company in Manchester and wanted me to contact them direct with payment details and ID rather than sending all the paperwork up to Scotland. I had expected the process to be a major stumbling block, maybe even requiring me to travel to Manchester for an interview in person, but in the end it was surprisingly, almost disconcertingly simple—I forwarded them Sandra’s email with a reference number, and then when they replied, I sent the passport scan, utility bills, and bank details they requested. It went through without a hitch. Like it was meant to be.
The ghosts wouldn’t like it.
The phrase floated through my head, spoken in Maddie’s reedy little voice, its childlike quaver lending the words an eeriness I would normally have shrugged off.
But that was bollocks. Utter bollocks. I hadn’t seen a whiff of the supernatural the whole time I was in Carn Bridge. More likely it was just a cover story seized on by homesick au pairs, girls barely out of their teens with poor English, unable to cope with the isolation and remote location. I’d seen enough of them working at places in London to know the drill—I’d even picked up some emergency work when they scarpered in the night with the return half of their plane ticket, leaving the parents to pick up the pieces. It wasn’t uncommon.
I was considerably older and wiser than that, and I had very good reasons for wanting to make this work. No amount of alleged “haunting” was going to make me turn this chance down.
I look back, and I want to shake that smug young woman, sitting in her London flat, thinking she knew it all, had seen it all.
I want to slap her face and tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Because I was wrong, Mr. Wrexham. I was very, very wrong.
Less than three weeks later, I was standing on Carn Bridge station platform, surrounded by more cases and boxes than it seemed possible for one person to carry.
When Jack came striding up the platform, car keys jangling in his hand, he actually broke into a laugh.
“Christ, how did you get all that across London?”
“Slowly,” I said honestly. “And painfully. I took a taxi, but it was a bloody nightmare.”
“Aye, well, you’re here now,” he said, and took my largest two cases, giving me a friendly shove when I tried to take the smaller one back off him. “No, no, you take those others.”
“Please be careful,” I said anxiously. “They’re really heavy. I don’t want you to put your back out.”
He grinned, as if the possibility was so remote as to be laughable.
“Come on, car’s this way.”
It had been another glorious day—hot and sunny—and although the sun was beginning to sink towards the horizon and the shadows were growing longer, the gorse was still popping audibly as we drove silently through the wooded lanes and moorland roads towards Heatherbrae. The house, as we drove up the drive, was even more beautiful than I had remembered, basking in evening sunshine, the doors flung open and the dogs running everywhere, barking their heads off. It suddenly occurred to me, with a little jolt, that I would presumably be in charge of the dogs as well as the kids, when Sandra and Bill were away. Or maybe that was Jack’s job too? I would have to find out. Two children and a baby were in my comfort zone. A teen as well, I could just about manage. At least, I hoped I could. But add in two boisterous dogs, and I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed.
“Rowan!” Sandra came running out the front door, her arms outstretched, and before I was fully out of the car she had enveloped me in a maternal hug. Then, she stood back and waved her hand at a figure standing in the shadows of the porch—a tall man, balding slightly, with close-shaven hair.
“Rowan, this is my husband, Bill. Bill—meet Rowan Caine.”
So this—this was Bill Elincourt. For a moment I couldn’t think of what to say; I just stood there, awkwardly conscious of Sandra’s arm around me, not sure of whether I should break away from her grip to go and greet him or—
I was still frozen in indecision when he solved the issue by striding towards me, sticking out his hand and giving me a quick, businesslike smile.
“Rowan. Good to meet you at last. Sandra’s told me all about you. You have a very impressive résumé.”