“Oh no, thank you. I don’t need anything.” I turned from one to the other. “Thank you for everything. You’ve been most kind.”

“Delighted to have company,” Oona said. “It livens up our boring lives, doesn’t it, Dooley?”

“Oh rather!” he replied.

I went up to bed, undressed and climbed in quickly as the room was chilly. No sooner had my head touched the pillow than I was out like a light.

I awoke suddenly, not knowing what had disturbed me. It was pitch-dark in the room, but somehow I was conscious that I wasn’t alone. Someone was standing at the foot of my bed. My first thought was that Sir Dooley had crept in, hoping for a bit of nighttime hanky-panky. But he was a frail-looking little man and the vague outline I could make out in the darkness was bigger than him.

So I moved on to my next thought: that my visitor was the ghost that haunted this room. I listened for the sound of breathing but heard nothing. Having grown up in a Scottish castle reputedly haunted by several ghosts, I wasn’t as terrified as some people might have been. All the same, I wasn’t exactly easy with a ghost standing at the foot of my bed. What did one do to make a ghost go away? Hold up a cross? No, that wouldn’t work, because plenty of ghosts were nuns and monks. My brain was refusing to work. Garlic? No, that was vampires, and besides, I didn’t happen to have any garlic among my possessions. I tried to remember what I might have read about exorcisms. Begone, foul fiend, and all that sort of stuff. Maybe this was a harmless ghost, just curious about me. Maybe it wasn’t. Unfortunately it was standing between me and the door.

I decided on the element of surprise. If I sat up suddenly and shouted at it, it might decide to leave. And at the very least, the dogs would hear and bring Oona or Dooley. I took a deep breath and sat up. “Begone, foul fiend!” I said in my most dramatic voice. “Go back to the netherworld from which you came and leave me in peace!”

The speech didn’t exactly have the effect I wanted, as the ghost gave a little shriek and promptly burst into tears. What was more, the accent was decidedly not Irish. “Bloody hell, miss,” she said between heaving sobs. “You scared the living daylights out of me. And after I came all this way too.”

I reached for the bedside lamp and the room was bathed in a soft pink glow.

“Queenie?” I exclaimed.