Broken Voices (A Novella)

Broken Voices (A Novella)
Andrew Taylor

From the No.1 bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London comes a gothic novella – perfect for fans of The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley.It’s Christmas before the Great War and two lonely schoolboys have been forced into companionship. Left in the care of an elderly teacher, there is little to do but listen to his eerie tales about the nearby Cathedral. The boys concoct a plan to discover if the stories are true. But the Cathedral is filled with hidden dangers, and curiosity can prove fatal.

ANDREW TAYLOR

Broken Voices

Copyright (#u1b38f70b-34be-55ce-94ea-96415355c2fc)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2016

Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2016

Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical fact, are the work of the author’s imagination.

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Source ISBN: 9780008171230

Ebook Edition © JULY 2017 ISBN: 9780008179755

Version: 2017-06-19

Table of Contents

Cover (#u5a2eb0d3-66c3-5447-962a-674d2de24b54)

Title Page (#u447a3856-7dea-5ac7-bc7f-e108b892dcbe)

Copyright (#ubff46e80-0e1e-54ff-b674-6f770ffba145)

Broken Voices (#u400ec6a5-8122-5853-a092-6f80454df6e4)

Chapter 1 (#uf8b147b8-3e6a-5d75-9b5a-5fba2e8b6847)

Chapter 2 (#u14e482bc-3436-5f81-9cc7-74a5a2efc3f7)

Chapter 3 (#u7e2808ae-3ce9-5d21-8c04-a8e5b1225f28)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep reading … (#litres_trial_promo)

About the author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

BROKEN VOICES (#u1b38f70b-34be-55ce-94ea-96415355c2fc)

1 (#u1b38f70b-34be-55ce-94ea-96415355c2fc)

Was there a ghost? Was there, in a manner of speaking, a murder?

Ask me these questions and I cannot answer a simple yes or no. I did not know at the time and now, more than forty years later, I am even less able to answer them. Perhaps an easier question is this: what exactly do I remember about Faraday and me in the few days we were together? Those years before the war seem so remote now. The First World War, that is, the one that was meant to end them all.

He and I didn’t know each other long, not properly – four or five days, perhaps. And nights, of course. I suppose there must be records – a report in the local newspaper, surely, and a police file. Perhaps letters from Faraday’s guardian. There must also have been correspondence between the school and my parents, but I found no trace of it after my mother died. We never spoke of it when she was alive, not directly, and my father wasn’t able to speak about anything after they brought him back from France in 1915.

So – all I can really rely on is my memory. But memory may, paradoxically, make matters worse. It is not a passive record of what happens, though it may misleadingly give that impression. It plays an active role too, selecting and shaping the past. Memory speculates about itself; it ruminates and dreams, edits and deletes: over time, the fruits of these processes become the memories themselves and the entire process begins again.

So what does that make Faraday’s fugitive notes? Or the man I saw in the arcade? Or even Mordred?

To take a minor example. I must have seen the view from the train as we went back to school over and over again. But in memory it is always winter, though I must often have seen it at other times of the year. All the different journeys have elided into one which, strictly speaking, never really happened at all.