish. 'Should I go and see what's happened, do you think?' Ellen was driven to ask.
    'There'll be no need for that, thank you.'
    Mrs Stevens sat back in her generous leather chair, and the lower reaches of her sleeveless blouse bulged as though celebrating her last meal or many of them. Her small face was set in plushy flesh that underlined her diminutive chin with a larger version, while her pale arms were so plump they hardly seemed defined. Ellen had been reflecting that at least she was slimmer by comparison, but now she was worried about whoever had fallen. The cry came again, and she was on the way to standing up despite the proprietor's reply when she heard an exaggerated voice that she guessed was a nurse's. 'Have you knocked your table over again, Thora? There it is for you. We'll have to see about getting it screwed to the floor, won't we? Why don't you come down and sit with the others now. Your quiz show that you like is on soon.'
    He sounded as smug as Mrs Stevens had settled into looking. If Ellen had turned the situation into a test, she had no idea how she'd fared. As she sank back onto the chair its creak made her feel yet more examined. 'Sorry,' she said sooner than she'd planned to speak.
    'Ah,' Mrs Stevens said, perhaps with satisfaction. 'What for?'
    'I wasn't meaning to imply nobody was dealing with it.' When Mrs Stevens only gazed at her Ellen said 'I suppose I did, but I was wrong.'
    'Nothing wrong with being conscientious.'
    'I'm that, I hope. I'd look after your residents the way I'd look after any of my family.'
    'Do they need it?'
    'My family?' The proprietor's question seemed both irrelevant and oddly ominous. 'They're fine,' Ellen said. 'My parents are forever travelling and my cousins are all working.'
    'If more people cared for their families there'd be less need for us.'
    Since she was resting her fingers on top of the photograph, Ellen wondered if she had the couple – a young white man arm in arm with a young black woman – in mind. 'Yours?' she said.
    'Why, do you see a problem?'
    'I hope not. No, of course not. Certainly there shouldn't be.' Ellen thought she was saying too much and then not enough as the proprietor's gaze failed to change. 'They're your children, are they?' she said, which earned no response. 'Adopted?' she tried saying.
    'Why are you asking that?'
    'I don't mean both. It needn't be either.' Ellen felt as if she were strewing her words in her path. 'I don't even know why I said it. Forget I spoke.'
    Mrs Stevens turned the photograph away from Ellen. 'They're my son and his partner.'
    'Of course, I should have known.'
    'Why should you?'
    'Tell me if I'm trying too hard,' Ellen said and worked on a laugh. 'I just want to make sure you don't get the wrong impression.'
    'You are.'
    'Well then, I'll stop.'
    'And I will,' Mrs Stevens said, caressing the top of the frame. 'I'm afraid you aren't suitable for the post.'
    Ellen's face felt puffed up with dismay. 'Because of what I just said? I'm sorry if I was clumsy, but surely I wasn't rude.'
    'How much more of my time are you proposing to waste, Miss Lomax? I'm surprised you attended the interview.'
    'I don't believe in letting people down.'
    Mrs Stevens shook her head as if Ellen's remark were an insect to be driven off, and her lower chin quivered while the smaller one stayed unsympathetically firm. 'Just in taking them for fools,' she said.
    'I really don't think that's fair. How have I done it to you?'
    The question appeared to topple the proprietor. Without taking her gaze from Ellen, she leaned sideways out of her chair. Her face seemed to swell or sag in that direction as she reached down for a