Tower of Silence

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘But mad or sane, Moy’s a dour, bleak old place, Krzystof…’

  Moy, when he saw it from the road, surprised Krzystof. It was stark and bleak, just as Joanna had said, and it stood on a ridge of high ground, a little apart from the village, so that it gave the impression of frowning down over the little cluster of houses and the village shop and the church.

  It was more modern than Krzystof had been visualising–concrete block walls and efficient, intercom-wired gates–and he supposed his image had been coloured by all the fearsome legends that trickled down from the nineteenth century. Without realising it, he had been expecting to see a dark brooding madhouse–a nightmarish blend of every bleak house ever created. Dotheboys Hall and Mr Bumble’s workhouse. That stark and pitiless institution in William Horwood’s remarkable book Skallagrig. All fiction, though.

  It was dusk when he eventually reached Teind House, bouncing the hire car over the rutted track, and peering through the strong, savage thunder-rain that had just started to lash against the windscreen.

  But there was more than enough daylight left to see the irregular-shaped old house that seemed to have grown up out of the hillside of its own accord. A dull, heavy half-light trickled down over it, and as Krzystof drew up he caught sight, through the surrounding trees, of what looked like an old Celtic round tower. In the dying light the house looked grim and faintly uncanny, but there were squares of yellow at the downstairs windows, which looked warm and welcoming, and Krzystof, exhausted from the journey, was insensibly cheered by them. There was an old-fashioned wrought-iron carriage lamp over the door, as well; it sent out a friendly amber glow. Journey’s end.

  He climbed out of the car, and plied the door knocker. As he heard footsteps approach from the other side there was a crash of thunder overhead. Lightning split the skies and, as if some celestial lighting man were obeying a cue, Teind House’s lights flickered uncertainly several times, and then went out.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  As Joanna had said in her letter, Teind House seemed to belong to an age that had vanished fifty years ago, and Selina March seemed to belong to it as well.

  She was a rather colourless lady with indeterminate features and soft brown hair, and she was apologetic about the power failure, which was apparently a regular occurrence during a storm. After she had explained this, she was timidly welcoming, hanging up Krzystof’s raincoat, and then anxiously deploying oil lamps at predetermined points around the hall. Two, it seemed, had to go on each side of a huge and hideous grandfather clock that was ticking sonorously to itself like a beating heart encased in mahogany, and not until all this had been satisfactorily dealt with did Miss March lead the way to the second floor, where Krzystof’s room was situated.

  ‘Strictly speaking, Mr Kent, it’s really an attic,’ explained Miss March, a touch defensively. ‘And normally I would not dream of housing a guest up here. But it has been repainted and everything is quite clean, and there is a bathroom on the half-landing. My goddaughter said it would be ideal for your wife to work in.’

  ‘Yes, she was right.’ Joanna would have liked this room with its innocent old-fashioned charm; she would have found it congenial and peaceful.

  ‘It’s rather a–a feminine room, I’m afraid, but I thought you would like to have it,’ said Selina. ‘I thought it might make your wife seem nearer.’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful of you.’

  ‘Mrs Kent’s things are still here, but of course I asked my helper, Emily Frost, to give it a really thorough turn-out before you arrived.’

  The room was quite large, and even by the light of an oil lamp Krzystof could see that it was spotlessly clean. The high, old-fashioned bed with its beautiful patchwork quilt was neatly made up and there was a faint scent of lavender furniture polish and of old, old timbers and generations of wood fires.

  And despite Emily Frost’s really thorough turn-out the room was so piercingly redolent of Joanna that for a moment Krzystof thought he was not going to be able to stay here after all. He stood in the doorway, holding up the oil lamp so that golden pools of light lay across the old polished floorboards, and the sense of her presence, the feeling of the essential Joanna-ness, was suddenly so strong that the sick fear and loneliness almost overpowered him anew.

  To dispel this, he set his case down and crossed the room to the window. ‘It’s a remote place, isn’t it? Is that an old Celtic round tower beyond the trees?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘I saw it from the road. I thought that was what it was.’

  ‘How interesting that you recognise it,’ said Selina March. ‘Very few people have ever seen one.’

  ‘I’ve seen them in Ireland,’ said Krzystof. ‘While I was working. There’s quite a famous one in Cashel.’

  ‘My Great-uncle Matthew used to tell me that round towers were built by monks around the ninth and tenth century as watchtowers, or for storing valuables.’

  ‘That’s the commonly held theory,’ said Krzystof, still peering through the darkness. The storm seemed to be grumbling itself away somewhere across the North Sea, and a watery moon was starting to come out. He could see the tower quite clearly across the tops of trees. He said, ‘But I have heard one bizarre hypothesis that claims the towers were built as antennae–huge resonant systems that could collect and store energy from the earth and from the skies.’

  ‘Goodness me.’

  ‘It’s not a very widely accepted explanation,’ said Krzystof, turning back from the window, ‘although like most quirky ideas there’s a bit of a basis for belief. And quite a lot of the round towers in Cashel are constructed of materials that do possess magnetic properties. Limestone and red sandstone and granite. The theory is that the towers were once used to draw down power from the sun, or tap into the cosmos.’

  ‘How remarkable.’ Krzystof glanced at her and saw that she meant this, and was not just offering a polite platitude. She was staring through the window towards the tower, as if seeing it with a new perspective. But then she seemed to recollect her guest, and asked, a touch anxiously, whether Krzystof had eaten supper. ‘The Black Boar would usually provide a meal, but with the power being off there might be problems—’

  ‘I ate on the plane,’ said Krzystof. ‘I truly don’t need anything.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, then perhaps I could offer you a–a cup of tea? The range will still be burning, and a kettle can easily be boiled. Or, no, wait now, after your drive you will be chilled. My great-uncle Matthew kept a very good stock of liquor, and I believe there are one or two of his bottles left…A glass of whisky, perhaps?’

  ‘Miss March, you’re a delight,’ said Krzystof. ‘A glass of whisky is exactly what I need.’

  He saw he had pleased her and once downstairs she produced a dusty bottle of something dark and faintly oily looking. Krzystof saw that it was usquebaugh and that the label was handwritten. Illicitly brewed on some local still in the days of Great-uncle Matthew, perhaps? His hostess poured it into a small glass with the nervous air of one expecting an explosion. ‘Occasionally I take a glass of sherry, or a small glass of rum if I have a cold. But my Great-uncle Matthew always spoke very highly of this.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be very good,’ said Krzystof, eyeing it with misgiving.

  ‘I expect you’re used to something more exotic.’

  ‘You’re getting hung up on the name, Miss March,’ said Krzystof. ‘I’m only half Hungarian, and I was born in England and brought up here. I’m very English indeed, really. I even watch cricket and drink English beer.’

  ‘Oh, well, in that case…’

  Krzystof took the glass, and said, ‘Ege’sze’ge’re!’ which was ‘Cheers’ in Hungarian and which pleased Miss March, as he had thought it might. It was interesting to hear other languages, wasn’t it? She did not, herself, speak any language other than English; the aunts and the great-uncle who brought her up had not thought it necessary.

  ‘The Tower of Babel has a lot of answer for,’ said K
rzystof, and drank the contents of the glass.

  The usquebaugh was terrible. It went down like scalding turpentine and threatened to come up again like broken glass. Whoever Great-uncle Matthew had been, and whenever he had lived, either he had had no palate and a cast-iron digestive system, or the stuff had simply not been properly distilled in the first place.

  But under Miss March’s anxious eye Krzystof managed to down it with a modicum of equanimity, although in case she should offer a refill he set the glass firmly down and asked if she could tell him anything more about Joanna’s disappearance. ‘I only had the sketchiest of details from my boss, and I flew back from Spain and then up here almost immediately.’

  Selina March plunged at once into voluble explanations, starting with phone calls made to the Black Boar where Joanna had apparently eaten lunch and supper most days–‘since I cannot undertake to provide anything other than breakfast’–progressing to the conversation with Dr Irvine at Moy where Joanna had given a talk, and ending up with the appeal made to the police station at Stornforth, requesting assistance and advice.

  ‘And they were very courteous and came out to the house the same day, but they explained that in the case of an adult, and where there is no evidence of violence, they have no mandate to set up a search for forty-eight hours.’

  ‘But her things are all still here? Her clothes?’ Krzystof had not looked in the wardrobe in his room yet, but it was a safe bet that either Miss March or the Stornforth police had done so. ‘Suppose she just went walking somewhere, and broke her ankle or something—’

  ‘The police did search the immediate area, of course, with that in mind. But although most of your wife’s clothes are still here I am reasonably certain that a couple of outfits I had seen her wearing have gone. A darkish suit that Emily Frost thinks she wore to give a talk at Moy, and also a brown jacket and trousers. And a brown skirt and two blouses, I think–a cream one and a coppery-gold one. Oh, and shoes and a black handbag–she brought two bags with her, I do know that, because I admired them.’ She glanced at him and said, rather diffidently, ‘You would be better able to tell if anything was missing, of course—’

  ‘I don’t know that I would,’ said Krzystof. ‘I’ve been abroad for two months, remember. Joanna might have bought any number of new things while I was away.’

  But by this time it was fairly clear to Krzystof that Selina March, the Stornforth police, and probably anyone in Inchcape who had met Joanna, all believed she had gone off with a man. Krzystof would probably have thought so himself, given the circumstances, given Joanna’s looks and personality, and given his own apparent lack of attraction, as well. He remembered that he had meant to have his hair cut before coming back to England.

  He thanked Selina March for the drink, and stood up. It had been a long and difficult day, he said, and Miss March said, dear me, yes, all that travelling, and gave him one of the smaller oil lamps so that he could see the way back up to his room.

  Joanna’s clothes were hanging in the deep old wardrobe, just as Selina had said. Krzystof opened the door and surveyed them. He recognised Miss March’s description of a dark suit–it was one that Joanna usually wore if she had to look businesslike, and it was certainly not here. Exactly what was here?

  It felt like the worst kind of invasion to search through his wife’s clothes–to look in all the pockets and then to open the dressing-table drawers–but it was the only link Krzystof had with her and it had to be done. Everything was faintly imprinted with the scent Joanna always used; Krzystof could have done without that additional agony.

  But there was nothing to be found, except for the occasional crumpled tissue or handful of loose change in a jacket pocket. There were no receipts from bars or petrol stations or shops, and there were no mysterious telephone numbers or names scribbled on scraps of paper. Of course there were not. He frowned and closed the door firmly.

  How about the suitcases and bags? In common with most men, Krzystof did not pay a great deal of attention to handbags, but Selina March had been definite that as well as the two cases Joanna had brought two handbags with her and that the black one was missing. A brown bag was lying in a corner of the wardrobe, but when Krzystof opened it there was only a comb and a scribbled note of directions in Joanna’s writing for finding Inchcape and Teind House. He had a sudden image of his wife driving out here, the directions propped up on the dashboard. The car had been collected by the hire firm, but presumably it had been checked by the police for any clues. Still, it would not hurt to make sure. He would ask about that while he was in Stornforth.

  After ten more minutes he sat down on the bed, a mounting puzzlement shouldering aside the other emotions. He had no idea what clothes Joanna had brought with her–obviously she had not brought her entire wardrobe to Inchcape–but it was difficult to believe she would voluntarily have left so much stuff behind. Clothes could be bought new, of course, always supposing there was enough money, and Krzystof admitted, a trifle grimly, that if you were running away with somebody you might very well want to buy enticing new underthings. There was no toothbrush or sponge to be found, but the small travel hair-dryer was still in its case, and the zipped-up cosmetic bag of cleansing cream and hand lotion and deodorant was tucked into the side of the suitcase. Would any female really run away with a lover and leave her hair-dryer and deodorant behind?

  It was almost midnight. Krzystof remembered that he had been travelling for a good part of today and for most of yesterday as well, and that he was unbearably tired. He went along to the bathroom for a quick wash, and once back in the attic room rummaged in his suitcase for his favourite photograph of Joanna, setting it on the window sill where it would be the first thing he saw when he awoke tomorrow morning. It was a good likeness; it showed very clearly the dark eyes and brown hair. Krzystof had taken the photograph himself shortly after they were married, which was probably why it was one of the few shots that showed Joanna’s extraordinary look of mischievous seduction: eyes slanted, mouth curved. Until this week he would have wagered everything he possessed that nobody save himself had seen that look since their wedding, but now he was not sure. Had there been a lover? Had he been waiting for her, here in this odd, ghost-ridden house that had somehow got itself stuck in another era, and had they gone off together?

  Or was the explanation more macabre: had Joanna fallen to her death somewhere out here, and was her body lying undiscovered in some lonely glen? Selina March had said Joanna’s car had been neatly parked outside the house, which seemed to rule out the possibility of a road smash. But it did not rule out the possibility of other accidents. Krzystof remembered with unease the closeness of Moy. But surely if there had been any trouble there–any escapes–it would be known.

  He was dizzy with tiredness by this time, but he sat on the window seat for a while longer, staring through the uncurtained glass. Teind House was still in darkness, but one or two lights were showing in the distance now, which presumably meant that electricity was being patchily restored.

  The Round Tower reared up over the tops of the trees: Krzystof could see the top of it, and he could make out a couple of narrow slit-like windows. Miss March had said the place was fenced off these days because it had been pronounced unsafe; most people were a little afraid of it, she had said. She had especially mentioned to Mrs Kent not to go too near it.

  Krzystof had not said that Joanna would have been attracted by the tower and would certainly have been intrigued by the faint whiff of pre-Christian rites that clung to it, because it had not seemed relevant. But he found himself wondering whether Joanna might have gone to look at the tower, and he thought he would walk across to it himself tomorrow morning. By daylight it would probably simply be an ugly ruin, but tonight, its dark walls silvered with the cold northern moonlight, and with the scudding stormclouds behind it, it was more than enough to dredge up reminders of all of those ancient pagan customs that clung to round towers.

  He came back into the room and got into
bed. As he tried to sleep, he felt his mind reaching out to Joanna who had slept in this bed and used this room. He had never been able to decide about telepathy, but he and Joanna had been so well attuned that they had often picked up one another’s thoughts or started to say exactly the same thing at exactly the same moment. If Joanna was still alive surely she would be picking up his frantic anxiety about her now? But I can’t feel anything at all, thought Krzystof, and was aware of a cold clutch of despair. Don’t be dead, Joanna. I couldn’t bear you to be dead.

  But although he could not sense anything of Joanna, he could sense other, slightly uncomfortable, things inside this dim, old-fashioned house. ‘That’s the Hungarian half coming out, Krzystof darling,’ Joanna would have said, grinning the urchin-grin. ‘The half that thinks it ought to be fey, and know about old romances and ancient ghosts and weird forest-spirits. Rusalka and vila and what not. You do trade on your Hungarian mama at times, don’t you?’

  Nobody but Joanna had ever spotted that Krzystof, born and brought up in England, did trade on the Hungarian half, usually at times when he was feeling particularly unsure of himself. It was a mask to hide behind and it was a good mask. But Joanna had seen the mask from the first, of course; she had seen behind it to the real person, and that was one of the reasons why Krzystof had fallen in love with her.

  He thought he was not being Hungarian or fey about Teind House, though. At first encounter it felt like an ordinary, rather quiet, house, its atmosphere the atmosphere you got in places where people had lived uneventful lives, and there had mostly been old people and no children. As if the walls soaked up the long periods of silence and stillness.

  But Krzystof had the feeling that Teind House might have other, less tranquil, things beneath its façade: he thought it might have dark memories and old unhappinesses, into which, if you were not careful, you might stumble by accident, in the way you could stumble into a pool of sour icy water in the dark…