The Vanishment

by Jonathan Aycliffe

  "This is the recording I made earlier today," he said. "Your interview with Mr. Clare at Petherick House. I'd just started transcribing it."

  He switched the machine on.

  Hissing, then the sound of Raleigh's voice.

  Your parents-in-law haw been in touch with their local police, Mr. Clare. . .

  Then my voice, replying.

  No. No, I don't. It is interference, you're quite right. . .

  And what exactly has been going on, Mr. Clare?

  At first, all seemed as I remember it. The interview proceeded, answer following question, question answer, all as it had done earlier that day. I could not understand what it could be that the policeman wanted us to hear. No one said anything. The policeman sat there, his eyes fixed on the recorder, his face tense. The tape turned, hissing. Now my voice, now Raleigh's. Then, barely perceptible at first, another sound began to make itself felt.

  We could hear it in the background at first, like a sound very far away. I glanced at Raleigh. His face betrayed puzzlement at first, then settled into disbelief. He looked at me, as though I had the answer. I did not move. Suddenly I was very cold. A sense of horror was crawling across my skin. We listened together, and the voices continued: my voice, Raleigh's voice, and now, quite unmistakable, something else, something none of us had heard that afternoon. The sound of a small child crying loudly, its thin voice rising and falling, but growing all the time in volume until, suddenly, it drowned us out completely.

  Chapter 9

  All I remember about that moment is the horror and how it took steady hold of us. Things are different now, of course. I have seen and heard more than babies crying. I know who the child was. And I know why she cried. Why she cries. But the horror remains.

  Raleigh and his assistant came to the house again the next day. With them were other policemen with sophisticated recording equipment sent down early that morning from Truro; but they got nothing. Not a whisper. To this day it remains a mystery why the child's crying should have been audible on that first tape and not on any subsequent recording. And it is as much a mystery how it came to be there at all, when none of us had heard a thing that day other than our own voices. The tape had been brand new, and expert opinion agreed that there was no way in which the recording of one voice could have been superimposed on that of another, using that equipment. And yet it was there, unremovable, fixed, like a dull stain that will not be wiped out.

  Raleigh's behavior toward me changed from that moment. I think he half believed what I had told him about the house being haunted.

  Have I told you I sleep with the light on? Every night, summer and winter, it makes no difference. Some nights I do not sleep at all.

  I want to show you something. It will only take a moment. Look, here's my room, the room I sleep or lie awake in every night. That's a photograph of Sarah on the bedside table, that's the pen I use when I write in bed, that's a book of essays I'm reading at the moment, those are the analgesics I use to deaden the pain when my back hurts, that I will use for a more serious purpose one day soon. Very soon. It's a quiet room without mirrors. Take your time. But listen— can you hear anything? If you stay the night, you'll hear more. Much more.

  But no one ever stays the night.

  In the end, the police reached the conclusion that Sarah had fallen—or been pushed to her death—from the cliff. It would have been high tide, around 2:00 a.m. Her body would be washed ashore in due course, and that would be that.

  For my part, I thought it unlikely. I knew she would not have jumped, I did not think she would have been careless enough to stray there in the darkness, and I knew I had not pushed her. Since her disappearance, I had heard enough—though not, as yet, seen anything—in the house to convince me that something had happened there for which I could find no rational explanation, for which no rational explanation might exist. The house held a secret of some sort, and I grew more and more convinced that if only I could solve it, I might also solve the riddle of Sarah's disappearance.

  During the days Raleigh and his men were in or near the house, nothing happened there. It grew very still. But I sensed that whatever lay buried there was merely biding its time, that there was more, much more, to come.

  One thing did not stop: the dreams. Every night I started out on my slow climb up the stairs, and every night when I woke, I had gone a little higher. That was all that ever varied. The darkness, the silence, the brooding expectancy, the sense of malice somewhere in the house—all those remained as they had been before. And each night I woke sweating, barking like a dog without a kennel.

  I stayed. What else was there to do? In a sense, where else could I have gone? I stayed and waited, though I did not know for what. I started writing again, a little at first, then vast quantities. It was my only distraction. Nothing else helped me forget, though there were times when I sat, almost thoughtless, in the study or outdoors in the garden watching the birds turn. Each day there were phone calls to make: between me and the police, between me and Sue, between me and Sarah's parents. I know no form of waiting worse than that. The anxiety is not relieved by the passage of time. Every avenue of inquiry ended in a wall. A wall in which there was no sign of any door. Or, if I am totally honest, in which the only door was a familiar one that led into an empty room on top of the house.

  * * *

  The second month ended. I spent as little time in the house as possible. During the days, I stayed in the garden, writing. Or I took the car and drove through the countryside for miles, without really going anywhere. Every so often, a view or a smell would awaken a memory from childhood. And then the pain of the present would overlay the memory and turn it into something else. I cannot listen to the sea now, or smell magnolia, or hear sea gulls cry without remembering that summer.

  My lease at Petherick House was due to run out. Medawar, my contact at the solicitors, would not hear of an extension. I started to pack for the journey back to London. The most difficult thing was putting Sarah's clothes away in their case. She had not seemed completely gone until that moment. I took each item in turn from the wardrobe, folded it, and laid it in the suitcase, knowing they might never be taken out again.

  As I folded her blue linen jacket I felt something hard in the pocket. It was a small diary, a pocket-size organizer with a leather binding for which she bought refills every year. I flicked through it casually. The last significant entry had been for the date of our departure. The rest of the pages were blank. Except for one, the twelfth of July, four days before her disappearance. In the tiny space for that day, Sarah had made an entry, just a name and a telephone number: Miss Trevorrow: 97 Lemon Street, Truro.

  The next day I showed the entry to Raleigh. He agreed that it might be worthwhile to check on this Miss Trevorrow and suggested we visit her together. We went early the next morning, the day before I was due to leave. The assistant drove. His name still does not come back to me. We took the A30 as far as Blackwater, where we branched off for the city. The A30 was packed with cars and caravans, long lines of tourists heading home. And for every one that left, it seemed that two were heading down on the other side. The fine weather had not abated.

  We arrived just after 10:00. It was an old house in what had once been the fashionable center of the city. The wide street in which it stood had been solidly residential, but now shops and offices had taken over. Though never grand, the house had in its day been well proportioned, but over the years it had lost its loveliness. It was badly in need of repointing and repainting. There were slates missing from the roof, and the front door did not hang quite straight. I thought it a sad, abandoned place. But someone lived there. Even the most neglected house is somebody's home.

  The door was opened by a middle-aged woman who resembled the house. Like it, she was tired and faded and in need of a few coats of paint. Lank hair fell on rounded shoulders. She wore a blouse that had not been washed in at least a week.

  "Miss Trevorrow?" Raleigh asked.

 
; She looked at him blankly, as though deaf or halfwitted.

  "My name's Raleigh," he said. "Chief Inspector Raleigh." He held out a card. Her eye fell on it without interest. "May we come in?" he went on, all politeness, though I think he knew it was wasted. We hung back, the nameless subordinate and I.

  "My name's not Trevorrow," the woman said. A voice without energy. "There's no one by that name here."

  "This is ninety-seven Lemon Street, isn't it?"

  She seemed to hesitate, then nodded.

  "Well, then, Miss Trevorrow, I wonder if you'd mind letting us in. I need to ask a few questions. About a Mrs. Clare."

  She looked blankly at us.

  "Clare? Don't know nobody called Clare. And I already told you, my name's not Trevorrow. It's Rudd. Evelyn Rudd. Mrs., not miss. I'll get my husband, if you like."

  Before Raleigh could stop her, she called back down the dingy hallway. Moments later a dull-eyed, potbellied man appeared. He had the slackness of the unemployed or the newly retired. No purpose, no reason for being where he was.

  "What is it, Evie? What's going on at our door?"

  "It's the police. Bill," she whined. 'The police here, asking questions."

  "At our house? Questions at our house?"

  Raleigh did his best to explain. Bill Rudd was as uncomprehending as his wife, as little interested in the small drama on his doorstep. He glanced away from time to time, catching my eye and losing it as quickly. I was watching his wife, her little movements as she looked on from the dim safety of the hall, where it smelled of something sour.

  "May we come in, at least?" Raleigh insisted. "I need to ask a few questions. About a Mrs. Clare."

  They both looked blankly at us.

  "Clare?" said Mr. Rudd. "Don't know nobody called Clare."

  "All the same. I do have to speak with you."

  There was no help for it. The Rudds let us pass. Evelyn showed us into what she called the front parlor, a wretched place of faded antimacassars and cheap china stashed behind glass. I had not thought people possessed front parlors anymore. An old telephone with a dial sat on a low, fringed stool.

  We all sat uneasily. Raleigh took Sarah's diary from his pocket and showed it to the Rudds in turn.

  "That is your address, isn't it?"

  They said nothing, as though hoping that a long enough silence would drive him away.

  "Well?" asked Raleigh. "You must know something about this Trevorrow woman. Is she a friend of yours? A lodger? Relative?"

  "Got no friends," muttered Bill. I was not surprised.

  "Perhaps you'd both like to come down to the station with me," Raleigh said. "You might find it easier to answer my questions there."

  They glowered at him, but said nothing.

  Without asking permission, Raleigh picked up the phone and made to dial. Then, with a gesture of disgust, he slammed the receiver down again.

  "Dead as a fucking dodo," he exclaimed.

  "Language!" admonished Evelyn, animated for the first time since our arrival. "I won't allow language in this house."

  "No language," repeated her husband, nodding doglike. "Not in here."

  "Does anyone other than yourselves have access to this house?" Raleigh asked, disregarding the scolding. "Your daughter perhaps? She wouldn't be called Trevorrow, by any chance?"

  "No daughter," Bill Rudd snapped. "Don't have a daughter, we. Never have had. No children. Of either kind."

  I noticed that he did not say "sex." No doubt that, too, would have constituted "language." No language, no children, probably no sex. And, it would seem, no Miss Trevorrow.

  "No one who comes in?"

  "Who would?" Mrs. Rudd asked. “Who would come in?" It was not a necessary question, and Raleigh knew it. Still, he had his duty to do, his own questions to ask. He went on asking them, but I could see he had no heart for the task, not any longer. In the end, he gave up. Telling the Rudds he would still want them for a formal interview, he stormed out.

  We drove back to Penzance, puzzled and dejected. There was still no news of Sarah. I knew there was never going to be news. Wherever she had gone, she was not on any road that the police or I could follow her down.

  The house was quiet. As always, I filled the electric meter with coins. I had to be sure of light. Even while I slept I kept the hall and landings illuminated. I had one last night to spend.

  Raleigh rang about five that afternoon. Bill Rudd had been in touch.

  "He rang a few minutes ago, Mr. Clare. From a phone box. I thought you'd like to know what he told me—though I can't see what help it is to us."

  He sounded more distant than he had been.

  "What did he say?"

  "He remembered a Miss Trevorrow after all," Raleigh said—reluctantly, I thought. "Agnes Trevorrow. Seems she used to live in the house. In fact, she was the previous owner. She'd been there a long time, apparently; Rudd didn't know how long."

  "When was this?"

  "When?" He paused. "About forty years ago. The Rudds bought the house in 1953, the year of the coronation. It's about the only thing Rudd seems to remember."

  "They bought it from this Miss Trevorrow?"

  There was a short silence on the line. I could hear the faint sound of Raleigh's breathing. His voice when it returned was tense.

  "No," he said. "From her solicitor. Miss Trevorrow was dead."

  Chapter 10

  Raleigh did not want me to leave, not right away. The next morning I moved into a hotel near Penzance, in a small place on the coast, Marazion. My room had a view of St. Michael's Mount, and of the sea beyond. This was the southern side of the peninsula. I had my back to Petherick House and that other water, the water in which Raleigh thought my wife had drowned.

  His sympathy for me seemed to have drained away. He simply could no longer believe my story.

  "Why would I lie?" I asked. "There'd be no point. You'd be bound to see through it before long. I'm not a stupid man, you know that."

  "Well, that's just it, isn't it? I know you're not stupid. That's why I think there has to be something else behind what I'd take for stupidity in anyone else."

  "The entry was in Sarah's hand," I said. "You can have one of your experts check that out."

  "They've already done so," he answered.

  I spent the first day sitting at my window, trying to write. The mood would not come here, in spite of the beauty of that view. Or, perhaps, because of it.

  Early one morning, Raleigh called. His faithful sidekick was with him as usual. What earthly use he was to the chief inspector, I could never tell.

  "I'd like you to come with us, Mr. Clare," Raleigh said. "Another trip. I'd like you to have a word with the solicitors who rented the house to you."

  "They won't know anything," I said.

  "They'll know who owns the place."

  We drove on a day of squalls to St. Ives. Raleigh talked about himself for the first time. He told me about his wife, who had divorced him five years earlier, messily, it seemed. He had two children, both at university, one studying philosophy, the other Sanskrit —matters of which he knew nothing and wished to know nothing. He was a sad man, I thought, someone for whom life had not worked out quite as it had promised. It seemed to me that it must be worse for policemen, as it is for doctors. They see our failures at first hand. The worst side of human nature every day. No doubt policemen think us all criminals in time. It's just a matter of what is known and what is hidden.

  The firm of solicitors was a long-established one, with offices above a shop in St. Ives—Pentreath, Single, and Nesbitt were the names on the plate. I asked for Medawar, but we were shown instead into the office of Mr. Pentreath.

  "Well, gentlemen," he said, rising from his desk. "What can I do for you?"

  He was a dark-faced man, ebullient yet restrained. He would be the partner who dealt with wills and mortgages, and other domestic matters, a man capable of putting at ease clients unfamiliar with the intricacies of the law. Not jolly, that
would have been out of place; but never fully serious. He had something beneath his surface, a sense of humor or something more bizarre, perhaps. I put him at fifty, though I have no doubt he'll look just the same in another ten or twenty years.

  The preliminaries done with, Raleigh explained the purpose of our visit. When he came to a close, it was evident that something was troubling Pentreath. The solicitor turned to me.

  "You have papers confirming your rental of the property in question?"

  I showed him the letters I had had from Medawar. He looked through them slowly and passed them back without a word. I could see he was worried about something.

  "If you'll excuse me for a moment," he said, rising, "there's something I have to check."

  He stayed away for ten minutes or more. We did not talk during his absence. Solicitors' offices are not furnished for chitchat. Pentreath's shelves were stacked with the conventional apparatus of the smalltown legal expert: row after row of legal texts in stiff bindings, some with their spines ruffed and broken. There was a small window. Through it I watched the sky and white birds in it circling.

  Pentreath returned looking more anxious than ever. Another man accompanied him, whom he introduced to us as Mr. Nesbitt. Nesbitt was elderly and thin, with a high dome of pure white hair. His fingers were stained with nicotine, and his clothes gave off a smell of tobacco smoke. He sat down facing me.

  "Mr. Clare," he said, "I regret to say that you have been the victim of a most unfortunate fraud. The young man with whom you had dealings, Ian Medawar, was dismissed from the firm two weeks ago. He had been caught falsifying expenses. But now it seems as if he was up to rather more than that. The fact is that he had no authority to rent Petherick House to you. The house belongs to a client in the north of England, a Mr. Adderstone. In all the years we have been handling the house for him, Mr. Adderstone has repeatedly given strict instructions that it must under no circumstances be let out. He has always been most insistent on that point.