by Helen Grant
“It’s not possible the missing man could be here and you wouldn’t have found him?” asks the man. “Any disused parts of the building, outbuildings, anything like that?”
I shake my head again. “I don’t think so. You can look if you like.”
I lead them into the house, down the passage and into the kitchen, where they can plainly see that there is only one set of everything left out from breakfast; I’m not hiding a living person in the house. Then we go out of the back door and I show them the henhouse, and the outbuilding where Grandmother used to keep the car. There’s nothing untoward, though the woman wrinkles her nose at the smell of chickens.
I can see they’re going to leave. They don’t suspect the truth. If anything, they are more interested in how self-sufficient Langlands is, and how anyone can live up here, all by themselves. But that’s not what they’re here to investigate.
Of course, there may still be trouble. If they think to go back to the distant relatives they have found, and ask them about me, there will be questions. Will they do that? I don’t know. It’s Tom they’re looking for now, after all, not Grandmother’s next of kin. I may be safe.
I’m so tired, and I still feel nauseous.
Please let them go soon.
They do go, and on the way out, the woman says to me, “Don’t you get nervous, up here on your own?”
“Why?” I say.
She looks a little embarrassed then. “Well,” she says, “They used to say this place was haunted. The ghost of a girl who died here a long time ago.”
“Oh, that,” I say. “That’s rubbish. That’s completely wrong.”
“Yes, well, just a story,” she says. “Kids’ stuff.”
I watch them get back into their car. I keep watching as the man turns the car, and they drive off down the track, disappearing under the trees.
“Completely wrong,” I say, although I know they can’t hear me now; they’re too far away. “It’s not the ghost of a girl who died here. It’s the ghost of a young man who died here.”
And I pray, as ever, for it to be true.
This book was inspired by the part of Scotland in which I and my family have lived for some years. I am thrilled that it is being published by Fledgling Press and I would like to thank Clare Cain and her colleagues for being the ones to introduce Ghost to the world. I would also like to thank Graeme Clarke for the beautiful cover design.
I would like to thank my agent, Clare Wallace of the Darley Anderson Agency.
Very special thanks are due to two people: my daughter Iona, and my friend Ann Giles, to whom this book is dedicated. Thank you for your support and for believing in Ghost.
And as ever, thank you to my husband Gordon – mainly for listening!
Ghost
Helen Grant
© Helen Grant 2018
The author asserts the moral right to be identified
as the author of the work in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of
Fledgling Press Ltd,
39 Argyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH15 2QE
Published by Fledgling Press, 2018
Cover Design: Graeme Clarke
[email protected]
Print ISBN 9781912280094
eBook ISBN 9781912280100
www.fledglingpress.co.uk
Urban Legends (Corgi), 2015
Demons of Ghent (Corgi), 2014
Silent Saturday (Bodley Head), 2013
Wish Me Dead (Penguin), 2011
The Glass Demon (Penguin), 2010
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden (Penguin), 2009