No: the only obvious answer was that Anne simply hadn't included the friendship-and presumably whole other dimensions of her life-in the diary. Odd, all the same. I leaned back in the armchair, staring up at the gallery where the veiled woman had appeared in my dream.
A woman in a dark green gown. Greensleeves.
The back of my neck prickled. Of course it had been a dream. I didn't-did I?-seriously believe in ghosts. Any more than I believed in spirit messages from beyond. I looked over at the stack of butcher's paper on the table. Something about the planchette had changed.
The squeak and scrape of the chair rose into a high, drawn-out note as I stood up. There was my question: WHAT HAPPENED TO ANNE?
but the planchette had moved on. In faint, spidery letters, an answer had appeared: Filly murdered me From: ghfreeman@hotmait. com
To: Alice. Jessell@hotmail. com
Subject: None
Date: Wed, 11 August 1999 19:48:21 +0100 (BST)…later I rang Mr Grierstone's clerk and asked her if the cleaners, or a security patrol had been in the house last night, and she said no, certainly not, no one else has keys, Miss Hamish was most insistent about that. She said the only way anyone could have got in was if I hadn't locked up properly last night, and I know I did. I felt angry when I first saw the message. A defensive reaction, I suppose. Someone's playing games with me, I thought, but I'll show them. I wrote down another question, something no one else could answer, thinking, that'll prove you're not a ghost. It seemed perfectly logical at the time. But I knew really, even before I went out to phone, that it couldn't have been a cleaner or anyone like that. Who could possibly know that my mother was Filly to the family? Maybe Mr Grierstone lives a double life, creeping out at night to frighten his clients. I wish I could believe that. The only other possibility-the only one I want to think about-is that I wrote it myself, when I was sitting at the table yesterday afternoon, doodling with the planchette. But I KNOW I didn't do that. I can see myself sitting there yesterday, trying to convince myself that Mother couldn't have killed Anne, and the planchette doesn't move. So either I'm turning into one of those 'missing time' people with alternate personalities, or Anne's ghost is telling me what I already know from her diary. I don't know which is more frightening. If I did write that message, what am I going to do next? What if it's inherited?-the condition, whatever it is? Am I going to turn into a murderer too? I know what you'll say: I'm letting my worst fears run away with me. If only. It would actually be a relief, now, to believe what I've just written. Because I don't. I keep getting flashes-like the shadow of something truly monstrous creeping up behind you. Your mind keeps saying no, no, but your skin and your spine and your hair and the pit of your stomach know what's coming. In that house, anything is possible. Alice I know we agreed to wait but I really need to talk to you right now. I've never felt more alone in my life. This morning in Family Records I looked you up, or tried to, I just couldn't help myself. You weren't born in England, so why have you always let me believe that you were? And that the accident happened here? After the shock of losing Staplefield, and finding out my whole childhood was a lie (I mean my mother's, but it feels like mine) and now this, you must understand why I need to hear your voice now, not 'very soon' but now. I'll wait for an hour to see if you've read this before I ring the hospital… From: Alice. Jessell@hotmail. com
To: ghfreeman@hotmail. com
Subject: None
Date: Wed, 11 August 1999 20:29:53 +0100 (BST) I didn't tell you because I wanted it to be a surprise, but I've already left the hospital. I'm having a last lot of physiotherapy, in a clinic in St John's Wood, and I'll be with you in three more days, maybe sooner. There's nothing I want more in the world than to pick up the phone and pour out everything I feel. But we might regret it later. We mustn't have a conventional beginning, hi how are you, nice to speak to you at last. I think of you as my questing knight, facing his last ordeal. And it is a terrible ordeal, but you mustn't lose hope yet, about your mother. I think you did go into some sort of trance and write that message, but it doesn't have to be either/or, either you wrote it or Anne did. I think Anne was trying to speak through you, only the fear that was preying on your mind took over the pencil. Houses, especially old houses, hold the impressions of people very strongly, and you're so attuned to her. We'll be together very soon Your invisible lover Alice
As soon as I had read Alice's message, I took the lift down to the foyer and joined the crowds heading west along Euston Road towards the last of the sunset. The roar and stench of traffic was comforting; it stopped me from thinking. Just beyond Tottenham Court Road I found an entire street full of restaurants. I chose the noisiest, ate something vaguely Middle Eastern and drank a bottle of bad but expensive red, a thick metallic wine heavy with sediment. On the way back to the hotel I stopped at an off-licence and bought a bottle of whisky.
I woke at ten the following morning with a slow, thudding headache, which accompanied me down Kingsway to Somerset House on the Strand, where I intended to look up Iris's will, only to be told that wills were no longer kept there. I was sent back up to First Avenue House, a featureless modern building with airport-level security, in High Holborn. There were only two other people in the registry, and it took me all of three minutes to establish, from the probate registers, that Viola's estate had been valued at?12,989; Iris's-she had died on 6 October 1949-at?9,135.1 applied for copies of the wills, was told there would be an hour's wait, and went back to the registers.
George Rupert Hatherley, my grandfather, had died intestate in Prince Alfred Hospital in Brighton on 13 August 1929, leaving effects to the value of?724.13.9. Violas husband, Alfred George Hatherley, had died not at Ferrier's Close but at 44 Ennismore Gardens Knightsbridge, on 7 December 1921, leaving just under six thousand pounds. So Viola had presumably inherited money, as well as Ferrier's Close, from her own family. Then I thought I might as well search forwards from 1949, just to make sure that Anne Hatherley hadn't died without Miss Hamish's knowing about it; I had got as far as 1990 before I remembered that as Anne's executor, Miss Hamish couldn't not have known. A coffee break was clearly overdue.
My copies arrived just as I was leaving. Viola had made her last will on 10 August 1938, leaving everything to Iris with the proviso that if Iris should die before the will was proven, the estate should be divided equally between 'my granddaughters Anne Victoria and Phyllis May Hatherley, both of Ferrier's Close Hampstead in the County of London'. Her executor was 'Edward Nichol Pitt of 18 Whetstone Park Solicitor'. Iris's last will, signed on 4 October 1949, two days before she died, was even simpler. It left everything to 'my dear niece Anne Victoria Hatherley'. Pitt the Elder was again the executor; Phyllis wasn't even mentioned.
Surrounded by people shouting into mobiles through the clatter of cups and the hiss and roar of the coffee machine, while the traffic outside negotiated High Holborn in a series of kamikaze rushes, I felt almost certain I didn't believe in spirit messages. Of course I had written those words myself. If only I could remember writing them, I wouldn't have to worry any more about alternate personalities, or missing time. Or ghosts. I picked up my pen and sat with the tip resting lightly on a blank page of my notebook, trying to will myself into recalling the moment. But the memory would not come, and instead I found myself thinking about Alice.
Some time later I realised I had been doodling. Above a heavily inscribed 'A' I had drawn a small pig with wings, an imbecilic smile, and a halo.
At least it showed I could have written that message.
At seven that evening, I was sitting in a vast beer garden at the foot of Downshire Hill. Evening sunshine slanted across the grass. Still plenty of daylight left.