The Ghost Tree

  The last of the good things of that year was the appointment of Samuel as Precentor and Prebendary at the great Cathedral of Chichester, in Sussex. He deserved it. He was proving himself yet again an able and talented man. My daughter had made a good choice in her husband.

  But then came tragedies. Esmé died, no longer able to withstand the trauma of his wounds, and close on that devastating loss came the news that my brother Harry was no more. He had built himself a beautiful house in the Italianate style, so he had told me, on the banks of the River Almond, on the family land at Almondell, less than two miles from Kirkhill where we had spent so much time as children. Sadly widowed, he had remarried a lady, ironically called Erskine, but whom he called Kate after her mother, whom he loved dearly. He had written poetry on and off all his life, but now the subject was this new house and the tumbling river and the woods and gardens around it and one day I promised myself that I would go there, a promise that was to prove more fateful than ever I dreamed. But now after years of happy retirement, he was gone and with him my dreams of our reunion. My heart ached for him.

  I bought another house, this one in Arabella Row. It was a pretty, terraced home near Buckingham House which was still known then as the Queen’s Palace, and for a while I thought of moving Sarah from Hornsey and giving it to her, to make her more a part of my life. But swiftly I dismissed the idea. She would never fit in my circle. This, like my estate in Sussex, would be my own retreat. There was a cottage there I was having converted into a house and I had called it Buchan Hill. I loved it there with its forest and woodland and wild heaths. One day soon, I realised I would have to give up our house in Lincoln’s Inn. I dined in hall there occasionally, and that pleased me greatly, but it did not warrant keeping a large establishment nearby, not when I could retreat to my Sussex fiefdom. There, Sarah could not find me.

  But I could not let her go, not when she spoke to me in the voice of my darling, and begged me to stay.

  76

  April had gone back to the hotel. Sitting on the bed, biting her nails, she surveyed her document case and tote and handbag gloomily. Every item she possessed in the whole world was there, lined up in front of her on the carpet. On the plus side, she had several thousand quid in cash in one of those bags. She wondered briefly whether Tim had gone back to the house yet. Reaching for her phone she scrutinised the screen. No messages, no texts. Nothing. From anyone. There was no one to call her except Tim. The words echoed bleakly round her head. No one. If she ditched Tim and left Edinburgh she would be totally and completely alone.

  Lying back on the bed she felt tears of self-pity leaking down the side of her face and into the bedspread. She should call the police. He had spiralled out of control. She didn’t recognise him any more. He had always been weak, easily led, and that had suited her when they were growing up with no parents, or none that cared. She, the elder by a decade, had taken care of him, made sure he went to school, wiped his snotty nose, collected her mother’s benefits. It was easy to go on doing that when, one day, her mother went out and never came home. Neither of them wondered much where she had gone. No one questioned anything until one day a nosy neighbour knocked on the door. It was then they packed everything they could carry, Tim had nicked his first car and they had taken off into the night. And done very nicely up to now.

  She sat up wearily and reached down to find her laptop. Plugging it in she signed in to the hotel’s Wi-Fi. To her relief there were no more screaming headlines. Yet. She sat for a long time, staring at the screen, unable to decide what to do. She knew she ought to shop him. What if he killed someone? She would not be able to live with the knowledge that she could have stopped it. She knew she was not what you would call a moral person, though there had been a teacher at school who had taught them all right from wrong. It was just a sad fact that wrong paid so well. But not this. Not rape and not murder.

  To distract herself she clicked on Twitter. She wondered if Malcolm Douglas was still in London and what Ruth was doing without him. Ruth had friends. And family. So, her dad had died, but at least she had had a dad. She and Tim had never known theirs.

  A few people were defending Douglas now. Telling her to shut up. As if.

  So, did the ghosts follow you to London? Bet that went down a ball!

  She pressed tweet and suddenly she felt better. Tim hadn’t hurt anyone in daylight. It was as night fell on the city she would have to decide what to do. In the meantime, she would send some more tweets and then take herself out for some food.

  Making up history must be fun. Everyone believes someone like you. How does it feel to be able to rearrange the past to suit you?

  Back at police HQ Jack Jordan sighed as he read the report that had just come in. Following a sighting by the helicopter a police team with dogs had threaded their way up into the hills behind Douglas’s house and tracked down a man who ran away as soon as he saw them. An arrest was made, precious time lost. It was only some poor bloody rambler.

  Leaning forward, he clicked on his keyboard and sat staring at the screen. RuthieD had tweeted only twenty seconds ago. Ruth had confirmed it wasn’t Harriet Jervase. She still thought it might be April Bradford and in his mind that fitted. Only a guess, perhaps, as he knew so little about the woman, but it felt right. Cop’s intuition. The tweets weren’t vicious or obscene, just full of innuendo, designed to cause trouble.

  As he watched another tweet appeared.

  Has it ever worried you that you might be seriously pissing off the dead. I wonder if ghosts can kill.

  ‘I tried to visit you when you were ill.’ Sarah was looking thoroughly bad-tempered when Thomas finally confronted her in her sitting room. As always the room was over-hot and this time the two children were there. She insisted that Erskine bow formally and call him my lord. Baby Agnes was red-faced and grizzling in her cradle.

  ‘I was not aware that you called,’ he defended himself, sheepishly. He had not given Sarah a thought for several weeks.

  ‘Your housekeeper said you were too ill to see me, and then Margaret appeared and said that I should go away as you might have something catching and I should not risk my children’s health. She offered to pay for a chaise to take me back to London, as though I were a common pauper.’

  ‘I’m sure she meant to be kind.’ He had brought a box of toy soldiers for Erskine. The boy inspected them, clearly puzzled as to what he was supposed to do with them, then abandoned the box and went to his mother, shyly clinging to her skirts. She pushed him away.

  ‘This isn’t good enough, Tom.’

  He tensed. She had lapsed into Fanny’s voice.

  ‘You have to make an honest woman of her. Do you want her to be insulted and sidelined at every turn forever?’

  He stared at her, shocked, trying to read the message in her eyes. Was that really his Fanny, speaking through her from the worlds beyond, or was this woman playing with him? He knew what his sons would say, and Frances and Margaret, but he couldn’t be sure. As he studied her face he saw it change infinitesimally. She was Sarah again. ‘I will ring for some refreshments,’ she announced stiffly, and he guessed she realised she had gone too far.

  She rang for the maid and sat rigidly waiting for the tray to be brought, watching as Erskine, his curiosity finally getting the better of him, went back to the box of soldiers and started to arrange them on the table. Thomas ached to put his arm round the little boy, to play with him, but he felt he had to be cautious. Her words had scared him: to make an honest woman of her. To marry her. That was unthinkable.

  In the hall later, as her footman helped him on with his greatcoat, he heard a man’s voice coming from the sitting room. Frowning, he turned back to the door and walked in. Sarah was standing in front of the fireplace. There was no one else in the room but for the children. ‘I heard you call?’ he said abruptly. Then he heard it again. Singsong, mocking.

  She means to have you. She will make your life a living hell until you do, and I shall show her how. Between
us, we will bring you and your spawn down.

  Sarah clamped her hands over her mouth, a look of agony on her face. ‘That wasn’t me!’ she gasped.

  ‘I am fully aware who it was,’ Thomas retorted. Without another word, he turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

  He told his coachman to take him back to Hampstead. Leaning against the carriage cushions he closed his eyes with a shudder. He had to find a way to deal with this man. If he were a real, living being he would have no problem, he would have at his fingertips every form of law enforcement agency there was, but this vile incubus was another matter. He had wondered on several occasions whether he should discuss this with Sam, but always he held back. Sam might feel he had to tell Frances, and that could not be supported. What about his sons? There was no question of discussing anything that might reflect back on Sarah with Davy or Thomas. Both men would demand instantly that she be taken up as a fraud. She would find no sympathy with them, or excuse that as their father’s mistress she should be given some kind of special consideration. Both men were astute, they had seen through her from the start. What about his second son, Henry? He was an ordained minister of the church but that was his only similarity to Sam, who as a man of the world would confront the problem thoughtfully and perhaps wearing his medical hat. Henry had been married for only two years and Thomas saw him and his new family less often. He could not confide in him. His thoughts travelled on to his friend, William Blake. Many thought the man mad, but he considered him a mystic and a genius and a kindred spirit; he would understand, but could he be counted on to keep his counsel, and if he could, would he know how to remedy the situation? He somehow doubted it.

  With a deep sigh he realised for now he had to deal with this matter himself. For the whole family’s sake, he had to find a way of neutralising Farquhar, and soon. If this restless and vicious spirit really had found a mouthpiece in Sarah there was no one, absolutely no one, whom he could trust to discuss it with and if he didn’t do something, there would be no way of stopping her.

  As the horses slowed to climb up towards Hampstead he leaned forward to look out of the window, half expecting to see the spectral figure of Farquhar jogging alongside. It had started to rain and the road was rapidly growing muddier. Behind them he heard the distant sound of a coach horn. The evening stage would soon be wanting to overtake them. ‘Pull over,’ he called to his coachman. ‘I shall walk the rest of the way.’

  ‘Shall I follow you, my lord?’ His valet, Benjamin, was reaching for his pistol and already climbing down from the box.

  ‘Please do so.’ It would not be worth risking the anger of his family if he came home alone, besides which, it was stupid to risk his life that way. More and more footpads were frequenting the heath. Thomas didn’t allow himself to suspect that he was afraid that if he was alone Farquhar might appear. As the evening stagecoach north raced past them up the road at full gallop, accompanied by the thunder of hooves and the sound of the coach horn, he beckoned his young escort after him and turned his face to the rain. In minutes his headache had gone.

  In the end he talked to his trees, and as always, the noble pines listened, the wind shushing through their branches. In the sound of the trees he heard the crash of the waves and the moan of the wind on the Scottish moors, and there, through the song of the pine needles came the voice of the sennachie.

  I warned you there was danger. You have to strengthen the armour of your soul and spirit. You have to call on the name of Christ. You need to summon the generations of your forefathers and the masters of the ages to stand at your back and you must call upon the generations to come to keep guard with you upon your children.

  ‘How did Farquhar get such power?’ Thomas heard himself shouting against the roar of the wind and knew his gardeners had withdrawn out of earshot. They were loyal. They would not gossip in the Spaniards Inn about the madness of their employer in talking to the trees.

  You gave it to him as he swung on the gibbet. You acknowledged the evil in his soul and recognised in it the ability to roam your world unfettered and you are the only one who can take that power away.

  ‘How?’ The rain was running down his neck, soaking into his coat and his neckcloth. His hat had long ago blown away. ‘Please, tell me. You have to help me!’

  But there was no answer.

  Ruth stopped at the end of the street, staring along it towards Number 26. Her scalp was prickling uncomfortably. The terraces of solid grey stone houses were quiet, the road as usual lined with parked cars. She resumed walking, more slowly now, on the opposite side to Number 26, surveying the house fronts. It hadn’t occurred to her that Timothy might be there. There was supposed to be a police presence here, but she couldn’t see any police cars and the strange uncomfortable sense of awareness at the back of her neck was growing stronger. She was moving even more slowly now, near enough to scan the house front. Where were the police? Standing still she took in every detail. Had she left one of the upstairs windows open? Had she, for that matter, left the downstairs curtains closed?

  Her gaze shifted next door to Number 24, with its brightly painted front door and the welcoming, uncurtained, downstairs window with its huge display of orchids clearly visible from the street. On impulse she crossed the road and went over to ring Sally’s doorbell.

  There was no reply.

  77

  The ghosts had followed Malcolm to London. In his hotel bedroom he was glued to the small leather-bound journal that he hadn’t been able to leave behind. Reaching for a tot of whisky from the minibar, he read on.

  The man was like some wild animal inside Sarah. She couldn’t fight him off. His rage and vicious fury seemed to possess her utterly and all her experience, all her knowledge of the spirit world, stood her in no stead at all. On those days she would lock herself in her bedroom, her hands clenched in the covers of her bed, her teeth gritted and she would beg him to leave her alone but all he did was laugh.

  He is putty in your hands, woman. Reel him in! He cannot resist the wiles of his wife. Speak in her voice and he will do everything you say.

  Now his voice changed. He was persuasive, kind, whispering.

  He loves you; how could he not? Make him promise. Now while he is at his lowest. He is lonely and sad without his beloved wife and his children have gone. And think how angry his family would be if you were to marry him, you, a woman from the gutter.

  That made her angry. ‘Gutter!’ she shouted. ‘I am not from the gutter. That is your place, you vile creature!’

  ‘Mama!’ She could hear Erskine outside her door, scrabbling with the handle to get to her. Then the little fists were desperately beating on the door. ‘Mama, let me in.’

  Could the boy see him, this vile thing that possessed her? He was so like his father, brave, intelligent, even though the rest of the family wouldn’t even recognise his existence. ‘I’m coming, my darling,’ she called.

  Make him marry you. For the boy’s sake.

  ‘Go away!’ she screamed. She stuffed the corner of the bedspread in her mouth to stop herself screaming again.

  She climbed wearily from the bed. The terrifying presence had gone as abruptly as he had arrived; she sensed it instantly. Trembling, she scrabbled with the lock and pulled open the door. Erskine ran in and flung himself at her, clinging to her, crying.

  She pulled him to her. ‘Can you see him, my darling? The bad man who comes to Mama.’ She held Erskine in front of her, forcing him to look at her. He struggled to get free.

  ‘Answer me!’ she shouted.

  The little boy had huge tears running down his face. He peered round the room, still clinging to her. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘What does he look like? Tell me!’ She caught him by the shoulders and shook him hard.

  ‘Can’t you see him, Mama?’ He was sobbing so hard he could barely speak. ‘His head is all sideways; there’s a rope round his neck.’

  She pushed him away, horrified. ‘Jesus Christ, no!’
>
  Erskine turned and fled out of the room and down the stairs. She could hear the patter of his little feet and he ran down and she knew where he would be going. To the kitchen where Janet, the latest of the nursery maids, would welcome him into her arms before spreading the story down the length of the narrow street.

  She turned towards her dressing table and picked up her brush. She should call a maid to help her with her hair, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to see the look of frightened pity on the woman’s face. For a moment she felt herself sinking into utter despair.

  Her hair was beautiful; she was proud of it, long and thick as it was, and she knew Thomas liked it. He used to run his fingers through it, feeling the weight of it in his hands. She removed her combs and pins one by one, slowly, and pulled the brush through the heavy locks, her eyes fixed miserably on the mirror.

  It was then she finally saw the man who haunted her, standing close to her shoulder, his eyes staring, his tongue protruding, his neck bent at a sharp angle by the hangman’s rope that still hung there, tightly knotted around his throat.

  Malcolm stopped reading, unable to get past the vivid picture of the man with his distorted neck, fully aware that it was his own mind filling in the gaps in the story; that he was seeing in his head so much more than Thomas had actually written. He felt sick, hypnotised by the immediacy of what he had visualised in that small overheated room in a terrace of newly built Regency cottages in Hornsey with Sarah, feeling her fear and her helplessness as the spirit possessed her.

  He wanted to ring Ruth, to tell her what he had seen in Sarah’s house, that he understood completely now how she was being swept helplessly into the story. Instead he took another sip from his glass and read on.