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

The locksmith said he could make her his last call that evening. Pulling the curtains across once more after a quick look out into the street, she checked the bolt on the front door and then headed back upstairs to the cupboards on the top floor.

Looking at the rail of dresses and coats she was pretty certain they hadn’t been touched; presumably Timothy wasn’t interested in clothes. But what about the other stuff, the boxes and cartons? Now she was looking more carefully she could see paler patches in the dust. Parcel tape had been pulled off and not replaced, latches on old suitcases were standing open when she knew her father, even in the act of banishment, would have made sure they were all neatly closed. He had been too ill to have made it up to the top floor for a long time, never mind stir up the contents of the cupboards like this. This had to have been Timothy. He had rifled through all her mother’s precious possessions, the things she had treasured and loved, her books, papers, jewellery, pictures. Even the little writing box with its inlaid brass initials that Ruth remembered from her childhood was there, lying crookedly on top of another box in the corner.

Methodically she began to take items one by one out of the cupboards and line them neatly on the floor. Tossed in a corner of one of the cupboards was a teddy bear. He had been hers, her beloved Pooh. She picked him up and held him close, burying her face in his threadbare fur. He had lost the warm comforting scent she remembered and smelt of sawdust. She had loved him above all her other toys and, knowing this, her mother had kept him for her; so too, she realised with a sob, had her father.

The locksmith did not miss the fact that her hands were shaking as she fetched him a cup of tea while he attended to the front door. ‘Were you burgled, hen?’ he asked sympathetically as he wielded his screwdriver.

‘No. Expecting to be.’

‘That’s tough. On your own here, are you?’ He was thorough and efficient, testing the new lock, handing her the keys, doing the same in the kitchen where the back door led out into the narrow garden. ‘I’m glad to see you have bolts here. Don’t forget to use them. Maybe get an alarm fitted in the house. Motion sensors. If you’re scared of being attacked, you can think about a link to the police; or at least a rape alarm.’

It hadn’t occurred to her that Timothy might attack her. It was the house and its contents he wanted; her mother’s treasures. Surely she ought to hide them somewhere they couldn’t be found.

Was there no one in Edinburgh she could go to for help? It was then her thoughts turned to Finlay Macdermott. He had been at school with her ex, and one of their greatest friends. It was worth a try.

‘So, what you’re saying is, you need to hide stolen goods, eh!’ The familiar voice rang out of the phone after she called him and explained the situation. To her relief he had sounded pleased to hear from her.

‘Not stolen!’ she protested. ‘They’re mine. Legally. The solicitor said my mother’s things would almost certainly be deemed to be mine as my father disowned them and locked them away. The law would presume he was planning to pass them on to me.’ She wasn’t sure if that bit was true. ‘They’re probably not worth much either, so I am not cheating the government of tax.’

‘Blow the government!’

She realised suddenly how much she had missed Finlay’s irreverent humour, which used to echo so often down the line from Scotland and around their living room in London.

‘I will be over to see you tomorrow, sweetheart. First thing.’

She smiled as he ended the call.

Whatever had precipitated that final quarrel between her parents had echoed in her head forever afterwards. She must have been very young but her mother’s angry denials and pleas and eventual capitulation had haunted her. It was then that her mother’s precious things had first disappeared. Ruth looked round, trying to remember what Lucy had brought to her husband’s Scottish home from her parents’ house in Sussex. One or two of the more robust items were still there, downstairs, the others, the delicate chairs that Ruth as a small child had loved so much, the spindly-legged tables, had vanished overnight. Where were they? There had been portraits of ladies in exotic clothes and bewigged gentlemen and landscapes and drawings and paintings of houses and castles, horses and dogs. Where were those?

There were two boxes of books still in the cupboard, at the very back; presumably Timothy had felt they were valueless. She hauled them out to join the rest of the items on the floor and began to look through them. These were stories of ancient Scotland, the poetry, the works of Sir Walter Scott, a tattered volume entitled The Lives of the Lord Chancellors which had, she assumed, included her mother’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, the same Lord Erskine who had precipitated her father’s rage. She picked them out, handling them with something like reverence. The Lives of the Lord Chancellors was signed by the author, John, Lord Campbell. She stared at the title page in awe. It was a first edition, published in 1847. She flipped open a shabby leather-bound volume of Sir Walter Scott’s Quentin Durward. Another first edition, signed by the author in 1823, and another signed ‘Byron’. She sat back and took a deep breath. Her ancestors had known these people.

When, all those weeks ago in London, she had started the research it had been relatively easy. All she did was call up Lord Erskine on her laptop, after she had threaded her way through all the different men of that name until she had found the one she wanted.

She had clicked on the entry, feeling almost guilty looking him up, but thinking of him as a historical reality helped start to dispel the lingering miasma of superstitious dislike her father had created around his name. This man was someone her mother had been inordinately proud of.

Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine KT PC KC (10 January 1750–17 November 1823) was a British lawyer and politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom between 1806 and 1807 in the Ministry of all the Talents …

He was, it appeared, the son of an earl. That was what her father would have hated most. He would not have resented the fact that the man was a brilliant lawyer, surely, or the fact that to all intents and purposes he was a self-made man. It was the fact that he was the son of the 10th Earl of Buchan, a Scottish aristocrat of ancient lineage, that had got up her father’s nose.

She smiled sadly. Over the last weeks of her father’s life she had put her lurking interest in genealogy to the back of her mind, but suddenly here, tucked into an untidy heap in a long forgotten cupboard box, was all that remained of her mother’s background. She sat cradling Lord Campbell’s book on her knee for several minutes, fighting back her tears, before gently putting it down on the carpet beside her and scrambling to her feet to reach for the writing box.

It was about fifty centimetres long and made of some dark wood, perhaps rosewood or mahogany, inlaid with brass decorations and entwined initials and would when unlocked open to make a writing slope. She lifted it onto the divan. The box was broken. There was a deep splintered gouge around the lock and the delicate mechanism itself had been levered out completely; she found it lying on the floor of the cupboard. The body of the box under the leather and gilt writing surface was empty, as were the surrounding small compartments and drawers. Was it her father who had done this all those years ago, or Timothy on his quiet nights upstairs alone after his host had gone to sleep? Whoever it was had used considerable force to lever it open.

She sat back wondering what, if anything, had been hidden there. There had been a secret drawer in it somewhere. She remembered her mother showing her and chuckling at the little girl’s wonder as it slid out of the side of the box. Picking it up, Ruth shook it experimentally. If there was something inside it would surely rattle. There was no sound. She put it down again and studied it carefully. Where had the secret drawer been? She ran her fingers over every surface. There were no grooves or ridges that she could discern, save for the vicious damage inflicted by chisel or screwdriver; nothing that betrayed any hidden compartment.

Her mother had pressed something. As she cudgelled her memory, an image of the slim questing fingers with their narrow gold wedding ring the only decoration, popped into Ruth’s head. There had been some sort of button inside one of the compartments. There had been a silver-filigree-topped inkbottle there and her mother had lifted it out before pressing the secret place. The inkpot had gone, its former position clearly marked by the faded black stains on the wood. With a sudden surge of hope, Ruth felt the side of the compartment. There was indeed an almost undetectable bump beneath the thin veneer. She pressed it firmly. There was a click but nothing happened.

She pressed again, harder this time. There was no sound. The mechanism, such as it was, had shifted but she couldn’t see any sign of a response. Once more she ran her fingers over the outside of the box and then she felt it: a faint ridge at the bottom of the back panel that hadn’t been there before. She bent closer and tried to insert her fingernail. Slowly and reluctantly a small drawer began to emerge with her coaxing from the body of the box. It was stuffed with some sort of soft material. Intrigued and excited, Ruth unwrapped the delicate silk handkerchief to expose a portrait miniature. She sat staring at the tiny painting in the palm of her hand. It was of a young man; he wore a short white wig, a pale blue coat and a lace ruffle at his throat. She turned it over to see if there was anything written on the back. There wasn’t.

She stared at it for a long time. Whoever had forced open the writing box had missed the secret drawer. She ran her fingers around the back of the drawer once more. It was no more than an inch deep and the handkerchief had stuffed it very tightly, but there was something else wedged in the corner. She pulled out a leather ring box. Inside was a gold signet ring with a blue stone, engraved with some kind of insignia. She slid it onto her forefinger where it hung loosely. The crest, if that was what it was, was difficult to decipher. She would need a better light than this to see clearly what it represented. The last thing in the drawer, also wrapped in a scrap of silk, was a small gold locket on a narrow piece of black ribbon. In it there was a lock of hair.

She felt safest in the kitchen at the back of the house. Pulling down the blind, she put her finds on the kitchen table where the strip-light threw no shadows. Her laptop was already there with the briefcase into which she had thrown all her papers when she had set off north to her father’s bedside. Since then she had been back to London only once, leaving her father in Timothy’s care, more fool her, to arrange the letting of her flat and to collect everything she would need for what she had expected might be a protracted stay in the north. Struggling onto the train with the two large suitcases and her heavy shoulder bag she had wondered if she was mad to bring so much; now she was glad she had.

She set the writing box down on the far side of the table, together with her much-loved teddy bear, and realised that suddenly another emotion was vying with her sadness as she looked from the box to the portrait miniature to the ring. It was excitement. These must have belonged to her ancestors. Her family. The people she wanted to summon from the past to help assuage her loneliness. They were direct links with the story she was now more determined than ever to uncover. Clues. She pulled her laptop forward. Lord Erskine was the most contentious and famous person in the family who she had heard of and she had begun her research into him back in London. Now it was time to reveal the next chapter in his life. She opened her notebook at a new page and reached for her pen.

Thomas

My career has been followed closely by those who study the history of the legal profession and I am flattered by their attention to detail; my own family over generations have made me something of a hero too, to be enshrined in legend and anecdote. Much, I am glad to say, has been forgotten and much buried, but now I sense the moment has come that I had been dreading. Someone is about to uncover the past in more detail than I care to own and it is this great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter of mine. I find myself being drawn ever more closely towards her; she has inherited more of me than I would have thought possible. She is someone who loves to read and search for detail and she has now at her fingertips, if she chooses to read it, a family archive that will reveal everything I had thought forgotten. Now as I watch her pore over the smallest detail of my youth I smile, yes, sometimes I smile, I wince, I begin to recall it all and I recoil as she draws near to events I had thought buried in perpetuity. Is it thus with us all? I think it is. Though perhaps I had more to bury than most and I sense she is not going to be deflected from her quest. But will her determination to uncover my story awaken more memories than my own? There is one particular ghost in my past I would not want roused under any circumstances, ever.

5 (#ulink_8ef49334-2ff6-5cf5-91a9-5189f4e7351d)

1760

‘Mama has said we can go to Cardross!’ David Erskine strode into the room, his hair awry. At seventeen he was the eldest son in the family. His brother Harry was thirteen and Tom was ten. ‘She said it would be wonderful to have us out from under her feet for a few weeks.’

His two brothers glanced at each other, unable to believe their luck. ‘No sisters?’ Harry said cautiously.

David smiled triumphantly. ‘No sisters!’ Their elder sister Anne was twenty-one; Isabella was twenty. ‘They will stay with Mama. She can spend the summer finding husbands for them.’ All three boys sniggered. They knew their sisters’ lack of prospects worried their parents. Anne particularly was studious and religious and she, like them all, had no fortune. Poor Anne was doomed to spinsterhood, but her mother had not given up yet.

David had been working on their plan to escape the confines of the top-floor tenement flat in Gray’s Close for a couple of weeks now, since Tom’s escapade in the High Street. His little brother irritated him enormously, but at base he was only small and his terror at his experience had moved even David. The boy had come home, white with shock and crying, shakily confessing to their parents where he had been and what he had seen.

Satisfied that his son wasn’t able to identify the culprit, and needn’t be called as a witness, his father had on this occasion contented himself with a strong reprimand, hastily brushing aside Tom’s stammered description of the man’s ghostly apparition and wearily agreeing with his eldest son that it would benefit Tom as much if not more than all of them to be free of the claustrophobic confines of the flat for a while. Some good fresh air was what the boy needed to rid him of his dangerously active imagination.

The family castle at Cardross had been sold fifteen years before by their father, and only his elder children, David, Anne and Isabella, could remember it. In David’s case, barely. Neither Henry (Harry to the family), nor Tom, the youngest, had been born. David could still picture the ruinous tower, crumbling walls, miles of wonderful countryside, forest, moorland, wild desolate bog, boating on the loch, freedom. Life in Edinburgh was one long round of constraint for all of them. Their father was charming and vague and kind to his children, preoccupied with his own interests. It was their mother who was strict. It was she who taught them all to read, progressing to Latin and then to her great passion, mathematics. It was she who held the purse strings, she who carefully and methodically eked out their meagre finances, she who, though she knew he would deny it, had persuaded her husband to sell the Cardross estates to his cousin John of Carnock, who, as a popular and brilliant professor of law at the university, earned a large enough salary to run the place. John Carnock, amongst his many other duties, quietly kept a fatherly eye on David, who was one of his students, and on the rest of the Buchan brood. His own children were grown and he pitied his cousin’s young family, cooped up in the rambling flat on the crowded spine of Edinburgh’s heart. He was only too happy to agree to David’s plea and allow the children to escape to their ancestral home for the summer.

The Earl and Countess of Buchan still had some of their estates, the Linlithgowshire acres and Kirkhill House at Broxburn, thirteen miles from Edinburgh, but that too was ruinous and leaked, just as Cardross had done. Agnes, the children’s mother, had hated living in these ancient castles. She loved the sophisticated delights of Edinburgh’s intellectual life, with writers, lawyers, politicians, ministers of the kirk always there, taking tea, dining, discussing excitedly the matters of the moment, the concerts and the theatre. It was a huge relief to her when all that was left of Cardross to the Buchan family was the title. David, as the eldest son, was Lord Cardross; his sisters were Ladies; Harry and Thomas, much to their glee, were styled ‘honourable’.

John Carnock sent the trio off in his coach. He knew Agnes, Presbyterian to the roots of her hair, would not have approved such luxury but he persuaded her that as he was sending a load of books and furniture to Cardross anyway it would be a favour to have David there to see them safely in place and to keep an eye on things. He was refurbishing the castle, he explained to her, and there was no one there from the family to oversee matters as he was spending the summer in town working on his latest book. David, it was made clear, would be expected to watch the builders and report back.

No one, least of all Agnes, expected anything of the sort to happen. The moment the boys set foot outside the coach they were off into the park, laughing and shouting, David, far from keeping an eye on his brothers, a child again in his head, leading the way.

Their first big excursion had to be to his favourite place, the loch and the island on it where Mary Queen of Scots had spent some of her childhood holidays.

The two bigger boys rowed; Tom sat in the bow staring round him in awe. The Loch of Menteith, two miles from Cardross House, was peaceful, surrounded by low hills but with the great peak of Ben Lomond off to the west. There was a gentle breeze wafting the sweet smell of grass and heather towards them across the water as they neared the island of Inchmahome.

From the boat they could just see the grey ruins of the ancient priory through the trees, the clouds dappling shadows over the soaring sunlit arches and broken pillars. In the distance they could see someone from the village fishing from the stern of his boat, but he was far away and paid no attention to the boys. As they drew nearer an osprey plunged into the loch alongside the boat and dragged a fish out of the water, flying away towards the west. The island itself was deserted.

Running the boat ashore, the two elder boys scrambled out eagerly. Cousin John’s housekeeper had placed some bottles of ale into the boat for them, and pausing only to put them into the water at the edge of the loch to keep cool, the two elder boys raced ahead. David turned. ‘Come on, Tom!’ he cried impatiently. Tom was still staring through his little telescope, back the way they had come. He stowed it in his bag and climbed out onto the grassy bank. His brothers didn’t wait for him; they were used to him dawdling behind, his attention taken by every new bird and plant and dragonfly. He had a small notebook which went everywhere with him; in it he would make laborious drawings and sketches of everything he saw, drawings which even David had to admit were not bad.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he made his way after David and Harry along the track towards the ruins of the old priory. The stone arches stood out above the trees, beckoning him on as he followed sturdily in his bothers’ wake, pausing to watch the red squirrels chattering angrily in the sweet chestnut trees and a heron standing motionless near the water’s edge. He dropped further and further behind the others as they raced ahead to explore the ruins, climbing over fallen trees, watching the dragon-flies that hovered over the crystal-clear water of the loch.

He was slowly catching up with them at last when he realised they were not alone. A man in a long black woollen robe was walking under the arch where the west door of the great church had been. Tom stopped, half shy, half scared. They had every right to be there, he knew that, but there was something about the man and his intense self-absorption which excluded the outer world absolutely. He was praying, Tom realised, and completely unaware of their presence.

He watched as the figure walked slowly away from them into the shadows and disappeared. Only when he could no longer see him did he call quietly, ‘Was that a monk?’

David had scrambled up onto the wall of the ancient building, sitting in a window embrasure, his back against the warm stone, his eyes closed against the sunlight. It was Harry who stopped in his tracks. ‘Where?’ He swung round.

‘There. He walked up that way.’ Tom was suddenly flustered. ‘We shouldn’t go after him. I think he was praying.’