“It’s all pure speculation.” Lucy took her mug and Cleo’s over to the dishwasher and stashed them away. “Are you feeling okay now?” she added, seeing Cleo yawning widely. “Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?”

Cleo nodded. “I’m sure I will, barring any visits from the local ghosts.”

Lucy double-checked that the door was bolted and the two of them made their way back upstairs.

“Good night,” Cleo said, smothering another yawn.

Lucy, in contrast, felt annoyingly wide awake. She checked the time and decided to call Verity.

“Lucy!” Her aunt answered immediately, sounding thrilled to hear from her. “How are you? Isn’t it the middle of the night in England?”

“It’s pretty late,” Lucy said with a smile. “Cleo’s here and we’ve been talking so I’m a bit wired. I thought it would be nice to chat before I went to bed, if that’s convenient with you.”

“Sure,” Verity said. “I’ve got fifteen minutes before my next meeting. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“Well, I went to Chastleton House today,” Lucy said.

“Ah, the Catesby connection!” Verity said. “Isn’t it gorgeous? Although of course the present house was built after Robert Catesby sold it.”

“I’m fascinated by Catherine Catesby’s story,” Lucy said. “I’ve been learning a lot about her since I got here. I was going to ask you...” She hesitated. “You know I mentioned a little while ago that I thought I’d seen Catherine’s ghost? You didn’t say anything at the time, but I wondered whether you had ever had any supernatural experiences at Gunpowder Cottage or the barn?”

There was a brief pause, then Verity sighed. “As you’ve asked me directly,” she said, “I’m not going to lie. The only reason I didn’t tell you when you mentioned it before was because I hoped the whole thing would settle down and you wouldn’t have anything supernatural to contend with. That was why I wanted you in the cottage, not the barn; God knows, you need a restful break, not to be ghost hunting.”

“So you already knew about Catherine,” Lucy said.

Verity sighed again. “Until a year or two ago,” she said, “I had no idea. There was one instance of haunting that I’d heard of—” her voice changed “—but I’ll come back to that. I never saw or heard anything paranormal myself despite the age of the Gunpowder Cottage and the number of years I’d lived there, but the barn was a different story...” She took a breath. “Before we opened it to the public I spent a few nights down there. I’d just lost a big contract, made a really bad judgment call and lost the respect of a company I’d worked with for years. I felt pretty lousy to be honest. I almost threw in the towel on my whole career.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said, astonished. Verity had always seemed so confident, so together. It was hard to imagine her aunt losing her self-belief.

“That was one of the reasons I wanted to give you somewhere you could go to have a bit of breathing space after you were ill,” Verity said. “I know it can be tough when life knocks you. Anyway, I was moping around, feeling angry with myself and upset as well. I started to imagine that I could hear a woman crying sometimes at night and then occasionally I thought I could see her as well, wandering through the orchard. It was all rather disconcerting.”