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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

At that point I was happy for her to take the kitchen sink as long as she left. I picked up the bear. ‘Here, take it.’

Grace opened her bag again and put the bear inside, pressing its ratty ears carefully under the zip. Finally, she picked the bag up off the bed and heaved it over her shoulder. ‘Right, I’ll be off out of your hair then.’

We clattered down the stairs and I opened the front door for her. She turned on the doorstep.

‘Have a good time with hubbie. Maybe this’ll be the weekend you make a baby.’

My smile was as fake as hers. ‘Maybe.’

With Grace gone, I was itching to paint. I had five completed canvases lined up along the attic wall. After the aquatic effect of the fourth picture, things had taken a darker turn and it crossed my mind on many occasions that maybe there really was something in what Meena had said. Maybe an unseen energy was entering my body because I didn’t know where the ideas, the feelings and the colours came from: when I worked, my eyes were half closed and my hands moved to a rhythm that came from the universe. It’s not as if I planned what I was painting. It just came. When I opened my eyes and regarded the canvases properly, I was often surprised – stunned – at what I’d actually painted.

In the fifth portrait Grace was older again, perhaps in her thirties, though it was hard to tell because her features were so perverse. She had four eyes and three sets of lips, all of which were blurred as if she’d moved – struggled? convulsed? – while being captured for a photograph, and yet I’d somehow also managed to put a look of disdain on her face, her chin lifted and her eyes looking down with such contempt it made a shiver run up my spine.

But the thing that scared me most about this portrait – the thing I had no idea how I’d managed to paint – was the way I’d created the illusion that her face was trapped beneath something more solid than water. Yes, this version of Grace was trapped beneath the canvas itself; as if it were a barrier she couldn’t pass. She was struggling, suffocating in a way that made me imagine that her unseen hands might be trying to claw their way through the fabric to let in some air. The colours blurred and merged; her deformed features distorted by the material that stopped her from surfacing, the three sets of blood-red lips slightly parted as she struggled to get a breath between them.