The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery (28 page)

‘Then keep it a secret – keep it so well hidden no one will ever read it … Unless one day you decide the truth should be known … Because one day you might meet someone you feel you can trust with it …'

I don't believe this particular truth will ever need to be known, or that there will ever be anyone I will be able to trust that much.

But there was someone, thought Michael, coming out of Luisa's world for a moment. She met me and for some wildly incredible reason she thought she could trust me. It might only have been because she was dying – she might have trusted anyone in that situation. But he still found it moving that she had trusted him.

I'm terrified that this might be another of Leonora's tricks to take over my mind. Is that what she wants to do? Did she live in this house once? With Stephen? That thought makes me rather jealous, but I believe Leonora is a friend rather than an enemy, so I'm going to do what she says. It will be difficult, but I'll follow the advice from
Alice in Wonderland
:
‘Begin at the beginning, go on until you reach the end, then stop
.
' I know when the beginning is. It's three nights ago when I let Stephen into the house.

‘He's here,' my father had said, pointing to the faint footprints across the floor, and I had felt such a mixture of fear and excitement that I had not been able to speak.

My father left the room, and I heard him cross the hall. There was the sound of a door opening somewhere with a slow creak, although I had no idea which door it was. I stayed where I was, huddled into the chair, wrapping my arms around my body, watching the wet footprints gradually fade, as if Stephen was fading out of my reach. Or was he? Father had seemed so sure he was in the house. And the memory of Stephen's hand closing around mine was still vivid. It's vivid now as I write this.

At last I went out into the hall. It looked different, as if something had been altered. I looked round, trying to see what it could be. It was a large hall, nearly always dark because of the panelling and the narrow windows on each side of the door which did not let in much light. Then I saw that a small section of the panelling seemed to have come away from the wall, but when I went closer, it was a small door, set so deeply and so cleverly into the surrounding oak that unless you knew it was there you would never have noticed it. I certainly had never done so. It was slightly ajar. Was it the door I had heard being opened earlier? Was Father in there?

Mother was in the small sitting room at the back of the house – I could hear the faint murmur of a wireless and I knew she would be there for the rest of the evening. She always pretends to despise the wireless, but she listens to it avidly.

I walked towards the panelled door and pushed it wider open. It gave a faint groan, and stale air gusted into my face. Beyond was a flight of stone steps leading down. I glanced behind me, then went down the steps.

To describe what I saw at the foot of those steps is easy enough. A low-ceilinged room, with floors and walls of thick old stone. There was a wavering light from an oil lamp placed on the ground, and there were a few pieces of furniture – a small table, one or two broken kitchen chairs, a jumble of household rubbish in one corner.

But there was one other object in that room, and although I can describe it, I don't think I can put into words how it affected me. It was a massive oak chest, carved and elaborate, a little like those stone structures you see in paintings of Egyptian tombs. To me it was exactly like a deep old coffin. It was repulsive and frightening, but somehow it was also sad.

My father was kneeling in front of the chest, but he turned at the sound of my footsteps, his eyes wild and strange – wilder and stranger than I had ever seen them.

‘It's all right,' he said, in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I'm going to save him. I've found a hiding place for him.' He was unwinding a thick length of chain that had been around the chest.

‘Father, what's happening? Please tell me. I'm scared.'

He lifted a finger in the traditional hushing gesture. ‘You must never tell anyone about this,' he said. ‘Never. Niemeyer's butchers are nearby. I can hear them whispering to one another, creeping towards the house. But even if they get in, they can ransack the entire house and they'll never find him down here.'

He terrified me. I saw that he believed himself to be back in Stephen's time – the time when the German soldiers had come here to kill him. It was all in the letters he had found in Belgium. And after all the years, my father could still hear those men … But if I listened intently, couldn't I hear them as well? As for Stephen— The logical part of my mind knew Stephen was just an echo of the past, a fragment of an old memory blown forwards to the 1950s, like a dry leaf.

And yet … And yet I could still feel the pressure of his hand against my palm. I could still see his eyes looking imploringly into mine.
‘You must let me in …'

‘I'm going to open this and let him get inside,' my father was saying. ‘Then I'll chain it and lock it – you see there's a padlock, Luisa? Then I'll lock the door upstairs and they'll never know this room is here. You didn't even know it was here, did you, Luisa?'

‘Well, no, but—'

‘All I've got to do is wait for him,' he said, looking back at the chained chest. ‘Then he'll be safe.' He was nodding to himself, murmuring the word ‘safe' over and over again. But the dreadful thing was that he didn't just nod once or twice, he went on and on nodding, as if he had forgotten what he was doing or how to stop. I moved towards him, and that was when I saw the Holzminden sketch propped up against the wall behind him. In the flickering lamplight it looked different – the eyes of the people seemed to have come alive.

I reached for my father's arm, intending to take him back up the stone steps, and that was when the strangeness in his eyes erupted into something far worse, something that reared up and came towards me, hands clenched and curved into claws. I backed away and made for the stone steps, but my father came towards me.

‘You must never let anyone know about this room,' he said. ‘I can't let you go until I have your absolute promise, Luisa.'

‘I promise,' I said, in a gasping sob. ‘I truly promise.'

‘Good.' He stepped back. ‘I have to stay here, though. I must wait for him, you see. I must be here, ready to help him. Do you understand that?'

‘Yes, I understand.'

This time I managed to get away, and I scrabbled to get up the stairs, tumbling through the door in the hall. I was gasping and sobbing, and I had no idea what to do. Then I heard him come up the stairs behind me. He closed the door, and I heard a key turn from within.

The mind is a curious thing. At times it works at levels that we don't understand. I didn't understand my mind that night. I waited in the hall until I could be sure I had stopped shaking and I thought my voice would be firm, then I went along to the little sitting-room and called to Mother that I was going to bed early to finish my book.

‘Don't lie reading too long. It's bad for your eyes. Is your father still working?'

In a perfectly ordinary voice, I said, ‘Yes. He's in the library. He said he might be there until late, and we aren't to disturb him.'

I sat in my bedroom for a very long time that night. I didn't even attempt to sleep.

My mind was filled with the thought of my father locked into that room, locked in with that oak chest, so like a deep, dark coffin. And Stephen …? Was it really possible that Stephen could be lured down there and that my father could chain him inside the chest and so save him from the German soldiers? Written down it looks utterly mad. In reality, mad is exactly what it is, of course. What I also know is that a lot of it is my fault. I let Stephen in – it didn't matter that father told me to do it, I was the one who opened the window so he could come in. I fed my father's madness. Perhaps I even caused it.

I lay listening to St Augustine's church clock striking the hours. When the wind is in a certain quarter, you can hear the chimes quite clearly. It's a cold, lonely sound at any hour, though, and on that night it was the coldest, loneliest sound I had ever heard.

At half-past six I got up and went down to the hall. The house was shrouded in early-morning light – thin and grey, not hopeful like the start of a new day should be.

For a wild moment I thought the door in the panelling might have vanished, like a door in a fairy tale that isn't always there. It had not, of course. But it was still locked, so I tapped on it and called out softly. At first I thought he was not going to reply, but then I heard him come up the stairs.

‘Luisa?'

‘Yes. Please unlock the door.' There was silence. I tried again. ‘Come out and have some breakfast. You can go back in there later. Please, Father.'

‘Bring my breakfast here,' he said. ‘I must wait for him. If it takes months – years even, I must wait for him.'

Him. Stephen. The young man with soft hair and that beseeching hand-clasp who had been dead for more than a quarter of a century.

I thought if I could at least get Father to open the door, I might be able to reason with him. He might snap back to sanity, and we could go on as we had before, and no one would have to know about this. So I went along to the scullery and made coffee, strong and sweet, the way father liked it, and I made toast and spread it with butter and his favourite Oxford marmalade, and I took a small tray to the panelled door.

He opened it a very little, and his face appeared in the narrow gap. For a terrible moment I thought it was not my father – that it was some wild-eyed madman who had got into the house. Then I saw he was wearing the shirt and cardigan he had on last night, and as his hands came out to snatch the tray from me, I saw the signet ring he always wore. Before I could say or do anything, he retreated and I heard the lock turn again. Footsteps went back down the stone steps.

I had no idea what to do. I did not even know if anyone would believe me if I told them – I did not think Mother would. And without the key it would be impossible to open the door – no one had known it was there anyway. Even Mother's cousin, my Uncle Charles, had never noticed it, and Uncle Charles liked exploring the house. He usually came for Christmas, and he was apt to organize boisterous games after Christmas dinner – treasure hunts and hide-and-seek and something called Sardines, which he always said was a corking game – they had played it when he was a young man and it would liven up our guests splendidly. Our guests were generally the vicar and his wife, and their two unmarried daughters, and none of them were the Sardines type, but that never bothered Uncle Charles.

Uncle Charles.

I took a deep breath and went into the library and picked up the phone.

Michael saw that someone – and presumably it had been Luisa herself – had folded a small piece of paper into the diary at this point. Unfolding it, he saw the familiar writing of Chuffy Chiffley. Luisa's Uncle Charles.

Dear old Tommy,

I'm in need of a rather large favour. I know it's a frightful imposition, but I'm wondering if you might be able to help us out over a cousin who's become a trifle unhinged.

It's nothing too serious, I shouldn't think – probably down to the war, you know – but he's taken to locking himself away in a cellar and refusing to come out. Awfully upsetting for the family – there's a wife and a young daughter. I'm anxious to help, but I don't mind telling you I was absolutely at a loss until I remembered you and that you treated a few chaps who'd been in Intelligence in the 1940s, and who'd come out of it a bit battered mentally. I remember how grateful they were. Also, I think you were at that Scottish place – Craiglockhart, wasn't it? – during the Great War. I'm sure you once told me you'd helped look after those poor blighters who suffered shell-shock.

My cousin has been looking into the life of one of his relatives who went through all that grim 1914–18 stuff, and it's my idea that he's got a bit fixated on it all – I think that's the right word. So if you've got a spare room in one of your nursing homes where he could be kept quiet and safe, with a few trained people on hand to help sort him out, the family would be most awfully grateful. I don't know how these things work, but I can give you my personal assurance that the wherewithal will be forthcoming.

How are things with you? I wish you'd toddle along to join us at the next regimental reunion. They always put on a pretty good show, and it would be splendid to see you again.

Hoping to hear from you soon,

Affectionately,

Charles (Chuffy) Chiffley

It was like meeting an old friend. Michael thought Chuffy's anxious generosity came off the page vividly and endearingly.

He reached for his drink and glanced at his watch. It was quarter past six. Nell would probably not be much longer. There seemed to be only a brief entry left in the journal, so Michael took a sip of his drink, and read on. Luisa's next entry sounded just a short while after the previous one.

Today Mother was more angry and snappish than I have ever known her. At lunch she talked about inconsiderate people, and how some men become so caught up in their own concerns they have no thought for others. She added the usual comment about wishing she had married her cousin Charles.

I wish she had married her cousin Charles as well, because Uncle Charles is a cheerful person, and that morning when I phoned him, he drove out here the same day. My life might have been a lot different if Mother had married him.

The doctor has been again. He gave Mother a bromide to help her sleep. He offered me a half-measure of it, as well. It was important I remained strong and calm, he said, to help my poor mother. I accepted the pills he gave me, but later I threw them away. If I let my mind be taken over by pills, Leonora might find a way in. She's dead of course, I know that. The Palestrina Choir is dead as well, it died in 1914 …