‘Enough self-pity. I expect your novel is finished — were you recuperating after it in Abu S? Hope it goes even better than Shadows and Mirrors. At least one of us will be making it.
‘I know that it’s best for us both the way things have turned out etc. etc. but I must admit to missing you more than I expected. Been nice if things had been different. You’ll think I’m saying that because I’m rather blue over the Fleur de Lune disappointment, and perhaps you’re right. Give Steve all my love when next you see him — he sent me a card of a topless bathing belle from Puerto Banus. Where has our little boy gone? Love to you too … P.’
I put the letter carefully back into its envelope and cursed the effort I had made to get a letter of congratulation written and posted while I was convalescent. What salt in the wound it must have been when she received it.
My first inclination was to rush off a letter of commiseration to Pam. Then I decided to leave it until I had time to consider the wording carefully. My initial disappointment and indignation on her behalf might only add to her depression.
The next letter was in Syed’s handwriting, expressing the hope that I was fully recovered and saying that work had already started on rebuilding the college and he hoped that when it was completed I would still consider joining the staff. There was a PS from Jo hoping Ashley and I were in contact again with misunderstandings forgotten.
I held the last envelope in my fingers for a minute before I opened it. It was obviously Charles’s belated reply to the angry letter I had sent him before I flew to Abu Sabbah, and I tried to guess the content. I remembered that one of his axioms was that the best form of defence was attack, and it was attack I found when I unfolded the heavy mock parchment with his name displayed across the top in viridian day-glo ink with the words ‘Film and TV Producer’ beneath it.
I shall not quote it verbatim here; it had been written with such venom and phoney outrage that it had the effect of making me feel physically ill, especially as it was because of this man that I would soon be in court. (When I recently found it again in my Regent Bank file, it had the same effect even though the whole business had come to its tragic conclusion.)
He began by saying how shocked he was at my letter, and how could I write in such a tone to someone who had done so much for me!
Without his effort and expertise my book The Dancing Stones would never have been filmed. But although he had never received his just financial reward for this dedicated work he had not minded because he was happy to give my career a helping hand. Since then he had devoted his time to endeavouring to get my last novel filmed. Surely even I must understand that he’d had to take living expenses (though not the thousand pounds a week he was entitled to as a producer) from the company during the two years he was labouring so hard on my behalf. It ill became me to ‘demand’ accounts as I had done. The implication I had made by doing so was such that he was considering putting the matter in the hands of his solicitor in order to protect his professional reputation.
He then went on to express his amazement that, as a best-selling and therefore highly paid author, I should be so reluctant to carry out my duty to Pleiades Films when for his part he had sacrificed so much of his valuable time in trying to promote another production for it. Alas, my ingratitude was the only reward for his sacrifice!
If I had played my part in the company, instead of hiding away in the country to evade my responsibilities, I would have been well aware of the company’s financial state and the situation with the bank. Now that reality had caught up with me it seemed that I was going to place all the responsibility on him and this was something he was not going to allow. For the sake of his reputation he was going to inform my agent and publishers of my deviousness, and if I were to pressure him for money that I knew perfectly well he did not have — because of his lack of income due to his unrewarded effort on my behalf — he would fight me through the courts and demonstrate publicly what an ingrate I was.
He added that he was glad I had written because it opened his eyes to the sort of man he had accepted as a partner and helped beyond the call of commercial duty. He now ‘crossed me off his list’. In future if I had anything to communicate I should do it through his solicitor. Finally, although he never normally commented on anyone’s private affairs, it was common knowledge that my wife had left me and gone to America, and if ‘that lovely woman’ had been forced to take such action it merely underlined the sort of person I was.
There was a postscript to say that he was sending a copy of this letter to his legal adviser.
He had not answered any of the points I had raised when I wrote to him, and when I had to turn over my Pleiades papers to my solicitor, he remarked after reading Charles’s letter that self-righteousness is the standard defence of the conman.
And while there was something sick about receiving such a letter when one is about to lose one’s house — a point Charles forgot to touch on — it was the reference to Pam coming immediately after her sad letter that incensed me. The opening line from Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Cask of Amontillado once more came into my mind; ‘The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.’
And suddenly I laughed aloud.
Charles Nixon would make the ideal model for the villain of Whispering Corner, the character who had been so shadowy that so far I had merely referred to him as XXXXX in my text. But now I had him — the medium who exploits Falco and Lorna in order to promote himself. How well such a character as Charles would fit the role, with his glib pretence at being concerned for his victims, his ever-ready untruths and his overwhelming ego.
What should I call him?
Taking the hint from Poe the name Fortune seemed appropriate … William Fortune. That would do.
I left my letters with their diverse content amid the clutter of the kitchen table and hurried upstairs to my typewriter.
21
My first task was to write William Fortune into the story, beginning with the séance Falco had arranged after seeing the ghostly murder re-enactment. With a sort of bitter enthusiasm I described his pallid face and granny glasses. I decided that a formal charcoal suit would be more appropriate than the designer denims favoured by my model, but the flavour of his self-promoting conversation I retained, so that Fortune was constantly coming out with remarks such as ‘When someone very important asked me to hold a séance at Glamis Castle …’
As I worked through the day Fortune’s motives became apparent. He sees Whispering Corner becoming another Borley Rectory, with him the master of mystical ceremonies. Keeping his intent from Falco, who hates the thought of any publicity connected with his new home, the medium arranges contracts for a serial in a Sunday newspaper and a book The Whispering Ghost — the most amazing haunting this century which will appear when the house reaches the apogee of its hype. Unbeknown to Falco, he also negotiates with a film company to cover the next séance.
In my mind I decided that as a young man Fortune was so presentable and confident that he did not think it necessary to become qualified at a trade or profession — he was sure that a high position would come his way by right. It had not happened, and after a string of jobs such as demonstrating washing powder, touting insurance door to door and selling menswear — none of which occupations allowed him to prove his real ability — he decided that if he wanted acclaim and financial reward he must utilize his natural psychic gifts.
At the point where he enters the novel he has been quite successful as a medium and is looking for the opportunity to promote himself into a celebrity.
After the initial séance he spends a lot of time at Whispering Corner conducting an investigation. Here his hypocritical charm is used to calm the fears of its occupants, especially Lorna whom, with the tactics of Rasputin, he endeavours to draw under his influence after sensing that Falco is hard to manipulate.
This culminates in the quarrel between Lorna and Falco when, beginning
to be suspicious of the medium’s motives, Falco decides to call in an exorcist to get the house cleared of its supernatural inheritance once and for all — the very last thing that Fortune wants.
It was almost midnight when I sat back and stretched my cramped muscles with a feeling of weary satisfaction. I was very pleased with the character I had just incorporated into the novel; I had pondered over the villain for a long time — I did not want someone patently wicked — and with Fortune I could steadily develop his ambition into a menacing obsession, reinforced by the ancient evil surrounding the house.
To celebrate what I felt was a significant step forward in the storyline, I had a drink, then went to bed in a state of pleasant exhaustion.
Next morning I was about to start work when the postman brought me a letter addressed in the meticulous hand of Dr McAndrew. He hoped the exorcism he had performed had been effective, but he was still mystified that he had not sensed the discarnate entities I had described so graphically. If anything further happened would I please get in touch with him immediately.
Perhaps when the novel was finished I would explain to him that the entities of Whispering Corner had been the product of my own imagination, and by that time the haunting of the house would be over. If the ghosts had been created in my imagination then through my imagination they would be laid to rest. I planned to write a scene of exorcism conducted by an Anglican priest which would end the whole business.
The fact that the house appeared to be free of phenomena at present I put down to the fact that the force which activated them had been temporarily exhausted by the possession of Hoddy. I knew that each time it reappeared it had been more powerful, and I hoped that before it could manifest again I would have ‘written it out’. But I had something more important to write in Whispering Corner first.
Looking back, I can only say I must have been in a most dangerous state of mind.
*
When I looked up and saw that the sky framed in the study window was darkening I was astonished at how the hours had passed; I had been too absorbed in the unfolding story to be aware of their passage. During those hours I had developed the role of William Fortune who, when he learns that Lorna has left Falco, hurries to Whispering Corner to play the part of the wise elder friend. He seizes the opportunity presented by Falco’s lowered spirits to persuade him to agree to the setting up of a psychical experiment a few days hence. The intervening time is required covertly to arrange for media coverage.
Alone Falco is preoccupied — as I was — by the fact he is unable to find the whereabouts of his lover. He searches the house for her manuscript in the hope that it might contain the telephone number of an agent or the address of a publisher, but he finally accepts the futility of the hunt — as an author her manuscript would be the first thing she would think of taking with her.
It seems extraordinary to the young man that she could vanish so completely; it is almost as though she has been a figment of his imagination. The rooms where they had made love hold no trace of the emotion he had experienced; when he walks on the lawn there is nothing in the garden to confirm that a short while ago they had walked together by moonlight.
The only tangible evidence of their love affair comes that night when he collapses on to his bed and catches the faint redolence of her shampoo from the pillow next to his. This is so evocative that later that night, when he wakes dry-mouthed from too much alcohol, he believes he can hear her soft breathing beside him. He stretches out a hand but all that his fingers encounter is the fur of the cat who, also missing Lorna, has curled up on the side of the bed where she slept.
Falco tries to assuage his sense of loss and anger by spending the day at his drawing board and drinking too much at night. He had such high hopes of starting a new life in Whispering Corner when he first saw the house, and now everything seems to have become a mockery of that hope.
It was at this point I stopped and realized that evening was drawing on. I went downstairs and had my first meal of the day: toast and a tin of Campbell’s mushroom soup. I followed it by a very careful brandy — I was well aware that I had come to rely too much on the spirit, and tonight I wanted to be clear-headed. I was about to embark on the most important piece of prose I would ever write.
In the churchyard Falco leaned against the lichened wall and gazed pensively at the ancient yew with its grotesquely twisted trunk. Each time he had seen it in the past he had intended to draw it with the idea of using it in some future illustration. This morning he had felt too restless to remain indoors and the yew provided an excuse to leave his studio.
He took out his sketchbook and began to outline the trunk and branches. As he worked he thought how suitable it would have been as an illustration for one of Lorna’s stories about an enchanted tree.
Why the hell did everything have to remind him of Lorna, he thought with a sudden surge of anger. If she had really loved him she wouldn’t have gone off because of such a stupid quarrel. He had just bloody well misjudged the situation, and she had used it as an excuse to get away. Perhaps the haunting had affected her nerves more than he had realized; perhaps as she recovered from her accident she felt that she was making a mistake, that he was not the man for her after all. Perhaps she just got plain bored.
Whatever the reason, she had done what she had to do and all the brooding in the world would not alter that … ‘Is that going to be the illustration for The Tree Prince?’
The sound of her voice behind him came as such a shock that he was unable to respond. His pencil point continued to shade in dark foliage.
He heard the iron gate creak, shoes on the gravel path.
‘Hi,’ he said as she came into his line of vision. She wore a navy polka dot shirt and slightly travel-soiled cream slacks, and at the sight of her Falco felt giddy in a way that he had not known since he was a child. Nevertheless, he managed to keep his pencil moving softly over the cartridge paper.
‘Hi,’ she responded with an equal show of coolness. She turned away, gazing at a distant smudge of stubble smoke as though it held exceptional interest for her. Then she swung round with an angry look.
‘You really are a cold bastard,’ she said. ‘Is “Hi” all you want to say?’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Hi Lorna.’
‘Very funny. Still, I suppose it was stupid of me to expect that you might be pleased to see me again.’
‘Who says I wasn’t pleased?’
‘Your attitude. But, please, don’t let me interrupt your drawing …’
Anger at his inability to respond as he had dreamed of doing in this situation and anger at her petulant words mingled and swamped him. Childishly he tore the page from the pad, clenched it into a ball and flung it on the grass.
‘Oh, your lovely drawing,’ cried Lorna. She dropped to her knees and began to unfold the paper and smooth it out.
‘How could you do that!’ She stood up with green stains on the knees of her slacks.
‘I’m sorry,’ Falco said. ‘It was a stupid thing to do.’
‘Yes, it was,’ she agreed. ‘But it broke the tension. When I came down Church Walk from Whispering Corner and saw you in the churchyard I thought I was going to be sick.’
‘So that’s the effect I have upon you.’
She gave a little laugh. ‘You know what I mean, James. It may sound crazy to you but I was scared silly on the train, and it got even worse when I came in the taxi from Poole.’
‘OK now?’
‘Much better. Can I keep this drawing?’
‘It’s spoilt.’
‘Not for me.’
They stood facing each other, not knowing what to say next. From behind the church drifted the smell of burning weeds.
‘I’m not in the mood to see the vicar,’ Falco said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea or something?’
‘The “or something” sounds best.’
Side by side they strolled up Church Walk, taking care that their hands should not touch in case it sho
uld give the wrong signal. When they reached the wicket gate Lorna asked if he would mind walking further and he agreed. Neither was ready for the house in which they had shared so much. When they reached the bend over which the giant oak spread its branches Falco suddenly put his hand on Lorna’s shoulder. ‘Why the hell did you go off like that?’
‘I was waiting for you to ask me that. All the way down I’ve been trying to think of an answer but I couldn’t come up with one.’
‘But after what had happened between us …
‘I know. All I can say is it was something to do with the house. Look how we had been getting on each other’s nerves before we had that stupid, stupid quarrel.’
‘It was fear of the ghosts?’
‘I was scared of them, but it wasn’t that that sent me running. There was something getting at me and some instinct made me want to run away. Self preservation? I don’t know. But it wasn’t because of the quarrel. That was only an outward and visible sign of something much deeper. Of course I was very angry when I left, but normally I would have got over it without doing anything drastic. I stayed in Highgate with a girl friend I was at college with and all I know is that I was utterly miserable.’
‘I didn’t feel so wonderful myself.’
‘Shall we walk through the wood?’
‘If you like.’
They stepped off the path and soon were walking among the trees.
‘I suppose there were times when Sir Richard’s mistress felt like running away, especially when he bullied her …’
‘I wonder,’ murmured Falco. ‘Some sort of possession might be next on the list.’
He was aware that she shivered. ‘You mean those dead people might be trying to influence us, to make us feel what they felt.’
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