The Whispering Gallery
MARK SANDERSON
To Miriam, without whom . . .
Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
Erewhon, Samuel Butler
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword
Part One - Wardrobe Place
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Two - Dark House Lane
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Part Three - Sans Walk
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Bibliography
About the Author
By the same author
Copyright
It made no difference whether or not she opened her eyes. She was smothered in complete darkness. It was impossible to distinguish night from day.
How long had she been here? And where was here? It had to be somewhere underground. Her voice-box had cracked from screaming for the help that refused to come. She longed for the relief that unconsciousness lent her.
The chain attached to the tight spiked collar round her neck – What had he called it? A throat-catcher? – clanked as she tried once again to pull it off the bare brick wall. She was so thirsty she had resorted to licking the damp stone. The tip of her parched tongue was already torn. The collar prevented her getting any closer to the precious moisture.
She had broken all her nails – her lovely, long nails that she manicured daily – scratching in the search for a way out.
Hunger gnawed her insides. She was empty now: the stench of her piss and shit filled her nostrils. She could not stop shivering. The only thing in her favour was that it was July: had it been winter she would have already frozen to death.
She blushed at her nakedness and immediately reproached herself. What did it matter when she was about to die? And she had no doubt that she would soon be dead. He had told her as much on his last visit as he shortened the chain. Tears sprang to her eyes once more. She tried to catch them with her tongue. They felt shockingly hot on her cold, filthy skin.
The silence was shattered by the clang of a metal door. She shrank back into a corner and began to shake uncontrollably. A candle-flame pin-pricked the darkness. He was coming again. So far he had not touched her but he had made it quite plain what he eventually intended to do.
She screwed her eyes shut, terrified at what she might see. He would blindfold her and, to begin with, say nothing at all as he watched her for what seemed like hours. She could feel his eyes creeping over her flesh, lingering between her legs. It was only then that the whispering would begin.
Saturday, 3rd July 1937, 2.30 p.m.
He was going to take the plunge. It had been almost eight months now and he loved her more than any other girl in the world.
Even though the remorseless sun came slanting through the clear glass, it was cool in the vast interior of St Paul’s. Johnny, impatient as ever, strolled down the nave, dodged gawping tourists, and took a seat beneath the magnificent dome which, thanks to the exhibition in St Dunstan’s Chapel, he had already learned was actually three in one: the outer dome of fluted lead and stone that could be seen from all over London; a brick spire that held up the lantern at the very top of the cathedral; and, sixty feet below the outer one, an internal dome decorated with scenes from the life of St Paul in grisaille and gold. Biblical history had never been one of his strong suits – or interests – at school, but Johnny recognised the shipwreck on Malta, the conversion of the gaoler and the Ephesians burning books – just like the Nazis today. Nothing changed.
What little remained of his faith had been buried along with his mother after her early, excruciating, death from cancer. However, he was not in St Paul’s to pray but to propose marriage to Stella, the green-eyed, glossy-haired temptress he had met in The Cock, her father’s pub in Smithfield, back in December. They had been seeing more and more of each other since Christmas – and Johnny had been falling deeper and deeper in love. Although she still sometimes helped out behind the bar, Stella was now a fully qualified secretary who worked at C. Hoare & Co., a private bank in Fleet Street – which just happened to be a minute’s walk away from the Daily News where Johnny was a crime reporter.
Johnny checked that his mother’s engagement ring was still safely tucked in the inside pocket of his jacket – his father had died in the battle of Passchendaele when Johnny was three – and looked up to the Whispering Gallery where he intended to make his proposal. The acoustics were such that words whispered behind a hand travelled round the wall of the dome and into any ear pressed against the stone. There were only four people up there at present. One of them, a beanpole