Ghost Walk by Alanna Knight

house.’
    ‘With the master bedroom right between us, who needs a chaperone?’ said Jack with a groan. ‘Those damned old floor boards creak like the wrath of God.’
    As his parents entered, he managed a stage-whisper. ‘Keep your thoughts to yourself about Father McQuinn. Not another word – understand – about thinking this was murder.’
    I wasn’t thinking. I was sure it was murder.
    Somehow we got through the social part of what was left of the evening while Jack and his parents pulled the world apart and put it together again, in Eildon and elsewhere. Inevitably there was a lot of talk about Jack as a bairn, the sort of family history no bride to be can do without. How proud they were! From Police Constable to Detective Sergeant and now promoted to Detective Inspector.
    I smiled when they looked in my direction, those more urgent forbidden questions unanswered burning inside of me. Or was it heartburn from the strong drams that were being offered as a celebration of Jack’s return and our approaching nuptials? After all, this was something of an occasion, the first time we had beenunited under the family roof.
    We had a moment together as his mother went upstairs ‘to see to things’ and his father sternly led the reluctant Whisky and Soda outside ‘to do what dogs had to do,’ and took Rex with him to check the farm gates were locked.
    Jack seized my hand across the table. ‘They’re so proud of you,’ he sighed happily. ‘Everyone in Eildon knows you are Inspector Faro’s daughter.’
    ‘But not apparently that I am a widow.’
    Jack frowned. ‘How’s that?’
    ‘As I am being introduced as Miss Faro, it seems that my marriage has been carefully removed from the record.’
    Jack shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Yes, well, you know what Ma’s like.’
    I didn’t but I was learning fast.
    Observing my grim expression, Jack said hastily, ‘Mothers can be tricky. I expect she didn’t want the world to know that her son was marrying a – well, a widow.’ He managed to make it sound quite improper! ‘It’s just a mother’s pride, only son and all that. No harm in it at all.’ And shaking his head sadly, ‘She’s very sensitive –’
    She wasn’t the only one, I thought indignantly, giving him a sharp glance.
    Clearing his throat as he did when he was embarrassed, Jack continued: ‘You know how people talk in small communities, especially knowing you were related to the Catholic priest – with Da an elder of the kirk and that sort of thing.’
    ‘How will it be explained in our banns being read each Sunday?’
    ‘Not at all. It’s quite normal for just the Christian and maiden name to be read out.’
    As footsteps announced the returning parents, I guessed sadly that Jack wasn’t too disappointed at his mother’s authorised version of my life. What sort of a family was I marrying into, forheaven’s sake? Were they direct descendants of the ostrich genus?
    Jack smiled. ‘Time for bed.’
    And so it was. His mother followed us upstairs close on our heels and held open the door of my room, averting her eyes from Jack’s necessarily chaste goodnight kiss.
    As I closed the door, my last sight was of her leading him along the corridor to his own bedroom, so proudly, like a return to the childhood he had left a very long time ago.
    The cosy scene even had the suggestion that a bedtime story might be on the cards.
    As I sat down on the bed, I was so lonely. At that moment I had had enough of the Macmerrys. I longed for my bedroom in Solomon’s Tower. I longed for Arthur’s Seat and thought of Thane sharing his sleeping quarters in the stable with a horse called Charity.
    Exhausted and lulled by drams, I thought sleep would be immediate. That was not the case as my mind kept returning to the housekeeper’s story.
    Whatever her devotion to Father McQuinn, he had been murdered . As it was beyond belief that she should have hit him over the head with the altar candlestick in a fit of anger, the