Sleeper’s Castle: An epic historical romance from the Sunday Times bestseller. Barbara Erskine

was watching Andy with an interested, narrowed gaze. ‘Is she still planning to stay away for a year? She was afraid she would have to cut the visit short.’

      ‘A year is what she told me,’ Andy agreed. ‘I hope Pepper can cope with that.’

      Sian smiled. ‘I’m sure he can. She had two main concerns when she was planning this trip: Pepper and her car. Last I heard, the idea was that she would leave the car with a friend who lives down south. He was going to pick it up from Heathrow and take care of it for her. And you have clearly solved the Pepper problem.’

      Andy smiled as a spatter of rain rattled against the window. ‘So no worries then. I can just imagine her saying those words! She was gone the second I arrived. I think she had more or less resigned herself to changing her plans then someone told her I might be in the market for a new home urgently, she rang and we settled it then and there. She got a cancellation on a flight. There was virtually no time to discuss anything.’

      ‘The gods were with you both.’ Sian gave a thoughtful smile. ‘There are very few people she would entrust Pepper to.’

      They both looked at him. As if overwhelmed by the unexpected attention he stood up, stretched and jumped off his chair. He walked to the door and with great dignity pushed out through the cat flap. ‘I hope she’s left food and instructions for feeding him,’ Andy said. ‘We didn’t even have time to talk about that. It took longer than I remembered driving here, so I was very late. She was terrified of missing the plane.’

      ‘I’m sure she made it.’ Sian smiled again. She stood up, walked over to the dresser and pulled open one of the drawers. Inside were boxes of tuna and rabbit biscuits, little trays of gourmet cat food and a couple of cartons of cat milk.

      ‘So Pepper is catered for.’ Andy was relieved.

      ‘And here are your instructions.’ Sian had found a piece of paper on the worktop. Pepper, it said. Breakfast, lunch and supper. ‘Quite the spoiled brat, our Culpepper.’

      Andy took the paper, grateful that her visitor seemed to know her way round. ‘This kitchen has changed so much since I was here last. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.’

      Sian gave a snort of laughter. ‘She was left some money by an ancient relative and she couldn’t decide what to spend it on. Sue is one of those incredible people who has everything she wants in life. Her herbs are her life. She is extraordinarily self-contained. I think she consulted Pepper, who decided an upgrade of kitchen would be good.’

      ‘I can believe that.’

      ‘And you’re not regretting coming up here, now you’ve had time to reconsider your impulsive decision?’

      Andy shook her head. ‘Hardly. I’ve barely been here a few hours.’

      ‘Not everyone is as independent as Sue.’ Sian hesitated. ‘Old houses can be a bit spooky.’

      ‘It’s certainly atmospheric,’ Andy reached for her glass and took a sip.

      ‘And utterly beautiful.’

      ‘But you find it spooky?’

      ‘Sorry, that was a silly thing to say. I meant, it’s a bit isolated if you’re on your own. No, I don’t think it’s spooky. If there ever was a ghost here I think it would have been far more afraid of Sue than she would be of it. She would swear roundly in Australian and tell it where to go.’ Sian laughed again and ran her finger round the rim of her glass. ‘So, do you believe in them?’ The question was almost too casual.

      ‘Ghosts?’ Andy pulled a noncommittal face. ‘Actually, I made a bit of a study of them once.’

      Once. She caught herself using the word with something like shock. Before Graham. So much that she had once thought important in her life had been before Graham. Their life together had absorbed her totally, taken up every second, monopolised her existence. She hadn’t been aware of how much. For the first time since his death she realised that in every sense she was free now. Was she frightened or exhilarated by the thought? She wasn’t entirely sure.

      Sian was still studying her and Andy looked away, embarrassed that her face had betrayed too much. ‘One of those things one pursues frenziedly in one’s youth and then life and perhaps a certain cynicism kick in and the books get put away.’ She gave a rueful smile.

      Ghosts had been her father’s passion and she had grown up enjoying his stories, his theories, the frissons they had shared on ghost-hunting trips. She had never been quite sure whether she believed in them herself, but the study of phenomena of a ghostly kind had absorbed her for a long time. Those books had been left with her mother. Graham had not liked ghosts. They gave him the creeps and therefore could not be discussed even in the abstract. Ghosts and meditation and psychology and anything he considered even remotely out of the ordinary on the paranormal scale of things had been out of bounds.

      Sian nodded sagely. ‘It’s sad how one’s early enthusiasms wane.’ She changed the subject abruptly. ‘That’s Sue’s strength and blessing. She has retained her childlike passion for her herbalism.’

      That was how Andy and Sue had met originally. Sue was an old friend of Graham’s, a plant contact and fellow author. Andy and she had liked each other instantly and become great friends. Although they had only ventured here, to Wales, once, Sue used to stay with them whenever she was forced to visit London and they had exchanged many long phone calls over the years.

      Andy gave a wistful smile. ‘I’m surprised she can bear to leave her garden. Especially to me. I paint flowers, I don’t grow them.’

      ‘You won’t have to. She has someone to help her; I would imagine he will still be coming?’ Sian glanced up at her again. ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

      ‘No.’ Andy felt ridiculously cross. She had thought she would be here alone; safe. Unbothered.

      ‘Maybe I got it wrong.’ Sian was backtracking hastily again. She seemed to be able to read Andy’s every thought.

      ‘No. I hope she has. I am not fit to be trusted with her garden. When the subject came up she just said it could look after itself for a while.’ It was Andy’s turn to study her visitor’s face. ‘Was it a herbal potion she was making for you?’

      ‘For my dogs.’

      ‘If I find anything, I’ll let you know.’

      Sian seemed to take the words as a dismissal. Draining her glass, she stood up. ‘I should be on my way. It will start getting dark soon and I’ve a long walk home.’

      Andy watched from the window as the woman ran down the steps and out of sight. The rain shower was over as soon as it had come. Sian’s dogs, she saw, had been waiting for her outside, a border collie and a retriever. She wondered what Culpepper made of them.

      Andy decided against taking over Sue’s bedroom even though it had obviously been made ready for her. She and Graham had shared that room on their holiday and she didn’t think she could bear to sleep there again, alone. A small neat indentation on the counterpane showed where the cat had made himself comfortable earlier in the day, unaware that his beloved Sue was about to abandon him for a whole year. Instead she chose one of the spare rooms. It was in the oldest part of the house, dark with ancient beams, its window mullioned in grey stone, facing across the valley where the sun was setting into the mist. There was a brightly coloured Welsh blanket on the bed and a landscape on the wall of the hills she could see from the window, the racing shadows picked out in vermilion and ochre and violet. She looked round the room with a sense which she realised after a moment was a feeling of coming home. The room felt relaxed and safe; it smelt of wood and something indefinable – herbs and polish and maybe, a little, of dust. Circling once more, and giving a final glance out of the window, she laid her hand on one of the crooked beams in the corner, then she trailed her fingers across the ancient stones of the wall. What memories they must hold.

      It took for ever to lug her cases