Michael assembled all of this on to the laptop, with particular attention to Chuffy’s account of the school reunions and a reminder to himself to write to the Old Carthusian Association in the hope that they kept records. Typing it all on to the laptop he again regretted the lack of an Internet connection here, but he would be able to let the Director have the notes in the next day or so.
It was half-past four. He took his coffee cup back to the kitchen. Rain beat against the windows and sluiced down gutters and drains, and Michael stood looking out, thinking that Fosse House seemed to lie at the centre of an incessant downpour. He was just rinsing the cup when he realized there were other patterns inside the sound of the rain. Footsteps. Was Stephen out there again? The footsteps faded, and Michael hesitated, then thought he would open the little garden door at the far end of the kitchen and reassure himself that no one was out there.
The door was locked but the key was in the lock, and he turned it and opened the door. Rain blew into his face, and he shivered, but took a few steps out. The gardens were grey-green in the dull light, and it was like peering through a bead curtain. For a moment he thought a blurred figure darted between the thin grey layers, then it was gone, and he could see the walled garden with the wrought-iron gate. The gate was closed. There’s no one there, he thought with relief, and went back inside, closing and locking the door. The rain had left faint marks across the kitchen floor. Michael looked for a cloth and not finding one hoped they would dry out by themselves.
He went back to the library, hoping for some sound that would indicate Luisa’s whereabouts so that he could talk to her about the Choir, annoyed to find himself hesitant to knock on doors. But there were no sounds anywhere. Perhaps his hostess had a brief sleep in the afternoons. Madeline Usher encoffined in the ancient keep, the lid screwed down, but the beating of her heart still discernible …? ‘For pity’s sake,’ said Michael angrily to himself, ‘if Luisa’s asleep, it’s because she’s nodded off over a good book!’
The library felt so chilly that he went upstairs to collect an extra sweater from his bedroom. The stairs and landing were wreathed in gloom, and he looked for a light switch, but could not see one. His room was only a few yards away, however, and he went towards it, glancing to the far corner where the Holzminden sketch hung.
The sketch was wreathed in shadows, but standing next to it was the figure of a man in an army greatcoat.
Stephen.
Ten
Stephen seemed to be staring into a distant and terrible horizon. He’s looking into a nightmare, thought Michael in horrified fascination. No, that’s wrong, he’s trying to stare beyond a nightmare, because the nightmare is too dreadful to look at. But he’s not real, I must remember that. He’s nothing more than an image from the past.
The collar of Stephen’s greatcoat was turned up as if against a cold wind, and the soft blond hair was tumbled. For the first time Michael saw that his hands were torn and bruised, the nails shredded, the fingertips bloodied. Stephen, he thought, your hands, your poor hands … What did that to you?
Stephen turned his head and looked directly at Michael, and a half-recognition seemed to show in his eyes.
‘Don’t let them find me …’
Michael had no idea if the words were actually spoken, or if he was hearing them with his mind, but Stephen was so young, so vulnerable, that he stopped being afraid and took a step forward, one hand held out. He thought Stephen had just made up his mind to accept his approach, but then light, uneven footsteps came up the stairs, and he turned sharply to see Luisa. She must have crossed the hall without him hearing and she was standing at the head of the stairs, one hand resting on the banister, her eyes on the shadowy figure. But when Michael looked back, Stephen had gone, and there was only a faint outline on the panelling, like a thin chalk mark.
In a dry, ragged voice, Luisa said, ‘You saw him, didn’t you.’
It was impossible to pretend not to understand. Choosing his words carefully, Michael said, ‘I thought there was something – someone – here. But it was probably just a shadow—’
‘It wasn’t a shadow,’ she said at once. ‘It was Stephen. That means you let him in.’
‘No—’
‘You must have done,’ she said. ‘He can’t come in unless someone opens a door or a window for him. His hands are so damaged you see – he can’t turn a handle or a window catch himself. It was a long time before I understood that.’
Michael stared at her, and his mind went back to how he had heard the rain tapping against the kitchen windows, and how the rhythms had formed into soft words. ‘Let-me-in …’ He had heard that, and he had opened the kitchen door to make sure no one was out there. There had not been anyone – but a shadow had seemed to slip between the veils of rain, and there had been faint wet marks like footprints across the kitchen floor … I did let him in, thought Michael, with an uneasy glance towards the corner with the Holzminden sketch.
Very gently, he said, ‘Miss Gilmore, supposing I did glimpse something or hear something or – or even open a door to look outside for a moment? It doesn’t matter so very much, does it? Old houses often have lingering memories, and occasionally the memories can even be visual. I’ve encountered it before. Not everyone accepts the premise, but—’
‘“All argument is against it, but all belief is for it”?’ she said. ‘Who was it who said that?’
‘Dr Johnson.’
She smiled slightly. ‘I thought you’d know.’ If there had been any fear in her eyes earlier it was no longer there.
Michael said, ‘I think that some people are more receptive to – to picking up traces of the past than others. Perhaps you’re one of the receptive kind.’
‘I wish it were that simple,’ she said, then looked at him with an odd, sideways glance. ‘Dr Flint, nearly a hundred years ago, towards the end of the Great War, my ancestor Stephen Gilmore was incarcerated in a German prisoner-of-war camp. A place called Holzminden.’