The House of a Hundred Whispers Read online

  Rob said, ‘He came back into the house, darling, and closed the kitchen door behind him. We heard him. He took off his jacket and hung it on the chair. How could anybody have got into the house and carried him off, without us hearing them? And surely Timmy would have shouted out.’

  ‘You say you heard him closing the kitchen door when he came in,’ said Sergeant Billings. ‘But did you hear him go out again?’

  ‘No,’ said Rob. ‘Not that we were really listening out for it. We just assumed that he’d gone into the drawing room to play one of his games on my phone.’

  ‘Still, it’s pretty clear that he’s not in the house, so he must be outside somewhere. There must be a reason why Axel couldn’t pick up his scent. Maybe you’re right, sir, and the rain did wash it away.’

  ‘So what can we do now?’ asked Vicky. ‘Can we get a search party together?’

  ‘Me and these officers will divide up the immediate area between us and conduct a systematic search. If that doesn’t bear fruit then, yes, I’ll call for extra officers from Crownhill and we’ll extend the search area more widely. I might well call for another GP dog, too. It’s going to get dark in a couple of hours and it looks like it’ll rain again, so we’d better get a move on.’

  ‘We’ll come out and search, too,’ said Rob. ‘Just tell us where you want us to look.’

  They all went outside, except for Vicky, who stayed in the house in case Timmy came back. As they trudged up the driveway, Rob could hear Portia arguing with Grace, telling her that she knew how much she cared about her missing nephew, but if they stayed here much longer they would miss the last train back to London.

  Grace’s reply was unusually brave. ‘What if we leave and they find him drowned in a leat or fallen down a quarry? What do you think I’m going to feel like then?’

  Portia didn’t answer that, but snapped open her umbrella because the rain was starting again, big heavy droplets that pattered into the gravel like a dog trotting quickly to catch up with them.

  *

  They split up and searched until it grew dark and the rain became so heavy that the leats started to overflow and water ran across the fields. Rob walked along the narrow hedge-lined lane towards Horrabridge for over an hour, calling out Timmy’s name again and again.

  When he reached Walkhampton church, Sergeant Billings rang him and advised him to go back to Allhallows Hall. It was pointless him continuing in total darkness. He would call Dartmoor Search and Rescue at Tavistock, a team of more than thirty volunteers with years of experience in finding people who were lost and injured on the moors. They would immediately send out a team experienced in night searching, but if they hadn’t found Timmy before it started to grow light tomorrow, they would call in more volunteers and fan out over a wide area all around Sampford Spiney.

  ‘Let’s hope your lad’s come to no harm and that he’s found himself somewhere to shelter.’

  They all returned to the house, soaked and exhausted. Vicky had lit the range in the kitchen and left the oven doors open so that it was warm. She had also phoned Mac Vac, the local chimney sweeping service, and they had promised to come around early in the morning and clear out all of the blocked-up flues.

  ‘I don’t know why you bothered, quite honestly,’ said Katharine. ‘It’s not as though any of us are going to be living here.’

  ‘It’s still up to us to look after it, Katharine,’ Vicky told her. ‘And Rob and I are going to be staying here until we find Timmy.’

  Sergeant Billings said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, around seven. Give us a call immediately, won’t you, if the little fellow shows up.’

  Once he had gone, Martin stood in front of the range warming his hands. ‘Well, we’ll have to stay here, too, at least for tonight. I’m too knackered to drive all the way home, especially in this weather. What shall we do about eating?’

  ‘The fridge has been cleared out,’ said Vicky. ‘But I looked and there’s still food in the freezer. I’m not at all hungry myself, but even if I was, I don’t think I’d fancy eating my late father-in-law’s steak and kidney pie.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Martin. ‘I’ll call The Rock pub in Yelverton and see if they’ll do us a takeaway. Their steaks and their pies are terrific. When they’re ready I can whizz over and collect them.’

  He looked up The Rock’s menu online, and they all chose what they wanted to eat. Grace asked for a chicken salad bowl but Portia was vegan, and so she opted for the butternut squash risotto. Rob went for the fisherman’s pie. Vicky insisted that she didn’t feel like anything to eat, but he knew she might be tempted to share it with him. Martin ordered the Devonshire rump steak, cooked rare. Katharine wanted nothing more than crushed avocado on toast, with a hen’s egg.

  They didn’t need to order any drinks. Sixteen dusty bottles of Jail Ale were stored in the bottom of the pantry, as well as seven assorted bottles of red and white wine and a half-empty bottle of Jameson’s whiskey.

  It was past eight o’clock by the time Martin returned from Yelverton with their food. While they were waiting, Vicky had gone upstairs to choose which bedroom she and Rob were going to sleep in, and make up the bed, although Rob guessed that she was also looking yet again for any sign of Timmy, even though she must have known it was fruitless.

  They ate their supper in the kitchen, hardly saying a word to each other. They were all tired and depressed, and they all felt that the legacy of Allhallows Hall was weighing down on them like some grim unwanted responsibility from which they would never be free. Rob thought it was like having to look after an elderly relative with dementia, who neither recognised them nor appreciated the care that they gave him. Herbert Russell had dominated them when he was alive and he was still dominating them, even now that he was dead.

  ‘What if we can’t find him?’ said Martin, cutting into his steak so that the diluted blood ran across his plate.

  ‘Don’t even think that, Martin,’ Rob snapped at him. ‘Of course we’re going to find him.’

  ‘Well, yes, sure. Of course we are. But I was only wondering what the situation would be, you know, as far as the house is concerned.’

  ‘Martin, I don’t give a flying fuck about the house. Our five-year-old son is lost out there somewhere on Dartmoor in the pouring rain and right now that’s all that matters. I don’t care if the house collapses around our ears. In fact, I hope it does. It’s like Dad personified.’

  Martin said nothing, but pushed another piece of steak into his mouth and shrugged. Rob was almost tempted to say, ‘You’re like Dad personified, too. All you ever care about is you.’

  9

  Rob had wound up the longcase clock in the hallway, so that as they lay in bed he heard it strike two.

  ‘Are you still awake?’ he asked Vicky.

  ‘I can’t sleep. I can’t even close my eyes. I won’t be able to sleep until we’ve found Timmy.’

  ‘Listen, try to have a nap at least. You’re going to be exhausted otherwise. Timmy may be naughty sometimes, but he’s not stupid. He’s bound to have found himself somewhere to shelter. My guess is that he got himself lost and some passing motorist has picked him up and taken him home for the night until they can find out where he came from.’

  ‘They would have called the police, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling. I’m just hoping for the best.’

  They lay for a while without speaking. The rain was still pattering against the window and they could hear it pouring into the downpipes with a sound like a choking child. They had chosen the second largest bedroom, at the end of the corridor next to the bathroom. Martin and Katharine had taken the master bedroom opposite, while Grace and Portia were sleeping in the bedroom at the top of the stairs that used to be Rob’s room. Grace and Portia had to share a single bed, but they said that they liked to sleep snuggled up closely together.

  Rob wondered if they would have the same feeling that a strange boy was hiding underneath their bed, listening
to them breathe. He shivered, because the room was so cold and the patchwork quilt that covered them was damp, and smelled damp.

  The clock chimed half past two. Gradually, the rain eased off, and the moon began to shine intermittently through the gap in the curtains.

  It was then that Rob heard whispering. He wasn’t sure at first if Vicky had fallen asleep at last and was whispering to herself. But when he lifted his head up from the pillow, he realised that somebody was whispering in the corridor right outside their bedroom door. He strained hard to hear what they were saying, because they sounded hurried and anxious, like the whisperer that he was sure he had heard in the room next to the stained-glass window.

  He didn’t think it was Grace or Portia, because the whispering was low-pitched and slightly hoarse, like a man. Maybe it was Martin. But if it was Martin, what was he doing out of bed at this time of the night, and who was he whispering to? Rob sat up, so that he could hear more clearly.

  Vicky turned over and said, ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Can you hear that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That whispering.’

  Vicky listened for a moment and then she sat up, too. ‘Yes, I can. Who is it?’

  The whispering went on and on, and the whisperer sounded more and more desperate with every passing second. Then they heard another whisperer, who sounded threatening, as if they were warning the first whisperer to keep quiet, or else.

  ‘It’s Martin, it has to be,’ said Rob. ‘Martin and Katharine, having one of their barneys.’ He reached over and switched on the bedside lamp, which flickered and crackled before it popped on fully. He swung his legs off the bed and padded across the room, dressed only in his shirt and sweater and socks. He pressed his ear against the door, trying to make out what the whisperers were saying, but their voices were still indistinct, and so he opened it.

  The corridor was dark, but not so dark that he could see there was nobody there. The whispering abruptly stopped.

  ‘Rob? Who is it?’

  Rob leaned out of the doorway and looked along the corridor as far as the landing. The moonlight brightened for a moment, and then dulled again.

  ‘It’s nobody.’

  ‘What do you mean, it’s nobody? Somebody was whispering, even if it wasn’t Martin and Katharine.’

  ‘I know it sounded like it. But it couldn’t have been.’

  Rob closed the door and turned around. ‘It must have been a draught. Or maybe the plumbing.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. It was whispering. Whoever it was must have heard you opening the door and made themselves scarce.’

  ‘They couldn’t have. I would have seen them. I would have heard their footsteps, too. The floorboards are much too creaky.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve hidden themselves in the bathroom.’

  ‘Oh, and I wouldn’t have heard them close the bathroom door?’

  ‘You could at least go and check.’

  Rob blew out his cheeks in exasperation. ‘All right, if it makes you happy. But I swear to God there’s nobody there. You know what this house is like, full of all kinds of weird noises. It could have been mice, running along behind the skirting boards.’

  ‘Rob – mice don’t whisper. Not like that. That was definitely two people, having an argument. You know it was.’

  Rob opened the door again and went along to the bathroom. It was chilly inside, with only the sound of the bath tap dripping. He tugged the light cord, and looked around, but there was nobody there. His dead father’s toothbrush was still on the shelf above the basin, its bristles splayed. Too parsimonious to buy himself a new one.

  He went back to the bedroom. ‘Even if there was somebody there, darling, they’re not there now. All we can do is try to get some rest. They’ll start searching again as soon as it gets light.’

  Vicky punched her pillow and lay her head back on it. ‘I wish we’d never come. I hate this house. I hate Dartmoor. I just want Timmy back safe and well so that we can go home and never ever come back.’

  *

  About twenty minutes before dawn, Grace came tapping at their door, carrying two mugs of tea, and half a packet of Hobnobs in her cardigan pocket.

  ‘We thought you ought to have something inside you, even if you’re not hungry. Did you sleep at all?’

  ‘I think I might have dozed off a couple of times,’ said Vicky. ‘How about you?’

  ‘On and off. Don’t tell her I told you, whatever you do, but Portia kept snoring. And I’m sure I could hear some people whispering outside our door. I didn’t want to get up and see who it was because I didn’t want to wake Portia, and it stopped after a while anyway.’

  ‘We heard the same,’ Vicky told her. ‘Rob took a look outside but there was nobody there.’

  ‘You always thought Allhallows was haunted, didn’t you, Rob? You used to think there was a boy just like you lying under your bed.’

  ‘Did I tell you about that? I don’t remember telling anybody.’

  ‘Yes, you did. You always used to kneel down and look under your bed before you got into it. You did it every night and one night I asked you why.’

  ‘Anyway, Grace, thanks so much for the tea,’ said Vicky.

  ‘That’s all right. If you want a top-up, or anything more to eat, we’re down in the kitchen. I expect the police will be here soon.’

  Almost as if it had heard her, Rob’s phone rang. He picked it up and it was Sergeant Billings.

  ‘We’ll be with you in about half an hour, sir. We’ve got a couple of dozen volunteers from Dartmoor Search and Rescue to help us and if necessary they should be able to muster some more later.’

  ‘That’s brilliant. Thank you, sergeant.’

  ‘We’ll find your little lad. The weather forecast looks fine. It’s not going to rain, any road, so that should help.’

  Vicky was sitting up in bed, holding her mug of tea in both hands. She looked white and exhausted, and her eyes were filled with tears. Rob went and sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘They’re sending out a search and rescue team. And I’m going to pray.’

  ‘Who to? You don’t believe in God.’

  ‘I’ve just been converted. At least until we find Timmy.’

  10

  An orange sun was rising dimly through the fog as the Dartmoor Search and Rescue teams arrived in the driveway in two Land Rovers. There were fifteen volunteers altogether, including a dog handler, all wearing crimson parkas. They varied in age from teenagers to pensioners, serious but friendly, mostly men but with two women among them, and their team leader came up to Rob and Vicky to introduce himself. He was in his mid-forties, with a weather-beaten face and pale-blue eyes that seemed to be focused on some distant tor. He spoke with a strong Devon accent.

  ‘Everybody you see here is trained and experienced in searching for missing people,’ he said. ‘And we have all the equipment – radios, GPS. And first aid, if it’s needed, which we sincerely hope we won’t. You have a picture of your boy we could take a look at? Sergeant Billings says he’s five.’

  Rob handed him his photograph and the team leader handed it around.

  ‘His name’s Timmy. He’s wearing an oatmeal-coloured jumper and brown corduroy trousers.’

  ‘What’s his personality? Quiet, is he, or a bit of an angletwitch?’

  ‘Oh, quiet, most of the time. But he’s like all kids. He has his foot-stamping moments.’

  ‘I get you. And have you something that Barney could have a smell of?’

  Vicky was already holding Timmy’s yellow jacket over her arm. She gave it to the team leader and he beckoned the dog handler to come over. Barney was a black-and-white border collie and his amber eyes had the most riveting stare that Rob had ever seen on a dog. He took a deep and enthusiastic sniff at Timmy’s jacket, a connoisseur of what tragedy smelled like.

  ‘We’ll start from the house here, since this is where your son went missing from,’ said the team leade
r. ‘If Barney can pick up his scent, all well and good. If not, we’ll be spreading out all around Sampford Spiney. Our volunteers here have a brilliant understanding of all the terrain around here, and they know the most likely paths that he might have taken. We can’t do an aerial search just yet because of the fog, but if it clears before we’ve located him, we could consider it.’

  ‘He’s been out all night,’ said Vicky. ‘He’s going to be frightened and soaking wet and very miserable.’

  ‘Of course,’ the team leader told her, laying his hand on her shoulder and giving her a reassuring smile. ‘But in all the seven years since I’ve been a member, we’ve never yet failed to track down a single missing person. We’ll find your boy, don’t you fret.’

  *

  After twenty minutes, the dog handler came back to the team leader to say that he had circled all around the house and had only picked up Timmy’s scent in the kitchen garden, just like the police dog handler. There was no trace of him leading away from the house.

  ‘Well, no worries, sometimes the dogs find it hard to follow a scent in wet weather, and this driveway is all shingle, which doesn’t help. We’ll just have to get out there onto the moor and carry out a systematic search on foot. He’s only five, so his little legs couldn’t have taken him that far – not in the dark.’

  Rob and Martin and Grace each joined one of the three search and rescue teams. Vicky and Katharine would stay in the house in case Timmy returned, and to wait for the chimney sweep. Portia had volunteered to borrow Rob’s car to drive into Tavistock and buy food and wine and two electric fan heaters, as well as a fresh inhaler for Grace’s asthma. The dampness in the house had made Grace short of breath, but she was determined to stay here until Timmy was found. ‘Portia – he’s my little nephew, and I’m never going to have a child of my own, am I?’

  ‘There’s always IVF,’ Portia had retorted, but almost immediately she said, ‘Sorry – sorry.’ Yesterday she had made no secret of her impatience to return to London, but whatever argument they had settled between them, it was apparent that she had made some concession to Grace. She had made no mention of it this morning, and on the whole she was being much more conciliatory.