The House of a Hundred Whispers

by Graham Masterton

  It was so dark outside that he could hardly see the figure of Old Dewer in his black cloak, with his back turned. But he couldn’t help thinking of the words the presence that had somehow entered their bedroom had whispered to him. ‘Trespassing? You can’t trespass if you don’t have no choice.’

  What had he meant by that? That he couldn’t leave Allhallows Hall, even if he wanted to? That he was trapped here? That was what it had sounded like.

  He walked back to the landing and paused for a few seconds at the top of the stairs, listening. He thought he had caught the sound of somebody whispering down in the hallway, but it could have been the wind, which seemed to have changed direction. The flap of the letterbox in the front door had started to clap, intermittently, as if there was somebody outside in the porch who wanted to be let in. Somebody old and tired, who barely had the strength to knock.

  Rob went downstairs and switched on the light in the hallway. Katharine’s boots were lying where she had tugged them off, and her coat was slung awkwardly over the back of the chair. The letterbox clapped again, twice, but Rob resisted the temptation to go and open the front door to see if there was anybody there. All reason told him that it was only the wind.

  He went into the drawing room. Fine white ash from the fire had blown across the hearthrug, but the fire itself had died out. Martin’s navy-blue overcoat was spread out on the sofa as if he had been lying on it, its blue satin lining creased, but there was no sign of Martin. He must have sobered up enough to stagger up the stairs and go to bed.

  Rob looked into the kitchen and the scullery and then he went through to the library. He even checked the downstairs lavatory, with its high old-fashioned cistern and its framed postcards by the saucy seaside artist Donald McGill. Herbert Russell had collected these postcards for years, and found them hilarious. Hardly anything else made him laugh so much, except seeing other people accidentally spill their drink into their lap, or stumble over and hurt themselves, or scald their hands under a boiling hot tap.

  Before he went back upstairs, Rob went over to the bricked-up door to the cellar, which was next to the door to the library. The oak door frame was still there, but the bricks had been plastered over and papered and painted. From the state of the plaster, this had clearly been done a long time ago, maybe more than a century, but there was no record in the deeds or local history as to exactly when, or why.

  Rob stood in front of it for a while, although he didn’t really know what he was expecting to see, or to hear. He even pressed his ear to the plaster, in case there was whispering on the other side, but there was nothing. Since the cellar was sealed up, nobody could have come out of it, or gone back in; but then nobody could have entered their bedroom through a closed door, either.

  He switched off the lights and went back upstairs. As he climbed in next to her, Vicky said, ‘Anything?’

  ‘No. And Martin must have managed to get himself to bed.’

  ‘Maybe there’s something in this house that makes us hallucinate. My grandmother was almost blind by the time she was eighty, but she used to see people and animals who weren’t there. She saw a clown’s head in her bathroom basin once. Charles Bonnet syndrome, that’s what they call it.’

  ‘But that’s only seeing things, isn’t it? It’s because you’re nearly blind. She never heard anything, did she? She didn’t get pushed over and kicked?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. If she did, she didn’t tell me about it. But I’m only trying to be like you, Rob. I’m only trying to think of some rational explanation. Even if there isn’t one.’

  18

  Rob tried to keep his eyes open, but after about half an hour he fell deeply asleep. He dreamed that he was outside on the moor, completely naked, with an icy wind slicing against his skin, stiffening his nipples and shrinking his scrotum and bringing him up in goose pimples. He was desperate to find his way back to the house before anybody saw him like this, and he was cursing his own stupidity at having forgotten to put on any clothes before he came out.

  He had reached the front driveway and he could feel the sharp gravel underneath the soles of his feet. But then he heard Timmy calling out to him, from somewhere far beyond the Grimstone and Sortridge leat. He stopped, and listened, and it was definitely Timmy. He didn’t know if he ought to go into the house and quickly get dressed, or run out into the wind to rescue Timmy, still naked.

  ‘Timmy!’ he shouted. ‘Hold on! Daddy’s coming!’

  He hurried back to the house and was relieved to find that the front door was unlocked. As he entered the hallway, he could hear a phone ringing. It sounded as if it were coming from the drawing room. He wondered if he ought to find it and answer it, but then it stopped. He was about to climb the stairs when it started ringing again.

  He sat up in bed. For a moment, he couldn’t think where he was. But it must be morning. He could see a wan grey light between the curtains, and when he turned over and picked up his watch he saw that it was 8:17. And that phone was still ringing, although it was very faint.

  He recognised the ringtone: it was that irritating up-and-down plinking ‘waves’, which meant that it was Martin’s phone. But why didn’t he answer it?

  The ringing stopped. Rob rubbed his face with his hands and yawned and swung his legs out of bed. Vicky stirred and murmured, and he stayed still for a few moments in case he woke her up. She needed all the sleep she could get.

  He quietly got dressed. If they needed to stay here at Allhallows Hall for yet another night, they would have to drive over to Tavistock sometime today and buy themselves some fresh clothes. There was the Farley Menswear shop and Brigid Foley, the women’s boutique. They had washed and tumble-dried their underwear and socks yesterday evening, but this was the third day that Rob had been wearing the same plaid shirt. At least his father had left some spare razor blades in the bathroom. He would have found it too eerie to shave with the same blade his father had used on the day he had been murdered.

  He went to the bathroom. It was unrelentingly chilly in there, and the taps dripped, and when he pulled the chain the plumbing let out its usual groaning, like a slaughtered pig.

  As he came out, he met Grace, all wrapped up in their mother’s pink candlewick dressing gown.

  ‘My God,’ he said. ‘Where did you find that?’

  ‘It was hanging behind our bedroom door. Dad must have missed it when he got rid of her clothes.’

  ‘He didn’t only get rid of her clothes, did he? He got rid of everything that belonged to her. Her sewing basket, her music box, all of her books. All those things you would have thought he might have kept, you know, for sentimental value. It only occurred to me yesterday that there isn’t a single picture of her anywhere.’

  ‘Dad didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body, Rob. You know that. Except for himself, of course. The only person that Herbert Russell felt sentimental about was Herbert Russell.’

  ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘On and off. I heard Martin and Katharine come in, and I heard you going downstairs.’

  Rob paused. Grace’s auburn hair was tousled and her green eyes were puffy, but this morning she looked so much like their mother, rather than their father, and it wasn’t only the dressing gown that gave her that appearance. Rob guessed that it was coming to Allhallows Hall and realising she would never see her father here again, ever. She was free of him.

  ‘You didn’t hear any of that whispering again, did you?’

  Grace shook her head. ‘Our window was rattling all night because of the wind, and apart from that, Portia snores like somebody sawing up logs. But for goodness’ sake don’t tell her I told you. Anyway, I must go to the loo.’

  As Grace closed the bathroom door, Rob heard Martin’s phone again. The ringing wasn’t coming from the master bedroom, but from somewhere downstairs. He hurried down to the hallway, and it was then that he realised it was coming from the drawing room. He went in, lifted Martin’s overcoat up from the sofa and found the phone
in his side pocket, still ringing.

  He took it out and said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, hi, Martin! For a minute there I thought you weren’t going to pick up. It’s Ted, about that Regis investment.’

  ‘Sorry, but this isn’t Martin. This is his brother. Martin’s tied up at the moment. I’ll have to ask him to call you back.’

  ‘I see. Okey-dokey. But can you ask him to make it asap? I’ve had a tip-off about Regis but once it goes public the price is going to go up like a fucking rocket.’

  ‘I’ll go and tell him right away.’

  ‘Thanks. There’s a good chap.’

  Rob went back upstairs. He knocked at the master bedroom door and called out, ‘Martin? Martin, there’s a phone call for you. Business.’

  He waited, but there was no answer, so he knocked again.

  ‘Martin? There’s someone called Ted on the phone for you, about some investment. He says it’s urgent.’

  There was still no response, so Rob opened the bedroom door and cautiously looked inside. It was dark, because the heavy velour curtains were still drawn, and there was a strong smell of stale alcohol and cheesy sick. When he opened the door wider, Rob saw the lamp lying on the floor where Katharine must have knocked it off the bedside table. Katharine herself was lying on her side on top of the patchwork quilt, fully dressed, her skirt hitched up at the back. For a moment Rob had the terrible thought that she might have choked on her own vomit, but as he came around the bed he heard her breathing, even though she sounded clogged up. She had brought up sticky yellowish lumps all over her pillow, which he guessed was half-digested homity pie.

  She was alive, but she was lying there alone. There was no sign of Martin, not even when Rob lifted up the overhanging quilt and looked under the bed. He and Katharine had been arguing when they came in, so he had probably decided to sleep in another bedroom.

  Rob left Katharine asleep and closed the door quietly behind him. He went into all of the other bedrooms, except for the bedroom that Grace and Portia were sharing. Martin was in none of them, not even in either of the two bedrooms with the stained-glass windows. The door to the end bedroom, next to the Old Dewer window, was still locked. The key was on the outside, so Martin couldn’t have gone to sleep in there, quite apart from the fact that it had no bed.

  So where the hell is he? He wasn’t anywhere downstairs, because I checked every room last night, even the toilet. Don’t tell me he went back out. It was pitch dark last night and cold enough to freeze the balls off the proverbial brass monkey, and he had left his overcoat in the drawing room. Apart from that, Martin never goes anywhere without his phone. Ever.

  All the same, Rob looked into the drawing room again, and the library, and the kitchen. He even opened the larder door, though he knew that was ridiculous.

  When he was sure that Martin was in none of the rooms downstairs, he shrugged on his coat and opened the front door. Ragged grey clouds were hurrying across the sky like Old Dewer’s hounds, and there was still a biting breeze blowing. He prayed to his new-found God that he wouldn’t find Martin lying in the garden somewhere, dead of hypothermia.

  He crossed the courtyard to the larger of the two granite barns, wrenched the door open and went inside. The smell of damp hay seemed to be stronger than ever.

  ‘Martin? Mart? You’re not in here, are you?’

  He circled around the barn, kicking at one of the heaps of hay to make sure Martin hadn’t covered himself with it to keep warm. He didn’t think it at all likely that Martin had come in here to spend the night, no matter how fiercely he had argued with Katharine. Martin relished his comfort too much, just like their father. Besides, he would have been too drunk to lift up the half-collapsed door.

  He went into the smaller barn, but there was no sign of Martin in there, either. Then he walked around the back of the house, and into the kitchen garden. It was starting to rain again, and the weedy vegetable beds looked more dismal and neglected than ever.

  Back in the house, he found Portia in the kitchen, in a mustard-coloured sweater and tight denim jeans. She had lit the fire under the range and was boiling the electric kettle.

  ‘What were you doing outside, Rob?’

  ‘I’ve been looking for Martin. He seems to have gone missing, like Timmy.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘No. I heard him come back from Tavistock last night and he sounded like he’d had a few. He didn’t go up to bed and I thought he was kipping down on the sofa in the drawing room. But when I came down this morning he wasn’t there and I can’t find him anywhere.’

  ‘Huh! Perhaps he thought he’d had enough of this house and decided to leave. I don’t mean this personally, but I’ve had quite enough of it myself. It’s the spookiest house I’ve ever slept in, bar none.’

  ‘Oh, come on. His Range Rover’s still in the driveway, and there’s no way he would have left on foot.’

  ‘He’s not hiding in that priest’s hole, is he?’

  ‘The door’s locked and the key’s on the outside, so he couldn’t be in there.’

  The kettle started to whistle, and Portia poured boiling water into the coffee percolator. ‘Would you like a coffee? You look frozen.’

  ‘Thanks. Yes.’ He watched her taking three mugs down from the kitchen cabinet. Then he said, ‘You don’t have to stay here, you know. There’s scores of police and volunteers out looking for Timmy and they keep showing pictures of him on the news. I don’t know what else we can do.’

  ‘Grace wants to stay to support you and Vicky. And if that’s what Grace wants, that’s what I want. I know I’m a bit of a bossy-boots sometimes, but you have to be when everybody at school calls you lezzy or dyke and your parents disown you because they wanted you to marry some drippy estate agent called Malcolm.’

  Rob couldn’t help smiling.

  Portia said, ‘Grace loves you, you know. She says you always stood up for her when she was little and your father shouted at her for being clumsy, and then when she was older and he began to suspect that she was attracted to girls more than boys. She loves you, and she loves Vicky and Timmy just as much, and she’s not going to let you down. And I love her more than I can tell you, so as long as she wants to stay, I’ll stay, too.’

  Katharine came into the kitchen. Her face was white and her eyes were bloodshot and she had put on her red roll-neck sweater backwards, so the collar came right up under her chin.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Jack Ratt scrumpy. Never again. I feel like I’ve been sat on by a horse.’

  ‘Katharine—’ Rob began.

  ‘Is that coffee? I’d love some. But I think I’d better drink some water first. I’ve been sick, and I’m so dehydrated.’

  Portia poured Katharine a large glass of water, which she drank in huge gulps, her eyes swivelling around, as if she had been crawling for five days across the Sahara. When she had finished, Rob said, ‘Did Martin give you any idea where he might be going off to?’

  Katharine wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stared at him, baffled.

  ‘What do you mean? He slept here downstairs, didn’t he? We had a row. I can’t even remember what it was about. But he didn’t come up to bed. At home he usually sleeps in his study if we’ve had an argument about something or other.’

  ‘He didn’t sleep downstairs, Katharine. I don’t know where he slept. I’ve looked all around the house for him, and outside, too. I can’t find him. He’s disappeared.’

  ‘What? Martin isn’t the kind of man who disappears. Well, not without a reason. And not for long, anyway, although sometimes I wish he would.’

  Rob showed her Martin’s phone. ‘Wherever he’s gone, he’s left his phone behind, and that’s not like him at all. He had a call this morning from somebody called Ted wanting to talk to him urgently about business.’

  Katharine suppressed a hiccup, and held on to the kitchen counter to steady herself. ‘You say you’ve looked everywhere?’

  ‘All ar
ound the house. Every bedroom, and I’ve even checked the barns. He’s not here, Katharine, and he can’t have driven off anywhere because your Range Rover is still here.’

  Katharine scraped out a wooden chair and sat down. ‘Oh, he’s sulking, that’s all. He’ll be back. He always has to be the centre of attention, and at the moment it’s all about your Timmy. And he’s very angry about this house, too, and your father’s will. Not just angry. He’s seething about it. And I mean seething. Being the oldest, he always thought the house would come to him.’

  ‘Has he done this kind of thing before?’

  ‘Once or twice. Usually after he’s been drinking. We were on holiday in France once and he disappeared for two whole days. When he turned up again, he expected me to apologise.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, I’m not going to report him missing just yet. The police don’t normally log an adult as missing for at least twenty-four hours, not unless there’s special circumstances. But if he’s not back by the end of the day, I’ll call that Sergeant Billings.’

  Katharine stood up. ‘I’ll be back for my coffee in a minute. I have to change the bed and I think I might need to be sick again.’

  When she had left the kitchen, Rob shook his head and said, ‘Martin can be such a dick sometimes. I only hope he hasn’t done anything stupid, like got his foot wedged in some crevice up on Pew Tor, or fallen into the Grimstone leat and drowned himself.’

  19

  At nine o’clock, John Kipling knocked at the door to report that last night’s specialist team of volunteers had still found no trace of Timmy. During the daylight hours today they would widen their search area as far as Willsworthy and Wistman’s Wood, both about eight miles away, but if they couldn’t find him by the time it grew dark, they would have to consider calling off the full-scale search.

  ‘It’s the dogs that make me think he’s not in the area any more,’ John told them. ‘They haven’t picked up so much as a sniff of him. But we’ll extend the search for as far as a five-year-old could feasibly walk, and a bit further.’