Once her guests were tucking in, and the room was awash with clanking cutlery and low chatter, Ruth looked at her son, who was leaning against the counter, staring at his phone. She hoped he wasn’t messaging that wife of his. She wasn’t good for him. But then she wouldn’t be back. Ruth had sent her away when she came looking for him a few weeks back. She’d had an affair – cheated on her son. She no longer deserved him.

‘By the way, everyone,’ she said to her guests, who all looked up. ‘This is my son, Finn.’

He looked up from his phone. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Great to meet you all.’

The lass with the red hair – Amelia – caught his eye, and they exchanged a coy smile.

I’m afraid he’s not available, dear girl. So don’t go getting any ideas.

Chapter 12

A Year Ago

Amelia

Amelia glanced again at Finn who threw her another smile – a nice smile. Despite taking no pride in his appearance, there was something she found cute about him, in a dishevelled kind of way.

‘Finn!’ Ruth was staring at Amelia, something dark in her expression as she turned to her son. ‘The dishwasher needs filling.’

‘Fine.’ He shoved his phone in his pocket. ‘I’ll maybe see you guys at the ghost tour later,’ he said, leaving the dining room.

*

It was almost 9 p.m. and Amelia sat alone on the crumbling wall surrounding the Drummondale House ruins, almost swallowed by darkness. It was cooler than earlier, and she was huddled into her duffel coat, her phone torch barely lighting the area.

She shuddered as the moon peeped out from behind a cloud, picking out the jagged shapes of decaying walls and broken statues. The thought of exploring the woods searching for phantoms wasn’t her idea of fun. She was sceptical, and not at all interested in anything supernatural, but also acknowledged the whole subject gave her the heebie-jeebies.

Her mum had been a member of the Berwick-upon-Tweed Paranormal Society before she’d moved to Tweedmouth to live with Jackson. She had always been a fan of TV shows that saw celebrities creeping round allegedly haunted locations in the dark, jumping at noises and shadows. Once, some years ago, her mum came to London to visit Amelia, and they’d taken a ghost tour around Hampton Court after dark. It had frightened Amelia, and she vowed she would never do anything like it again. Yet here she was, doing it for her mum. But then she had to really. Thomas couldn’t – Finn had told him his wheelchair wouldn’t be suitable for the route, and Maddie had insisted she should stay with him, and was now probably curled by the fire, updating her video log.