The Orphan Choir (26 page)

I have always loved ghost stories, for the same reason that I’ve always loved crime fiction: the suspense. In both genres, the reader or viewer knows that something untoward is afoot, but doesn’t know exactly what or why, and the main thing driving her on through the narrative is the desire to find out and solve the mystery.

Though I haven’t read nearly as many ghostly novels as I’ve read detective stories, my strong impression from the few that I
have
read is that the overwhelming majority of ghost stories are mysteries. There might be some supernatural fiction in which the ghost is upfront, announcing himself and declaring his agenda right from the start, but if there is then I certainly haven’t stumbled across it. All the ghosts I encounter in films and in literature are as sneaky and elusive as murderers who wish to avoid exposure. Even those with grudges that border on obsession seem oddly reluctant to rant explicitly about their various beefs with the living; they all seem to feel it’s more effective to make a door slam shut or a floorboard creak, hoping to get their message across in a long-drawn-out and incredibly indirect way instead. This makes no sense, when you think about it. If I were dead and angry, and had magic non-earthly
powers, I would defy ghostly convention and stand next to those who’d wronged me, screaming, ‘You poisonous git! I’ll never forgive you! Just you wait and see how many of your relatives I’m going to kill and maim before the weekend!’ All right, it’s not subtle, but since I’d probably be shimmery and transparent at the time of yelling, I like to think I could achieve some pretty devastating effects by combining verbal straightforwardness with physical ethereality.

Perhaps this is why I so admired the recent and utterly brilliant Hammer film adaptation of Susan Hill’s equally brilliant novel
The Woman in Black
. The ghost in that movie is a comparatively direct communicator. At one point, she writes on a wall in capital letters, ‘YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HIM’, and, in doing so, helpfully reveals what, precisely, she’s cross about. (Admittedly, she is less forthcoming about why she chooses to vent her anger on the innocent; I’d be interested to see what she might write on a wall on the subject of legitimate targets and collateral damage, but that’s another story.)

Like all my favourite ghost and horror films –
Dead of Night
,
The Others
,
The Innocents
,
The Haunting
,
The Shining
,
The Sixth Sense
–
The Woman in Black
was completely terrifying from start to finish; I watched most of it from behind my woolly scarf. I was sitting next to an elderly couple in the cinema, and throughout the film they regularly asked me if I was okay. I wasn’t, and nor did I want to be. There is
no point in a fictional ghost if he or she doesn’t frighten the life out of you.

Which is why, when I was invited to write a novella for the new Hammer imprint, my first thought was ‘Ooh, yes, but it must be terrifying.’ And mysterious too – because all my favourite stories are driven by mysteries and the need to find out the truth and outwit the cunning author who is annoyingly trying to withhold it for as long as possible. So I resisted the temptation to redefine the genre by creating a loud-mouthed ghost who yells at people obsessively and informatively, and tried as hard as I could to frighten myself instead. Just as, in my crime writing, I have always resisted the (sometimes very strong) temptation to write a psychological thriller that begins with the heroine receiving a phone call from someone from her shady past to whom she hasn’t spoken for twenty years, and immediately announcing to her happy middle-class family in a cheery voice, ‘Hey, it’s So-and-So – remember, the one I committed that murder with twenty years ago? Remember, I
did
tell you …’

Sophie Hannah

January 2013

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Copyright © Sophie Hannah 2013

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This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Arrow Books in association with Hammer
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ISBN 9780099579991