Echoes

by Iain McLaughlin

• I’m only a servant. I shouldn’t talk to the likes of you. Not so familiar.

  • Your mistress? You work for Patience?

  • Yes, miss. Well, sort of.

  • What do you mean ‘sort of’? You do or you don’t, surely.

  • I shouldn’t have interrupted.

  • Where are you going? No. Stop.

  • I shouldn’t stay. I’m sorry, miss.

  • Don’t … Stop! Where’s she gone? Hello? Mary? She’s gone. Joan, she’s gone … Joan? Joan? Hello? Joan? Patience? Where are you? Where have you all gone?

  Lechasseur stepped through the door into the last thing he expected – an utterly normal house. The surroundings startled him for a moment, and he simply stood in the hall, looking round at the peeling, dull wallpaper, the faded pictures on the walls and the worn but well-tended old furniture. Apart from the thick coating of dust that layered everything for the entire length of the hall, Lechasseur could have been in any one of a dozen houses he knew in London. Actually, a few of those houses weren’t far short of being as dusty as this place. Not all of Lechasseur’s associates had time to be houseproud.

  Emily was drawing a spiral in the dust on a small table with her finger. ‘It’s not what you expected, is it?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Lechasseur admitted. ‘But then, I don’t know exactly what I did expect.’

  Emily inspected the dust on the end of her finger. ‘Nor me. This dust seems real.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Emily blew the dust from her finger. ‘The tower was in 1995, yes?’

  ‘According to the newspaper in the lobby,’ Lechasseur confirmed. Emily picked up some letters that were lying on the table, and blew the dust from them. She squinted at the envelopes. ‘I can’t quite make out the postmark on these.’ She passed two of them across to Honoré. ‘You take a look.’

  Lechasseur tilted and angled the letters into the light, trying to find some part of the postmark left visible. ‘If there was a mark, it’s long gone.’

  ‘In that case, I don’t see much choice.’ She slipped her fingers into one of the envelopes and plucked out a letter.

  ‘Hey!’ Lechasseur protested. ‘We can’t just read somebody’s mail like that.’

  ‘Why not?’ Emily asked blandly. ‘We need to know where we are. So far, these letters are our best chance of finding out.’

  ‘But they’re private.’

  ‘I know.’ She ran her finger in the dust again and showed the grime to Lechasseur. ‘But I think whoever was here left a long time ago.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Lechasseur conceded. ‘But it still feels wrong.’

  ‘Suddenly, I think you’re right.’ Emily put down the envelope she had opened.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Read for yourself.’ Emily handed the letter across.

  The message was hand-written on headed Army notepaper.

  Dear Mrs Barton,

  It is with regret that I must inform you of your son George’s death in battle here in France. He was a fine soldier and a fine young man, who died in a brave action defending his comrades and taking an enemy position. In every way he was a credit to his family and to his country. I trust you will find solace in the knowledge that your son gave his life in a just cause. I assure you that his sacrifice will not be a vain one.

  Yours sincerely,

  Colonel Richard Stewart

  ‘It’s not much of a way to tell someone that her child has died,’ Emily said sadly.

  Lechasseur carefully folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. ‘By the end of the War, there were so many letters being sent home that most commanding officers didn’t have time to write to the families of the dead. That letter might have been short, but at least this Colonel Stewart took the time to write. Mrs Barton would also have gotten an official telegram from the War Office telling her that her son was dead. This kind of letter was to let the family know that the death mattered and wasn’t for nothing.’

  ‘You might be right.’ From Emily’s tone, it was clear that she was unconvinced.

  ‘November 1944,’ Lechasseur mused, looking at the date at the top of the letter. ‘There was a big push back then. I read about it in the newspapers. Colonel Stewart must have written this on the march. I wonder how many he had to write?’ Lechasseur set the letter back on the table. ‘I heard of a captain who cried every time he wrote one of those letters. Can’t say I blame him.’

  ‘Did you ever have to write one?’

  Lechasseur shook his head. ‘I wasn’t an officer, Emily.’

  ‘This is the letter from the authorities telling her that her son was dead.’ Emily was holding a thin sheet of almost transparent paper. The message on it was brief and to the point. ‘It’s so cold and impersonal. He’s dead, we’re sorry. I can see why the officer would want to write to the families.’

  Lechasseur shook himself. This was bringing back too many memories. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We were in 1995, now we’re around ’44 or ’45.’

  ‘Are we?’ Emily asked. She was running her finger along a wooden panel inset into the wall. Her finger carefully followed the grain of the wood.

  ‘From the way you said that, I’m guessing we’re not.’

  Emily turned. ‘There’s something about this house.’ She tilted her head, and her eyebrows knitted in concentration. ‘I’m not sure what it is, but it’s something to do with time.’

  Lechasseur smiled. ‘I kind of guessed time was involved.’

  ‘No,’ Emily snapped, more sharply than she intended. ‘I mean here, in this place.’ She looked around the hall, as if she hoped the answer would become obvious to her. ‘I don’t know how to explain it. There’s something wrong with the way this house relates to time. Can’t you feel it? Time is at odds with every inch of this house.’

  Lechasseur tried to relax and let his mind reach out for whatever Emily was sensing. Other than a general feeling of unease, nothing registered. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel it.’

  ‘Time is wrong here,’ Emily said slowly. ‘I don’t know how else to explain it.’

  ‘That makes me feel better,’ Lechasseur said wryly.

  ‘Perhaps if we had better light in here, we’d feel less nervous.’ Emily flipped the bakelite switch by the door up and down a few times. The lights stayed off.

  ‘Did you expect them to work?’ Lechasseur asked.

  ‘It was worth trying.’

  ‘Not really.’ Lechasseur looked more closely at the light on the wall, and then tapped the light switch. ‘Some of these houses were converted for electricity before the War, but hadn’t started using it, even by 1950.’ He struck a match and turned a small knob on the light. There was a faint hissing sound before the gas lit and a dull, yellowish light flickered and brightened the hall. ‘It’s not electricity, but it’s better than nothing.’

  Emily looked unconvinced. ‘I’d still rather have electricity.’

  ‘I’d rather be on a beach with Dorothy Lamour,’ Lechasseur shrugged, ‘but here I am.’

  ‘The gas will have to do, I suppose,’ Emily conceded. ‘Since we’re here – wherever here really is – we probably should look around.’

  ‘Seems fair.’

  Two doors led from the left side of the hallway. On the right side, a flight of stairs ascended to a murky upstairs. A door directly under the stairs led, no doubt, to a cupboard, and there was another door further back on the same wall. A fifth door was at the end of the hall. It seemed more solid than the others. The back door, most likely. ‘Any preferences?’ Lechasseur asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Emily replied. The bottom stair creaked as she stepped on it, making Lechasseur’s head snap round. ‘Nervous?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ Lechasseur grumbled.

  ‘I …’ A flashing m
ovement caught the corner of Emily’s eye, and she swung her head to the head of the stairs. ‘Hello?’

  ‘You see something?’ Lechasseur asked.

  Emily nodded. ‘I think so. Just for a second. It looked like a boy, wearing black trousers. They looked too short for him.’

  The darkness hung ominously above the stairs. ‘I don’t see anybody there now,’ Lechasseur said thoughtfully.

  ‘Perhaps we frightened him,’ Emily offered. She began moving slowly up the stairs. ‘Hello?’ she said again. ‘My name’s Emily. Are you there?’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Oh.’

  ‘What is it?’ Lechasseur hurried up the steps to join her.

  ‘I don’t think it’s dark upstairs,’ Emily said. She raised her hand towards the darkness, but instead of disappearing into shadows, her hand stopped at its edge. ‘The darkness is solid,’ she grunted, pushing against an unyielding wall of blackness.

  Lechasseur added his strength to Emily’s, heaving against the invisible barrier. ‘Okay,’ he conceded. ‘I guess we’re not getting to see upstairs.’

  ‘I wonder if there is an upstairs?’ Emily murmured to herself. ‘If not, where did the boy go?’

  ‘Are you sure you saw him?’ Lechasseur asked. ‘You’re certain it wasn’t a reflection or a shadow or something?’

  ‘You think I imagined him?’ Emily asked sharply. ‘And I don’t remember ever seeing shadows wearing hand-me-down britches before.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s a boy?’ asked Honoré. ‘Remember that thing in 1950, which just looked like a boy?[2]’

  ‘I’m not sure. It was only a fleeting glimpse.’

  ‘Well, whatever it was, it’s not there now.’ Lechasseur headed back downstairs. ‘Why don’t we see what we can find down here?’ he called back.

  Emily looked deeply into the darkness for a moment, then followed Honoré. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We might as well try these doors.’

  The handle on the nearest door turned, but the door stayed resolutely closed. Lechasseur rattled it again. Still no movement.

  ‘Locked?’ Emily offered.

  ‘Jammed, anyway,’ Lechasseur answered. ‘I guess this would be the front room.’

  ‘There’s another room on this side of the house,’ Emily said. ‘Perhaps there’s a door from that into the front room.’

  ‘It’s worth a try.’

  They made their way to the other door on the left side of the hallway. Framed family photographs were proudly displayed at regular intervals along the wall. On another small table, the remains of a bunch of flowers hung black and withered to twigs, covered with dust. Emily wiped the table with a finger. The wood gleamed underneath. Whatever had happened to this house, it had once been looked after with pride. Emily began to feel a great sadness for the woman who had lived in the house. She had loved her family – she assumed that a middle-aged uniformed man in a number of the photographs was the father, Mr Barton, rather than the son – and had tended her home with great care. Had the news of her son’s death proved too much for her to deal with? Certainly something had made this houseproud woman abandon her home without even taking her letters with her. Oddly, even though she had never met the woman, Emily felt an empathy for Mrs Barton, and a sadness, too, as she felt a wave of certainty that whatever had happened in this house, there hadn’t been a happy outcome for Mrs Barton. The realisation made Emily’s shoulders sink, and a sigh escaped her. She felt weary, as if this certainty about Mrs Barton’s fate had knocked the energy from her.

  ‘Emily?’ Lechasseur asked, concern clear in his voice. ‘Are you all right?’

  Emily shook herself. Becoming maudlin would do no-one any good. ‘Fine,’ she answered briskly. She reached for the handle. Lechasseur caught her hand.

  ‘Before we go in, maybe we should try the back door.’

  ‘In case there’s a way out to …?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Lechasseur tugged the handle and pushed the door open. The black void sat outside, stretching out into eternity. ‘Worth a try.’ Lechasseur shrugged. He pulled the door shut. ‘We’re not leaving that way. I guess it was too much to hope for.’

  ‘What was that?’ Emily asked.

  ‘I said …’

  ‘No,’ Emily interrupted. ‘I’m sure I heard someone.’

  Lechasseur looked around with suspicion. ‘Saying what?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was like the echo of a whisper.’ She looked wryly at her friend. ‘That’s not much help, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Lechasseur admitted. ‘But I don’t think you’re imagining it, either. Everything about this house is wrong.’

  ‘It’s …’ Emily stopped and shook herself. ‘Listen to us,’ she scolded. ‘We sound like a pair of children frightened by a ghost story.’ Firmly, she twisted the handle of the second door in the left-hand wall. It swung open to reveal a small back room dominated by a sturdy old wooden table. A matching chair sat on each side of the table, with two odd chairs pushed back against the wall on either side of a heavy-looking sideboard. A heavy bakelite wireless had pride of place on the adjacent wall, with one worn but comfortable-looking armchair close by. More framed pictures were prominent on the sideboard and the walls. Mrs Barton’s pride in her family shone in this room as well.

  Emily lifted one photograph. A stiffly-posed family looked back at her. The middle-aged soldier from the photographs in the hall stood rigidly to attention beside a seated, matronly woman of around forty. Seven children – six girls and a single boy – surrounded them. For all the stiffness of the pose, the affection within the family group was obvious. One of the elder girls held a younger sister’s hand. The father’s hand rested on his son’s shoulder, his other hand touching his wife’s arm, her hand closed over his. Emily carefully set the photograph back in place. The rest of the photographs were all of the family. She smiled a little and wondered briefly if she had ever been a part of a family like this one. She started and spun round as a click came from behind her.

  Lechasseur had turned on the wireless set and was turning the volume up. ‘It’ll take a while to warm up,’ he said. ‘These sets don’t work cold.’

  ‘Do you expect to hear anything?’

  The hiss of static began to come from the front of the wireless. ‘Only that.’ Lechasseur turned the tuning dial back and forth, searching for a signal. The hiss remained constant. ‘No interference, none of the usual noises you get when you’re tuning a wireless.’ He turned the dial and the set clicked off. ‘There’s no signal for it to pick up.’ He stood and looked at the opposite wall, which he had hoped would lead to the front room. ‘No door to the front room, either.’

  ‘Is that usual?’ Emily wondered. ‘It would make sense for there to be a way through, wouldn’t you think?’

  Lechasseur shrugged uncertainly. ‘I’m not sure. But I’ve heard that some people keep their front room for special occasions. They don’t use it except when they’ve got guests.’

  ‘Do we count as guests, do you think?’ Emily tapped on the wall. It felt – and sounded – disappointingly solid.

  Lechasseur joined her. ‘The question is, if we are guests, are we welcome or unwelcome ones?’

  ‘If we could be brought here, presumably we could just as easily have been killed,’ Emily reasoned.

  ‘That’s a cheerful thought.’

  Ignoring the interruption, Emily continued. ‘So, we can assume that we’re not in any immediate danger.’

  ‘That’s a big assumption,’ Lechasseur countered. ‘Especially when it’s been made clear that we’re not going anywhere in a hurry.’

  ‘Then perhaps it would make sense to explore the places we can go?’ Emily offered. She glanced briefly at the photographs decorating the sideboard. ‘I want to know what happened here, Honoré.’

  Something in Emily’s tone caught Lechasseur’s attention. He wasn’t certain if it was
simply the bizarre situation niggling at his friend’s nerves or if she was feeling a personal link of some kind. She certainly seemed to have some empathy for this Mrs Barton, though Lechasseur conceded that it would be hard not to feel for the woman. He wondered what was affecting Emily, but decided against asking outright. He knew better than to pry with Emily. She could be defensive and snippy when she felt her privacy was being invaded. If it was important, she would tell him, in time. And if she didn’t? Well, Lechasseur had talked more stubborn people than Emily Blandish into giving him answers before. Though he had to admit, there weren’t that many who could be more stubborn than Emily when she set her mind to something.

  Lechasseur headed back out into the hall. ‘So, which of the places we are allowed to go do you think we should try first?’

  The two doors set in the wall facing the room they were leaving seemed the obvious choices. ‘You try one, I’ll try the other,’ Emily said, and reached for the nearest door-handle. ‘I imagine this one is the kitchen. You can have the cupboard under the stairs.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Lechasseur drawled sourly. ‘I notice you don’t take the one that’s probably dark and full of spiders.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Emily smiled. ‘If you see any spiders, just scream and I’ll come and deal with them for you.’

  ‘Funny girl,’ Lechasseur muttered. ‘You should be on the stage. Then you’d be used to big, empty houses.’

  ‘I heard that,’ said Emily, and poked her tongue out at him.

  ‘You were meant to,’ Honoré said. He opened his door and peered in. Instead of the small, confined space of a cupboard, he found the head of a set of stairs that led down into darkness. ‘There are stairs here,’ he said. Emily didn’t reply. ‘I said, there are stairs here,’ he repeated, louder this time. Again, Emily didn’t respond. He turned towards his friend, just in time to see the kitchen door click shut.

  Chapter Four

  • Hello? Mary? Where have you gone? Mary? Patience? Joan?

  • They’re not far away.