Bittersweet Novel
Melody
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Published in Penguin Books 2025 001
Originally published in the United Kingdom in different form as an ebook as The Mystery at Maplemead Castle by Kitty French by Bookouture, a division of Hachette UK, in 2017.
Copyright © Kitty French, 2017
Copyright © Josie Silver, 2025
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ISBN : 978–1–911–74617–1
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For Kim Nash, thank you for being Melody’s longtime champion and my longtime friend— we both think you’re totally amazeballs.
CHAPTER
Every now and then someone tells me how lucky I am to be able to see ghosts and I sit on my hands so I don’t accidentally punch them in the face. Honestly, I know it might seem interesting, fun even, from the outside looking in, but if I could trade places with a regular Joe I’d do it in a heartbeat. It isn’t just me with the spooky-vision; I come from a long line of Bittersweet women who see dead people. We’re generally accepted in Chapelwick because we’ve been here for longer than anyone alive can remember, operating our family business from our charmingly ramshackle medieval High Street shop front. I say our family business. My mother and grandmother pass messages between the living and the dead at Blithe Spirits, whereas I recently splintered off into releasing trapped ghosts rather than acting as an astral mail service. It’s early days. Very early really, given we’re just about to get going on our second-ever case.
“Hey, Bittersweet.”
I look up as Marina bounces a balled-up chewing gum wrapper off my head to get my attention.
“That’s the third time I’ve said your name. What’s got you so distracted?”
I shrug. “Just thinking about this afternoon’s meeting at Maplemead. I can’t remember the last time I went inside an actual castle.” I avoid places steeped in history because they’re usually also steeped in ghosts who want to hassle the hell out of me, but this is for work purposes so I’m breaking my own rules. We’re meeting later today with the American couple that recently moved lock, stock, and barrel to England after buying Maplemead Castle over the internet. I know. Who does that?
“Do we need to buy caps to doff ?” Marina asks, her dark eyes dancing. She’s never been one for taking things too seriously, unless someone winds her up or threatens us, in which case you don’t want to be the one she’s gunning for. It’s her Sicilian heritage. Luckily for us, she also has a Sicilian nonna, or gran to you and me, who is a stonkingly good cook. Therefore, Marina comes in most days armed with something fabulous in her vintage biscuit tin.
“A quick tug of our forelocks should suffice,” I say, pulling ineffectually at my fringe.
We both look up as our assistant, Artie, comes through the door, all long legs and wide, nervous eyes. I didn’t intend on taking on an assistant, until Artie’s recently deceased father cornered me with his cap in hand and his son’s best interests at heart. He couldn’t leave this earth unless he knew his only, lonely boy would be okay without him, and to give Artie Elliott his dues, he’s turning out to be an absolute superstar.
“Morning.” He grins, dropping to his haunches to greet Lestat, my utterly uncivilized pug. A dog wasn’t on my wish list at all, until I told someone I had one and then had to follow through or prove myself to be a liar. It says an uncomfortable amount about me that I’d go to the lengths of actually getting a dog rather than fess up, but hey ho. Some people—my mother and everyone else who knows me— would call me stubborn, but I prefer to think of myself as a strongwilled woman of her word. Anyway, Lestat already has his paws firmly under my table, his ass in my bed, and his furry flat face in Nonna’s biscuit tin too if he can find a way to get at it without being
seen. He’s a ninja when it comes to food, but it’ll take a faster pug than him to come between me and my next sugar hit. I’m not a girl with that many vices, but sugar is definitely near the top of my addiction list.
“What time are we due at the castle?” Marina asks.
Glenda Jackson, our part-time secretary, taps the end of her pencil against the calendar that’s open on her desk. “You’re due at Maplemead Castle at two o’clock.” She glances at her watch. “It’s going to take you approximately forty minutes to get there in pre–rush hour traffic, so you’ll need to leave immediately after lunch.” She doesn’t even look up as she imparts this information, because her fingers are flying so fast over her keyboard that it’s a wonder her hands don’t levitate. She’s worked for my family for more than a decade, and she now does a couple of hours each morning here at the agency before going back to her regular job next door with my mother and Gran at Blithe Spirits. Some people would find it difficult to be the sole administrator for two businesses at once. Not Glenda Jackson. Monday to Friday she packs her curves into power suits, piles her red-gold curls on top of her head, then steers both of the Bittersweet ships while doing the cryptic crossword in her downtime.
We are an unlikely company, all around. Glenda Jackson, aka superwoman in a sexy power suit. Artie, snake charmer, tea drinker, trainee ghost buster. Marina, my wisecracking, loyal right-hand girl since we were scabby-kneed kids; a gum-chewing, fiery Sicilian beauty queen.
And then there’s me. The short, quirky girl in jeans and Converse who sees dead people, fantasizes about superheroes, and prefers sugar to sex. Actually, that is a complete and utter lie. I don’t prefer sugar to sex, but I’m not getting much of one, so I overindulge on the other. God, imagine if I could combine the two. For a moment I let myself think about being boffed again by Fletcher Gunn—the local hotshot reporter with whom I have an on-off, love-hate relationship—while eating a Snickers, and it’s so frickin’ fabulous that I feel my cheeks heat up and wonder if the others can tell I’m
suddenly on the brink of a sugar-inspired orgasm. I close my eyes and try not to think about the actual bone-shaking orgasm I had on the passenger seat of Fletch’s car a couple of weeks ago. A late-night supermarket dash for sugar supplies turned into a very unexpected half an hour of filthy sex in Fletch’s admittedly sexy car. I avoid Marina’s eye; I haven’t gotten around to telling her that bit yet.
“Stick the kettle on, Artie,” I say, reminded of my need for caffeine as he pulls a little plastic Ziploc food bag from his pocket and deposits his weekly supply of tea bags on the tray beside the coffee jar. He’s an oddball in all the best ways, our Artie. At first glance he seems gawky and awkward, and actually he is both of those things, but there’s so much more to him too. He has his own special way of looking at the world: pragmatic to the tenth degree and a knack for stating the obvious in a way that cracks me up.
It strikes me suddenly that Marina has yet to produce Nonna’s special biscuit tin from her bag, and I go ice-cold with fear. Please don’t let this be the day Nonna Malone has decided we don’t need her sugar fix to set us up for ghost hunting because, as far as I’m concerned, that day will never come.
“Coffee, Marina?” I say, hoping to jog her memory without needing to ask outright. If she doesn’t get the hint, I’ll face-plant myself in her cavernous suede hobo bag and wear it as a hat to sniff out those biscuits.
She nods, looking at me coolly. “I don’t know how to break this to you gently, so I’m just gonna be fast and blunt. Brace yourself. Nonna’s gone back to Sicily for a week. There are no biscuits.”
I gulp and stare at her in wide-eyed horror. “You must have known she was going,” I whisper hoarsely. “You could have prepared me.”
She looks at me with a helpless shrug, which might mean there was a family emergency prompting Nonna’s trip, but more likely means she was too chicken to tell me.
Artie plunks his lunch box on my desk and opens it. “You can have my egg sandwich if you want,” he says. I appreciate the gesture
of solidarity. He feels the same way about his mum’s egg sandwiches as I do about Nonna’s biscuits.
“I’m going to cry now,” I say. “Because my life is ruined.” I shoot Marina a dark look. “Glenda, cancel the appointment at Maplemead. I’m going to bed for a week. Wake me up when Nonna Malone gets home.”
Glenda watches me have my sugar-free meltdown with calm, doe-like eyes, then silently reaches into her desk and hands me an unopened box of shortbread. It’s quite fancy, as it goes; proper Scottish stuff dipped in white chocolate for good measure. I feel my blood sugar start to rise in anticipation and decide that perhaps I don’t need to hit the sack after all. See what I mean about Glenda Jackson? She’s Wonder Woman without the spandex.
Lestat barrels across the room as I open the biscuit box and our eyes meet as he ducks under my desk, skids to a halt, and puts his stubby little foot on my knee.
“Not a chance, Mutt-Face,” I growl, as protective of the shortbread as a mama tiger with her newborn cub. “Go hunt your own kill.”
I feel absolutely no guilt as he slinks away across the office to his bed, shooting me daggers as he stomps around his cushions in everdecreasing circles to get comfortable.
“I’ve printed out the recent sales particulars of Maplemead Castle.” I pause to hand around the copies I made earlier. “It’s worth us all taking some time to familiarize ourselves with it. There’s also a potted history attached at the back, although we’re going to need to go deeper after our initial assessment this afternoon.”
“It’s quite a place, isn’t it? I always hoped they’d open it up to visitors, but the family was very private,” Glenda murmurs, admiring the moat and handsome facade. She isn’t wrong; it’s a beautiful sandstone brick building that has been cared for and modified over the years to keep it in service in various guises, and its manymullioned windows glint in the sunlight behind the grand stone steps leading up to the entrance.
Marina flips the top image of the castle over and whistles as she glances over the details. “Seventeen bedrooms!”
Aside from the numerous bedrooms, the castle has a library, a billiards room, various attics, cellars, and a creepy dungeon.
“I vote we don’t set foot in the dungeon,” I say. I’m not the bravest when it comes to the dark.
“Lois and Barty Letterman have been living at Maplemead for a month or so now, and in that time they’ve witnessed an array of paranormal activity—objects being moved, thrown, that sort of thing—that they attribute to ghosts,” Glenda says, reading through her notes from the booking telephone conversation. “They’re finding it increasingly difficult to live with, but more pressingly, they have a film crew due next week and the leading lady has already made it clear that she won’t step foot inside the place while there’s so much as a sniff of ghosts and ghouls.”
From what I can gather, the Lettermans are planning to run the castle as a business, renting it out as a party venue and film set.
Privately, I’m hoping the first movie being made at Maplemead will have a distinctly superhero vibe. I mean, it isn’t a deal-breaker that it has to star Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, but it sure would help oil the wheels. Or would it? I’m not sure I’d get much done, mainly because I’d be stalking him and trying to cop a feel of his iron helmet. That’s not even a euphemism. I like his actual helmet; all of that wizardly gadgetry stuff makes me come over all Gwyneth Paltrow and want to be his girl Friday. Or maybe just his girl. Anyway, you get the idea. I’m not exclusive to Iron Man though. I’m a superhero junkie; I’d be just as happy to see Thor or Spidey rock up to the portcullis at Maplemead. Don’t judge me. There’s safety in superheroes. They aren’t likely to trample my heart into the dirt at the first sniff of a better offer, unlike my distinctly un-hero-like ex, Leo Dark. I was dazzled by his shiny hair and because he also sees ghosts, and then he was dazzled by the opportunity of a shiny TV career and dropped me so fast I was lucky to survive the fall.
Surreptitiously scribbling on my jotter block, I clear my throat
and whip quickly through the other bare-bones details we already know about Maplemead, mostly just the basic timeline of the medieval castle dug up from the net. There’s not much to go on yet; we need to get over there and try to assess what’s going bump in the night before Hollywood descends and all hell breaks loose. Glenda rules a neat line to close off the morning meeting in the calendar, and as we slowly disperse back to our relative perches, Marina leans over my shoulder and reads my scrawl in the jotter block, then rolls her eyes.
Buy Snickers.
CHAPTER TWO
“Holy shit.”
I turn the engine off and Marina, Artie, and I all sit and stare, goggle-eyed, at the magnificent castle frontage. We’ve just driven in across the drawbridge and through the huge wooden gates set into the thick castle walls and it’s like entering a secret fairy tale. At least the public might get more of a chance to see the castle now; as Glenda said, it’s always been in private hands and cloistered from prying eyes.
“I don’t think the security guard liked the look of Babs,” Artie says, stating the obvious from the disdainful way the neon tabardclad guy had eyed Babs, our 1973 Ford Transit. Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s two-tone buttercup yellow and off-white, or triple tone if you were feeling unkind enough to count the rust. Maybe it’s the fact that we were all gawking at him through the windshield from the front bench seat, or it’s possible it had something to do with the in-your-face Girls’ Ghost-Busting Agency logo that Marina lovingly hand-painted on the side. Sure, it echoes back to the glory days of Charlie’s Angels, but Babs is a seventies hippie chick, so it’s entirely in keeping with her retro style. She wears her slightly rusty
chrome bumpers with jaunty panache, and her juddering and backfiring is the biggest thrill my nether regions get most days, which is more of a sad reflection on me than her. “It’s bigger than it looks in the pictures,” I murmur, leaning forward until my face is almost pressed flat against the glass as I peer up at the crenelated roofline above the third-floor windows.
The facade is bedecked with several tiers of stone-mullioned windows, seven abreast set across the wide, almost mellow pink stone. It’s actually very pretty, if a castle can be considered as such. It’s certainly a far cry from the austerity of the ruined gray castles Marina and I were hauled around on rainy school trips as kids. It was difficult to listen to the teacher or tour guide when a bevy of beheaded prisoners from the 1500s were bustling around you with their heads underneath their arms indignant at their fate, or on another memorable occasion when the ghostly inmates of an asylum swamped me so badly that Marina caught me as I’d passed out.
I developed a twenty-four-hour sickness bug on trip days after that, which I expect came as a relief all around. I was universally known at school as the latest in a long line of weirdos from Chapelwick’s resident crazy family. I was saved from being bullied only by the fact that some of them had seen Carrie, the Stephen King movie where the telekinetic kid burns the school down with them in it. Oh, and by Marina, of course.
“Do you think we just knock on the door?” Artie says, gazing across the deep expanse of the gravel forecourt. I don’t know why I’ve instinctively parked as far away from the castle as the forecourt permits; maybe because Babs is like an out-of-place canary here when there should only be sleek ravens. A sweep of wide, shallow steps lead up onto a stone porch inset with ornate double oak doors.
Marina grins. “Nah. I reckon we should just sit here and wait until a knight rocks up and bangs his rod on the window or something.”
“His rod?” Laughter bubbles up in my throat. Trust Marina to be inappropriate.
She shrugs. “See if I’m wrong.”
On that, one of the front doors swings back on its hinges. “You were wrong,” Artie says.
All three of us watch a small, birdlike woman flutter out onto the top of the steps. She shields her eyes with her hand to peer at us, and the huge jewels on her fingers catch the sunlight and bounce tiny rainbows around her, as if she is the actual rainbow queen in her own rainbow-themed Disney movie. Only this queen has switched her turquoise velvet cloak for a turquoise velvet jumpsuit, and her ethereal crown has been exchanged for a white sun visor that loudly proclaims that she’s a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs.
“I’m guessing that must be Lady Lois Letterman,” I murmur. “Time to get out and say hi, people.”
Marina pulls a fresh pack of gum from her jeans pocket and opens the foil seal, miffed there will be no knight banging his rod on her windows today.
The tiny turquoise rainbow queen starts flapping both arms over her head.
“I think she’s recognized us,” I say.
“That or she’s trying to land a plane,” Artie says, watching her wide-eyed.
Marina laughs and I slide the driver’s door back and jump out onto the gravel with a satisfying crunch. I raise a hand as I round the front of Babs and join the others in the warm early July sunshine.
“She looks like a manic Smurf,” Marina says from the corner of her mouth as she glides effortlessly over the uneven gravel in her beloved skyscraper heels, while I link arms with her to stop myself from stumbling even though I’m in my daily uniform of Converse. I let her go as we reach the safety of the sweeping stone steps and glance at Artie, flicking an encouraging wink. He grins back, a slash of sunshine over his perpetually anxious eyes. He’s coming out of his shell a little more every day and I’m enjoying watching him reveal his personality in front of us. I don’t think he has a clue how funny or smart he is, because no one besides his parents ever took the time to see beyond the awkward, long-limbed boy in the thick glasses.
“That van is a riot!” Lois hoots, stilling her crazy arm motions as we come to a standstill on the top step. Close up, she looks like a bit of a nut. A walnut, to be precise, in that her skin is deeply tanned and crisscrossed with fine wrinkles in all directions. She’s been crazy-paved by too much exposure to sunlight, but nonetheless she exudes an almost childlike energy and excitement. Her skin says seventy-seven and her behavior says seven. In actual fact, I know that she’s about to turn sixty. I know this from research, because, as I already said, I am a badass businesswoman. Or because Glenda Jackson gave me a file with all of the details. Thanks to the file, I also know that Lois is Oklahoma born and bred, as is her husband, Barty, three years her senior.
“Melody?” she says, looking uncertainly at Marina, who in turn nudges me forward sharply enough for me to almost stumble into Lois. I smile, wide and professional, as I thrust my hand out and flick my other elbow back into Marina’s ribs in retaliation. I don’t think Lois notices our minor girl fight; she’s too busy arching her eyebrows at the fact that I’m the boss rather than my slicker, more puttogether friend.
“I’m Melody Bittersweet,” I say at the same time Artie and Marina both say “She’s Melody Bittersweet.” Have they never seen Spartacus? My stretched smile is hurting my face, so I plow on. “I’m guessing you must be Mrs. Letterman?”
Her bright-blue eyes twinkle with trouble. “Aw, call me Lolo, honey, everyone does. Or Lady Lolo, as Barty has decided to call me!” She cackles loudly, amused by her own grandiosity. “What gave me away? The accent? The American tan?”
I’m tempted to say I’ve seen her photo clipped neatly into the file Glenda prepared, but I just nod and look enthusiastic. “All of those things. It’s so great to meet you.”
“What a place!” Marina steps up beside me, all smiles, her arms spread wide to indicate the castle.
Lois laughs with obvious delight. “Isn’t it? You buy a castle on the internet and, trust me, you fear you’re gonna roll up and find a
pile of rubble.” She lowers her voice and leans in conspiratorially. “I mean, who does that, right? Only crazy Americans!”
We all nod and then shake our heads at the same time, confused. Is this a test? I can feel myself getting hot and flustered even though I’m only wearing a skinny pink T-shirt. I’ve deliberately moved away from my usual wardrobe of character or statement T-shirts to meet our prospective customers, because you never know whom you might offend with Frankie Says Relax emblazoned across your bajongos. No one needs to know that I’m wearing my Wonder Woman knickers under my jeans. That’s strictly between me and Lestat, the only male to lay eyes on me getting dressed in the morning. “This is Marina Malone and Artie Elliott,” I say, introducing my motley crew.
“Lady Lolo. I feel as if I should curtsy!” Marina says, thrusting her hand out.
“Aw, honey, there’s really no need!” Lois says, but all the same she doesn’t take Marina’s hand, and her wide eyes and expectant smile say “Go on then, girlie. Drop for me on the steps of my castle.”
Marina shoots me a look that says “Must I?” and I respond with a bland smile that very clearly says “Why yes, you absolutely must.” I can barely contain my snort as I watch her daintily grip the edges of her imaginary tutu between her fingers and thumbs and bend her knees outward like a frog. Lady Lolo looks taken aback, that big, flashy smile faltering slightly.
“Where I come from, a lady always keeps her knees together, honey,” she says with a sniff, and Marina shoots me a WTF glance.
“I’m so interested to see inside the castle,” I say, shiny-eyed and enthusiastic. “I don’t know how you don’t get lost in a place this size.”
“Oh I do, honey, all the time,” Lolo says. “I’ve got a pretty impressive holler for a tiny thing though.” She stops suddenly and throws her head back, then lets out a bloodcurdling scream. “Barty!”
She snaps her mouth shut and then starts to count him out with
her fingers like a boxing referee, clearly amused with herself. We all watch her, slack-mouthed and transfixed, and she doesn’t get past six before a tall, mahogany-tanned guy with a shock of white hair barrels out of the door and screeches to a halt beside her, his hands on his knees as he pants for air.
He’s as robustly built as his wife is fragile, and dressed as if he’s about to play tennis, except his build suggests he’s more spectator than player. It isn’t that he’s fat; he’s just tall and rangy with a gut that demonstrates he enjoys the good life.
“Barty, will you come look at this! Our ghost busters have arrived in the most fabulous little van.” Lolo lays her hand on her husband’s bent back, completely ignoring the fact he looks as if he might have a heart attack any minute.
“Did you need to yell out quite like that, honey?”
She looks surprised. “You guys, this is Lord Bartholomew Letterman I, otherwise known as plain old Barty to the likes of you and me.” Lois raises her hand to her mouth so she can speak confidentially to us, even though she speaks more than loud enough for her husband to plainly hear. “Although I have other names I call him, depending on the circumstances, if you see where I’m heading with that. If he’s in my good books I might call him my big, sweet turkey cock.”
For a second we all lapse into silence and Lois and Barty just kind of look at us with their big, expectant smiles, almost as if they’re waiting for us to invite them into our castle rather than vice versa.
“Shall we?” I nod politely toward the open doors, deliberately leaving my question open-ended for Lois or Barty to pick up the baton. It does the trick, shaking them out of their turkey-cock reveries and back to the matters at hand.
“Of course! Come on in, honey.” Lolo extends her arm expansively toward the entrance for us to go on ahead of her, and I shoot Marina and Artie a quick “stay with me” look before I lead them inside the castle.
Oh my God. It’s an actual castle. I mean, I knew it was from the
outside, but inside it’s the real deal. We’re in a wide, dark-paneled vestibule, and a grand reception hall lies to the left-hand side with a formal library to the right. The floorboards creak with age and atmosphere, and a suit of armor stands stoic in one corner. Marina’s heels clatter against the wood and I feel her fingers twist into the back of my T-shirt the way she does sometimes when she’s unsure.
Lois ushers us sideways into the grand reception hall, where all three of us take a moment to gaze around in silent wonder. It’s huge and double height and all of the mahogany-paneled walls are rich with carvings and inlaid glass-fronted display cases. Chandeliers hang from the raftered ceilings, and there’s a huge, luminous oil painting in pride of place over the broad, heavily linteled fireplace. The room has been furnished to allow for modern comforts; two deep, wood-trimmed sofas face each other across an oversized coffee table set on an Oriental rug, and the wooden shutters have been pinned back from the walk-in bay windows to allow sunlight to stream through and dapple the room. I’m pretty sure that you could fit my entire flat into this room. It’s breathtaking.
“Oh goody. More badly dressed gawkers.”
No one takes any notice, because no one except for me can see or hear the woman staring at us moodily from beside the fireplace. I don’t reply to her, because she doesn’t realize I know she’s there and I haven’t yet figured out how Lord and Lady Letterman feel about the whole ghost issue.
I try to look her way casually, as if I’m just checking out the fascinating architectural details, but it’s incredibly hard not to stare because she’s old-school film star spectacular. Inexplicably, she’s dressed in a cap-sleeved ivory leotard that flares at her hips with a filmy net underlayer that appears to be made from boned parachute silk. Svelte but curvaceous, she obviously knew how to accentuate her assets when she was alive given the way the encrusted neckline and skinny belt of her leotard glitter with delicate, eye-catching rhinestones.
I deduce from the nude pink ballet slippers laced around her well-turned ankles that she was a performer of some variety, and her lustrous midnight-black hair is set into rippling, chin-length finger waves. From the neck up she’s a decadent, carefree flapper and then a taut, lithe performer from the shoulders down; a potent combination I’m finding hard to look away from. So much so that it takes a sharp jab in the ribs from Marina to alert me to the fact that Lois and Barty are both staring at me, expectant once again. They must have said something, but I’m totally clueless. I flick my eyes nervously at Marina and try to relay a silent SOS and, thankfully, she picks up on my help-me cue and fans her face with her hand as she blows her fringe out of her eyes.
“I think it might be too warm for coffee. Something cold, maybe?”
Ah, so we’re still on the formalities.
“Just water would be great, thank you,” I murmur. “Or maybe you could give us a tour of the place and explain how we can help you as we go?”
I’m keen to have the ghost-buster conversation out of earshot of foxy-leotard girl; I’d rather introduce myself to ghosts in a lessconfrontational way where possible. You ghost, me ghost hunter is never an easy conversation to have.
Barty bounds forward, practically rubbing his hands together, and Lois sighs under her breath.
“You might regret asking for a tour,” she mutters. “I hope you’ve got your walking shoes on.”
She glances at my feet, then raises her eyebrows at Marina’s skyscraper heels. Marina shrugs, thoroughly unconcerned.
“Trust me, there isn’t a thing you can do in those that I can’t do in these.” She waggles her ankle delicately and nods toward Lois’s neon-green running shoes.
She isn’t lying. On our last case, she used her stilettos to pick a lock and whack an attacker. They’re practically on the payroll. Lois crosses to the window and furls herself delicately into an
armchair. “I’ll wait on here for y’all. I’ve taken this tour pretty often now.” She smiles, waving us away with a flash of her glittering rings.
I notice the way the woman beside the fireplace rolls her eyes, as if this is not unusual behavior on Lois’s part. I’m beginning to suspect that beneath that turquoise velour workout gear beats the heart of a closet couch potato. Don’t get me wrong: I’m on her team. I was always the last to be picked for hockey at school, mostly because I am openly rubbish at anything that involves coordination and speed.
“As you can see,” Barty says, already walking tall and directing our attention with his big tanned hands. He turns us to look toward the library on the opposite side of the entrance hall. “This, folks, is the library.”
Okay. So Barty likes to state the obvious. There’s probably a thousand books lining the walls, all leather bound and clearly antique. I ignore the slow clap from the ghost ballerina in the other room and focus my attention instead on an elderly couple playing a card game at a small table. Their clothes and hairstyles place them around the 1920s and they exude wealth and permanence, as if they belong here. They probably do, given that they must have died quite a few decades previously and are peacefully ignoring us and enjoying their game. Based on my research of the castle so far, I’d hazard a guess that they must be members of the Shilling family, the clan that’d been in possession of Maplemead for centuries until the recent sale. I tune them out and try to keep my concentration on Barty.
“To be honest with y’all, Lois and I haven’t yet pulled a book out of those shelves. We’ve been kept kind of busy, you know?”
Artie shakes his head, gawking. “My mum would go mental if she saw this. She loves history and old stuff.”
“You should bring her over, Mr. . . .”
“I’m Artie.” Artie sticks his hand out. “Artie Elliott.”
He’s Arthur, officially, but he’s been known as Artie since Marina
christened him with his first-ever nickname a few weeks back. I don’t miss the shimmer of pride in his voice as he announces himself now.
“Artie . . .” Barty ruminates on it. “Kind of like King Arthur, right?”
For a second Artie stares at him blankly. “My mom has a round dining table,” he says eventually.
“A round dining table,” Barty says, repeating him and nodding with a slow smile of appreciation. “You’re a sharp one, Artie Elliott. I can see we’re going to get on. You’re the boss, right?”
He spins and starts to walk away down the hall, and Artie turns his big, troubled eyes toward me. Artie isn’t the boss of anything. He was bullied out of school, is smother-mothered at home, and he’s fourth out of four in the pecking order at the agency. There’s me, Marina is my wing woman, and Glenda Jackson is Glenda Jackson. uite frankly, she might be the actual boss. If she tells me she is, I’m not going to argue. The only thing Artie is conceivably the boss of is Lestat and making coffee, not necessarily in that order.
“Er, Mr. Letterman,” he says as we file along the paneled, narrowing corridor.
“Hmm?” Barty turns, but his attention is immediately snagged by a carved stone inlaid into the wall behind my head.
“See this? It was laid here by the first Lord Shilling, the dude who originally had the castle built.”
We all dutifully inspect the stone, and then Marina leans in and peers closely at it.
“Randy sods back then, weren’t they?”
Artie tips his head to the side as he studies it and then looks away quickly from the image of the lord taking his lady in no uncertain terms from behind. Poor Artie. Only a week or two back he was subjected to the sight of an octogenarian vagina. It’s been a baptism of fire and, to his credit, he’s taken to it like a natural.
He clears his throat before he speaks up. “I’m not the boss, actually, Lord Letterman. Melody is.”
Artie nods toward me and Marina, and she in turn jerks her thumbs in my direction as if Barty really should have known better.
“You guys sure have some cool names.” Barty smiles genially. He glances toward me for a split second, dismisses me, and focuses his attention on Marina. This has happened lots of times over the years, mainly because Marina is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and I’m more niche.
Don’t get me wrong, I have my charms. I inherited my dad’s round, dark eyes, the exact shade of early morning espresso brewed in a backstreet Italian coffeehouse. I know this because my mother tells me every so often. Rome was one of the few trips she got to experience with my dad, and back then she marveled at how the deep chestnut-brown brew was a perfect Pantone match with his eyes. When I was a child my gran used to call me her perfect pocket peach, because I’m pint-sized and I have a classic peaches-and-cream complexion, not to mention that a certain rock pool–eyed reporter recently told me that the need to have wild sex with me keeps him awake at night.
So yeah, I’m not without my charms or low on self-confidence, but Marina . . . she’s a visual feast. Tall and foxy, all curves and teeth and Sicilian drama. She knows how to work it too. Never seen in public without her heels and her fire engine–red lipstick, Marina doesn’t buy jeans unless it looks as if someone applied them with a spray gun.
“And you are?”
Marina watches him shrewdly. “Marina Malone. As in the ocean.”
“A beautiful tropical reef,” Barty says.
She nods, laughs lightly, in a way the uninitiated might take as friendly. “Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water.” She sweetens the unmistakable Jaws tagline with a perfect smile, but her warning is clear.
“Then you must be Melody.” Barty turns to me, adding, “As in a song.”
He breaks into a few bars of “Unchained Melody” and I fix my smile because I’ve only heard that joke about a million times in my life already. After a few tumbleweed seconds he shrugs, then turns to push open a broad, heavy door to his left. “Get a load of this.” He inclines his head for us to go inside, so I lead the way. Holy frickin’ moly. I feel as if I am Hermione Granger walking into an enchanted Hogwarts ball. Our collective jaws hit the floor as we come to a standstill and gaze, awestruck, around the vast ballroom. Now, I’m not a girl given to soppy movies or romance novels; that’s Marina’s bag. But, oh my God, where are all the princes? I can’t dance to save my life, but right this second I want a dashing hero in full military dress to appear and formally request my next dance. I could waltz. How hard can it be?
It really is the prettiest of rooms. The walls are the same pale blue as fragile song thrush eggshells with frescos of waist-high summer flowers detailed in a pastel palette of pinks, yellow, mint, and lavender. It feels as if we have walked into a wild meadow so lush and perfect that I can almost smell the honeysuckle, so unexpected that I can almost hear birdsong.
It reminds me of a movie that Marina made me endure once, one where animated bluebirds land on the heroine and do all of her cleaning for her while she prances around and warbles a happy song. See what I mean about Marina? She’s nails, and then she’s cotton candy.
“I feel like Cinder-fuckin’-rella,” she mutters under her breath, thankfully loud enough for only me to hear.
“We’re thinking of throwing a welcome party, try out the space for size,” Barty says.
I badly want to come to that party. “Fancy dress?” Marina asks hopefully.
Barty begins to explain some of the room’s fascinating history, including how the beautiful frescoes were commissioned as a wedding gift from Lord Alistair Shilling for his bride, Eleanor. But my attention is pulled instantly away from him toward the extraordi-
nary man who has just materialized through the wall at the far end of the room.
He strides toward us like a matador, and I’m surprised that no one else can hear the staccato click of his heels as they hit the wellpolished parquet. He’s scowling, a full, dark simmer of an expression that gives him a monobrow and sends a shiver down my spine. You know those black-and-white yesteryear posters for strong men at the circus? The ones with a stocky, handsome man with slickedback hair, a handlebar mustache, and a stripey vest? He looks as if he just stepped out of one of those because he’s furious someone stole his dumbbell. He’s closer now, and I have to admit he’s quite a looker. Brooding and charismatic, he marches right on up to Barty and halts, banging his heel hard against the floor for emphasis, even though no one else can hear him. His trousers are skintight— leggings almost—and, okay I admit it, his extremely defined package catches my eye. Don’t judge me. I don’t get out much and the man is clearly hung like an elephant.
“I wish you to leave! You and that awful little woman, go now and leave us alone!”
He is properly squared up to Barty, fists clenched, while Barty is completely oblivious and giving us too much information about the restoration of the no-less-than-four whopping ballroom chandeliers. Artie is at least attempting to ask pertinent questions, and Marina halfheartedly nods while probably imagining herself disco dancing dressed as Rizzo from Grease.
The ghost must know that Barty cannot hear his rage, yet still he continues, waving his fist sometimes. It’s difficult to follow the fast, angry flow of his words, as English is clearly not his first language. Going on the visual and audio clues, I’d say he was probably Mediterranean—Italian, Spanish, Portuguese?
I wonder if he’s connected to the bombshell from beside the fireplace in the lounge. They sure would have made a striking couple in their heyday. I’m getting a performer’s vibe from them both, which is confirmed when a second, taller, equally furious man bursts
through the wall. His scarlet-red coat with brass buttons and blackand-white striped trousers leave me in no doubt as to his profession. This guy is every inch the ringmaster, right down to his mirrorpolished shoes and his equally shiny brass-handled whip.
“You’ve gone too far this time, Dynamo!” he bellows, and then cracks his whip as hard as he can on the floor with a terrifying snap. His eyes flash bright with fury and then he opens his mouth and shouts again.
“Goliath! Kill!”
