Full Dark House

by Christopher Fowler

  Eve’s role as Eurydice was the essence of the piece, but for a young soprano it was also a stepping stone for career-making roles to come. Some sopranos were technical virtuosos who honed their skills through ceaseless training. Others were born with a natural undisciplined talent that merely had to be shaped. The second type was rarer, but more thrilling to experience. Technical singers never bared their souls. Naturals were destructive, dangerous, even doomed. Their voices could create an extraordinary atmosphere of tension.

  Actors can believe strange things; Eve Noriac knew she was a natural, and that her gift was granted by the gods of the theatre. They looked down kindly upon her, and protected her from harm. On the previous Saturday she had walked from St Paul’s to Blackfriars during a daylight bombing raid, while the wardens shouted at her to get off the street. Who you had faith in wasn’t important; it was that you had faith at all.

  Eve’s only failure was in her choice of lovers; she knew she would have to do something about Miles. He had barely set foot in the theatre before they had fallen upon one another in an urgent, sweaty embrace. Thinking about him now, Eve knew he wasn’t her type. Miles would cling. She would have to wait until after opening night to tell him it had been a bad idea. She had no wish to damage his confidence before the critics had their chance.

  Miles Stone was Eve’s counterpart, Orpheus to her Eurydice, and right now he was trying to keep the voice on the other end of the line from fading, but the building’s acoustics were playing tricks on him. It was as if the theatre frowned on the outside world, and interfered with the line connected to the ancient two-piece telephone in the hall outside the company office.

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re doing in London,’ he shouted, pressing his finger into his free ear. ‘I thought you were staying in New York. What do you mean, I invited you? I said don’t come. Yes, I did.’

  Rachel’s reply was damaged by a searing crackle of static. This was all Miles needed right now, his mother staying in town. While everyone else’s mothers were heading for the comparative safety of the countryside, his was coming to the city.

  ‘Why don’t you let me check you into a hotel?’ he asked. He knew Rachel would prefer to stay in his damp apartment building. She distrusted English hotels, with their erratic service and weird plumbing.

  ‘No, not in the centre, it’s not safe,’ said Miles finally. ‘I’ll find you something further out, but you can’t just waltz along to rehearsals.’ He was through taking Rachel’s advice. She always promoted Becky, his ex-wife, acting as if he was still married to her. Getting divorced was one of the few good ideas Miles had ever had. Changing his name from Saperstein to Stone had been a less successful move. He’d liked the mnemonic sound of Miles Stone; at least, until he overheard his agent referring to him as the Millstone. He knew he would have to ask Eve to stay away for a few weeks. Although the decree absolute had been settled a year ago, he was sure that Rachel still considered him married in the eyes of God, and he had not helped matters by occasionally sleeping with Becky when he was in New York. Rachel would only get into an argument with Eve if they met, and she would ensure that there was a meeting because she would turn up at the theatre whether he liked it or not, and report back to Becky. He had been caught in the velvet trap all his life, betrayed by his love of difficult women.

  He settled the receiver back on its hook and walked down to the stage, a fiery riot of red, gold, purple and indigo flats and skycloths. There was so much set-dressing that he wondered whether the audience would be able to see anyone at all. On Saturday night they would have a full house plus the critics, the police, the St John’s Ambulance brigade and the odd ARP warden to add to the confusion.

  An extraordinarily high note reverberated through the auditorium: that note was meant for him. Eve Noriac was standing at the front of the stage, stretching her throat and impatiently swinging her arms. As Miles set off down the stairs once more, he wondered how Orpheus had managed to avoid visiting Hell to save her in the past, seeing that she was not a woman to be kept waiting.

  It was half past nine, and the few remaining performers were tired. Helena was slumped in a seat six rows fom the orchestra pit, sipping her hundredth cup of tea. On stage, Eurydice was having trouble adjusting to her new Jupiter in their duet, the ’Duo de la mouche’. The understudy baritone was now transformed into a bluebottle, and was finding it difficult to hit his mark while managing the celluloid wings of the costume.

  ‘All right, everybody, we’ll resume this at ten o’clock tomorrow morning,’ Helena called, clapping her hands. ‘If anybody needs to share a cab, please let Geoffrey or Harry know.’ She rose and walked up the aisle, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Helena?’ Harry came hobbling up beside her. He had twisted his ankle in a pothole at lunchtime, and had spent the day on his feet. ‘We haven’t heard sirens yet, but the searchlights and sound locators have gone back up in Charing Cross Road. I was wondering if you’d prefer to have the cast stay over in here. We could open up a couple of the old practice rooms. I think there’s some bedding lying about.’

  ‘You can discreetly ask the girls,’ Helena suggested, sucking blessed smoke into her lungs, ‘but the boys can go home. There’s enough hanky-panky going on without putting the girls in temptation’s way.’ She loosened her bandanna and shook out her hair. ‘If any member of the audience complains about having to sit for two hours on a narrow horsehair seat I shall ask them to try it for a fortnight.’ She grabbed Harry’s hand. ‘Come on, you. Let’s lose the others, I don’t want to talk about work tonight. I’ll buy you a Scotch in that nancy-boy bar you like so much. If we get in before the raids start, they might lock us in all night.’

  Betty Trammel awoke with a dry mouth and a throbbing head. After the rehearsal, the ladies and gentlemen of the chorus had retired to the Spice of Life for drinks, and had stayed until closing time. The bombing raid had made travel impossible, and she had decided to sleep on a canvas camp bed in the upper circle practice room on the condition that her friend Sally-Ann slept in the room next to hers. She had no intention of staying alone in the theatre. Not that it frightened her, it took a lot to do that these days, but she wanted someone to talk to. She knew she had chosen the wrong time to return to England, but her course was set, and now she had to make the best of it. She decided to lie awake and listen to the night city while planning her next move. Instead she fell asleep almost instantly, and only woke because she found herself desperately thirsty.

  The room’s single window was blacked out, and the street far below was so silent that she thought for a moment it must have snowed. Rubbing warmth into her goosefleshed arms, she swung her legs from the bed and made her way slowly towards the door, where she had left a torch. She knew there was a bathroom at the end of the corridor, and presumed she would find some potable water. The torch threw a dim yellow circle onto the brown walls. She paused before the room in which Sally-Ann slept and listened to her light snoring, then made her way through the darkness.

  ’Chante, belle bacchante,’ she sang under her breath as she walked, ‘chante-nous ton hymne à Bacchus.’ Too much bloody Bacchus, she thought, twisting the torch beam onto the bathroom door. Her head was killing her, and she had nothing to take for it. Behind her, the faint light of the candle she had deposited at the top of the main staircase flickered and shifted.

  Betty shone her torch around the bathroom, checking that it was empty, then shut the door and locked it. To do so was an act of habit; at home she had three brothers. She set the torch down on the edge of the sink, beneath the bathroom mirror, with its thin beam pointing up. They weren’t allowed to turn on the lights when they used the lavatory up here because the windows weren’t covered, and Helena had warned them that any more fines would come out of their own pockets.

  She ran the cold tap, listening to the ghostly sound of clanking pipes, then filled an enamel mug with water and drank deep. The water had been standing too long in the cistern, and tasted brackish. She
made a face, then noticed the chiaroscuro effect of the torchlight on her reflected flesh.

  Detective May was rather a dish, she thought, but obviously penniless, which was a pity because she’d been saving herself for a wealthy man. There was something appealing about the fact that he was so young and unsullied. He clearly found her attractive. Betty stuck out her tongue and examined its pale coat. Then she drew in a deep breath, and held it.

  But someone continued breathing behind her.

  She still had her mouth open in surprise when the great white mask of a face unfurled itself over her right shoulder. Its mouth was a tortured red gash, like an angry cut from a sword, the teeth unnaturally large and distorted. The eyes were wild and cloudy, scarred with shiny stretches of skin. Above his hairline she saw a scraped knob of gleaming, cracked bone. His sore red hands clawed out for her in a mannered pose, captured in the torch beam like a frame from some forgotten Chaney film, or a scene from the Inferno—Dante’s version, not Offenbach’s. He had the shape of some poor limbless creature from the First War, more mutilated than any of the old soldiers she still saw on the streets selling pencils.

  She screamed so loudly that the sound of the torch being knocked over into the sink was lost. Her last sensation before losing consciousness was one of anger, that she could be so foolish as to strain her vocal cords in this manner, just days before her big night.

  Bryant heard the scream and ran towards it with his hurricane lamp raised, but was forced to stop and retrace his steps when he realized that he had come out near the left-hand pass door, the one that was glued shut by years of paint. It took him another minute to climb the stairs to the rooms of the upper circle. Betty’s friend Sally-Ann was awake and shrieking and clutching her shoulders, and waving her hands at the bathroom.

  Bryant opened it and helped Betty to her feet. As he turned on the tap and splashed some cold water on her face, Sally-Ann grabbed his shoulder.

  ‘Something ran up the stairs,’ she yelled, pointing.

  Bryant realized that he was meant to dash off after the villain, but didn’t much fancy it. He trotted to the bottom of the staircase and looked up into the pitch black. ‘What, up there?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, hurry, get him!’ Sally-Ann’s panic had infected the revived chorine, and now they were both jumping up and down, flapping their arms about.

  Bryant reluctantly mounted the stairs. The landing was so dark it gave him claustrophobia. With his lantern held high he walked cautiously forward, and found himself in the deserted brown corridor of the balcony offices. He raised the lamp in the opposite direction. Nothing that way either. But when he returned to his original position he was startled to see the broad back of a man disappearing round the bend in the corridor, no more than fifteen yards away.

  Where the hell could he have come from? Bryant asked himself. The corridor was empty. How can he see in the dark? He set off in pursuit of the retreating form. He reached the turn, stopped and gingerly held the lamp out further, half hoping that whoever was up there would be scared away by the light. He wished May was here, lumbering along beside him, big and sensible and brave.

  Having waved the tin lantern for long enough, he finally peered round the corner.

  And found himself inches from a white staring face. He yelled, the face yelled, and he dropped the lamp in terror.

  Luckily the lamp had a safety wick, so it didn’t splash burning oil everywhere, but it went out all the same. It took Bryant a full minute of fumbling in the dark with trembling fingers to get it lit again, and then he found himself sitting on the floor next to a full-length mirror.

  From somewhere up near the roof he heard boots scraping on iron rungs, then the slam of a steel door. Whoever he had been chasing was now locked outside on the roof with no way down. Thank God for that, he thought, smoothing his hair and straightening his clothes into a more ordered appearance. I can tell the girls I scared him off.

  30

  THE THREE HUNDRED

  Thursday morning brought evidence of the previous night’s bombing, but the streets of central London were mostly quiet and unscathed. John May was alarmed to discover that he had somehow used up his week’s rations of everything except lard. He hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with lard beyond trying to swap it for something edible. On the second to last page of his ration book was a list of mysterious serial numbers and a government message that read: DO NOTHING WITH THIS PAGE UNTIL TOLD WHAT TO DO. It summed up the official attitude to everything.

  But nobody seemed to mind. In 1939 it had been estimated that at least a quarter of the population of Britain was undernourished. Now, families were thinking carefully about nutrition, discovering vegetables they had hardly ever seen or used before.

  May prided himself on his youthful fitness but had begun to put on weight. His aunt had taken the war to the kitchen front with a vengeance. Overnight she started presenting her favourite nephew with unappetizing combinations of shredded cabbage, spinach, beetroot and turnips. She rustled up scabby-looking potato pancakes and fish-head soups seasoned with sorrel and grated nutmeg, baked purées of bile beans with celery and chestnuts, liberally lubricated with dripping or stiffened with suet. One night she boiled something experimental with slippery elm and condensed milk that took the finish off the dining-room table so completely she was using Karpol on it for weeks after to restore the shine.

  ‘Why don’t you go and buy us a couple of coffees while I finish up here?’ instructed Bryant as his partner arrived for work. ‘We’re out of tea, and the Carlucci brothers have traded all theirs. Get a couple of Bath buns while you’re at it.’

  ‘It’s a bit embarrassing,’ May admitted, ‘but I’m afraid I’m low on funds. I’ve already spent my first week’s salary.’

  ‘Too busy impressing the girls. I suppose I’ll have to give you an advance.’ Bryant dug into the pocket of his voluminous woollen trousers. ‘Here’s ten bob. Don’t worry about getting into debt. I’m spending wages I’m not due to earn until about six years after my death.’

  ‘Thanks awfully. Biddle says you saw the Phantom last night.’

  ‘Indeed, but I do wish you wouldn’t call him that. I trapped him on the roof, actually. When I got up there I found a surprised firewatchman sitting on a ventilation flue. He told me he’d seen someone come flying out of the door, only to rush at the side of the building and vanish over it. When he ran to the ledge and looked down, there was no sign of anyone. It was as though he’d simply flown off into the night air. Poor bloke was beginning to think he’d imagined it when I turned up.’

  ‘Where on earth could he have gone?’

  ‘Buggered if I know. There aren’t even any windows he could have dropped through. Nothing but a sheer brick wall and a long drop to the street. I’ve sent Crowhurst up there this morning to take a look around. What bothers me more is that your chorus girl locked the bathroom door from the inside when she entered, and yet this creature materialized right behind her.’

  ‘You’re telling me it has the ability to walk through walls and vanish over the edges of buildings like a vampire bat.’

  ‘No, you’re telling me. I can see your lips moving. Go and get the coffees.’

  May went and got the coffees, but the image of someone sinister materializing in the bathroom next to the semi-naked girl stayed with him.

  ‘I feel it’s my duty to offer Betty police protection,’ he said when he returned.

  ‘Hm. I thought you might say that. I’m studying you for tips, you know. Your manner of dealing with the opposite sex could form the basis of an anthropological study. The most annoying part is, you don’t even realize you’re doing it.’

  May was anxious to change the subject. He was staying with his aunt because his father’s philandering had destroyed their family, and May lived in fear of taking after him. He set down the coffees and looked over Bryant’s shoulder. ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘Zurich. They came back to us overnight. Damned efficien
t, the Swiss, although not to be trusted, of course.’

  ‘What’s in Zurich?’

  ‘We’ve been tracking the money,’ Bryant explained. ‘The finance to stage the show. From Lloyd’s of London, across to the continent and into neutral territory.’

  ‘And you can find that out from here? I’m very impressed.’

  Bryant studied the teleprinter paper for a moment and isolated a number of addresses. ‘The production is being presented by a financial group registered in Victoria under the name of Three Hundred International.’ He unravelled another foot of paper and carefully folded it. ‘Listen to this. Three Hundred International Banks is registered in Zurich but is Greek-owned. Central European office, Athens. Other companies in the group include shipping, automotive accessories, property, blah blah, ah, here, a chain of theatres. Shipping and theatre, odd bedfellows, don’t you think? I wanted a profile of the whole group but all I’ve managed to find so far is a general prospectus, and that tells me nothing. I spoke to some jobsworth in the Victoria office, but he wouldn’t give me any information. What would make a shipping magnate diversify into the theatre?’

  Shortly before he died, Arthur Bryant was interviewed about his earliest case. He told his interviewer, ‘After the hostilities ended in nineteen forty-five, over a fifth of London’s theatres had been destroyed or rendered unusable by bomb damage. The rest were bought up by a single consortium. The old theatrical families and their peculiar way of life, the life we briefly experienced, vanished almost overnight.’ The interviewer had pretended to take notes, but he had only been interested in hearing about the murders . . .

  ‘How many companies do these Three Hundred people own altogether?’ asked May.

  ‘I haven’t counted them all. I was endeavouring to do so when you tipped up. It’s rather hard to keep track of.’