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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 can’t wait to see what he looks like in the flesh,’ she said, fluffing up the sofa cushions. ‘If he’s as nice as you make out. No one can be that perfect,’ and then there was a knock at the door and suddenly he was standing there, incongruous, on our doorstep.

He held out a bottle of wine, and Grace appeared behind me, standing with the posture of a model, shoulders straight, chest out, hip popped.

‘Hello, there!’ she laughed, grabbing the bottle. ‘I’m Grace. Is that for us? You shouldn’t have!’

She sashayed into the kitchen to get a bottle opener while I invited Tom inside. Grace’s hair hung loosely down her back. She tossed it about as she opened the wine showily and poured it into our best glasses. She was wearing shorts. Micro-shorts that barely covered the curve of her buttocks, and she had bare feet, legs that went on forever and a tan from summer, but Tom didn’t seem to notice any of this. He sat with his hand on my knee and awkwardly drank his wine, then he stood and said, ‘Let’s go,’ so it seemed I’d got away with it.

But you know that feeling you get when you’re watching a movie and you know something bad’s going to happen and you’re just waiting for it to happen, kind of dreading it and expecting it at the same time? That sense of impending doom? That’s how I felt after that weird little get-together – and I wasn’t wrong. Looking back, I should have realized that Grace wouldn’t like me being in a relationship. That she would never let me have something that she wanted for herself.

That she’d never let me be happy.

As my relationship with Tom continued, Grace changed. By that time, she was on her fifth-year specialty rotations and our lives were going in different directions, yet it seemed that, even though she was allowed boyfriends, I was not.

At first it came out as little barbed comments.

‘You’re seeing him again?’ Heavy sighs. Eye-rolls when I mentioned his name. Smirks that weren’t altogether pleasant; jokes about child-snatchers, as if seven years was such a huge age gap.

She didn’t like it that I wasn’t always there for her. She didn’t like it when she found my room door locked on the rare occasions Tom came back for the night.

‘I want you to myself!’ she joked.