Whispering Corner

by Marc Alexander

  The car climbed a winding road to the top of the headland and drew up on a bulldozed area which would ultimately be the campus. A crowd of men in both Arab and European dress were waiting to greet the king, while behind a line of soldiers building workers waved and cheered and a few even dared to whistle when Jo climbed out from the car. Syed turned to me with a beaming smile.

  ‘It should be ready by the end of the year,’ he said.

  When we reached a graceful archway, the central feature of the complex, there was consternation. A line of Arabic graffiti had been daubed on it so recently that dribbles of red paint were still trickling down the snowy marble.

  An officer sent soldiers off in search of the perpetrators, the anger of the official party rose to a climax and only the king retained his usual demeanour.

  ‘Rather like the writing on the wall at Nebuchadnezzar’s feast,’ he said to me. ‘Only this reads “Death to the Great Satan”. One of the workmen with fundamentalist connections must have painted it. Very clever of him. I am assured that it was not there ten minutes ago. However, the dogs bark but the caravan moves on.’

  He repeated this in Arabic and there was a round of applause and cheering from the construction workers.

  With Jo walking aloofly beside me I went painfully with the others through the arch and into a courtyard where a shrouded block of black marble was suspended in a crane sling a couple of feet above the ground.

  An imam intoned a prayer and Syed gave a short speech in Arabic, after which the crane rattled into life. Amidst more applause the king centred the block over its base and guided it into position as it was gently lowered. Then, with a dramatic gesture, he snatched away the plain cotton covering and we pressed forward to read the inscriptions. The top one had been incised in beautiful Arabic calligraphy; the lines below were an English translation which read:

  This college, for the benefit of the people of Abu Sabbah,

  is dedicated to the glorious memory of

  KING HAMID III

  who died a martyr’s death as was the will

  of the Almighty.

  ‘Drink at the fountain of knowledge and honour his memory.’

  ‘Is the wording all right?’ Syed asked as the Danish architect led us off on a tour of inspection.

  ‘Splendid,’ I answered. ‘I like the “fountain of knowledge”. It was an ancient belief that truth was to be found in a sacred fountain or well.’

  ‘So Jo told me,’ he said with a smile, and went ahead to walk with the architect.

  ‘And not only at the bottom of wells,’ remarked Jo as we turned into a long passage between two walls of brick. ‘It sometimes turns up in very odd places — like in a manuscript.’

  I did not answer. Hangover sweat beaded my face and I feared that at any moment the world would tilt and I would go reeling. And then the world did tilt.

  An explosion cracked in our ears. I looked up and saw a pall of dirty smoke dimming the sky between the two walls, and then the wall on our right took on the graceful curve of a wave about to break and for a mad instant I was reminded of Gaudi’s architecture.

  I turned to Jo and flung her through one of the doorless doorways in the left hand wall. There was a series of concussions as a rattle of hysterical shooting cut through the tinnitus of screaming. Then the wave broke. I tried to follow Jo as thousands of bricks cascaded into the passage.

  ‘Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! La illaha ill’ Allah! La illaha ilL Allah!’

  The plangent prayer drew me from my dream state and I opened my eyes to look out of a lattice casement whose sill was level with my bed. It was like a frame for an illustration from one of those suede-bound copies of Omar Khayyam. Silhouetted against a sky of layered lavender and rose was a minaret from whose circular balcony a muezzin called the faithful to the sunset prayers.

  I found that, like the muezzin, I seemed to be wearing a turban. Remembering that the mosque stood beside the royal palace I deduced that I must be a guest of the king, though why this should be I was too enervated to comprehend.

  Somewhere a woman spoke softly in Arabic. There was a rustle of draperies and when I opened my eyes again I saw Jo between me and the window, her face in shadow.

  ‘The nurse just told me you’ve come round,’ she said. ‘Don’t panic. You’re not badly hurt. Some bricks caught you and the doctor gave you an injection so you wouldn’t feel too shitty when you woke up. You’ll have a headache and a sore back and legs for two or three days, but nothing permanent.’

  ‘Syed?’

  ‘He’s all right — at least physically. He and the architect had left the passage when the wall collapsed. He’ll be along to see you as soon as he gets back. At the moment there’s a state of emergency.’

  ‘Who planted the bombs?’

  ‘We think that some members of a fundamentalist group infiltrated the workforce. The charges had been placed with great care; nearly all the college is rubble now. It’s a terrible blow to Syed.’

  ‘You mean there were bombs all over the site?’ I said when I had digested this.

  ‘They went off one after another. I guess their timing was a bit out. Even so at least half a dozen people were killed and quite a few hurt. And that brings me to the gratitude bit. If you hadn’t shoved me through that door I’d still be under a ton of bricks. I’ve got to thank you for my life. And I guess I was being rather rough on you before it happened.’

  ‘Seeing it from Ash’s point of view I can understand how you felt about me. But I could say that if Ash had really loved me she would have given me the chance to explain. Perhaps she felt that things were not working out and subconsciously welcomed the opportunity for the break. After all, the age difference …’

  ‘That’s crap,’ said Jo.

  I could have gone on to explain that perhaps my role had been to exorcise the ghost of a dead love, but I did not want to talk any more.

  ‘I’ll leave you to rest,’ said Jo, sensing my ebb of energy. ‘Thanks again for the rest of my life.’

  She left and for a long time I gazed at the graceful minaret against the darkening sky, savouring the realization that I was lucky to be alive. In comparison with this wonderful fact my present problems were petty.

  The king visited me an hour later. He looked strained and his uniform was still stained with brick dust, and he began by thanking me for saving Jo, although in truth that had not been heroic but merely a reflex action.

  ‘Praise Allah that you were right behind her when the wall collapsed,’ he said. ‘The archway shielded you from the worst of it. They’re still using a JCB to search for bodies under the rubble. Unhappily Zahir Khaled is among the dead. And my college is razed.’

  ‘You are going to build again?’

  ‘Of course. I owe it to the memory of my brother. I owe it to the next generation of my people. But next time there will be more security. Our friends from the Gulf will not be able to engineer this a second time.’

  ‘You know who was responsible, then?’

  ‘Oh yes. We caught several suspects and a couple have already confessed.’ He smiled thinly. ‘I am sorry that I can no longer offer you a post in the college until it is rebuilt. Perhaps, though, you will consider coming out again when it has risen like the phoenix from its ashes?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

  ‘For as long as I — or the heir I am to have — retains the throne of this country you will be honoured here. Not only did you save the woman I love but you saved the succession.’

  In the faint light I could see that Syed’s eyes were moist.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, what a propitious day it was when our paths crossed at Radio City. Wonderful are the ways of God. If it had not been for that meeting, the JCB might be digging out the corpse of my wife at this moment. It is traditional that the Abbasides reward those who have served their House. Jonathan, what can I do that will enrich your life?’

  Forty thousand quid would sort things out v
ery nicely, an irreverent voice chimed in my head, but aloud I assured Syed that the fact that Jo and her newly conceived child were safe was reward enough in itself.

  ‘But you must have the grace to receive … please take this. It is a trifle, but it carries my gratitude and can be redeemed for a royal favour at any time in the future.’

  From his finger he screwed off a heavy ring representing the head of a leopard, the emblem of Abu Sabbah, with ruby eyes. He pressed it into my hand.

  Four days later I was ready to return to England by the next flight from Abu Sabbah.

  18

  I arrived at Gatwick Airport in the late afternoon, and was thankful when the courtesy bus had deposited me at the long-term car park and I could sink into the well upholstered scat of my car. My legs were aching badly where the bricks caught me, and as well as the blow to the head which had rendered me unconscious, several bricks had struck my back leaving livid patches of bruising, the pain of which I kept at bay with analgesic tablets provided by the royal doctor.

  Because of the stiffness in my legs, coupled with the fatigue of the ten-hour flight, I was grateful that the car was an automatic as I left the airport and headed on to the motorway system which would take me most of the way to Lychett Matravers and Whispering Corner. After the heat and the harsh light of the tiny Red Sea kingdom I would have been in a mood to savour the variegated greens of the English summer landscape in normal circumstances but I was in no mood to appreciate nature. My feelings about returning to Whispering Corner were very mixed.

  On one hand I knew that arriving there would place me back in the thick of financial problems, and that every part of the house would be a painful reminder of my brief days with Ashley. On the other hand I had loved that eccentric old house from the first, and it had come to represent home despite the haunting and the effect that had had upon me.

  By the time I was passing the Rufus Stone in the New Forest the sky in the west was changing dramatically.

  Although large patches of the landscape were still brightly lit by late afternoon sunlight, others darkened as sombre banks of nimbostratus materialized ahead of me. I was insulated from the world by steel and safety glass, but I could well imagine the hush portending the storm. A flicker of lightning — too distant for me to hear its thunder — danced along the edge of the cloud and I guessed that by the time I reached my destination the sluices of heaven would have opened. And I had a vivid memory of how it was in such a storm that Ashley had come into my life.

  I was right. As I turned into the lane leading to Whispering Corner I was driving through a curtain of rain, and lightning flashes were appearing like brief galaxies through the heavy foliage of the wood. When I pulled up at the bottom of the drive Whispering Corner looked wildly dramatic, its windows mirroring cold blue flames, its steep roofs gleaming with rainwater and its gargoyles animated by the interplay of light and shadow. What puzzled and alarmed me was that the door leading into the kitchen area appeared to be swinging open.

  ‘Oh no!’ I exclaimed. That was all I needed — to find I had been burgled on top of everything else! I think I was actually swearing aloud as I limped past the overgrown mythical beasts. My clothing was wet through by the time I entered the kitchen and reached for the light switch to learn the worst.

  Probably as a result of the storm the house was without electricity, so I had to rely on an old torch and the almost continuous lightning illuminating the rooms like disco lights. Everything seemed to be in order in the kitchen, and in the dining room where I had several watercolours which had been in my family since Victorian times.

  In the living room there was no sign of an intruder, nor in my bedroom, and I began to hope that the Reverend Gotobed had inadvertently left the back door ajar after paying one of his promised visits to feed Mrs Foch. I began to relax, until I entered my study.

  Once again I saw that my occult reference books had been scattered over the floor and this time many of the covers, including a valuable edition of the Daemonologie, had been wrenched from their spines. Then I noticed that on my desk the shape of a cross had been crudely scored.

  Being a book-lover since childhood my first concern was for the books, and I knelt painfully to see if some of my particularly prized volumes had escaped. Whoever had attacked them had done so in a frenzy; many not only had their covers torn off but pages ripped out and then torn again. Depressed and angry I hauled myself to my feet, holding the remains of a once leather-bound volume of The Golden Bough.

  After the manifestations I had witnessed in the house, culminating in the exploding glass at the séance, I was prepared to accept that in the past my books had been strewn by a poltergeist. But somehow I found it hard to imagine an elemental force pulling out pages and tearing them into scraps of paper; this destruction had the hallmark of human hands.

  Hoddy!

  My earlier suspicion of him returned. With his childhood belief that Miss Constance was the witch in the wood, this simple-minded fellow, who had had ample opportunity to see my books when he was doing odd jobs about the place, might have decided to perform some sort of exorcism on my ‘devil’s library’, as I had heard him describe my shelves of reference books.

  I looked again at the symbol cut on my desk and I was more than ever convinced that a human agency was responsible for the destruction. And I wondered if the intruder had roamed through my house looking for other objects to vent his righteous anger upon. Then another thought occurred: that he might still be somewhere in the house …

  Forgetting in my anger that Hoddy — if indeed it was he — was half my age and considerably stronger, I left my study and began to search the house. Each time I passed a light switch I turned it on in the hope that the electricity had been restored, but the house remained an eerie mixture of darkness and flashgun illumination.

  I entered the room which I always thought of as Miss Constance’s parlour and found that her father’s telescope had been knocked over. As I swept the beam of my torch over it I saw something white and fluffy lying in the worn carpet, something that reminded me of a prize at carnival sideshows, a furry caterpillar to make the girls shriek. When I picked it up I saw that it was part of a cat’s tail.

  Mrs Foch’s tail.

  As I stood there holding it in front of my torch the lights suddenly went on. Looking down at the spot from where I had picked up the tail I saw a deep gash in the carpet which I guessed had been made by the axe blow that severed it. From here a trail of blood spots led me downstairs to the cellar entrance. The door was partly open and I guessed Mrs Foch had fled down the steps to hide. I went through the doorway and rubbed my hand over the roughly plastered wall until it encountered the old-fashioned brass switch, and when I pressed it the old bulb threw its yellow rays into the gloom. I cursed that I had not thought to replace it with a modern high-powered light, but I suppose the truth was that I had not particularly wanted to return, especially since I had an uncomfortable idea of what might have been buried there.

  Now, however, the adrenaline of the indignant householder was surging through my system, and I was anxious about Mrs Foch.

  There was no sign of the cat. Dark spots on the dusty steps showed that she had sought sanctuary in the cellar, but there were dozens of places where she could have gone to earth. I went down the stairs a foot at a time, each downward step reminding me painfully of the blows my legs had received.

  At the bottom I saw that the blood trail led across the filthy floor to the smaller wine cellar. I did not know to what extent a cat’s tail bleeds when severed, but the spots which had brought me this far were so plentiful that I wondered if the unfortunate animal had received any other injury.

  On reaching the second cellar I pushed its heavy door as far as I could to one side and swept the tunnel-like recess with my torch. There were some old crates and a broken basket — an Edwardian picnic case — stacked at the far end, and it seemed the only place where the cat could have taken refuge was behind them.

&nbs
p; ‘Hey cat,’ I called softly.

  I was answered by a faint mewing. Because Ashley had worked so hard at rehabilitating her, Mrs Foch had come to trust us. I hoped it would not be too difficult to coax her out and drive her to a veterinary surgeon.

  It was very cold and quiet in the old wine cellar, almost too quiet after the thunderclaps which had shaken the house after each lightning flash. I suddenly felt uneasy; I could not stop myself wondering if the fragile bones of an unwanted infant lay beneath the hard clay floor. ‘Come on, Mrs Foch,’ I called, anxious to leave this place. The hidden creature responded with more pitiful mewing and I was about to step forward to pull the boxes away when there was a crash that echoed through both cellars. It was not thunder but the slamming of the door at the top of the cellar steps. I turned and looked past the wine cellar entrance, and saw Hoddy descending.

  In one hand the young man held a brass cross which I recognized as having once stood on the altar of St Mary’s Church; in the other he carried a small hatchet. His face was expressionless.

  ‘Hoddy, what the hell do you mean …’ I shouted.

  He turned his gaze on me and at that moment I wished I had remained quiet. The anger that had sustained me drained away. There is nothing like the sight of a man following one into a gloomy cellar with a hatchet in his hand to change a feeling of outrage into one of apprehension. Yet when he spoke there was nothing to suggest menace in his pleasant Dorset accent.’

  ‘Mr Northrop. I didn’t know you’d be home today.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’ I asked, remaining in the doorway of the wine cellar.

  ‘There was something I had to do, Mr Northrop,’ he replied.

  ‘Like try and kill my cat!’

  ‘Weren’t your cat, Mr Northrop,’ he said. ‘Damn witch’s cat, that. And if you look in the Bible it says suffer not a witch to live.’

  ‘Look, Hoddy,’ I said, ‘if you’ve got it in your head that poor old Miss Constance was a witch, forget it. She’s been dead for over a year.’