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Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for The House of Whispers
  3. Title Page
  4. Note to Readers
  5. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  19. Twelve
  20. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  21. Thirteen
  22. Fourteen
  23. Fifteen
  24. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  25. Sixteen
  26. Seventeen
  27. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  28. Eighteen
  29. Nineteen
  30. Twenty
  31. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  32. Twenty-One
  33. Twenty-Two
  34. Twenty-Three
  35. Twenty-Four
  36. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  37. Twenty-Five
  38. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  39. Twenty-Six
  40. Twenty-Seven
  41. Twenty-Eight
  42. Twenty-Nine
  43. Thirty
  44. Thirty-One
  45. Thirty-Two
  46. Thirty-Three
  47. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  48. Thirty-Four
  49. Thirty-Five
  50. Thirty-Six
  51. Thirty-Seven
  52. Thirty-Eight
  53. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  54. Thirty-Nine
  55. Forty
  56. Forty-One
  57. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  58. Forty-Two
  59. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  60. Forty-Three
  61. Forty-Four
  62. Forty-Five
  63. Forty-Six
  64. Forty-Seven
  65. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  66. Forty-Eight
  67. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  68. Forty-Nine
  69. Fifty
  70. Fifty-One
  71. Fifty-Two
  72. Fifty-Three
  73. Fifty-Four
  74. Fifty-Five
  75. Fifty-Six
  76. Fifty-Seven
  77. Fifty-Eight
  78. Fifty-Nine
  79. Sixty
  80. Priory Hospital North London: 20 December 2019
  81. Acknowledgements
  82. About the Publisher

‘I thought he was a “keeper”,’ I said, my voice brittle. ‘That’s what you said on Facebook.’

Grace laughed dismissively and I waited for something else – an explanation, an apology – but she just smiled to herself and carried on tapping and swiping her phone until the food came.

Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019

‘So, would you say things started to go wrong properly once you’d departed for New York?’

‘I guess so. I suppose the first sign that things weren’t going so smoothly was when Abi missed the dinner with my family. It’s just not the done thing and everyone knows that. You don’t miss those dinners. [pauses] But she said she was painting, and I know how she gets when she’s in that “zone” so I kind of understood. Or maybe she was going out with Grace and didn’t want to admit it. But, yeah, looking back, that was probably the first sign.’

‘And did you do anything about it?’

‘I feel terrible now for not paying more attention, but what could I do about it? I was on the other side of the Atlantic. I messaged her. I gave her a bit of a hard time about it, but that was it. I’m her husband, not her keeper. She knew she’d stuffed up. I didn’t need to add to that.’

Thirty-Four

Maybe it was the visit to the old flat and all the memories that stirred up, but I couldn’t sleep that night. Eventually I gave up trying and went up to the attic to paint. I was on the fourth portrait now, and Grace was, again, older but I was experimenting with a different style for this one: I was distorting the face a little, blurring it, as if she were looking up at me from under moving water. I didn’t want it to look as if she were drowning; she was very much alive. Rather, I wanted to make her look as if she were trapped in this other dimension; this subaquatic world of dark greens and hazy turquoise, of weeds and light diffused through opaque water; as if the current were carrying her, her face drifting this way and that like the underwater weeds of a river, her hair streaming all round her, leaving you wondering if she’d escape, or if she’d drift away forever, getting smaller and smaller.