The Retreat(88)

Julia had gone pale again. ‘Maybe it was all part of a plan.’ She sat down opposite Ursula. ‘Can you describe the experience when you heard Phoebe talking to you? Was the voice inside your head?’

‘I’m not crazy. It was inside the room.’

‘A disembodied voice, inside the room? Is that how it usually happens?’

Confusion flickered in Ursula’s eyes. ‘To be honest . . . Phoebe usually speaks to me in my dreams.’ She caught my reaction and said, ‘It’s all in my book. I’m not making this up.’

Julia said, in a gentle voice, ‘But this time you heard the voice when you were awake?’

‘Yes. Well, it was during the night. At first I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming. But then I realised I was conscious, and my guide was talking to me, that she was there. I was overwhelmed at first. It had been a long time since she’d come to me and I feared she’d deserted me, that my book had made her angry. But here she was, a voice in the dark, but there. Really there. I’d never heard her speak out loud before. In the past, her voice was always inside my head, so I was terribly excited. She told me she had an important message to tell me about Lily.’

‘That was the first time she came to you?’ Julia said. ‘When she told you Lily was with Jesus?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You told me your guide spoke to you about my girlfriend, Priya.’

Ursula couldn’t meet my eye. ‘I wasn’t being one hundred per cent honest with you then . . . I asked my agent about you.’

Just as I’d suspected.

‘What about the second time Phoebe spoke to you?’ Julia asked. ‘When you drew the map? Surely you didn’t draw it in the dark?’

‘No. It was shortly after lunchtime and I was at my desk, writing. I heard a voice behind me. She told me not to turn around, to listen carefully. She said she was going to describe a map to me and that she wanted me to draw it. She described it very clearly. As soon as I’d finished I turned around, hoping to see her, but she wasn’t there.’

‘Thank you, Ursula.’

Julia got up and, taking hold of my arm, led me out into the garden, shutting the cottage door behind her.

‘You remember how Karen said she’d heard a voice, telling her to get out? And you both heard singing. Actually, didn’t you say Max heard the singing too?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And then there was the incident with the birthday candles,’ she said.

My pulse quickened as I realised what Julia was saying.

‘And what about the night you thought someone was in your room?’ Julia said.

‘When my phone and pen went missing.’

We stared at each other. ‘There’s been somebody in the house, sneaking around, talking and singing and taking things. Not a ghost. A person. Oh my God . . .’

She ran across the lawn towards the house and I followed her, up the stairs to Room 2: Ursula’s room, which was the same room where Karen had slept.

It was a corner room so there were two exterior walls, one of which had a window that looked out over the front garden. Could someone have been outside that window, talking to Ursula, and to Karen before her? I looked out. It was a sheer drop, with no balcony, no surfaces for anyone to stand on. The roof was high above. It wouldn’t be possible for anyone to throw their voice from up there into this room.

‘The attic,’ I said, thinking back to the night when Karen had freaked out and reported hearing someone telling her she wasn’t welcome. She’d heard singing too.

I went into the hallway, closing the bedroom door behind me, and pulled down the ladder that led into the attic. I climbed, tentatively putting my head through the gap – not just because I was afraid there might be someone hiding there, but because of the bats. Julia had been instructed to leave them alone.

There was no sign of the bats, though. And there was definitely no one hiding up here.

I pulled myself fully into the loft space and crawled over to the area above Ursula’s room and lay on my belly. I spoke, reciting a Halloween rhyme about witches, bats and big black cats in a loud voice. It was the first thing that came into my head. Then I sang several lines from a song. Finally, I tapped on the floor, before heading back down the ladder and into Room 2.

‘Did you hear me?’ I asked. ‘Talking and then singing?’

‘No. Maybe very faintly. I heard you knock but that’s it.’

I turned my attention to the other exterior wall, which was dominated by the wardrobe. I opened it. It was stuffed full of clothes and had shelves which would make it very difficult for anyone to hide inside. I remembered how we’d found Karen with her head in the wardrobe, as if searching for Narnia.

‘Ursula said that when she turned round there was no one there, even though it felt like the voice came from directly behind her.’

I looked at the desk, then at the wardrobe again. ‘Help me with this, will you?’

We shoved the wardrobe, which was lighter than it looked, to one side, revealing an expanse of wall that needed a lick of paint. I tapped it. It sounded hollow.

Julia said, ‘Wait here’, and left the room, returning a minute later with a claw hammer.

‘What are you—’

I didn’t get to finish the question. She swung the hammer at the wall. It went through like the wall was made of cardboard. Shards of thin plaster landed at my feet. Julia swung again, working at the gap with the head of the hammer to create a large hole. We used our hands to expand the hole, throwing chunks of wall behind us. The dust cleared and Julia said, ‘Oh my God.’