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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’m sorry I couldn’t comfort you when you…’ I squeezed my eyes shut and let the familiar sob rip through my insides. ‘But I do it for others now. You know that, don’t you?’ I was talking faster now; begging. ‘Every time someone passes, I see your face… I wish I’d held your hand… I could have told you you were loved.’ Another sob. ‘You were going to be a doctor. You were going to save lives…’ My voice trailed off. The tally of lives lost because of the one life I’d taken was a scoreboard rattling inside my head; the grand total multiplying exponentially every day. An ever-increasing number of people she would have saved in the last ten years, who were now also dead because of me.

I keeled forward onto the grave and touched my forehead to the cold, wet stone, then I pressed my lips to it. The wind whipped the trees and rain splattered down: big drops that matched my tears and, within seconds, my hair was flat against my skin, cold rain sliding its way down my neck. I stood up stiffly, brushing dirt from my knees and wiping my hands down my jeans.

‘Please. You’ve got to forgive me,’ I said, ‘because I don’t know what else I can do.’

I walked down Albert Road in a trance as the rain got steadily harder. Above me, the house looked down at the street, the unshuttered eye of the attic reflecting the wet smear of the branches back at me as I walked up the path. At the window, a movement caught my eye: a fleeting shape; the shift of a shadow that quickly withdrew back whence it had come. My hand pressed against the solid wood of the door as I leaned against it for support.

‘I’m back,’ I murmured as I turned the key. Inside the hallway I got the sense of something hiding, of someone pulling away just out of my sight, of clothes rustling, of breath being held. The layers of the house whispered across the centuries yet, before me, the hall stood empty aside from the grandfather clock, its tick echoing in the stillness of the hall. I felt again the heart of the house; that thrum of energy that came from another time; a different dimension.