Effie rattled her cup in her saucer. ‘Does anyone want to hear my vision or not? ’

Ina settled onto the couch next to Logan. ‘Effie’s visions are remarkably accurate.’

‘How did you know it was her? The picture’s not even been on the news yet.’

‘Oh, Mary heard about it on the radio and I looked it up on the internet. We do most of our business online these days.’

Effie cleared her throat. ‘I walked across a field of gold, towards a huge dog with knives for teeth. Five leaves I counted in the glaring light and five doors too. I fought with a ghost for the price of my soul, but they beat me. Bound me. And drowned me in the pale white deep.’

Silence settled into the baking hot room.

What a load of old bollocks.

Logan finished his shortbread. ‘Can you tell me where your mother was buried? ’

Ina patted him on the knee. ‘She was a very influential witch, you know. Agnes Gray was a power in this land.’

Mary nodded. ‘People came from as far away as Rhynie and Oldmeldrum seeking her help.’

‘Of course, things are different now.’ Ina peeled the marzipan from a slice of Battenberg. ‘The internet’s a wonderful thing – we do spells for people in Australia and California and Moscow.’

Logan put his tea down. ‘Spells. . .’

Mary held up her hand as her sister, Effie, drifted off to sleep again. ‘Don’t worry, we always use our powers for good. And we only ever curse people who deserve it, don’t we, Ina? ’

‘Oh yes, we’re very responsible that way. Saddam Hussein, was one of Effie’s.’

Nuttier than a bag of squirrels.

‘Do you remember where your mother was buried? ’

The strip of marzipan was rolled up into a ball, then popped in whole. ‘She dug Mother up, didn’t she: the Garfield girl? ’

‘You know her? ’

Ina laughed, setting the loose skin under her chin wobbling. ‘Oh, our wee Agnes is something, isn’t she? ’

Mary sighed. ‘So much talent for someone so young. She’d read all about Mother in the library. Well, ever since that dreadful Witchfire book came out, everyone wants to know about our family. . . Agnes was convinced she and Mother were spiritually linked, because they had the same first name. So we took her under our wings.’

‘Taught her the importance of herbs, the secrets of consecrated ground, and the power of bones.’

‘You see, that’s why you haven’t found her. When a witch digs up bones from a graveyard they contain power. And if a normal person’s bones have power, imagine how much the bones of a witch contain.’

‘And Mother was a very powerful witch.’

Make that two bags of squirrels.

But it did explain why Agnes Garfield had dug up Nicholas Balfour. If you couldn’t find a dead witch to exhume, a Victorian spiritualist was probably better than nothing.