by John Harwood
Some time later I realised I had been doodling. Above a heavily inscribed 'A' I had drawn a small pig with wings, an imbecilic smile, and a halo.
At least it showed I could have written that message.
AT SEVEN THAT EVENING, I WAS SITTING IN A VAST BEER garden at the foot of Downshire Hill. Evening sunshine slanted across the grass. Still plenty of daylight left.
From Holborn I had walked slowly back up Southampton Row, intending to call in at the new British Library and try another search for more of Violas stories. Instead I had gone straight back to the hotel and slept until half-past five. The headache had gone when I woke, but the knot in the pit of my stomach was still there. Hunger, I told myself. A good meal will settle it.
Yet in spite of the roast lamb, and the beer, and the roar of several hundred conversations, the knot had refused to unravel.
I think of you as my questing knight, facing his last ordeal. In a couple of days' time I could be sitting here with Alice. Trust me. I tried to imagine her, in her white dress embroidered with small purple flowers, her thick copper-coloured hair loosely tied back, smiling at me from the empty chair opposite. She would be wearing that dress, she'd told me, when we met; it still fitted her. Alice is so beautiful, we all love her. Parvati Naidu, the ward sister at Finchley Road, had said so. I'd forgotten about Parvati during this last attack of doubt. I should learn to be more trusting.
And what would we be talking about, sitting here on the terrace, watching the sun go down? Whether Phyllis had murdered her sister as well as sleeping with her fiancé? I loved Alice for defending my mother to the bitter end, but I couldn't agree with her. On the evidence of Anne's diary alone, Phyllis May Hatherley was guilty unless proven innocent. And to prove it either way, I would have to find out what had happened to Anne.
I found that I was on my feet and heading for East Heath Road. The shadows had lengthened noticeably; the sun was only just above the treetops on Rosslyn Hill. All I needed to do this evening was check the library and confirm what I already knew: that the planchette would be sitting exactly where I'd left it, beneath the question I'd scrawled on my way out, in a moment of nervous defiance-if you're so smart, answer this. To make certain nobody was creeping into the house at night, I had fetched a reel of black thread from a sewing basket upstairs, tied a length of it across the hall a few paces from the front door, and another half-way along the path to the gate. I hadn't told Alice.
I took the path that ran past Hampstead Ponds, now crowded with swimmers, and across the Heath towards the eastern end of the Vale; the path I had taken on that wintry day thirteen years ago. Half of Hampstead seemed to be out walking or cycling. My mother and Anne, and Iris and Viola had walked these paths hundreds of times-all those coats and scarves and boots and galoshes by the front door-they would have been a familiar sight. Anne must have had friends; she'd lived here all her life. The life excluded from the diary. Apart from Miss Hamish, I didn't have a single name to pursue.
Except Hugh Montfort. I'd been so preoccupied with my mother and Anne, I'd hardly given him a thought. Had he and Phyllis run off together? Wouldn't the police have wanted to question him as well? He might still be alive, in fact-he'd only be in his seventies. It would certainly be worth trying to trace him: if not through public records-and I hadn't even checked the London residential phone book yet-I could try another advertisement in The Times.
As I approached the pond that lies between the Vale and the open Heath, I kept trying to identify Ferrier's Close. There were several possible candidates lurking behind dense stands of trees on a rise away to my left, but the geography of the Vale was so deceptive, I wasn't even sure I was looking in the right direction. Back in Mawson, I had skimmed through a massive history of Hampstead and the Heath: in the 1870s, the Vale of Health had been a rowdy pleasure-garden with its own gin palace; before that, it had been mainly cottages and a handful of larger houses, of which Ferrier's Close must have been one. I wondered how the bachelor uncle had felt about the gin palace.
Now gentrification had triumphed: the only remnant of commerce was the fairground on the eastern fringe of the Vale, an incongruous stretch of wasteland crowded with run-down mobile homes, derelict cars, mounds of salvaged timber and broken stone, rusting pieces of machinery.
A puff of wind sent dust eddying across the yard. Last time I saw this, it had been a sea of mud. Dank and dripping; as Miss Hamish had said, the gloomiest corner of the Heath.
Something in that swirl of dust, or perhaps a rowan tree on the far side of the fairground, dripping with scarlet berries, reminded me of Mawson, sitting with my mother in the back garden, the morning of my return. She had been so joyful, so relieved, to have me safely home. Consumed with misery and self-pity, I hadn't taken much notice. And then I'd mentioned the Vale, and she'd broken out in a cold sweat. Anything could have happened to you. You might have been murdered. No one could fake a reaction like that. Murders must have been committed on the Heath from time to time; perhaps she'd been warned, as a child, never to wander off alone. I had to keep you safe.
Meanwhile the sun was dipping below the trees on the skyline, and I had better get a move on.
IN THE GLOOM OF THE PLEACHED WALK, I HAD TO USE MY torch to locate the first line of black thread. It was unbroken, exactly where I had left it, at knee height. Along with the torch and matches I had brought the bottle of whisky, and in another attempt to loosen the knot in my stomach I swallowed a couple of mouthfuls in the porch before tackling the Banhams.
The thread in the hall was intact too. But it wouldn't hurt to check the back door before I went into the library. Torch in hand, though there was still plenty of light from the stairwell, I turned left into the drawing-room. Overhead, the stained glass shone crimson and gold, casting a faint sheen over the humped sofas and chairs and the faded rectangles on the walls where pictures had once hung. Once again I caught myself trying to move noiselessly. A board squeaked. Whisky sloshed in the bottle. I swallowed another mouthful of Braveheart, left the bottle with my bag of provisions on the dining table and went on through to the rear landing and courtyard door. Which was again exactly as I had left it, firmly bolted.
Cold air brushed my neck. I turned and shone my torch down the stairs to the flagged floor of the kitchen below. This was one of the reasons I had bought the torch. It would be dark down there at any time of day. Or night. I think of you as my questing knight.
The drop in temperature was much more noticeable this time. I went down the stone stairs with the sensation of entering a pool filled with chill, invisible water. The beam of my torch wavered across the black range and around the shelves to the doorway opposite. A tunnel, or passageway, about ten feet long, leading to a low wooden door. Rough stone walls, a flagged floor. Two massive joists running crosswise overhead; floorboards above the joists. A little unsteadily, I crossed the floor and shone my torch into an opening on the left, just inside the entrance. Two massive tubs, a copper, mops, buckets, fireplace in the wall opposite. A hint of stale soap, starch and cold metal, mildew.
I turned the torch beam to the door at the end of the tunnel. My hair brushed against a joist: I guessed I might be somewhere beneath the dining-room. Grit slithered underfoot; mortar flaked and crumbled when I steadied myself against the wall.
The door was very like the one in the front wall: heavy vertical planks, massive hinges. The black metal straps spanned more than half the width of the door. Timber architrave, flush with the stonework. Latched by a solid metal bar, which evidently slid up and over a metal tooth projecting from the architrave, and dropped into the slot behind, where it was now secured by an archaic padlock. A heavy pull-ring, black metal like the other fittings, was bolted to the centre of the door.
I reached into my pocket for the keys, then hesitated, glancing over my shoulder. The last of the daylight was fading from the basement steps.
Tomorrow morning, if the weather held, the sun would be shining directly down those steps. The door could wait
until then. But I would sleep better tonight if I checked the planchette first. I hastened back up to the dining-room for another-well, two more healthy slugs of Braveheart and strode purposefully across the landing to the library, taking the bottle with me.
The stack of butcher's paper on the table was exactly where I had left it. There was my question:
WHO IS MY PENFRIEND?
But the planchette was no longer beneath the 'W', and even without the torch, the faint, looping reply was clear enough:
Miss Jessel
I was still in the tunnel, trying to find the basement stairs, but I couldn't see where I was going because someone was shining a light in my face. The light grew brighter until it hurt my head, which was propped at an uncomfortable angle. And someone was calling-no, whispering-my name.
I was lying on the chesterfield below the library windows, with a full moon shining down into my eyes. And a blurred recollection of having drunk too much whisky much too quickly.
'Gerard.'
A slow, insinuating whisper, making two long syllables of my name. It seemed to hang in the air above my head. The moon was painfully bright: everything else was in darkness.
'Ger-ard.'
I lifted my head slightly, trying to locate the sound. Pain shot through my forehead; the moon wavered and lurched.
'Close your eyes, Gerard. You're dreaming.'
I had had dreams before in which I dreamed I woke up, but never as real as this. My throat was parched; my tongue felt sore and swollen.
'I wouldn't try to run if I were you. You're dreaming; you don't know what you might meet.'
The voice was coming from the direction of the gallery.
'Who are you?' It came out as a hoarse croak; I hadn't meant to speak.
'You know who I am'-intimate, caressing-'but you can call me Alice if you like.'
I must wake up. I must wake up. I heard a cry that might have been 'Alice?' and realised it was me.
'I know everything about you, Gerard. You're dreaming, remember; I'm inside your head. Closer than your heartbeat, you might say.'
Another incoherent sound.
'Why don't you ask me something? I'm dead, you know. The dead know everything.'
This is a terrible hallucination. I must wake up.
'Wouldn't you like to ask me about Anne?' the whispering voice insinuated. 'She left you a message last night. She's dead, of course, but you know all about that. You've seen the scratches in the cupboard.'
'Who are you?'
'That would be telling, wouldn't it? I might be you.'
'Me?'
'That's very good, Gerard. I might be you. Or Hugh. I might be Hugh Montfort.'
The whispering lingered on the last two syllables. There was no sound of breathing, only soft, insinuating words floating in darkness.
We're all dead, you see. Filly killed us all, one by one. Hugh too. She killed Hugh too, Gerard, you just don't know it yet. And soon, very soon, we'll be together for ever and ever.
'You can go back to sleep now Gerard. Sweet dreams.'
The moon still shone through my eyelids. A barred shadow touched my face. I shot bolt upright with a shriek that rang and reverberated around the library and died to a slow drip, drip, drip somewhere beneath the couch. I had lost control of my bladder.
The barred shadow had been thrown by the casement half-way up the window. Slowly, the library beyond the small moonlit area around me began to materialise. I stumbled the few steps from the couch to the table and snatched up the torch.
There was no one on the gallery.
FOLLOWING THE QUIVERING PATCH OF LIGHT THROUGH THE darkness to the front door, with a hundred malignant eyes playing up and down my spine, was almost as terrifying as listening to the voice in the dark. I walked all the way down through Camden to the hotel and arrived at three in the morning, smelling like an incontinent drunk but cold, shivering sober. Even the headache had gone. I showered and made tea and stood at the window, staring down at the yellow vapour lights ranged along the bleak expanse of Euston Road.
I had been awake when I heard the voice. No point pretending otherwise. And no one could have got into the house; not even, to be totally paranoid for a moment, Alice. She didn't have keys, and I hadn't told her about the black thread.
Either my mind was coming apart, or I'd been listening to a real ghost. Though when you thought about it, there wasn't much difference. The voice was part of me; it had said so; it knew everything about me. It knew about Alice; it knew about Filly. It was the embodiment-the disembodiment-of all my worst fears, an escaped nightmare, loose in the house.
You don't know what you might meet. The veiled woman on the gallery. I'd been awake then too.
When we first began writing, Alice had often said that her parents were watching over her, that they appeared to her in dreams, not just as memories but as actual beings. Every emotion, she thought, left some trace in the material world. Ghosts appeared wherever those traces were concentrated, but only certain people could perceive them, and only when they were alone and quiet.
Ghosts or hallucinations-did it make any difference what you called them? The whispering had certainly started in my head. It had been lurking there most of my life; ever since that hot January afternoon in Mawson when I first saw the photograph and Mother stopped talking about Staplefield. And now it had got out of my head and on to the gallery, and I had nearly died of terror, and there was absolutely no limit to what might happen, or what I might meet, if I went back to Ferrier's Close alone.
A police car went tearing west, no siren, red and blue lights flashing wildly.
So far the-manifestations-had been confined to the house, but if something truly monstrous appeared, how did I know it wouldn't cross the threshold? Or walk into this hotel room and send me running head-first through the window rather than meet it face to face?
And supposing Alice came with me to the house, would she hear what I heard, see what I saw? I might believe I was trying to save her from some nightmare creature when I was actually strangling her. All of my doubts and suspicions about Alice might be symptoms of incipient madness.
I remembered the story of the iron bedstead sailing across the empty dormitory, the appalling crash when it hit the wall. The image was still as vivid as if I'd been there myself. If a roomful of troubled adolescents could generate that much psychic energy, why couldn't one very troubled thirty-five-year-old man cause a planchette to move by itself: when he was somewhere else in the house, perhaps, upstairs in another room? I liked that even less than the idea of whispering voices escaping from my head.
How could I be sure Alice would ever be safe with me?
Filly killed us all, one by one. Hugh too. Filly killed Hugh too, Gerard, you just don't know it yet. Or had it said 'you too'?
The dead know everything. No: these were my own worst fears running wild, not the words of an omniscient ghost, and to prove it, maybe even to save my sanity, I would have to prove the voice wrong. Search the deaths in Family Records this morning for Hugh Montfort-as well as the searches I'd already planned for him. Renew my reader's ticket and search The Times on microfilm in the new British Library for any mention of Anne Hatherley or Hugh Montfort. Find out where lists of missing persons were kept. No more speculation.
Another police car hurtled past, heading towards King's Cross.
The police had searched the house; Miss Hamish had said so. I knew her letter almost by heart, but I got it out anyway, to check her exact wording. 'They found nothing amiss, and concluded that Anne had simply packed her things, locked up the house and left.'
I wondered if they had opened the padlocked door in the basement.
I stayed up until well after dawn writing to Alice, telling her as dispassionately as I could manage everything that had happened since my last message, and what I feared might be happening to my mind. Meeting at the house, I said at the end, would be a very bad idea; I would go anywhere she chose, but not Ferrier's Close. I lay down on
the bed, not expecting to sleep until the alarm dragged me out of a black, dreamless void.
PASSING CORAM'S FIELDS PLAYGROUND, BREATHING DIESEL and cut grass and the dusty farmyard smell of the miniature zoo, I found myself wondering whether Alice would want to have children now that she was healed. Neither of us had ever raised the question. I felt certain I didn't, and probably shouldn't, but supposing she did… what would we tell them? 'Your grandmother? Oh, she murdered her sister; the police never caught her.' No: I would lie to them, as my mother had lied to me.
In fact the best thing I could do for everyone involved-for the living, at least-would be to walk down Doughty Street, which I was now approaching, to Gray's Inn and along to Bedford Row, and return the keys to Mr Grierstone's secretary. Because I still didn't know, for certain, that my mother had murdered Anne. And so long as I didn't discover anything more, I need never know. Already I could almost believe that the whispering had been a drunken nightmare. 'Miss Jessel' would fade from the sheet of butcher's paper on the library table. Tell Miss Hamish I had searched the house thoroughly and found nothing at all.
Only I would have to go back once more because Anne's diary was still on the library table. Along with the planchette and the messages and half a bottle of Braveheart. And a bit of a mess on the chesterfield.
I could whisk the butcher's paper off the table and crumple it without looking. Clean up, lock up, restore Anne's diary to its hiding-place, and take the keys straight back to the office. The shutters were open; the ghost would not walk in daylight. I hailed a cab, changed my mind as it pulled up, and told the driver to take me to the Family Records Centre instead. First set my mind at rest about Hugh Montfort. I realised, as we hurtled along Calthorpe Street, that I didn't know his middle name, and that it would have been better to start by searching The Times in the British Library for an engagement notice, but then if I didn't find one I'd have to come back here anyway. Besides, it wasn't a common name; and anyway why was I doing this search at all? At four in the morning it had seemed overwhelmingly urgent to prove the whispering voice wrong. Now it just seemed mad.
