The Ghost Tree: Gripping historical fiction from the Sunday Times Bestseller

He hid the lesions as best he could. He could go to the gunner’s wife but he was too ashamed, or he could go to the purser who was acting surgeon in the absence of anyone more qualified and was in charge of the medicine chest with its phials of mercury ointment. He knew that if Jamie didn’t believe how he had got the disease then no one else would. Mortified, he scrubbed his body raw with sea water.

It was Andrew who, as Tom walked past, crowingly asked him why he was so obsessed with cleanliness and what he was hiding, and it was Andrew who spread the word that young Tom Erskine had contracted the great pox by sleeping with a slave on a trip ashore. It wasn’t long before he found himself being given an evil-smelling ointment by the gunner’s wife; he was accused of lewd behaviour and informed a fine would be taken from his pay and then he was summoned by Lieutenant Murray.

To his surprise, however, the officer appeared to believe the story poured out by the humiliated and frightened boy and at once guessed the source of Tom’s misery. ‘Seaman Farquhar, I suppose,’ he said heavily. ‘I’ve seen him watching you; he’s had it in for you ever since that affair with the hammock.’

That affair with the hammock! Tom bit his tongue. Did the lieutenant not even remember Robbie’s name?

‘Yes, sir,’ he acquiesced miserably.

Murray arranged for him to go with the next shore party and to Tom’s astonishment escorted him personally to the slave quarters behind the governor’s house. ‘Don’t look so worried, Tom,’ he said. ‘All is not lost. I am taking you to see the best doctor in the Islands.’ He removed his hat as they ducked into one of the small houses behind the governor’s mansion and Tom followed suit.

The huge black woman who greeted them smiled at Tom as the lieutenant explained the circumstances. ‘So, boy, let me see what’s wrong with you,’ she said, her voice soft and lilting as she held out her hand. ‘You go wait outside,’ she added to the lieutenant. ‘This thing is bad enough for the child without having an officer leering down his trousers.’

Tom was almost in tears as he undressed, reluctantly removing his shirt and then his breeches, thankful for the dim light of the small house with its palm-leaf roof. He could hear the wind rustling the leaves as the woman pulled him closer to the daylight in the doorway, holding him in front of her with two firm hands.

She gave a crow of laughter. ‘You’ve got the yaya disease, boy. You don’t have to panic now I seen you. You not got the great pox. I can fix this, no problem.’ She leaned closer, inspecting his wounds. ‘You been scrubbing these sores?’

Tom nodded miserably.

‘That’s good.’ She let him go and studied his face. ‘Back where I come from, that is how we cure this disease. We scratch our children’s skin and rub in the illness, then they get it, but not very badly, and they never get it again. But older people, who haven’t had that chance, we scrub the berries!’ she chuckled. ‘Just like you did. All the dirt and the disease comes away and your own good blood washes it out of you. I will give you medicine and I will give you ointment – I make it myself from herbs and from ground seashells – and you will be as good as new, boy. And you won’t get it again. You’re a strong child, yes?’ She had a wonderful warm smile, he realised, her heavy black face lit with kindness.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

But her face had sharpened. Once again she drew him into the thin ray of sunshine that was finding its way through the doorway so that it shone on his face. ‘You one of us, boy?’

He hesitated, confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Yes, you one of us,’ she murmured, half to herself. ‘You see the dead folk; you feel their loneliness and their pain. That’s a hard path for you. I not surprised you go make enemies; people sense you a bit special.’ Her mouth widened into a broad smile. ‘You can help people – I don’t think you go be a doctor like me, but you not made for your king’s navy. Why you want to be an officer?’

Tom glanced out of the doorway towards the figure of George Murray, who was leaning against a palm tree, smoking his pipe, seemingly lost in thought. ‘My father arranged it,’ he replied reluctantly. ‘I didn’t want to be in the navy, but I quite like it now?’ He looked at her anxiously, his answer framed as a question as if he did not know if he was speaking the truth. It seemed important that this woman understood.

She smiled at him. ‘It will do for now. When you grow into a man you make decisions for yourself. Now you too open, too much trusting. You must learn to be safe from people, people who are alive and people who no longer here.’ She dropped his hand and moved back into the shadows of her house. ‘Go tuck your shirt in, boy, make yourself respectable for your officer. I’ll give you medicine to make you better and I’m going to give you something special that will protect you from evil which works in shadows. You know prayers, boy? You good Christian?’

‘Yes,’ he whispered.

‘Then I put Christian God and Blessed Virgin in my magic with my own special gods from my homeland who protect me and mine. That’ll give you much good and safety.’ She smiled again as she fumbled with the baskets on the shelf above her table. ‘What I give you, you put in the bottom of your belongings and you keep it safe and you leave it there with you all of your life, and then you give it to your children. You understand me, boy?’

As Tom trotted back to the harbour at George Murray’s side he was clutching a bag which contained a bottle of black, strong-smelling tincture, a pot of brown ointment and a carefully wrapped bundle. He had seen Lieutenant Murray dig into his own pocket for some coins with which he had paid the woman, who had swiftly squirrelled them away into the folds of her skirts before turning back to Tom and reaching out to make the sign of the cross on his forehead with her thumb. He had forced himself not to flinch away from her as he made his stammered thanks. He could feel some kind of strange power coming from her which left him scared and awed and, he knew it already, strengthened.

‘Thank you for bringing me here, sir,’ he ventured shyly.

‘I’ve done it before,’ Murray replied easily. ‘You’ve been lucky. It could have been the great pox, which can never be cured.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Are we sure it was Farquhar who put the infected rags into your sea chest?’

Tom looked down at the dusty track and shuffled his feet. ‘I can’t be sure, sir. But he was the one who drew attention to it, who seemed to know about it, who hates me enough to do something like this.’ His voice faded.

‘We cannot punish him for something that is a mere suspicion, Tom.’

‘I know, sir.’

‘So, what do you suggest we do?’

‘Nothing, sir. It’s up to me to be more careful.’

‘We can move him to another watch.’

‘No, sir.’ Tom took a deep breath. ‘No, thank you, sir. It’s for me to learn to be careful and to learn to make a friend of him, if I can.’ He knew he sounded doubtful and he tried to straighten his back and firm his shoulders as he had seen the officers do.

Murray hid a smile. ‘We sail to Jamaica soon, Tom. I understand from the captain that you are due some shore leave when we arrive, to visit some of your father’s relatives, is that right?’

Tom bit his lip. ‘Does the captain know about me being ill, sir?’ he asked.

The lieutenant sighed. ‘He knows about everything that goes on on his ship.’

‘Yes, sir. I see, sir.’ Tom glanced at him. ‘Will he tell my father, sir?’

‘I very much doubt it. Why should he? You’re already on the road to recovery. You’ve been lucky, Tom. You’ve seen the best healer in these islands and, besides, what happened was not your fault.’ He hesitated. ‘Just watch yourself. Farquhar has a malicious streak. I’m keeping an eye on him, but I cannot be there every moment of the day. You need to be on your guard and you need to be able to deal with this situation.’ He looked down at the boy trotting beside him. ‘Be strong, Tom. You have it in you. Don’t be afraid to stand up to him.’

James Reid emailed Ruth a copy of the letter he proposed sending to Timothy. ‘It has come to our attention that the will forwarded to me purporting to come from your solicitor does not carry an authentic signature, neither has it been possible to contact the witnesses. It is a criminal offence to falsify …’ She glanced through the rest of it briefly. James demanded the return of any property Timothy had removed from Number 26 without delay, and threatened to send a copy of the letter to the police if that was not done.

She sat back, staring at her laptop. Perhaps they should send a holding letter first? Give Timothy a little time to return anything he had taken.

‘Ruth?’ It was Harriet on the phone. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m good.’ Ruth smiled. It was good to hear Hattie’s cheery voice. ‘I’m discovering lots of stuff about Thomas.’

‘Any mention of spirit guides?’

‘No, but he does seem to be showing signs of having appeared as a ghost a few times.’

‘Now, that is interesting.’ Harriet’s voice rose with excitement.

‘And one other thing you’ll be interested to hear: I’ve found a copy of Dion Fortune’s book Psychic Self-Defence amongst my mother’s books.’

‘Have you indeed. Listen, Ruthie. I was ringing because I’ve had an idea. I’ve got to come to Edinburgh to interview someone about SOE and check a few things in the library. Liz is lending me her car. I wondered if I could come on to see you the day before and perhaps have supper? Possibly stay the night? Would your friend Fin mind? We can catch up on everything then.’

It seemed like a plan.

19 (#ulink_5f9bc212-0d03-534f-ad4c-8c6b91c46f73)

Andrew Farquhar had hated Thomas from the first moment he had set eyes on him in that little rat hole of a gunroom on the ship. The boy seemed to have the knack of making friends, of being popular. Young as he was, he addressed the lieutenant and even the captain as an equal. Clearly there must be family connections of some sort. It gave Andrew enormous pleasure to set about planning all the petty revenges that would make Thomas miserable. He hadn’t intended to kill Robbie. That had been unfortunate, a prank aimed at upsetting the sanctimonious Thomas who had befriended the kid. That prank had gone sadly wrong, and thanks to Thomas he was caught and punished and humiliated.

It had been a petty triumph when he had the idea of stealing the infected rags from the squalor of the seamen’s quarters where he now found himself and stashing them in Thomas’s sea chest. He had found it unlocked once or twice over the months and spent time searching it, looking at the neat notebooks and pen boxes and brushes and combs, the pile of letters tied with ribbon that had come from his family, the presents his sisters had sent him via a merchant ship from London. Andrew hadn’t kept the items he filched, that would have been too easy. One pen, engraved with Thomas’s name that he knew had been a gift from his mother, he threw over the side in the dark of the night; the small penknife, a gift from Thomas’s father, he kept for two days then slid through a gap in the boards and heard with great satisfaction the small splash as it fell into the noxious bilge water in the hold.

The plan to infect him had worked, but instead of the death-sentence pox Andrew had hoped for, he had caught some disease which turned out to be curable, and even that small misery had misfired when Thomas had gone ashore and come back with bottles of medicine and a jar of ointment. When Andrew had next found the gunroom empty and crept over to look at Thomas’s sea chest, he had felt the cold waft of evil coming off it before he even touched it and he fled back to his own quarters. He had never gone near it again, but his hatred had grown, if anything, more entrenched.

Timothy threw the letter down on the table and looked up at his sister. For once he did not protest at the fact that she had opened something addressed to him. ‘So that’s it, then. We’ve been found out.’

‘No. He only says there’s a delay. Even if they suspect something, they can’t prove it.’ April glanced at him. ‘And we still have our trump card: the DNA. We can prove you’re the old man’s son.’