The Ghost Tree: Gripping historical fiction from the Sunday Times Bestseller. Barbara Erskine

lurking interest in genealogy to the back of her mind, but suddenly here, tucked into an untidy heap in a long forgotten cupboard box, was all that remained of her mother’s background. She sat cradling Lord Campbell’s book on her knee for several minutes, fighting back her tears, before gently putting it down on the carpet beside her and scrambling to her feet to reach for the writing box.

      It was about fifty centimetres long and made of some dark wood, perhaps rosewood or mahogany, inlaid with brass decorations and entwined initials and would when unlocked open to make a writing slope. She lifted it onto the divan. The box was broken. There was a deep splintered gouge around the lock and the delicate mechanism itself had been levered out completely; she found it lying on the floor of the cupboard. The body of the box under the leather and gilt writing surface was empty, as were the surrounding small compartments and drawers. Was it her father who had done this all those years ago, or Timothy on his quiet nights upstairs alone after his host had gone to sleep? Whoever it was had used considerable force to lever it open.

      She sat back wondering what, if anything, had been hidden there. There had been a secret drawer in it somewhere. She remembered her mother showing her and chuckling at the little girl’s wonder as it slid out of the side of the box. Picking it up, Ruth shook it experimentally. If there was something inside it would surely rattle. There was no sound. She put it down again and studied it carefully. Where had the secret drawer been? She ran her fingers over every surface. There were no grooves or ridges that she could discern, save for the vicious damage inflicted by chisel or screwdriver; nothing that betrayed any hidden compartment.

      Her mother had pressed something. As she cudgelled her memory, an image of the slim questing fingers with their narrow gold wedding ring the only decoration, popped into Ruth’s head. There had been some sort of button inside one of the compartments. There had been a silver-filigree-topped inkbottle there and her mother had lifted it out before pressing the secret place. The inkpot had gone, its former position clearly marked by the faded black stains on the wood. With a sudden surge of hope, Ruth felt the side of the compartment. There was indeed an almost undetectable bump beneath the thin veneer. She pressed it firmly. There was a click but nothing happened.

      She pressed again, harder this time. There was no sound. The mechanism, such as it was, had shifted but she couldn’t see any sign of a response. Once more she ran her fingers over the outside of the box and then she felt it: a faint ridge at the bottom of the back panel that hadn’t been there before. She bent closer and tried to insert her fingernail. Slowly and reluctantly a small drawer began to emerge with her coaxing from the body of the box. It was stuffed with some sort of soft material. Intrigued and excited, Ruth unwrapped the delicate silk handkerchief to expose a portrait miniature. She sat staring at the tiny painting in the palm of her hand. It was of a young man; he wore a short white wig, a pale blue coat and a lace ruffle at his throat. She turned it over to see if there was anything written on the back. There wasn’t.

      She stared at it for a long time. Whoever had forced open the writing box had missed the secret drawer. She ran her fingers around the back of the drawer once more. It was no more than an inch deep and the handkerchief had stuffed it very tightly, but there was something else wedged in the corner. She pulled out a leather ring box. Inside was a gold signet ring with a blue stone, engraved with some kind of insignia. She slid it onto her forefinger where it hung loosely. The crest, if that was what it was, was difficult to decipher. She would need a better light than this to see clearly what it represented. The last thing in the drawer, also wrapped in a scrap of silk, was a small gold locket on a narrow piece of black ribbon. In it there was a lock of hair.

      She felt safest in the kitchen at the back of the house. Pulling down the blind, she put her finds on the kitchen table where the strip-light threw no shadows. Her laptop was already there with the briefcase into which she had thrown all her papers when she had set off north to her father’s bedside. Since then she had been back to London only once, leaving her father in Timothy’s care, more fool her, to arrange the letting of her flat and to collect everything she would need for what she had expected might be a protracted stay in the north. Struggling onto the train with the two large suitcases and her heavy shoulder bag she had wondered if she was mad to bring so much; now she was glad she had.

      She set the writing box down on the far side of the table, together with her much-loved teddy bear, and realised that suddenly another emotion was vying with her sadness as she looked from the box to the portrait miniature to the ring. It was excitement. These must have belonged to her ancestors. Her family. The people she wanted to summon from the past to help assuage her loneliness. They were direct links with the story she was now more determined than ever to uncover. Clues. She pulled her laptop forward. Lord Erskine was the most contentious and famous person in the family who she had heard of and she had begun her research into him back in London. Now it was time to reveal the next chapter in his life. She opened her notebook at a new page and reached for her pen.

       Thomas

       My career has been followed closely by those who study the history of the legal profession and I am flattered by their attention to detail; my own family over generations have made me something of a hero too, to be enshrined in legend and anecdote. Much, I am glad to say, has been forgotten and much buried, but now I sense the moment has come that I had been dreading. Someone is about to uncover the past in more detail than I care to own and it is this great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter of mine. I find myself being drawn ever more closely towards her; she has inherited more of me than I would have thought possible. She is someone who loves to read and search for detail and she has now at her fingertips, if she chooses to read it, a family archive that will reveal everything I had thought forgotten. Now as I watch her pore over the smallest detail of my youth I smile, yes, sometimes I smile, I wince, I begin to recall it all and I recoil as she draws near to events I had thought buried in perpetuity. Is it thus with us all? I think it is. Though perhaps I had more to bury than most and I sense she is not going to be deflected from her quest. But will her determination to uncover my story awaken more memories than my own? There is one particular ghost in my past I would not want roused under any circumstances, ever.

       5

       1760

      ‘Mama has said we can go to Cardross!’ David Erskine strode into the room, his hair awry. At seventeen he was the eldest son in the family. His brother Harry was thirteen and Tom was ten. ‘She said it would be wonderful to have us out from under her feet for a few weeks.’

      His two brothers glanced at each other, unable to believe their luck. ‘No sisters?’ Harry said cautiously.

      David smiled triumphantly. ‘No sisters!’ Their elder sister Anne was twenty-one; Isabella was twenty. ‘They will stay with Mama. She can spend the summer finding husbands for them.’ All three boys sniggered. They knew their sisters’ lack of prospects worried their parents. Anne particularly was studious and religious and she, like them all, had no fortune. Poor Anne was doomed to spinsterhood, but her mother had not given up yet.

      David had been working on their plan to escape the confines of the top-floor tenement flat in Gray’s Close for a couple of weeks now, since Tom’s escapade in the High Street. His little brother irritated him enormously, but at base he was only small and his terror at his experience had moved even David. The boy had come home, white with shock and crying, shakily confessing to their parents where he had been and what he had seen.

      Satisfied that his son wasn’t able to identify the culprit, and needn’t be called as a witness, his father had on this occasion contented himself with a strong reprimand, hastily brushing aside Tom’s stammered description of the man’s ghostly apparition and wearily agreeing with his eldest son that it would benefit