The House of a Hundred Whispers

returned from Yelverton with their food. While they were waiting, Vicky had gone upstairs to choose which bedroom she and Rob were going to sleep in, and make up the bed, although Rob guessed that she was also looking yet again for any sign of Timmy, even though she must have known it was fruitless.
They ate their supper in the kitchen, hardly saying a word to each other. They were all tired and depressed, and they all felt that the legacy of Allhallows Hall was weighing down on them like some grim unwanted responsibility from which they would never be free. Rob thought it was like having to look after an elderly relative with dementia, who neither recognised them nor appreciated the care that they gave him. Herbert Russell had dominated them when he was alive and he was still dominating them, even now that he was dead.
‘What if we can’t find him?’ said Martin, cutting into his steak so that the diluted blood ran across his plate.
‘Don’t even think that, Martin,’ Rob snapped at him. ‘Of course we’re going to find him.’
‘Well, yes, sure. Of course we are. But I was only wondering what the situation would be, you know, as far as the house is concerned.’
‘Martin, I don’t give a flying fuck about the house. Our five-year-old son is lost out there somewhere on Dartmoor in the pouring rain and right now that’s all that matters. I don’t care if the house collapses around our ears. In fact, I hope it does. It’s like Dad personified.’
Martin said nothing, but pushed another piece of steak into his mouth and shrugged. Rob was almost tempted to say, ‘You’re like Dad personified, too. All you ever care about is you.’

9
Rob had wound up the longcase clock in the hallway, so that as they lay in bed he heard it strike two.
‘Are you still awake?’ he asked Vicky.
‘I can’t sleep. I can’t even close my eyes. I won’t be able to sleep until we’ve found Timmy.’
‘Listen, try to have a nap at least. You’re going to be exhausted otherwise. Timmy may be naughty sometimes, but he’s not stupid. He’s bound to have found himself somewhere to shelter. My guess is that he got himself lost and some passing motorist has picked him up and taken him home for the night until they can find out where he came from.’
‘They would have called the police, wouldn’t they?’
‘I don’t know, darling. I’m just hoping for the best.’
They lay for a while without speaking. The rain was still pattering against the window and they could hear it pouring into the downpipes with a sound like a choking child. They had chosen the second largest bedroom, at the end of the corridor next to the bathroom. Martin and Katharine had taken the master bedroom opposite, while Grace and Portia were sleeping in the bedroom at the top of the stairs that used to be Rob’s room. Grace and Portia had to share a single bed, but they said that they liked to sleep snuggled up closely together.
Rob wondered if they would have the same feeling that a strange boy was hiding underneath their bed, listening to them breathe. He shivered, because the room was so cold and the patchwork quilt that covered them was damp, and smelled damp.
The clock chimed half past two. Gradually, the rain eased off, and the moon began to shine intermittently through the gap in the curtains.
It was then that Rob heard whispering. He wasn’t sure at first if Vicky had fallen asleep at last and was whispering to herself. But when he lifted his head up from the pillow, he realised that somebody was whispering in the corridor right outside their bedroom door. He strained hard to hear what they were saying, because they sounded hurried and anxious, like the whisperer that he was sure he had heard in the room next to the stained-glass window.
He didn’t think it was Grace or Portia, because the whispering was low-pitched and slightly hoarse, like a man. Maybe it was Martin. But if it was Martin, what was he doing out of bed at this time of the night, and who was he whispering to? Rob sat up, so that he could hear more clearly.
Vicky turned over and said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Can you hear that?’
‘What?’
‘That whispering.’
Vicky listened for a moment and then she sat up, too. ‘Yes, I can. Who is it?’
The whispering went on and on, and the whisperer sounded more and more desperate with every passing second. Then they heard another whisperer, who sounded threatening, as if they were warning the first whisperer to keep quiet, or else.
‘It’s Martin, it has to be,’ said Rob. ‘Martin and Katharine, having one of their barneys.’ He reached over and switched on the bedside lamp, which flickered and crackled before it popped on fully. He swung his legs off the bed and padded across the room, dressed only in his shirt and sweater and socks. He pressed his ear against the door, trying to make out what the whisperers were saying, but their voices were still indistinct, and so he opened it.
The corridor was dark, but not so dark that he could see there was nobody there. The whispering abruptly stopped.
‘Rob? Who is it?’
Rob leaned out of the doorway and looked along the corridor as far as the landing. The moonlight brightened for a moment, and then dulled again.
‘It’s nobody.’
‘What do you mean, it’s nobody? Somebody was whispering, even if it wasn’t Martin and Katharine.’
‘I know it sounded like it. But it couldn’t have been.’
Rob closed the door and turned around. ‘It must have been a draught. Or maybe the plumbing.’
‘No, it wasn’t. It was whispering. Whoever it was must have heard you opening the door and made themselves scarce.’
‘They couldn’t have. I would have seen them. I would have heard their footsteps, too. The floorboards are much too creaky.’
‘Perhaps they’ve hidden themselves in the bathroom.’
‘Oh, and I wouldn’t have heard them close