The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery (22 page)

I know to think that way is mad, but I do think it.

The greatest surprise – perhaps a greater surprise to me than it was to Hugbert Edreich – is the discovery that Iskander came to this house. Because in my mind Iskander belongs to that mad journey with Leonora – the journey they made across the muddied, bloodied countries sacked by the invading German and Prussian armies, after he got her out of Sacré-Coeur. He has no place here, in this quiet, old-fashioned corner of England, so I'm wondering if those men were right in thinking it was Iskander they saw that night. It's obvious they saw someone peering out of the window – someone who had a lamp burning and who, either deliberately or by accident, let that lamplight shine into the dark garden.

But whoever he was, that man, he was not Stephen.

Michael laid down the diary, his thoughts tumbling.

At one o'clock, those men had seen someone in this house. They had seen someone draw back the curtains, so that light had spilled over into the dark gardens.

At one o'clock, Michael himself had done exactly that. He had not meant to open the curtains by more than a sliver, but they had fallen open and the light from the desk lamp had streamed out. And those figures, those walking shadows that he had seen so definitely, had turned to look at him, their faces startled, their eyes wide with confused alarm. Then, as if an order had been given, they had fled, carrying an injured man with them. Had that man been Hauptfeldwebel Barth, he of the nettle trip and the stubbed toe?

Michael was not going to wonder, even for a moment, if there could possibly be any basis for the wild theory that Booth Gilmore had propounded to the fifteen-year-old Luisa about time bleeding forwards. There was no basis whatsoever, of course. All the todays and tomorrows, and all the tomorrows to come, might creep at their own petty pace, but they crept forwards not backwards.

Michael was prepared to accept – with a great many reservations – that the past could occasionally brush its cobwebbed bones against the present; he had encountered too many odd things not to give that belief some credence. Even Nell, who had shared some of those experiences, now admitted – albeit with even more reservations and scepticism – that past events might sometimes leave a lingering imprint that could be picked up by certain people decades afterwards.

But Michael could not and would not accept that it could work the other way round – that the present could affect the past. The likes of Einstein or Schopenhauer might be able to put forward a Euclidean argument about the concept of space and time or single continuums, and it was an alluring idea to imagine the conversation those two might have. You could even throw in H.G. Wells to spice it up a bit. But even though Michael would probably only have understood one hundredth part of it, if as much, he still would not give it any credence.

That being so, whoever Hugbert and his cohorts had seen standing at the window that night, it had been someone from their own world and their own time.

Having put this tiresome worry firmly in its place, it now occurred to Michael that the soldiers, according to Hugbert's letter, had abandoned their attempt to capture Stephen Gilmore until the following night. That also being so, he could relax his guard for the rest of the night.

As for tomorrow – it would not matter if the entire Prussian Army and the Kaiser himself yomped around the gardens of Fosse House, chasing recalcitrant English prisoners to bring them to grisly justice. Because by tomorrow night Michael would be safely back in Oxford.

A
utumn sunlight slanted across Quire Court. Nell, eating an early breakfast in the little kitchen behind the shop, contemplated with pleasure the prospect of seeing Michael this evening, then was annoyed with herself for behaving like a moonstruck teenager.

She was meeting Owen Bracegirdle at half-past nine, and by this evening she might have met Hugbert as well, admittedly only in epistolary form, but certainly more substantially than the fragmented sections in Bernard Bodkin's book. Autumn sunlight slanted across the kitchen, and Nell's spirits rose.

She wrote down the title and ISBN of Hugbert's letters and folded the note into her bag, after which she put the ‘Closed' notice on the shop door and set off. It occurred to her that she would be unreasonably disappointed if she and Owen did not find Hugbert.

But they did find him. There he was, neatly catalogued in the Bodleian's customary efficient fashion, the entry sandwiched between somebody's account of the Zeppelin raids and a study of Hindenburg's war strategies in 1915.

‘Is it available for actual loan?' asked Nell, peering at the details. She was perfectly prepared to read the entire book in the library, in fact she would happily camp out here for several days if necessary, but she would rather to take Hugbert home and read him in privacy.

‘It looks like it.' Owen leaned over her shoulder to see. ‘Yes, it is. It'll have to be on my ticket, but if I can't trust you, I can't trust anyone.'

It felt odd to actually walk out of the library with Hugbert's letters stowed in her bag. Nell caught herself beaming every time she thought about it.

Owen insisted on buying them coffee at his favourite patisserie, and over several of the richest eclairs and doughnuts Nell had ever eaten he launched into a progress report of his own contribution to the Music Director's book.

‘And J.B. is very pleased with Michael's findings about Robert Graves and Stephen Gilmore,' he said. ‘He thinks if Michael can establish that Graves really was at school with Stephen, the two themes – music and Great War poetry – will knit up very neatly, particularly with the Gilmore connection to the Palestrina Choir.' He mopped a few doughnut crumbs from his waistcoat and said, ‘But I won't bang on about that for too long, Nell, because I've got to get back to College, and I know you're on edge to immerse yourself in those 1917 letters.'

‘Well, yes, I suppose I am.' Nell had been managing not to cast longing looks at her bag, with the book stashed inside.

‘The call of the siren,' said Owen, burlesquing the line. ‘Or in this case, whatever the masculine equivalent of a siren is.' He grinned sympathetically, and Nell was grateful to him for understanding, although if a history don could not understand the lure of newly found, primary-source research material, there was not much hope for lesser mortals.

She returned to Quire Court, developing hiccups on the way from a surfeit of doughnuts, and made a cup of peppermint tea to quell them. She would sit in the little office at the back of the shop to read Hugbert, so she could keep the shop open and hear any customers who came in.

But Quire Court, with its little shops and mullioned windows and the remains of the original cobblestones, was drowsy and deserted today. It felt as if it might have sealed itself off from the clang of the modern world for a few hours. Michael had often said it was one of the places where time might be paper-thin, and that if you knew the right words, or the right place to reach out a hand, you would find yourself peering at glimpses of the Court's past. Nell, walking under the arched stone entrance, thought this might be one of the days when the veil was particularly thin, although it might simply be that she was absorbed in 1917.

Once inside, she checked her phone messages, hoping Michael might have phoned to say he was about to set off for Oxford. He had not, however. Nell considered phoning him, but thought he might be caught up in the practicalities of Luisa Gilmore's illness. If she had not heard after lunch, she would ring then.

Here was the title page with Freide's dedication: ‘In loving remembrance of a dear husband.' How had Freide felt about coming to England after WWI – to a country she must still have regarded as an enemy of Germany – and living here?

For the first few pages Hugbert's writing did not quite achieve the lively style of the letters reproduced in B.D. Bodkin. But perhaps Hugbert had not yet become accustomed to expressing himself with pen and paper. Or perhaps the translator had not got into his or her swing yet. Nell persevered, and by the time she reached a letter sent from France in 1916, Hugbert appeared to have hit his literary stride.

He had written to his Freide that he missed her, but assured her he was with good comrades, and everyone was in cheerful spirits, although life in the trenches was dismal, and there had been outbreaks of illness among a number of the men. ‘Details of which I will not embarrass you, my
liebling
, only to say they are distressing and debilitating. I believe the British suffer the same thing. We have much sympathy for them, for it is not an illness to wish on one's worst enemies.'

Dysentery, thought Nell. It was endemic on both sides in that conflict. Poor old Hugbert, I hope he didn't get it.

But although he had spared his
liebling
Freide the finer points of the trench sickness, he had provided her with a description of the trenches themselves:

It is depressing and dreary, and the fighting is grim … We are brave men, but still there have been instances of suicide and madness within our ranks, although there have also been stories of bravery and resourcefulness, of which we are very proud … But everywhere is the grey mud of the trenches and the sounds of gunfire and men's shouts, and the screams of horses … It is a terrible thing to hear horses screaming, Freide, although it is, of course, far worse to hear men screaming. And it seems as if everything we hear, and see, and smell, is framed in barbed wire like jagged black teeth.

Later, while guarding the
Siegfriedstellung
– the Hindenburg line – at Verdun, he had written that it was bitterly, bone-numbingly, cold, but how, when the freezing mists cleared, they could sometimes see the British soldiers.

A curious race, the British, but I find them interesting, although that is something I should not say, since they are our enemies. This week one of our own trenches was captured by a young British Lieutenant, who pelted about fifty of our men with hand grenades. I am sorry to say our men were scared away, although under such an attack perhaps one could not blame them. It is easy to be brave until faced with explosives and spitting fire and showers of metal.

Since it happened, we have heard a strange story about the lieutenant, who is called Siegfried Sassoon. Instead of signalling for reinforcements, as would have been correct after making the capture, he sat down in the trench itself, and began reading a book of poetry. This, you will appreciate, is extremely odd behaviour.

Nell reached for her pen to note it down in case Michael, or Owen, or the Director did not know this small story and might be able to make use of it. She found the brief word picture of the romantic, tormented Sassoon, reading poems in a German trench, touching and evocative.

The next pages appeared to deal with Hugbert's progression through the war. Nell skimmed these. They would no doubt be interesting to a student of the finer points of military history, particularly seen from the Germans' point of view, but she was looking for Holzminden and for Stephen Gilmore and Iskander. But it was rather endearing to read of Hugbert's simple pleasure and pride in his promotions, and also of his obviously genuine sorrow at the death of many of his colleagues.

And then, about a third of the way through, the word Holzminden leapt up from the page. ‘My posting for the new prisoner of war camp at Holzminden has been officially announced, and I leave tomorrow,' he had written.

Nell bent eagerly over the page. The letter was not, on this occasion, written to Freide, but to Hugbert's parents, and ended with a brief description of the camp:

… in old cavalry barracks, and specifically intended for British officers. The present Kommandant is a kindly old dodderer, but we hear he is to leave very soon, and his replacement is not yet known. I shall, however, be serving directly under Hauptfeldwebel Barth, who you will remember meeting at that social evening. I am afraid he was very voluble about the food being served, telling everyone that his father, a butcher in Braunschweig, had supplied the bratwurst for the supper, but he is proud of his father's business, and it must be said the bratwurst was very good. Also, allowances must be made for the amount of beer he had consumed that night.

My best love to you both,

Hugbert

Dearest Mother and Father,

Here I am, safely installed at Holzminden, and becoming acquainted with the men in my charge. I should not admit to being glad that I am removed from active duty, but I feel great relief.

I am less pleased at learning the identity of the new Kommandant. He is Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer. He is very much disliked and feared, and is considered a buffoon, but a vindictive buffoon. He likes to think himself very learned and scholarly in English even though he is far from that. Already, some of the imprisoned men are mimicking him behind his back. I beg you will not mention that I have told you that.

Please to take care of my beloved Freide while I am away. I fear she has too vivid an imagination and conjures up all manner of horrors which she thinks I am enduring.

Horrors there have been, of course, and will continue to be. There is a young Englishman here who clearly has seen the worst of them, and he is unable to shake off his memories. He goes in constant terror of being hunted down, and two nights ago I and another attendant found him hiding in the storeroom, crouching in a dark corner, pressing against the walls, as if trying to hide within the very bricks. I fear he is very disturbed.

I have received your parcel with the peppermint draught for dyspepsia and the ointment for bunions. You will be glad to know both are much improved as a result.

My best love to you both,

Hugbert

Dearest Mother and Father,

We heard today that a British newspaper has called Holzminden camp ‘the worst camp in Germany'. This is troubling, but sadly not without foundation. The food in particular is very poor and the rations meagre, but in fairness that is largely the result of the economic blockade on our country. It is still the infamous Turnip Winter here, I am afraid. I am heartily sick of turnips, but I eat them for they are filling and nutritious, and are the best that can be obtained at the moment. But if you, Mother, or Tante Mathilde, could find it possible to send me a food parcel, I would be more grateful than I can say. One of your apple cakes, perhaps, and some stollen, which should keep quite well, or even some pickled beet and potato dumplings.