The next time she had seen them was after she and Mat had moved in and were living here. The family were standing in the ruins which formed the base of the rockery and the archway which she and Mat reckoned was an eighteenth-century folly. They were with a man and when Cal accosted the group they disappeared in front of her eyes, one moment there, the next vanished without trace. When she had got over her shock she had studied the ground where they had been standing, muddy, rain-puddled earth, and there were no foot-prints and it was only then that she realised that though she was wet through as the rain beat down on the garden, the three visitors had been bone dry and she had had the distinct impression that where they were, wherever that was, the sun had been shining.

Mat’s younger brother Justin had been staying in the house then and he saw the figures the next day. ‘Don’t worry, Cal. They are harmless. Just stuck between worlds. They can’t see you. I’ll see if I can talk to them, find out why they are still here, help them to move on.’

But the next day he had had one of his monumental rows with Mat and packed his gear and left. They had no idea where he had gone. They hadn’t heard from him in months. But that was Justin all over. And it meant that no-one had tried to talk to the ghosts. She had seen them again only a few weeks ago. This time she had tiptoed away and told no-one, not even Mat. Better that way.

‘The ruins out at the back there are part of a Roman villa,’ Mat went on, squatting down opposite Abi to throw a couple of logs onto the fire. ‘We thought it was a folly dating from the time when some ancestors of ours had pretensions to grandeur a couple of hundred or so years ago, but apparently not. A local archaeologist came up and showed us how it all worked. There has been a settlement here for a couple of thousand years at least, probably longer – since the Iron Age. We’ve dug up all sorts of bits of pottery and coins in the flowerbeds, most of them Roman or medieval, but some of the pot-sherds were even older. They match up with stuff found in the Lake Villages out there on the levels.’ He waved an arm vaguely towards Glastonbury. ‘Exciting, really.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve no idea when our ghosts lived here, but we’re pretty sure they were Roman or Romano-British. Their clothes seem to fit into that era, according to Cal.’ He glanced up at Abi and she saw his eyes narrow briefly as though he were trying to make up his mind whether to confide in her. ‘I’ve discovered the clergy fall into two more or less distinct groups,’ he went on cautiously. ‘Those who believe in ghosts and those who don’t. Ben does, but doesn’t believe in interfering, I’m glad to say. If any exorcisms are needed in his parish he will go and pray with people but if anything more complicated is needed he passes it over to the relevant authorities who have health and safety clearance and follow EU guidelines on spirit disposal and recycling.’ He smiled again. ‘Do you have strong views on any of this?’

Abi grinned. She thought for a minute. ‘Up to a few weeks ago I had never knowingly seen a ghost. I think I have always been aware of them. I’ve sensed them, maybe glimpsed them, but never enough to be sure. Then I saw a whole church full of them in my last parish.’ Her last parish! It made her sound as though she had had dozens of parishes. ‘I don’t really know what I think, to be honest. None of them looked as though they needed exorcising. And neither did the lady and the little girl here. They just looked as though they were getting on with doing their own thing.’

Cal turned away from the stove on the far side of the room and nodded. ‘I think that is exactly what is happening. They mind their own business and we mind ours. They have never done us any harm.’

‘Do you see them often?’ Abi cupped her glass of wine in her hands and stared down into it thoughtfully.

Cal shook her head. ‘Every few months perhaps. When I am busy and concentrating on what I am doing either I don’t notice them or perhaps they aren’t there, I don’t know. When I have seen them it has been when I have been standing with my mind a blank.’ She chortled. ‘I do that less now. There is so much to get on with all the time.’ She turned back to the cooker and lifted off a heavy pan, taking it to the sink to drain. ‘Mat has never seen them.’

‘Why do I take that as being a criticism?’ Mat said mildly.

‘It’s not meant that way,’ Cal called. She had dropped a lump of butter into the pan with some creamy milk and was energetically beginning to mash the potatoes.

‘They spoke English,’ Abi said after a moment. ‘It sounded like normal English to me. The little girl with the limp was called Petronilla.’

Mat and Cal stared at her. ‘You spoke to them?’ Cal said after a minute. Her voice had dropped to an awed whisper.

Abi shook her head. ‘No. Or at least I did but they didn’t seem to hear me. I just listened to what they were saying. The little girl was calling her mother.’

‘I never saw a little girl,’ Cal said. She had abandoned her potatoes. She pulled a chair away from the table and dragged it over to Abi. Sitting down she stared at Abi’s face with such intense concentration that Abi looked away embarrassed. ‘And I never heard them say a word. They spoke English with no accent?’

Abi nodded.

‘So much for the Roman theory,’ Mat said. He seemed disappointed. ‘They must be far more recent.’ He didn’t seem to doubt that they were ghosts.

Cal stood up and went back to her pan. She ground some pepper over it, then put down the grinder and came back to the fire. ‘The little girl was limping, you say?’

Abi nodded. ‘She looked very ill.’ She was beginning to feel guilty. She seemed to have destroyed some pet theory. ‘Have you never seen them in the house?’ she asked after a moment’s thought.

Cal shook her head.

‘And have there never been any reports of other people seeing them? Usually places get a reputation for being haunted, don’t they? A reputation which goes back for years.’

Mat sighed. ‘There have been lots of stories. But then, as you say, all old houses accrue these legends. There is one particular mention in an old book we’ve got – where is it Cal, can you remember? – I think that was where we got the idea that they were Roman.’

‘It’s in the study.’ Cal turned back to her pan yet again. ‘We’ll look for it later. Come on, folks. Let’s eat, then we’ll see what it says while we have our coffee.’

The book was printed in 1798.

‘Well, that takes the legend way back,’ Cal said as she turned the pages, looking for the entry. ‘Here we are. “The ruins are haunted by the ghosts of generations of Roman men and women who made our country their own. From time to time on moonlit nights they may be espied drifting through the remains of this once great house and their cries may be heard in the mists as melancholy as the call of the owls who haunt, no, hunt, the fields. Who knows, perhaps the great King Arthur himself stayed here on the way back to Avalon.”‘ She looked up and smiled. ‘I take it your guy didn’t look like King Arthur?’

Abi shook her head. She was leaning back in the chair, cradling a cup of coffee on her knee feeling extremely happy. The dogs were asleep at their feet in front of the fire. ‘No, he looked like a harassed family man. Not a knight or a round table in sight.’

‘The fact that they talk about generations of Romans, and then King Arthur means they don’t actually have a clue who the ghosts are,’ Mat put in. He had inserted himself into a high-backed settle against the wall. He held out his hand for the book. Flipping back to the flyleaf he squinted at it. ‘There are all sorts of inscriptions here, most of them smudged. The first owner of the book seems to have been an Edward Cavendish, then a Benjamin. Then a Maria.’ He smiled. ‘A bit like a family Bible. They all stake their claim in turn. I wonder how many of them saw them.’ He passed the book over to Abi. She held it for a moment uncomfortably. The leather cover was unexpectedly cold and damp and it smelled musty. Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of unhappiness Abi hastily put it down, resisting the urge to wipe her hands on her jeans as she stared down at it, puzzled.

Cal had been watching her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m not sure. It’s just – I felt strange for a moment. I’m tired. I’m sorry. I suppose the long drive and everything that has been happening are catching up with me a bit. Would you think me very rude if I went up?’

‘Of course not,’ Cal said sympathetically. ‘You must do whatever you like here, Abi. Our home is your home. We’ll see you in the morning.’

They waited until she had closed the door behind her, then Mat and Cal exchanged glances. Cal leaned forward and picked up the book. She held it for a few moments thoughtfully. ‘What was it she felt?’ she said quietly.

Mat shrugged. ‘Something pretty horrible. Does it feel strange to you?’

Cal shook her head. She was holding the book in both hands, turning it around. ‘She’s very psychic, isn’t she. Ben did say the bishop was worried.’ With a shrug she put the book down. ‘Do you think we ought to tell Ben when he comes over tomorrow?’

‘It might be good to let it come up in the conversation naturally with her there.’ Mat stood up and stretched. Immediately the two dogs rose to their feet, tails wagging. ‘I’ll take them for a walk up the drive before bed. You go on up.’ He reached for the fireguard and hauled it into place in front of the dying embers. ‘It looks as though our guest is going to prove quite interesting.’ He winked at her as he made his way to the door. ‘Perhaps she will be the one finally to unravel the story of those poor, cold souls out there in the garden.’

6

‘What is wrong, Mama?’ Petra looked up from the fire where she was sitting huddled in a cocoon of sheepskins and woven rugs. It had been a wet summer and now it was a wet autumn, the fens still lakes, the fields puddled. The colours of the dogwoods and maples on the slopes of the hills were already brilliant against the clouds when the sun appeared, but tonight as on so many nights, everything was awash. The summer country had not dried out this year.