The Voices
Page 25
I’ve got all your things ready,’ she said. ‘Your sports bag’s under the stairs.’ Her accent betrayed origins from somewhere along the Thames Estuary.
‘Thanks.’
‘What time do you think you’ll be back?’
‘I don’t know. We’re going for a drink after . . . nine maybe.’
Eileen put the little brush she had been using back in its bottle, splayed her fingers and blew on her nails. ‘Do you want me to put something in the oven for you?’
‘Yeah, OK.’
‘Stroganoff?’
‘Yeah, all right.’
Eileen stood up and moved to the fireplace, where she lit a cigarette. The hem of her dress had ridden up her legs, revealing the black brocade trim of her stockings. Vance put his arm around her waist and kissed her on the mouth. She tasted of ash and mouthwash. When they separated, she smiled and raised her plucked eyebrows.
The sound of a knuckle tapping on glass made them both turn. One of the gardeners, a middle-aged man with a beard, was looking in at them, a hand held horizontally against his forehead. Eileen wriggled her hips and pulled the hem of her dress down. ‘Come in, Jack.’
The man opened one of the French windows. He made an apologetic gesture, indicating that he couldn’t enter on account of his dirty clothes. ‘Mr Vance,’ he said uneasily. ‘Would you come with me, please? We’ve found something.’
‘What?’ Vance was irritated by the gardener’s untimely intrusion and his response was brusque. Eileen rested a restraining hand on his sleeve.
Jack glanced from husband to wife and back again. ‘I think you’d better come and see for yourself.’
‘Hang on,’ said Eileen. ‘Wait for me. I’ll put some mules on.’
‘No, Mrs Vance,’ said the gardener. ‘Perhaps your husband should . . . first . . . if you don’t mind . . .’ He winced, ashamed by his own inarticulacy.
The couple looked at each other and Eileen shrugged. Vance crossed the room and sashayed out onto the flagstone terrace. Another gardener, a teenager, was standing near the digger, some distance from the house, and he appeared to be looking into a hole.
‘What’s the problem?’ Vance asked.
The gardener shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ He seemed stunned, unable to speak properly. They proceeded along a temporary woodchip path. ‘Be careful,’ the gardener added. ‘It’s a little slippery just there.’
As Vance approached the digger he saw an opening in the ground surrounded by several mounds of freshly excavated earth. ‘Blimey!’ said Vance. They had uncovered an old stone staircase, the uppermost step of which was flanked by the two cherubs. It led down to a half-open metal door.
‘What’s in there then?’ Vance addressed the younger gardener. The boy looked at the older man, unsure as to whether he should speak or not. Jack consented with a subtle inclination of his head. ‘It’s horrible,’ said the boy. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ He swallowed and the greenish pallor of his complexion suggested that he was about to be sick.
Vance descended the muddy stairs and when he reached the bottom he pushed the door open. The hinges creaked and some loose soil trickled down from above the lintel. Vance swore and brushed the dirt out of his hair. He peered into the gloom, before warily stepping over the threshold. The air was cold and damp.
For a few seconds, Vance was unable to interpret his surroundings. The experience was like looking at an abstract painting in which everyday objects are merely suggested and emerge only slowly from obscurity with sustained study. Vance was aware of vertical lines and shapes, but they stubbornly resisted resolution into forms that could be readily identified. Gradually, with attendant feelings of mounting horror, the world became comprehensible.
A number of chains hung from the ceiling, but his attention was drawn to the shrivelled thing that dangled in the air at eye level. The skull was small and covered with remnants of desiccated skin and flesh. Blonde curls still adhered to the crown and the eye sockets were empty. The remains of the dead infant – for that is what it appeared to be – were held together by its clothing: white cotton pyjamas decorated with pink flowers.
‘Fuck.’ Vance looked back over his shoulder. The two gardeners had followed him. They were standing close together, slightly hunched, as if they were about to be whipped or beaten.
‘What’s going on down there?’ It was Eileen.
‘No!’ Vance shouted. ‘Stay where you are, love.’ Her heels sounded on the stairs. She pushed past the gardeners and before Vance could dissuade her from advancing any further she came to a sudden halt. He watched her mouth become a black oval rimmed with bright red lipstick. She pressed her palms against her cheeks and the scream that she produced threatened to continue without end.
Sources and Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Wayne Brookes, Catherine Richards, Clare Alexander, Steve Matthews and Nicola Fox for their comments on the first and subsequent drafts of The Voices. I would also like to thank Dr Heidi Hales for an enlightening discussion on the subjects of forensic psychiatry and prison procedure, and Jennie Muskett for explaining how film music composers go about their work.
I read many books while researching The Voices; however, the following deserve special mention. Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication With the Dead by Konstantin Raudive; Special Sound: The Creation and Legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop by Louis Niebur; Seasons in the Sun: The Battle For Britain 1974–1979 by Dominic Sandbrook; Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible by Jim Steinmeyer; and Circle Without End: The Magic Circle 1905–2005, compiled and edited by Edwin A. Dawes and Michael Bailey. I found the penny-toy man verse on the childhood pages of Lee Jackson’s superb Victorian London website (www.victorianlondon.org). I made one small change: ‘dots’ becoming ‘tots’. The earliest version of the children’s prayer ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’ was written by Joseph Addison and first appeared in an edition of the Spectator on 8 March 1711. I have used the version which appeared in The New England Primer, although there are many others. Sue’s copy of Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will (1975) had yet to be published in 1976; however, I describe this later Penguin edition because the cover design served my purposes.
The soundscapes I describe are imagined; however, listening to a double CD issued on the Chrome Dreams label called Forbidden Planets: Music From the Pioneers of Electronic Sound made the process less effortful.
I was seventeen in the summer of 1976. I wish I’d paid more attention to what was going on . . .
F. R. TALLIS
London, May 2013
THE VOICES
F R. TALLIS is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has written self-help manuals, non-fiction for the general reader, academic textbooks, over thirty academic papers in international journals and several novels. Between 1999 and 2012 he received or was shortlisted for numerous awards, including the New London Writers’ Award, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle and two Edgars. His critically acclaimed Liebermann series (written as Frank Tallis) has been translated into fourteen languages and optioned for TV adaptation. His most recent books are The Forbidden, a horror story set in nineteenth-century Paris, The Sleep Room, about a pioneering, controversial sleep therapy, and this, The Voices, which is his latest.
For more on Frank Tallis, visit his website
www.franktallis.com
or follow him on Twitter @FrankTallis
BY F. R. TALLIS
The Forbidden
The Sleep Room
The Voices
Writing as Frank Tallis
FICTION
Killing Time
Sensing Others
Mortal Mischief
Vienna Blood
Fatal Lies
Darkness Rising
Deadly Communion
Death and the Maiden
NON-FICTION
Changing Minds
Hidden Mind
s
Love Sick
THE VOICES
Pegasus Crime is an Imprint of:
Pegasus Books LLC
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New York, NY 10004
Copyright © 2014 by F. R. Tallis
First Pegasus Books cloth edition December 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-60598-656-2
ISBN: 978-1-60598-724-8 (e-book)
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Table of Contents
Title
November 1974
March 1975
May 1975
April 1976
Early May 1976
Mid-May
First week in June
Second week in June
Last week in June
First week in July
Last week in July
August 1976
Late August 1976
September 1976
September 1979
Sources and Acknowledgements
About the Book
Also by F. R. Tallis
Copyright