I needed a walk to stretch my legs and get some fresh air to clear my head. I wanted a bit of time by myself to think about the situation, too.

In the County, it usually got chilly after dark, even in summer, but this was a warm night in late August—probably the last of the good weather before the autumn cooled the air, ready for winter.

I came to a slope that offered a spectacular view of a valley; the range of hills in the distance was bathed in moonlight. It was something that cried out to be painted, and it held my attention for a long time.

Since John Gregory’s death, I’d changed a good deal. I still felt a sense of loss—I really missed him—but along with that, there was also anger. A friend had been taken from me, as well as a master. I now spent most of my days alone, with a lot of time to brood on things, but there was one source of solace. Increasingly, I’d come to appreciate the beauty of the countryside, with its varied landscape of meadows, woods, fells, and marshes. This view at Kirkby Lonsdale was as good as anything I’d seen, if not better.

My mind wandered back to the cause of Miriam’s death, and I sat down on a tree stump to allow my mind to mull over the situation. The girl had been young and strong, so there was a possibility of foul play. It wasn’t unknown for a murderer to hide his own involvement by blaming witchcraft or some other supernatural occurrence. But there had been no wound . . . maybe she’d been poisoned . . . or it could have been a natural death, and the horror of dying in pain was what had brought that expression to her face.

I hoped to find out the truth soon enough. It all depended on what the ghost remembered of her own death.

After a while I retraced my steps through the churchyard and went back up to the haunted room. I closed the curtains, then pulled off my hooded cloak, hanging it on a hook on the back of the door. Next I tugged off my boots and lay down on the bed, fully clothed and ready for action. I was slightly nervous, as I always am when dealing with spook’s business, but I wasn’t afraid. I’d dealt with lots of ghosts before.

I’ve always been good at seeing in near darkness, and once my eyes had adjusted to the faint moonlight filtering through the curtains, I studied the room carefully. There were shadows in the corners—a particularly dark one just below the window. I spent some time trying to work out whether it was natural or not. It wasn’t. After a while, satisfied that it was nothing to be concerned about, I listened carefully. Sometimes you could hear ghosts before they wanted you to. Some rapped softly on doors or walls; others pattered across the floorboards, sometimes almost indistinguishable from mice.