Full Dark House

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Is there any way of lowering the house lights a little?’

  May had arranged to have them left up, mainly because he was worried about the old lady tripping over.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he offered, heading back along the balcony.

  ‘There are plenty of friendly spirits here, but then there should be,’ she chattered on to Bryant. ‘First-time performers are sensitive to them. Sometimes they help newcomers to forget their nerves and remember their lines, or they redirect them to better positions on the stage. Actors sometimes speak of being guided by unseen hands. Oh, there is something here.’ She became silent, and seemed to fall into a light sleep. The house lights dimmed and May quietly returned, taking a seat behind the medium.

  The detectives listened and waited. The faint, high voice that emerged from Rothschild startled them both. At first it seemed little more than the sound of a draught whistling under a door. Gradually they were able to make out a few words. ‘Not the actors, the actors are adored.’ The voice reverted to a thin wind. ‘Someone has been ignored and forgotten. No hatred . . . only desperation . . . desperation. History repeats.’

  May studied the old lady’s face. She didn’t appear to be throwing her voice. Something prickled the base of his neck.

  ‘It’s not his fault, you understand . . .’ Now the voice was Edna’s, so alone, so melancholy. ‘Selfish and blind. Medea . . . Calliope . . . goddesses of the theatre, so very sad.’ A tear ran down her left cheek and trembled on her chin. ‘The poor tortured soul is here, right among us now. A painted world is so confining. There must be a way to set such a trapped spirit free. The cruelty of the moonlight, so far beyond reach.’

  Just as May was peering into them, Edna’s eyelids lifted, startling him. She sat up and wiped her chin. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized, ‘I didn’t mean to get so upset. It’s being in a theatre. A house of the emotions. Did you hear the voice?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bryant enthusiastically, nodding at his partner. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I rather fancy it belonged to Dan Leno, the clown. This used to be a music hall, didn’t it?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Dan’s ghost often used to appear in the halls. There were many recorded sightings at Collins’ Music Hall on Islington Green, and in Drury Lane. He would appear to give advice to the actors. Sometimes they heard him performing his clog-dancing routine. A very reliable source. What did he say?’

  ‘Something about a forgotten tortured soul and a painted world, and history repeating,’ said May irritably. ‘Greeks. It could mean anything.’

  ‘You’re looking for a little child,’ said Edna firmly. ‘A child so desperate to be set free that it must hurt people. I feel that very strongly.’

  ‘You make it sound as if we’re supposed to be searching for a ghost.’

  ‘I rather think not,’ said Edna, lifting the cat back into its box. ‘This is not someone reaching from beyond the grave. The person you seek is real, and dangerous when cornered. Medea murdered her sons to take revenge on their father.’

  ‘But we’re looking for a killer, not some Greek woman,’ said May, exasperated. Edna did not appear to have heard. She looked up at the ceiling, listening to her inner voices. ‘Edna?’ He turned to Bryant with his palms outstretched. ‘Look at her, she doesn’t know if she’s at the park or the pictures.’

  ‘Come on, Edna,’ said Bryant gently. ‘Let’s get you home.’

  He helped her from her seat, and for a moment the house lights flickered out. They waited in the oppressive darkness, halted by the foot of the stairs, listening to the old woman’s laboured breath. Then the auditorium filled with light. May wanted to complain that the visit had been a waste of time, but something stilled within him as he watched the balcony curtain lift and fall in the sighing draught that blew beneath the doors, as though the spirit of the theatre had departed with them.

  38

  RENALDA’S WAR

  On Friday morning, the city awoke to the terrible news.

  Despite the presence of a bombers’ moon, as close and cold as death, London had passed the night unscathed, and instead, the city of Coventry, Luftwaffe target no. 53, had suffered the full force of Germany’s squadrons in a devastating Mondschein Serenade, a ‘Moonlight Serenade’.

  Nearly five hundred bombers had delivered high explosives and incendiary bombs in eleven hours of dusk-to-dawn raids that had obliterated the heart of the city, destroyed its cathedral, killed over five hundred inhabitants, seriously wounded nine hundred more.

  The night had been clear and frosty, providing perfect visibility. London was a metropolis large enough to weather such a disaster, but Coventry, with a population of just under a quarter of a million, had been almost eradicated. The residents who survived were dazed and terrified. Gas, water, electricity and transport systems stopped. Twenty-one of its factories—twelve of them tied to the aircraft industry—had been heavily hit. Radio reports made no attempt to make light of the attack; the news spread like bushfire. The lines to the city were down. It was impossible to discover if relatives were dead or alive.

  Listening to the Home Service made John May late for work. He hurried to the unit and found his partner seated at the teleprinter, checking several yards of paper.

  ‘You’ve heard?’ May asked. ‘Christ, we should be there instead of here.’

  ‘There’s nothing you or I can do for them,’ muttered Bryant, barely raising his eyes. ‘I want you to meet Andreas Renalda. He’s the only Greek we know, and Edna mentioned Greeks. When I looked into his eyes I caught a glimpse of something.’

  ‘He’s probably upset about spending a fortune on a show that may never open. According to Helena Parole, updating Orpheus was all his idea. Anyway, didn’t you already get everything you could out of him?’ May was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate on Bryant’s theories when, just a short distance from London, the bodies of so many innocent civilians were being dragged from the smoking ruins of a town. Their case seemed absurd and almost pointless by comparison.

  ‘He might be different with you. Talk about whatever comes into your head. Keep him off guard. I want you to study him. You’re better with people than I am. I’m still missing a link, and I keep wondering.’ Bryant sucked at his pipe pensively. ‘Suppose Renalda thinks he’s betraying the ancient gods of his homeland by staging such a controversial production? He says his family is superstitious. What if they think he’s going against the mythical protectors of Greece? He may have accidentally inspired someone to seek revenge. That would make him responsible for what’s happened, wouldn’t it?’

  May gave a sigh of annoyance. Bryant’s thinking seemed so far removed from his own, so unrelated to the cause-and-effect crimes of the real world, that he could not find a response. Instead, he went to see Andreas Renalda.

  The tycoon was on his way to a board meeting but agreed to collect May at Piccadilly Circus and let him travel in his limousine as far as Hyde Park Corner. The sleek black Rolls-Royce was a vision of lost elegance. It glided to a stop beneath the vast ‘Dig for Victory’ banner that hung across the fascia of Swan and Edgar, and the chauffeur, liveried in black and red, the colours of the family guild, opened its passenger door to admit the detective. Renalda was sprawled across the back seat, his steel calipers holding his useless legs to one side.

  ‘I have arranged a telephone call in order to speak to the board in Athens tonight,’ Renalda explained, after introductions were made. ‘My fellow directors have received news of our troubles, and require assurances. I was the one who convinced them that we should adopt such a high-risk venture. Our people, Mr May, are conservative individuals. They do not approve of my show, but they like the thought of the revenue it could generate. I have to assure them that we are not facing some kind of moral crusade. Harmful reports are appearing in your newspapers, suggesting that we have brought misfortune on ourselves, that we deserve what we get for bringing continental sex into venerable British theat
reland. What your journalists are really saying, in their own charmingly circumspect manner, is that we are unwanted foreigners.’

  ‘Not all of us share the views expressed by those newspapers,’ May said, sinking back into the polished opulence of the leather seat. ‘Since you’ve raised the subject, I was wondering about your enemies.’

  Renalda peered at him coldly over the top of his rimless glasses. ‘I don’t recall discussing my enemies with your partner.’

  ‘Forgive me, you’re running a company that, according to The Times, is venturing into a market it knows nothing about. Your father was known to be a hard negotiator, and you told Mr Bryant that you take after him. You may well have offended someone. Your rivals have good reason to want to see you fail in this enterprise.’

  ‘I am sure they do,’ Renalda admitted evenly, ‘but the wars of my father are not mine. You might credit me with more sophistication. At the end of the nineteen twenties my father’s company had few remaining assets. Its debts were converted into equity that is still held by the other trustees.’

  ‘How do they feel about your plans to leave the world of shipping?’

  ‘Most of them consider me foresighted.’

  ‘Most but not all?’

  Renalda folded away his glasses with a sigh. ‘I have known the board’s directors all my life. You are looking in the wrong place.’ Something in his voice suggested this was not necessarily so.

  ‘This is a very important week for you,’ said May, watching the grey window-boards of Selfridge’s drift past.

  ‘It’s the culmination of a lifelong project that has not been destroyed even by a world plunged into war. My mother was a free spirit, but my father’s house was her prison. Sirius would not allow the curtains to be opened because the sunlight damaged his paintings. When I was a boy my mother used to play Offenbach’s music and dance alone through the still, dark rooms. It was the only time she was ever really happy.’ The Rolls-Royce pulled up at traffic lights. The red, amber and green lenses had been covered with black tape so that slits formed narrow luminous crosses. ‘I cannot afford to make any mistakes, Mr May. There are too many people watching me.’

  ‘Who, your directors? Your rivals?’

  ‘There are others who are closer.’ Renalda seemed about to speak further, but stopped himself.

  ‘We may be able to find enemies you can’t,’ May suggested. ‘But you have to tell us who you suspect.’

  ‘These are family affairs,’ said Renalda finally. ‘If you cannot protect my company, I will have to take care of the problem myself. I do not trust the officials of your government. They happily take my money and make promises, then do something else.’

  May wondered if Renalda had bribed civil servants connected with the Lord Chamberlain’s office.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ he told his partner later. ‘Andreas Renalda isn’t telling us the whole truth.’

  ‘Perhaps we haven’t asked him the right questions,’ suggested Bryant. ‘I need to know more about his family.’

  ‘I can probably get the company records opened, but it’ll take a few days.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about the official records. I’m more interested in where Renalda grew up, what the rest of the family was like, what his neighbours thought of him.’

  ‘I don’t see how that will help,’ said May.

  ‘You don’t? No, I suppose you don’t. I’m sure I read somewhere that Andreas Renalda was raised on one of the smaller islands to the south, Santorini, I think. Interesting, isn’t it, that he chooses to honour his family with a play that mocks the mythology of his homeland? My uncle’s friend at The Times wrote an article about the Renalda empire, but when war broke out the piece was spiked. I have a feeling Renalda has been generous with his war donations.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me what’s on your mind.’

  ‘Be patient for just a little longer.’ Bryant knocked out his pipe and squinted into the bowl. ‘I have to be absolutely sure.’

  ‘Arthur, this has been an unusual week but even at the worst of times—’

  Sidney Biddle put his head round the door. ‘There’s someone here to see you both.’

  He pushed the door wide and DS Gladys Forthright walked in. Her hair had been dyed blond and cut in the style of the film star Alice Faye. Bryant leaped up from behind his desk and slapped his arms on the policewoman’s shoulders.

  ‘Forthright! Bless my old socks! What are you doing back here? You’re supposed to be getting hitched and living with the land girls.’

  The sergeant pulled off her jacket and gloves, and threw them into a corner. ‘I had a bugger of a time getting here. The trains are up the spout. I slept in Chatham station last night.’ She sighed. ‘At least I didn’t get around to posting a wedding list. It would have been embarrassing having to send gifts back.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He didn’t want to go through with it.’

  ‘The absolute bastard,’ cried Bryant, barely able to conceal the pleasure in his voice. ‘What reason did he give, if I may be so bold?’

  ‘Oh, the war, of course. He says it’s not right to be thinking about ourselves when there are so many in difficulties all around us. We shouldn’t bring babies into such uncertain times, et cetera. It was me who wanted to make us legal. I didn’t want to risk dying a spinster. We drove down to his parents’ on the last of his petrol, and I suppose I did talk about work quite a lot. We had a bit of a row, and finally came to an agreement. He promised not to mention his constabulary so long as I didn’t talk about the unit. But I couldn’t stay where I wasn’t needed, like some kind of evacuee. I rang the unit to explain and spoke to Mr Biddle. I wanted to warn you that I was coming back.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me,’ said Bryant indignantly.

  ‘That’s odd. How’s he working out?’

  ‘He’s not. Look at this, I’m making my own tea from reused leaves.’ He fished a half-dissolved sugar cube out of his mug with the pointy end of a dart. ‘We have to make one lump go around the whole unit because it’s against Biddle’s principles to buy black-market demerara. His trial period ends today, thank God. He wants to leave us and go back to the Met, and the feeling’s mutual. Here, I kept your mug just in case.’ He poured her half his tea.

  ‘Arthur, did you put him off?’

  ‘I bent over backwards to make him feel welcome, the ungrateful little sod.’

  ‘How’s the case?’ asked Forthright.

  ‘I’ll have to take you back, I suppose. Just until you can get yourself sorted out.’ Having answered an entirely different question, he turned to the window and warmed his hands round his mug, smiling to himself.

  ‘I thought you’d need me,’ Forthright said, ‘what with this latest development.’

  He turned, the smile fading. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I picked up the call just as I was coming in. Something strange has happened again.’

  39

  THE ABDUCTION

  The house in Lissom Grove was set back from the road and surrounded by battered birches. The hedge leading to the front door was so overgrown that it soaked May and Forthright as they passed. They were met by PC Crowhurst, who appeared from the shadowed porch and unlocked the front door for them.

  ‘When was she last seen?’ asked May, stepping into the gloomy Lincrusta-papered hall.

  ‘The evening before last, sir. The girl she shares with was away for the night, but the next-door neighbour saw her coming in with shopping bags. She didn’t turn up for rehearsals yesterday. They thought she was taking a day off sick, but when she failed to show again this morning, the other girl who boards here rang the police. I came round and found—well, you’ll see.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘A member of the chorus, name of Jan Petrovic. Sixteen years old. This is Phyllis.’

  A slender girl held out her hand. She had ragged blond hair cut to her jawline, and was wearing a man’s rowing sweater several sizes
too large for her. ‘Hello, you’d better come through.’ She held open the door to a front room that was cluttered with the possessions of young girls living away from their parents for the first time: dinner plates, stockings, magazines, half-burned candles, a radiogram, some dance records out of their cardboard sleeves.

  ‘In there, next door,’ said Phyllis, wrapping her thin arms round herself. ‘I can’t bring myself to look.’ Her voice had a soft Wiltshire burr. In the kitchen, a back door led to a small yard. The window above the sink had been shattered. There were several small drying spots of blood on the wooden draining board. May turned and found himself confronted by a shocking crimson smear that arced across the whitewashed wall.

  ‘When did you last see Jan?’ asked Forthright.

  Phyllis chewed her lip nervously and stayed in the doorway. ‘Two days ago. In the morning. I went to visit my boyfriend in Brighton. He’s studying at Sussex College. Jan was getting ready to leave for her rehearsal.’

  ‘How did she seem to you?’

  ‘Pretty much in the pink. We talked about what we were going to do this weekend. She was fed up, but that’s because she’s worried about performing in the show. She’s talked about leaving it before the opening night.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘The schedule’s too hard on her. I mean, she’s just a kid, and she bluffed her way into the part. She didn’t think she could handle it. Then this week’s goings-on have been the last straw for her.’

  ‘Have you known her long?’

  ‘No, only a few weeks. I don’t think Petrovic is her real name. She doesn’t like people to know where she’s from. I wondered if she might be Jewish.’