The Voices Read online

  Christopher switched the radio off and dropped his empty can into the bin. Flies were hovering above the fruit bowl and the sink smelt of drains. He heard footsteps and when he turned, he saw Laura standing in the doorway. She was wearing one of her baggy smocks, cotton trousers and a pair of clogs. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘OK,’ Christopher replied. ‘I’ll be up in a minute.’

  ‘OK.’ The heat was so enervating that Laura was obliged to push against the architrave in order to gain the necessary impetus for movement. She floated out of view like a tropical fish in an aquarium – languid, spiritless. As soon as Laura had gone Christopher went to the drawing room and collected a packet of cigarettes that he had hidden in the bureau. He let himself out into the garden and walked around to the side entrance. His eyes had not adapted to the dark and he tripped over Ellis’s old ladder. He grazed his hand on the wall and cursed under his breath. It felt faintly absurd, at his age, to be sneaking around like a naughty schoolboy behind a bicycle shed, but he was sure that, when embarking on an affair, it was prudent to conceal any changes of behaviour, however minor. Anything might arouse suspicions.

  Christopher lit a cigarette and the act of smoking had the effect of making him feel in some curious, abstract way closer to Amanda. He wanted to be with her again, he wanted to observe her mannerisms and listen to her pleasing, husky voice. Already, lust was becoming complicated by deeper feelings. Where would it end? An important question, but he had no appetite for dissection and analysis at that moment. He drew on his cigarette and his shoulders relaxed. Amanda had said that Simon was going to be away the following Tuesday. ‘Do you want to come again?’ she had said, straight-faced, but perfectly aware that her words possessed two meanings. ‘Yes,’ he had replied. ‘I’d love to come again.’ He counted the days that remained before he would see her and found the exercise consoling.

  There was a rustling sound in the air, the whispering of desiccated long grass swayed by a gentle breeze. At first, Christopher thought nothing of it, but its persistence made him feel vaguely uneasy. He wasn’t able to identify the cause of his disquiet, until it occurred to him that the night was hot and exceptionally still. There was no breeze, yet the long grass continued to whisper. He emerged from his place of concealment and, as he did so, the rustling suddenly stopped. Christopher froze and stared into the darkness. The light from the drawing room allowed him to see as far as the orchard, but beyond that he could discern nothing. He stepped off the terrace and waded out into the garden, his trousers catching on the prickly shrubs. It wasn’t possible to go very far and he came to a halt in the middle of the lawn. He felt sure that he wasn’t alone, that something was out there with him. Common sense dictated that it was an animal of some kind – perhaps the elusive fox that he had encountered before – and he was tempted to clap his hands loudly to make it startle and run, though he didn’t want to attract Laura’s attention. Christopher made his way back to the side entrance and disposed of his cigarette.

  Again, a swishing sound suggested movement in the grass, but it was short-lived and by the time Christopher had returned to the garden, the silence was dense and fathomless. He crossed the terrace, looked out into the darkness one last time, then stepped back into the drawing room. Reaching out, he grasped the door handle and pulled hard. Displaced air made the curtains billow. The bolts were old-fashioned and he was reassured by their size and weight. As he fixed the upper bolt, he was troubled by a thought. What if I’ve locked something inside, instead of outside? He shook his head. Infidelity was a hard game to play. It had put his nerves on edge.

  Laura opened her eyes and a few seconds passed before she achieved self-awareness. She seemed to coalesce out of nothingness, the parts of her personality gradually collecting around an indefinable core. When the process was complete, she guessed that she had been roused from sleep. Something was detectable at the boundary of sensation, something faint and vestigial, like the final iteration of an echo. Allowing her gaze to drop from the ceiling, she observed the orange-grey strip of luminescence that separated the curtains and guessed that it was still very early – one o’clock, perhaps? Her whole body was tense with expectation and she held her breath in order to listen.

  When the voice came through the baby monitor, it was surprisingly loud and clear. Toys, toys, penny toys!’ The speaker began his rhyme with incongruous gravity. ‘Toys for girls and toys for boys. Toys for tots who scarce can crawl, toys for youngsters stout and tall.’ Laura stretched her arm across the bed and rocked her husband’s body. He responded with a grumble and an unconscious, inarticulate protest. ‘That is how the toyman talks, as through London Town he walks.’ The speaker paused before adding with decisive emphasis, ‘Come, child. It is time.’ Laura heard Faye make a pathetic mewling noise and then there was silence, a silence so absolute that it seemed as if the whole world had been swallowed up.

  ‘Chris!’ Laura gripped her husband’s shoulder and gave it a violent shake.

  His grumbling stopped and he said, ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘I heard a voice again.’

  ‘OK.’ He was still half asleep so she prodded him with a rigid finger.

  Christopher grunted and anger made his speech more intelligible: ‘Christ. That hurt.’

  ‘Then wake up!’ She switched the lamp on and got out of bed.

  Christopher shielded his eyes from the light and asked, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To check on Faye – to see if she’s all right.’

  Come, child. It is time.

  Laura removed the scissors from her bedside cabinet. Even though she accepted that whoever it was that had spoken those words was dead, she did not have the courage to enter the nursery without arming herself. The clarity of the voice suggested embodiment, the possibility of physical threat.

  ‘What are you doing with those?’ Christopher asked.

  ‘I’m scared.’

  She watched her husband’s expression change. Exasperation and irritation were replaced by anxiety and then something close to alarm. It was obvious what he was thinking. He was thinking that she was mad.

  ‘Look,’ Christopher said, making downward movements with his hands. ‘Let’s try to keep calm.’ Even though she was in a distressed state, Laura still registered the condescending inclusivity of his language. ‘You don’t need those scissors,’ he added, venturing a false, mollifying smile.

  I’m going to check on Faye.’

  ‘Put the scissors away. You heard a voice, that’s all. A voice.’ She shook her head and turned to leave. Christopher called after her – ‘Laura?’– and when she didn’t stop he vented his frustration by striking the mattress with a clenched fist.

  The distance from the bedroom to the nursery was relatively short, but to Laura it seemed to stretch out before her, its elasticity negating her forward momentum. She was seized by a visceral sense of foreboding that located itself in her gut; her legs became weak and she struggled to make progress. She groped awkwardly at the landing light switch and thrust the door open. Instinctively, she scanned the corners and recesses to see if there was anyone – or anything – lurking in the shadows. Then, when she was satisfied that she was alone, she wheeled around to face the cot.

  At first, her mind failed to accommodate the evidence. What she saw was so wrong, so impossible, that it was immediately rejected and reclassified as an optical illusion. She flicked the wall switch and even when the nursery flooded with light and her initial impression was confirmed, she still couldn’t absorb the truth. She leaned over the cot rail and ripped the sheet aside, as if Faye’s concealment beneath its awful flatness was an actual possibility. A few moments of puzzled silence followed, before Laura’s mouth opened wide and she produced a sustained wail.

  An instant later, Christopher stumbled into the room shouting, ‘What is it?’ Laura pointed at the empty cot. ‘Where’s Faye?’ He had asked the question so many times it sounded much the same as usual, confined by habit within narrow
emotional limits. Nevertheless, when he repeated the question, his voice quivered with desperate urgency. ‘Where’s Faye?’ Laura was mute and shaking, her face contorted to such an extent she was barely recognizable. Christopher dashed past his wife and leaned out of the open window.

  ‘Is she . . .’ Laura choked on a sob.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s too dark to see anything.’

  ‘She’s never climbed out before,’ Laura cried. ‘Never. She’s too small.’

  Christopher moved away from the window. He pushed past his wife and leapt down the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the drawing room, he snapped the bolts back and opened the French windows. Suddenly, he balked at the prospect of what he might discover. He paused, fought to control the revulsion that made his mouth taste of bile, and forced himself to proceed. The light from the drawing room was sufficient to illuminate the terrace and he sighed with relief when he saw that nothing was crumpled on the flagstones – no broken body, no shiny black lake of blood. But his relief was swiftly succeeded by bewilderment. Christopher looked up and saw Laura craning out of the nursery. ‘She’s not here,’ he said. Laura shook her head and drew back into the house. The night was humid and Christopher used the sleeve of his pyjama jacket to wipe the sweat from his brow. ‘Where is she?’ he said out loud. ‘Where the fuck has she gone?’ His mind was clouded by shapeless apprehension.

  Laura heard Christopher’s voice floating up from below. She dropped the scissors, charged out of the nursery and began opening doors and looking into cupboards. ‘Faye, for God’s sake,’ she called. ‘Where are you?’ In her distraught state, the house seemed infinite and she found herself reliving her nightmare. Spaces multiplied and receded as in a hall of mirrors. The house seemed to expand in every direction and she ran and ran until she became confused and disorientated.

  Christopher found his wife pacing around the empty room on the top floor.

  ‘Laura?’ She seemed unaware of his presence and he had to stand in front of her to make her stop. He grabbed her arms, pinned them to her sides and forced her to remain still. ‘Laura?’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she moaned.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she screamed, demanding an answer.

  The ferocity of her gaze became intolerable and he looked away. She shook herself free of his grip and stepped backwards. Running her hands through her disordered hair, she grimaced and made helpless gestures. Then she began to wail once again; however, this second outburst of anguish was very different from the first. This time, the wail was pitched low and suggested a painful drawing out. She doubled over, clutched her stomach and bellowed like a dying animal.

  Detective Inspector Barnes was a thick-set man with swollen features, which appeared unfinished, hastily shaped, like a sculptor’s preliminary experiment with clay. His hair was closely cropped and when he spoke the stresses in his sentences were subtly displaced, suggesting a childhood spent in the North East. He was accompanied by a skeletal but excessively polite assistant, who said very little and scribbled continuously in a notebook. The sound of heavy footsteps could be heard crossing the ceiling. On the first floor, a team of officers were taking photographs and attempting to obtain fingerprints. Christopher held his wife’s hand but it was limp and lifeless.

  ‘You woke up,’ said the inspector, ‘and you heard a voice coming through the baby monitor.’ Laura nodded. ‘Did you recognize it?’

  She hesitated before answering. A fleeting change in her expression convinced the inspector that she was about to reply in the affirmative and he leaned forward, his posture betraying his presumption, but the light in her eyes dimmed and she replied, ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ Laura’s assertion was not delivered with confidence.

  The inspector glanced at his assistant before saying, ‘A man, was it?’

  ‘Yes, it was a man’s voice.’

  ‘What kind of voice?’ Laura seemed confused by the question and the inspector qualified his enquiry. ‘Young, old . . . any trace of an accent?’

  ‘Not a young voice. Middle-aged, perhaps. And there wasn’t any accent, no. He sounded quite . . . refined.’

  ‘Refined?’ the inspector repeated, surprised.

  ‘Well . . . perhaps not refined . . . educated.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He recited a poem about a man . . . a man who sells toys. And then he said, “Come, child. It is time.”’ Laura shuddered and closed her eyes. A tear seeped out and ran down her face. When she opened her eyes again the inspector was observing her with a calm, steady gaze.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I heard Faye – my daughter . . . she made a sort of whimper and I woke my husband.’

  The inspector addressed Christopher: ‘You didn’t hear this voice?’

  ‘No,’ Christopher replied. ‘How could I? I was asleep.’

  The inspector spoke to Laura again: ‘How much of the poem did you hear?’

  ‘A few lines,’ Laura replied.

  ‘Can you remember any of them?’

  ‘Toys, toys, penny toys, some for girls and some for boys.’ Her brow wrinkled as she tried to recollect more. ‘Some for tots that scarce can talk . . . this is what the toy man says . . . as through London Town he walks.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t get it exactly.’

  ‘Had you ever heard the poem before?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘I got out of bed and found a pair of scissors.’

  ‘Scissors?’ His head tilted to the side.

  ‘So I could defend myself.’

  ‘I see. And what were you doing, sir?’

  Christopher sighed. ‘Actually, I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. I might have suggested to Laura that she put the scissors down.’

  ‘But she didn’t.’

  ‘No. She ran out of the room and the next thing I knew she was screaming.’

  ‘There was nobody in the nursery,’ Laura interjected. ‘And when I looked in the cot . . .’ Her chest heaved. ‘When I looked in the cot Faye was gone.’ Again, she closed her eyes.

  ‘We’d left the window open,’ Christopher continued, ‘because of the heat. My first thought was that Faye had managed to get herself out of the cot and there’d been a dreadful accident. She’s too small to do that really, but that’s what I was thinking. I couldn’t see the terrace – it was too dark – so I went downstairs to take a look.’

  ‘And did you notice anything unusual?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or hear anything?’

  ‘No.’

  The inspector paused, squeezed his lower lip, and then asked, ‘What was your daughter wearing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’

  Laura opened her eyes and said, ‘Cotton pyjamas.’

  ‘Were they distinctive in any way – patterned?’

  ‘Yes. They were white with little pink flowers.’

  The inspector wanted to go over Laura’s account several times. She repeated her answers, occasionally recalling some new, insignificant detail, but more often than not she simply duplicated what she had already said in a manner that became increasingly mechanical. Throughout the interview, she had felt the strain of maintaining a semblance of normality. She wanted to abandon all pretences and shout, ‘No, no. This is wrong.’ She wanted to tell the inspector about the voices; she wanted him to understand that there was more to Faye’s abduction than he realized. Yet even though she was exhausted and numb with shock, she was still conscious of social pressures corralling her speech down acceptable channels of expression and she withheld her objections. Besides, what good would it do? Transparency would serve no purpose. Chris had said nothing about the voices. Even prior to the police’s arrival, when there had been no necessity for them to collude in order to create an impression of soundness, he had been behaving as if their dau
ghter’s disappearance was completely unrelated to his activities. To Laura, this constituted the ultimate proof of her marginalization. Chris had demonstrated a growing tendency to dismiss her concerns and underplay the potential risks of dabbling with spirit communication. Perhaps he was in denial now, completely unable to accept that it would have been wise to heed her warnings.

  Dawn was breaking and policemen with torches appeared in the garden. ‘Excuse me,’ said the detective. He got up from his chair and went to the French windows. After sliding the bolts aside he exited onto the terrace and was followed by his assistant.

  The couple remained seated on the sofa, watching the inspector direct his team. They saw him pointing at the back wall and then at the gazebo. Some of the men were carrying shovels.

  Christopher tried to get Laura to rest her head on his shoulder, but she resisted.

  The house had gone very quiet and although they could see what was going on outside, they couldn’t hear a thing. It was as if they had slipped out of time and were now isolated from the rest of humanity, trapped in a hellish moment from which there was no escape. They were touching, but the distance between them was immeasurable. The inspector disappeared from view for a few minutes and when he returned he called into the drawing room, ‘Mr Norton?’ His voice was a welcome reminder of reality. ‘There’s a ladder in the side entrance. Is that where you usually keep it?’