The House of a Hundred Whispers

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Hello,’ said one of the officers. ‘Looks like the dicks is here, for some reason.’

  As soon as he climbed out of the police car, Vicky came out of the front door and ran up to meet him. He hugged her and kissed her, and then he held up the gauntlet.

  ‘Proof,’ he said.

  DI Holley and DC Cutland were standing outside in the courtyard, talking to John Kipling. Five uniformed officers were standing around, looking impatient.

  ‘I gather you’ve been doing some rather adventurous cross-country motoring, Mr Russell,’ said DI Holley.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rob. ‘I’ve already been cautioned.’

  ‘Anything to do with what’s going on here, by any chance?’

  ‘You know what’s going on here?’

  ‘Your lady wife has given us a pretty comprehensive picture of the situation, which is why we’ve refrained up until now from entering the premises. To be frank with you, it’s all extremely hard to believe. But – incredible as they are – the facts do appear to tally, and she’s begged us not to go barging into the house with undue haste, and so we haven’t.’

  ‘What has she told you?’

  ‘She’s said that the house has been covertly occupied for some time by a number of males who appear to be criminals. She explained that there’s a particular room in which they’ve been concealing themselves, and that this room has some highly unusual properties. She said that she hesitated to use the term “supernatural” but that’s what these properties appeared to be.’

  ‘What are these facts that you mentioned?’

  DC Cutland passed DI Holley a thick plastic folder and DI Holley held it up. ‘All I actually came here today to tell you was that we’ve completed our investigation into all those prisoners whose suitcases were found in the attic of this house. We certainly didn’t anticipate this stand-off situation.’

  ‘You’ve found out who those prisoners were?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The present governor at Dartmoor was extremely cooperative. The records show that every one of them was approached by your father, the late Mr Herbert Russell, when he was governor. Each of them was offered a transfer to Ford Open Prison in Sussex to take part in the Social Conscience programme, which carried with it a strong possibility of early release.’

  Rob glanced towards the open front door. Vicky was there now, waiting for him, and he could see that she was growing increasingly distressed. He lifted his hand to show her that he wouldn’t be talking to DI Holley much longer.

  ‘What I came to tell you was that none of those prisoners ever arrived at Ford,’ DI Holley went on. ‘Not one of them. They were collected from Princetown by a private security company called Headlock and driven away and that was the last that anybody saw of them. When their relatives came to visit them at Dartmoor, they were informed that they had absconded.

  ‘There is not and never has been a private security company called Headlock. And when our forensic accountants ran checks on the bank accounts and other liquid assets of the missing prisoners, we found that shortly before their disappearance all of them had made substantial transfers of funds to a company based in Tavistock called Florence Holdings.’

  ‘Florence,’ said Rob. ‘That was my mother’s name.’

  DI Holley raised both eyebrows. ‘I’m afraid to say that all the evidence now points to your late father, Herbert Russell, having extorted payments from those inmates at Dartmoor who he knew or suspected still to be harbouring substantial criminal assets after their convictions. We also managed to gain partial access to the accounts of Florence Holdings and it appears that in the last ten years of his tenure as governor of Dartmoor Prison, Herbert Russell was paid well over seven and a half million pounds by those inmates to whom he had offered the chance of early release. Very little of it is left. Florence Holdings now has assets of less than fifteen hundred pounds.’

  ‘He must have spent all of it on gambling,’ said Rob. ‘He never made it a secret that he bet on the horses, and he liked to play blackjack and roulette at Genting’s Casino in Plymouth whenever he could. But we never had any idea that he was betting on that scale.’

  ‘In the coming weeks we’ll be looking into your late father’s accounts even more comprehensively,’ said DI Holley. ‘But from what we’ve discovered so far, I don’t think there’s any doubt about what he was up to. The crucial question that’s facing us today is – what happened to all those prisoners who disappeared, and are the individuals who are now on your property those very same men? Did your late father keep them in hiding here for all these years? And if so, how?

  ‘We’ve been talking to Mr Kipling here and he’s explained his theory to us. As I’ve said, it seems unbelievable, but it coincides in a great many respects with what your lady wife has just told us, and so far there seems to be no alternative explanation that makes any sense.’

  ‘He’s told you about the witching room? And the way that the people in there come out at night and whisper? He’s told you that our son, Timmy, was probably taken that way, too? And my brother, Martin? And Ada Grey?’

  John said, ‘Yes, Rob. I’ve told them everything. There didn’t seem any reason not to, not now.’

  ‘The force – the presence that was keeping them all here – it’s gone for good,’ said Rob. ‘You can believe it or not, but it was a demon of sorts, called Esus. It was imprisoned in the cellar and I let it out. It fell into the Plym, John. Well, I gave it some help to fall into the Plym. It just – dissolved. I saw it, and that’s the only word I can think of. It dissolved.’

  ‘Is that what you were up to, with your reckless driving?’ asked DI Holley. ‘You almost drove off the edge of the Dewerstone, from what I was told.’

  ‘It’s gone, that’s all I need to tell you at the moment, detective inspector. It’s gone, and it’s never going to come back.’

  John said, ‘I’ve found out why the Wilmingtons asked Matthew Carver to install a witching room in Allhallows Hall. It’s explained in a letter that Matthew Carver wrote to his cousin, who was a lieutenant in the navy, when the Wilmingtons first asked him if he could do it.

  ‘They were being persistently threatened by a Jesuit priest called Father Thomas Blakely. He had discovered that, years before, the Wilmingtons had refused to acknowledge to the priest hunters that they had hidden a priest called Father Ambrose in Allhallows Hall, or that they even knew who he was. They were an influential family, and even if they had forfeited some of their property as a punishment, Father Ambrose would never have been tortured and executed. At worst, he might have been exiled.

  ‘Father Thomas was the great-nephew of Father Ambrose, and the good work that Father Ambrose had done in healing the sick and taking care of the poor was legendary in his family. So Father Thomas threatened to get his revenge on the Wilmingtons by reporting them to the Crown authorities. The Wilmingtons decided it would be too risky to have him murdered, and so they arranged for Matthew Carver to trap him in the witching room, for ever. There’s an implication in his letter that the Wilmingtons had other enemies, too. Perhaps they believed that having a witching room in Allhallows Hall would be an effective way of disposing of anybody who crossed them, if and when they needed to.

  ‘There’s no written evidence to prove it, Rob, but I can only assume that your father found out somehow about the witching room and the chant that could trap people in it, and decided it would be an effective way to make himself some money.’

  Rob looked over at Vicky again. She was beckoning him to hurry up.

  ‘It’s over now, detective inspector,’ Rob told him. ‘It’s really over. Whatever year or month or day these men have been trapped in, they’re free to go.’ He held up the gauntlet and said, ‘Apparently they’re only waiting for proof that Esus has gone for good.’

  ‘And that’s it? That glove? Let’s go and tell them, then. But you realise that if they are who we’re guessing they are – inmates unlawfully released by your late father from Dartmoor Prison – we’ll have to
arrest all of those who have yet to complete their sentences. It won’t make any difference how long they’ve been banged up in that so-called witching room of yours.’

  DC Cutland showed him a clipboard. ‘We have the complete list of their names here. All those who were promised by Governor Russell that they would be eligible for the Social Conscience programme. And there’s a van on its way from Crownhill.’

  *

  They crossed the courtyard and entered the house. As they approached the foot of the staircase, they could hear frenzied whispering from up on the landing. Rob thought: they could have spoken in their normal voices now, but they must have been whispering for so long that they were afraid to talk out loud.

  Vicky was already there, next to the dark broken-open doorway to the cellar, and as Rob and John and the police officers came in, Grace and Portia and Katharine came out of the drawing room, too.

  DI Holley went to the bottom stair and looked up. At least seven whisperers were looking back down at him, including the one with the shark’s-fin hair.

  ‘Right,’ he said to Rob. ‘You’d better tell those fellows that the boogie man’s gone and they can come down.’ He paused, and thoughtfully cracked his knuckles, one by one. ‘If they don’t, though, we’ll have to go up and fetch them. By force, if necessary. Two of the officers outside are equipped. This whole situation has already gone far beyond the bounds of what you might describe as reasonable.’

  Rob climbed up the first three stairs, and they creaked loudly as always. The whispering died down, although more of the whisperers came to the balustrade and leaned over.

  ‘The presence that was keeping you trapped in time here has gone for ever,’ Rob announced. ‘I drove Esus to the River Plym and he fell in, and that’s the last the world will ever see of him. You can feel now how real you are, can’t you? You can come down, and you can walk out of this house, and you need never come back here again.’

  He held up the gauntlet and waved it from side to side. ‘You see this? This is his glove – Esus or the Fluter or Old Dewer or whatever you want to call him. He’s gone, I promise you.’

  There was yet another flurry of whispering. Then, slowly and cautiously, the whisperers began to descend the staircase. The priest was first. Rob took him to be the Father Thomas that John had told him about – the vengeful priest for whom the witching room had been installed in the first place. He was followed by three thuggish-looking men with shaven heads and tattoos, and then, to Rob’s relief, by Martin, looking dazed. If Martin had been freed, then surely Timmy must have been, too, although he didn’t want to tempt fate by shouting out his name.

  As the men came down, they gathered in the hallway, and DC Cutland and two other officers went up to them, one after the other, asking their names. Father Thomas stood on his own in the corner, his head bowed as if he were praying. When Martin came down, he stared at Rob as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, and then said, ‘Rob. Thank God.’ Katharine ran up to him and threw her arms around him, sobbing.

  Two or three of the men in old-fashioned dress appeared to be utterly bewildered. Bartram stumbled on the stairs and had to make a grab for the banister rail to stop himself from falling over.

  Ada Grey came down, looking shocked. John took hold of her hand and led her into the drawing room, where she could sit down. He asked her again and again how she felt, but she was speechless. All she could do was open and close her mouth and shake her head.

  Last of all, Jaws descended the stairs, and in his arms he was carrying Timmy, although Timmy’s arms and legs were floppy and he looked as if he were sleeping.

  Vicky let out a cry of sheer joy, and ran up the stairs to meet him. Rob felt his eyes fill with tears, and he couldn’t help thinking: That God that I don’t believe in, maybe I do now.

  Although Vicky held out her arms for Timmy, Jaws wouldn’t hand him to her. He came right down to the hallway, still holding him, and stood there for a moment like a sportsman who has just been awarded a trophy.

  DI Holley went up to him and said, ‘You – what’s your name?’

  ‘Shearing, if you must know. Ron Shearing, Usually known as Jaws.’

  ‘Well, now, Mr Shearing. Why don’t you hand this young lad back to his mother so that this can all end happily ever after?’

  Jaws looked down at Timmy and smiled. ‘He ain’t asleep. He’s hypnotised. We had to do it to stop him from crying all the time. Lenny over there, he done it. Used to be a wossname – hypnotherapist.’

  ‘That’s enough, whatever. Hand him over.’

  ‘But we’ve got a connection, this little fellow and me. We’re bonded, flesh and blood. You don’t know how much I love him.’

  ‘What the blazes are you burbling on about? I said, hand him over.’

  Jaws looked across at Rob and winked at him. ‘I love this little fellow because he’s my grandson – and that bloke standing right next to you, that’s my son.’

  ‘What? You’re mental, you are.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Jaws. He bent his head down and kissed Timmy on the forehead, and then he carefully lifted him up and passed him over to Vicky. Vicky took him and immediately hurried him out of the hallway and into the drawing room.

  Rob stayed where he was, staring at Jaws in disbelief. ‘I’m not your son, whoever the hell you are.’

  ‘Oh yes, you are, mate. Do you want to take a DNA test? I was one of the first ones that fucking Herbert Russell trapped in this house, pardon my French, but at first he didn’t catch on that when the moon was full, we always had a few hours of being real. We couldn’t leave the house but we was real. Solid.

  ‘One day during the fulness he had a row with his missus like you wouldn’t believe. Yelling at her, whacking her. He was a right fucking bastard. She come running upstairs and into one of the bedrooms to get away from him, and so I went in after her to give her some comfort. Well, she fucking deserved it, I can tell you. She was a lovely woman, lovely. We got talking and I calmed her down and after that we spent the night together.’

  ‘You made my mother pregnant?’

  ‘Not on purpose, mate, but I didn’t have a johnny, did I?’

  ‘But how do you know that I’m yours?’

  ‘Because your mum and your dad never slept together for nearly six months after that. I know, because I used to come out at night and stand there for hours and watch her sleeping. I used to watch you, too, when you was growing up. Sometimes I used to kip under your bed, just to hear you breathing. So don’t try and tell me that I wasn’t a good father to you, as much as I could be.’

  Rob didn’t know what else to ask him, or what else to say. The conversation that he had overheard between his father and his mother now made perfect sense, and so did the fact that he bore no resemblance to his father at all.

  It was DC Cutland, though, who came to the most damning conclusion of all.

  ‘The DNA on that hammer that was used to kill Herbert Russell… that must have been yours, Shearing. Did you kill Herbert Russell?’

  Jaws did nothing but give him one of his condescending smiles. ‘What do you reckon, Mr Dick?’

  *

  It took a little over half an hour for all the whisperers to be identified. Thirteen prisoners from Dartmoor who still had unfinished sentences were taken to one side and handcuffed, including Jaws. Five more police officers arrived from Crownhill so that they could all be boarded into a van and driven back to prison.

  The whisperer called Wellie was first out of the front door, but he had taken only two steps before he pitched sideways onto the granite paving stones and lay there shuddering. DC Cutland knelt down beside him to see if he could give him CPR, but when he turned him over onto his back he was shocked to see that he had aged at least twenty years. His moustache was white, most of his hair had fallen out, and his face was puckered and wrinkled. His heart had stopped beating and it was clear that he was dead.

  ‘Guv,’ said DC Cutland. ‘Come and look at this. He’s only snuffe
d it.’

  DI Holley bent down beside him. Wellie was staring up at them with pearl-white eyes and his mouth hanging open.

  ‘Christ. Maybe we should—’ DI Holley began, but it was too late. The remaining twelve prisoners had already been led in a straggling line out of the front door, and as they came outside they all showed instant and dramatic signs of aging. Professor Corkscrew dropped to his knees, coughing. Yet another prisoner staggered and fell over sideways, hitting his head on the paving stones. After less than half a minute, only eight of them were left standing, and the rest were lying on the ground, either gasping for breath or dead.

  Bartram appeared in the doorway, almost blocking it.

  ‘No!’ shouted DC Cutland. ‘Stay inside!’

  But Bartram took two steps forward and immediately thumped face first into the porch. His long leather jerkin fell flat, and by the time DC Cutland reached him his russet curls were iron-grey and there was nothing inside his jerkin but bones and dust.

  The last to come out was Father Thomas. DC Cutland made no attempt to stop him. He could see now that what was happening to all the whisperers was nothing more than their real age catching up with them. They had remained suspended for decades, some of them, while the ones they called pilgrims had lived out their lives and grown older and died. Now it was their turn.

  It looked as if Father Thomas knew what was going to happen to him. He stepped over Bartram’s jerkin with his eyes lifted to heaven and his hands pressed together in prayer. He cried out, ‘Lord! Turn back the clock!’ but he managed to take only three steps before his head dropped down into the neck of his cassock and he collapsed like a demolished chimney.

  Rob had heard the shouting. He left Vicky in the drawing room and hurried to the front door to see what was happening.

  DI Holley said, ‘Don’t come out, Mr Russell. It looks like time has taken its toll.’

  Rob looked across the courtyard, where the eight remaining prisoners were waiting for the police van to be reversed up to the gateway. He saw Jaws staring at him, and smiling. He was no longer an orphan, but finding out who his real father was made him feel as if he were standing naked in an icy wind, at night, with no shelter – a wind that would never stop blowing until the day he died.