The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery (16 page)

‘One of the advantages of a small community,' said Michael.

‘It is. I'll give her nitroglycerine as well, then we'll get her to the cardiac unit.'

‘How?' said Michael, in dismay as the man opened his bag again and took out a phial and a fresh syringe. ‘The fallen tree—'

‘They'll airlift her,' said the man, administering the injection. He reached for his phone and tapped out a number. ‘We often have to do it out here.' He spoke into the phone, then nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘Ten to fifteen minutes before they reach us,' he said. ‘It's a good service, and the helicopter can land in the field just beyond the main walls I should think. In the meantime, if you'll help me to carry her up the stairs, we can be ready in the hall.'

A thin spiteful rain was beating against the windows when they got Luisa into the hall, and when Michael opened the main front door the helicopter was already approaching, its propeller sounding like massive leathery wings beating on the night sky. The lights sliced through the dusk like pale, glaring eyes, and the scene began to take on a surreal quality.

The air ambulance men brought a stretcher, and between them they put Luisa on to it and fastened straps around her. Michael had located her bedroom by this time and had put washing things, together with hairbrush and comb, in a sponge bag. The bedside cabinet had two or three medicine bottles and a small spray of pink liquid. He tipped these in as well so the hospital would know what pills she was taking, then wrapped everything in a dressing gown.

Luisa was still semi-conscious, but Michael leaned over, explaining what was happening, hoping she could hear and understand. He thought she roused sufficiently to look towards the panelled door, and he said, very quietly so the paramedic would not hear, ‘I'll lock that up for you. Don't worry.'

‘Key—' One hand went to the pocket of her woollen jacket.

‘I'll look after the key until you come back,' he said. ‘Is that right? Is that what you want me to do?'

When she nodded, he took the key from her pocket, and she gave a grateful half-smile, then in a suddenly urgent voice, said again, ‘Stephen—'

‘Stephen won't hurt me,' he said, taking her hands. ‘It's all right. I know about him, remember? I can deal with Stephen. You can trust me.'

‘I know I can,' she said. ‘I've written it all down. It's in my book.'

‘The book in the underground room?'

‘Yes.' She seemed grateful for his comprehension and unquestioning of how he knew what she referred to. ‘Michael, you need to know – to understand … I want you to be the one who knows the truth.' Her hands closed tightly around his, and a spasm of pain crossed her face.

Speaking carefully, hoping she could still hear and understand him, Michael said, ‘If it seems necessary, I can look at what you wrote in your book? Your journal? Is that what you mean?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘You can read it— I trust you … I didn't think there would ever be anyone, not till you came here—'

‘You
can
trust me,' he said as she broke off again. ‘I promise I'll do whatever's necessary.' This seemed to satisfy her. She gave the half-nod again and sank back against the blankets.

When she had been carefully stowed on to the helicopter, Michael turned to the paramedic who was preparing to set off on his motorbike.

‘Is there any news of whether the road's cleared yet? I was hoping I could go with her to hospital, but—'

‘I should think it'll be tomorrow before they get the tree off the road,' he said. ‘The storm brought a couple more down, but they're on the main roads, so they have priority. You'll be all right here, won't you?' He glanced at the house. ‘Odd old place, isn't it?'

You don't know the half, thought Michael, but he said, ‘It is, rather. But it has an interesting history. Thanks so much for all you've done this evening.'

‘All in a day's work,' said the paramedic, smiling. ‘I'll give you the number of the hospital where they'll take her.' He handed over a small card. You could phone in a couple of hours to find out what's happening. They'll be wanting next of kin details and so on.'

‘I don't know who her next of kin is,' said Michael. ‘But I'll phone anyway.'

‘You'd better have the number of the local police station as well, while I'm about it. They'd know the situation about the tree.' He scribbled a number on the back of the card.

Michael waited until the helicopter had taken off and watched it wheel itself around and head off. The motorbike growled its way down the drive and turned on to the main road. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then took a deep breath and went back into the house, locking and bolting the main door. Then, in accordance with his promise to Luisa, he locked the panelled door and put the key in his pocket again. But, crossing the hall, he was conscious of Fosse House's silence – haunted and watchful – pressing in on him.

‘You let me in,'
Stephen had said.

Michael frowned and went systematically through the ground floor rooms, switching on lights. He located a radio and a television in a small sitting room on the side of the house and switched the radio on. With lights and music one could surely drive back any amount of ghosts. Feeling slightly better, he searched the kitchen for an evening meal, hoping Luisa would recover sufficiently for him to apologize for raiding her fridge. He had a sudden wild image of himself taking her out to lunch as a thank you. The prospect of sitting opposite Morticia Addams in a local pub restaurant and hearing a waitress reel off the day's specials pleased him immensely. Dammit, thought Michael, taking eggs and cheese from the fridge, I'll do it. Get better quickly, Luisa, because we've got a date.

He managed a reasonable plate of scrambled eggs with grated cheese, which he carried into the TV room, where he watched the evening news. This had the effect of making him feel slightly more in touch with normality, even though normality took the form of soaring inflation, wars in various countries, and battling politicians.

But after he had washed up, even with lights switched on, and Classic FM playing a lively Mozart concertante, Fosse House seemed to be filling up with soft rustlings and whisperings.

‘I'm still in the house …'

I don't care if you're swinging from the light fittings, said Michael to Stephen's image, and went into the library and phoned the hospital to find out how Luisa was.

‘We can't really give out information other than to family—Oh, you're the gentleman who called the paramedics, yes, I see. Well, I'm afraid she's still rather poorly. Can you give me any details about next of kin?'

‘I'm afraid not. I don't even know if there is any family,' said Michael. ‘I think you'd better use this number as a contact for the moment.' He gave Fosse House's number, then his own mobile.

‘We'll let you know if there's any change in her condition, but if you do trace any family for her, give us a call.'

It was still only a little after nine o'clock, and the evening stretched rather emptily ahead. Michael phoned Nell, explaining what had happened.

‘Poor Luisa,' said Nell. ‘I hope she makes it – I rather liked the sound of her.'

‘A bit eccentric in certain areas,' said Michael, who somehow did not want to say – even to Nell – that Luisa had seemed more than eccentric earlier in the day.

‘Will you be able to track down her family?'

‘I don't know. I've got the run of the library, but I don't think I can start looking through her private papers.' Except the journal, said his mind. She wanted me to read that. ‘I'm hoping it won't be necessary to rifle through her things,' he said to Nell.

‘She sounds like a survivor,' said Nell. ‘And you might find an address book somewhere un-private – by a phone, for instance But listen, just to put you back on track, I've been finding out a few things about Holzminden – about the prisoner-of-war camp, I mean. Godfrey at the bookshop in Quire Court – you've met him, haven't you? – produced a couple of very useful tomes. One has excerpts from letters written in 1917 by an attendant who was a guard there. Even allowing for the German to English translation, they paint quite a vivid picture of the place. I'm trying to track down the rest of the letters – apparently they were privately printed.'

Michael smiled at the enthusiasm in her voice, asked after Beth, and was pleased to hear Beth was having a good time with Aunt Emily in Aberdeen.

‘I'm going to the Bodleian tomorrow to look for the letters,' said Nell. ‘I've asked Owen to hold my hand and guide me through the hallowed portals. Also the Radcliffe, if necessary. I'd rather have your hand to hold, but I'd like to find the letters as soon as possible, so Owen's a good substitute. And—'

‘And you've long suspected you'd never be in any danger by holding Owen's hand anyway.'

‘Well, as a matter of fact I did suspect that,' said Nell. ‘Ah, yes, I see. Dear Owen. But you'll be back soon, won't you?'

‘I'm setting off for Oxford tomorrow.'

‘Will you be able to? What if they haven't cleared the tree by then?'

‘If I have to pass earth's central line— If I have to cross the foaming flood, frozen by distance, I will be with you in Quire Court when night falls on the world.'

‘You do get carried away,' she said, laughing.

‘The poets always say these romantic things better than I ever could.'

‘Don't denigrate yourself. You're the last of the real romantics as far as I'm concerned. Ring again if you want to. I wouldn't mind if it was three in the morning when you rang.'

The house felt immeasurably safer and saner after talking to Nell, but by ten o'clock Michael gave up the struggle to work. He took the key of the underground room from his pocket and looked at it for a long time.

The prospect of going down to that room again was daunting, but Michael knew he would have to do it.
I want you to be the one who knows the truth …
He could dash across the room, snatch up the book, and be back up here within five minutes – ten at the most.

Before he could change his mind he went into the kitchen to find an electric torch and matches. As an afterthought, he collected his mobile phone from his room and, thus suitably armed, unlocked the door in the panelling. It opened easily, and as it swung inwards, a faint drift of still-warm oil or paraffin came up, with, beneath it, something old and sad. Michael took a deep breath, switched on the torch, and went warily down the stone steps.

The room looked exactly as he had left it. He righted the fallen chair, then shone the torch around. It was not so bad, after all. It was not somewhere he would choose to work, but Luisa had lived here all her life, and perhaps she had not minded the lingering ghosts.

He picked up the thick, leather-bound book and jammed it into his pocket. If nothing else, it might contain names or phone numbers that would be useful to the hospital. Before he went back upstairs, he shone the torch on the oak chest in its corner. In the sharp torchlight, the scratches around the lock were more noticeable. From one angle they almost seemed to form the pattern of a snarling angry face – the kind of twisted, scowling, incredibly
old
face depicted as guardians of ancient tombs or long-buried malevolent secrets. Whatever it is, it's nothing to do with me, thought Michael, but his feet had already taken him across the stones and he was bending down to pull the velvet aside almost before he realized it. There were several deep scratches on the edges of the domed lid as well. Madeline Usher, entombed alive, after all? Struggling to rend her coffin open, clawing at the lid …? ‘Oh, for pity's sake,' said Michael impatiently out loud, ‘someone lost the key, and the lid had to be levered off, that's all.' But the memory of Stephen Gilmore's hands, raw and torn, flickered in his mind.

A good many of us would like to know the truth about Stephen
, Chuffy had written. And Stephen had been pronounced dead after seven years. That means they never found a body, thought Michael, still staring at the chest.

It was nonsense, of course. The chest, if he bothered to force it open, would turn out to contain nothing more sinister than old photos or old newspaper cuttings. But why would Luisa keep them down here, inside an oak chest, bound with a thick chain and padlock? Why would anyone?

The padlock looked fairly secure, but Michael grasped it to make sure. As he did so, something seemed to wrench at the shadows, as if tearing them aside, preparatory to stepping through them. Michael recoiled, his heart punching against his ribs. Hands, dreadful wounded hands, the nails splintered, the flesh raw, reached out from the darkness behind the chest, and he gasped and fell back on the stone floor, dropping the torch. It rolled into a corner, shattering the bulb, and darkness, thick and stifling, closed down.

Michael got to his feet, frantically trying to get his bearings. Was Stephen still here? He groped blindly for the walls, willing the stairs to be within reach. He was just starting to make out vague shapes in the darkness and realizing that he had been going towards the desk instead of the stairs, when cold, dead fingers reached out and tried to curl round his hand.

Michael's nerve snapped, and he jerked back and scrambled across the room. By now he could make out the shape of the steps, and he was able to find his way up to the hall. He slammed the panelled door and leaned back against it, regaining his breath. Then he locked it, although his hands were shaking so badly he had to make two attempts, and at one level of his mind he was aware of the absurdity of trying to lock up a ghost. But he did it anyway, then he retreated to the library and slammed that door as well.

What now? The prospect of remaining in the house all night filled him with dismay. Mightn't it be better to leave at once and hope he could get to the village – or any village – with a pub and a spare room? He reached for the phone on the desk, found the card the helpful paramedic had provided, and dialled the local police number.