The Ghosts of Tullybrae House

by Veronica Bale

  “Stuart died?”

  Adam nodded. “Died in my arms. Died before the medics arrived.”

  He leaned forward on the chair, and reached across Emmie to pull the cloth off her eyes entirely. Balling the cloth in his fists, and resting his elbows on his thighs, he said, “The reason I’m telling you all this is because the look on your face out there reminded me of how I felt when Stuart was in my arms dying. I don’t have any—” he made air quotes with his fingers, “life lessons for you here, and I don’t think I’m making you feel any better. But… I dunno. I guess I’m trying to say that I know how you feel. The others, see—when they’re handling bones and such, I always get the sense that it’s more clinical. More removed, you know? But when I’m in the presence of those old bones, I can’t help thinking about the mortality of it all. About Stuart, and how he must be no more than bones by now. None of the others felt a life leave a body. They don’t understand death the way I do—and the way you do, I suspect.”

  Emmie studied Adam. Committed to memory his earnest expression and the concern that creased his brow.

  “You put up a good front. Nobody would know that underneath that cocky, chauvinist exterior there’s a serious side with a soft heart.”

  He smiled his goofy smile at her. “Yeah, well, we all put up fronts, don’t we? Don’t go telling anyone about mine, though. I’ve got a reputation to keep up.”

  That conversation stayed with Emmie long after the crew had gone home for the night. Without hitting on it directly, Adam had gotten to the heart of her startling reaction out there in the field. She hadn’t fully comprehended it herself at the time. But Adam had.

  The events of the past twenty-four hours were starting to fall into place like a giant rubric. Maybe Cael had known that morning that he was going to be found. Maybe he pulled her into his world, showed her the intimate details of his life which had nothing to do with his murder because he knew she was going to see his body. He wanted her to remember him as he was then, not as the grizzly collection of skeletal remains he was now, marked by the evidence of a brutal death.

  Maybe he knew that when Emmie saw those bones, it would be a stark reality check for her.

  And that’s exactly what it had been. Those bones proved to Emmie that Cael was dead, that she was destined to lose him, just like she’d lost her mother. She’d loved her mother terribly, and her mother had died. She loved Cael terribly, and Cael was dead.

  She had to solve Cael’s mystery. That task was something she would not abandon. She was too far in to simply give it up. But for the rest of it…

  The rest of it was that she had to find a way to let Cael go. It was time for her to realize that he was already gone. Her heart would break, but better now than later. Cael’s ghost could cause her nothing but heartache either way.

  By the time she fell asleep that night, she’d made a decision. She would solve Cael’s mystery. She would put in the man hours with gusto to find out whatever she could, and then once she’d solved it, she was done. Her obligation to him would be fulfilled.

  Then she would let him go.

  PROFESSOR PAUL ROTENFELD climbed out of his car at the University of Glasgow, and walked around the History building from the staff parking lot in the rear. He was in a chipper mood today, but that was a typical state of being for Paul most days. This morning, he was wearing his favourite hand-knit sweater vest, he had his wife’s hot-packed chicken curry lunch in hand, and the sleep-scented warmth of his daughter’s cheek was still on his lips from the goodbye kiss he’d planted there while she was dreaming.

  He had a moderate day planned: a final undergrad lecture in Ancient Civilizations at ten, and then an afternoon of planning the fall semester outline for the new Media and Society course he’d recently been approved to teach.

  With his thoughts thus engaged, he was not at all prepared to encounter the young woman outside his office door. She was seated on the carpeted floor in the hall, with her back against the wall and her knees drawn up to her chest. It was not unusual to find students seated on the ground in any number of locations, folded compactly into cross-legged obstacles, heads bent over open textbooks. But it caught Paul off guard when this obstacle bolted upright at the sight of him.

  “Emmie?” he said, when his eyes fixed on her. “This certainly is a surprise. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  The young lady was doing her best to affect an air of composure, but her wild-eyed gaze and the slight wobble in her voice when she spoke betrayed her.

  “I’m so sorry to burst in on you like this, Dr. Rotenfeld—”

  “Paul.”

  “Paul,” she corrected. “But, um… do you remember you said I could review the donated records that came from Moy Hall? You know, the ones you said might include documents from Keppoch Castle?”

  Paul raised an eyebrow. “Of course.”

  “I need to. I want to… I—I mean, review them, that is.”

  “Why yes, that’s not a problem. But you look a little wound up. More than a little—no offense. Have you eaten today?”

  “Er… no,” she admitted. “I got into town at about eleven last night, and spent until midnight trying to find a place to stay. Then I woke up early to come here.”

  “How early?”

  She eyed him sheepishly. “Six-thirty.”

  Paul took a breath, measuring her with a look of gentle consternation. “Emmie, sweetheart. I know how historians’ minds work—hell, I’m friends with Iain Northcott for God’s sake, and you can’t cart that man away from a dig site in a strait jacket when he’s getting close to a discovery. But even he knows that no discovery is worth starving yourself over.” He paused, allowing his words to have an effect—to no avail. Sighing, he said, “Come on, let’s get you to the cafeteria and get something into you. I have a class soon, but after that, I’ll get you set up so you can spend the day in the archives.”

  An hour and a half later, Emmie had been given a visitor’s pass, a digital access key, and space in a small research room with cinderblock walls and a single tall window that overlooked the staff parking lot.

  The volume of records from Moy Hall exceeded what she was expecting. There were at least twenty cardboard packing boxes, more than a few of them in a moldering state, along with three heavy-duty Rubbermaid totes full to the top, each aged plastic lid caved in and cracked from decades of bearing the weight of the tote stacked on top of it. Another dozen bundles of file folders tied with twine completed the collection.

  Because Paul was unable to commit himself to helping her, it fell to Emmie to lug each box up to her research room one by one. He apologized when he had to leave, but procured for her a dolly cart, and pointed out the location of a small elevator in the basement where the records were kept.

  It had been no exaggeration, Emmie discovered, when Paul told her these documents hadn’t been catalogued yet, and going through them would be a lot of work. They had been poorly packed. It was likely that the lot had been shipped from Moy Hall by a distant family member, or a junior clerk from the local governing council, who had no idea how important these documents might prove to be. She could hardly blame the university for not having done a better job once they arrived. The archives were full of uncatalogued documents, items and artefacts. It was Scotland, after all—history here was far richer and longer than it was in Corner Brook, Newfoundland.

  Document by fragile document, Emmie reviewed what had come from Moy Hall. Most of it was inconsequential to her cause—financial transactions, larder inventories, wills, post cards and photographs. And also, most of it was too recent for what she was looking for, having been amassed within the last two centuries or so.

  Still, she persisted. She needed to solve Cael’s death, and that meant doing everything she could to track down evidence of his existence.

  At five that evening, Paul popped his head into her little hideaway to check on her.

  “I’m heading out for the night,” he told her.

 
; Emmie looked at the time on her phone. “Oh—oh yes. I’m sorry.”

  She rose and began to pack up her belongings.

  “No. I didn’t mean you have to leave now, too,” he interjected. “You’ve got your own access, you can come and go as you please. Just thought I’d stop in, see how you’re doing.”

  She looked at her pile helplessly. Five hours and she’d only gotten through about half the moldy packing boxes.

  “I think I may be here for a few days.”

  “That’s no trouble. This room and the access pass are yours for as long as you want them.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She met his gaze with sincerity. He smiled knowingly, and bid her good night.

  Emmie stayed for another two hours before returning to the budget hostel she’d found last night, on a side street called Shelley Road which was close to the university. In her hands was a take-out portion of fish and chips wrapped in newsprint and saturated with malt vinegar.

  The first thing she did once she’d demolished her dinner was call Lady Rotherham to let her know of her plans.

  “Of course,” the lady exclaimed. “You take the time you need. I’m curious, though. This side project—it doesn’t have anything to do with Tullybrae, does it? Not that I need it to. You’re entitled to pursue your own interests. I’m more than happy with the work you’ve done so far.”

  Emmie felt guilty—she knew she could have done so much more, if it hadn’t been for Cael. She decided to be at least somewhat truthful with Lady Rotherham. Emmie owed her that.

  “Not with the job I’m doing specifically, but it does have to do with the land surrounding Tullybrae, and the mass grave.”

  “Really? Do tell.”

  “That kilt pin the excavators found, it was from the MacDonalds of Keppoch, you remember?” Emmie asked, making up her excuse as she went along. “Well, I’m researching records that came from Moy Hall where documents from Keppoch Castle were also found. I know it’s a long shot, but I thought it would be interesting if we had some kind of identity for those men that were buried on Tullybrae land.”

  Yes, that would work. That sounded reasonable.

  Evidently, Lady Rotherham thought so, too.

  “Fabulous,” she breathed into the phone. “Oh, can you imagine? Emmie, you have a nose for this kind of thing. Next time I talk to Boomer, I’ll tell him all about it.”

  Now Emmie felt even guiltier. Lady Rotherham had no idea she was being hoodwinked.

  Emmeline Tunstall, you should be ashamed of yourself, she thought dully.

  After saying good bye to her employer, Emmie next made a call to Lamb to assure him that she’d made it to Glasgow and gotten settled. Then she made a short call to Grace and Ron, using the astronomical overseas toll rates as an excuse to end the conversation early—which did not please Grace, who responded with an Oscar-worthy guilt trip. Nevertheless, Emmie was soon free.

  She spent two more days at the University of Glasgow, pouring over the documents from Moy Hall. Disappointingly, they yielded no results. They did, however, yield a clue that might keep the trail warm. In a land transfer document that came after the time the MacDonalds of Keppoch were said to have been destroyed, Emmie found mention of the name Lawren MacDonald.

  Lawren, as in Cael’s half-brother? The timing was right. And why else would a person’s name be on a land transfer document unless that person was in possession of some kind of status and wealth?

  Like Angus MacDonald’s son and heir, perhaps?

  The document transferred the land and estate of Stowe Castle to the aforementioned Lawren MacDonald. A quick Google search revealed an image of Stowe.

  The excitement that had flared in Emmie’s breast plummeted. Stowe Castle was a ruin. Barely more than a hollow shell. Less than that—half a hollow shell. There was no surviving brickwork above the ground-floor window holes.

  But Emmie was a professional historian. She knew better than to admit defeat. It was still a lead, however improbable a one, and she was still intent on following it.

  Returning the Moy Hall documents to the archives, she thanked Paul profusely for his generosity and left the university. It took a little over fifteen minutes to pack up her hostel room, and soon she was on the road, heading to the village of Kippen, outside of which Stowe Castle was situated.

  She arrived late in the afternoon, as the sun was starting to disappear over the hills. The ruin, she discovered when she got there, was now a tourist feature. It was also part of a great manor house, Stowe Manor, which had been turned into a hotel. Half of the estate’s front lawn had been eaten up by a paved parking lot, with the rest of the lawn extensively landscaped to compensate. Flower beds had been turned for the winter, but were peppered with colourful pots of fall mums. The parking lot was edged with meticulously sculpted hedges which were beginning to brown from the cold.

  The manor itself reminded Emmie of Tullybrae in its size and quiet grandeur. It was Jacobean in style, with a red brick, irregular façade that was dominated by a series of large windows which changed randomly in size along its length. Looking up at it, Emmie took a deep breath for luck, and walked from her parked car, up the front walk, and inside.

  She was met by a slender, attractive young woman at the reception desk. Her glossy brown hair shone softly in the glow of a desk lamp, and she looked at Emmie like she couldn’t care less about her arrival.

  “Can I help you?”

  Emmie had a bad feeling about this. She put on her brightest smile, hoping to disarm the young lady.

  “Hi there. I’m Emmie Tunstall. I’m curator at an estate called Tullybrae. Not sure if you’ve heard of it—it’s east of Aviemore.”

  She was met with a blank stare.

  “In the Grampians.”

  Still nothing.

  “Okay… well, I suppose there’s no way to ease into this. I’m on the trail of a historical figure. He’s more or less unknown, and relatively unimportant. But I found a mention of Stowe Castle, and I was hoping I could pick up the trail by coming here.”

  “If this historical figure isn’t important, then why are you looking for him?”

  Emmie’s spine stiffened. “I have reasons.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the castle’s a ruin,” the young woman said flippantly. “Been that way for nearly a century. You’re not going to find anything out there.”

  “I realized that,” Emmie answered, her smile growing tight. “I thought that perhaps any pertinent documents which may have existed might have been moved to the main house.”

  The young woman’s blank expression morphed into a cold, condescending smile of her own.

  “I’m sorry, but we cannot simply allow people off the street to come in and rummage around in our vault.”

  “I’m not ‘someone off the street.’ I told you, I’m curator at Tullybrae House.”

  “Yes, you said. But you could be the queen herself, and you wouldn’t be getting down there. You’ve not been authorized to access Stowe’s confidential documents. There’s nothing I can do for you.”

  Emmie stared at this young woman, incredulous. Seriously? She wasn’t going to help her? Never before had she been denied a scholarly browse through historical records at the castles and grand houses on her year abroad. It was sort of an unspoken rule. A universally accepted perk of the trade. Who did this person think she was?

  That… that… bitch!

  Emmie ground her fists into her thighs. She was tired. She was dirty. And she was strained to the breaking point. An acute urge to yank a fistful of glossy brown hair by the roots tickled her brain.

  “Thank you,” she said instead, matching the young woman’s cold stare. “This was obviously a waste of both of our time.”

  She turned on her heel and left.

  By this time, it was too late to drive back to Tullybrae, and Emmie was too exhausted to try it. In the village, she found a quiet inn called The Cross Keys, took a room, and fell into a fitful sleep. Images of t
he receptionist from Stowe Manor plagued her. The young lady with her smug smile towered over her, large and mountainous, while Emmy herself was the size of an ant. Stowe stood in the background, documents and records bursting from its windows and chimneys, and that wretched girl would not let Emmie pass. Her great, designer shoe-clad foot threatened to stomp on Emmie every time she tried. And all the while, Cael was begging. Save me, he whispered.

  “I can’t, she won’t let me pass,” Emmie shouted to the sky.

  This only made the horrible receptionist cackle with glee.

  It was a thoroughly unpleasant dream, and she woke to a rainy morning in a tangle of blankets and a sheen of sweat.

  But the night had also brought her to a resolution: She was going back to Stowe Manor and she was going to confront that self-important young woman. Perhaps the receptionist hadn’t cared about the name of Tullybrae, but she might care if Emmie dropped the names of Lord and Lady Rotherham. Nobility in the United Kingdom was still a big thing, wasn’t it? And if she didn’t, then Emmie would barge in and find the woman’s supervisor and drop her names there.

  By St. Christopher, and St. Patrick, and St. Michael and whatever other saints she could dredge up from her shady knowledge of Catholicism, she was ready to do battle.

  As it turned out, when she arrived back at Stowe and marched through the front door, a battle was not required. Instead of the smug, beautiful, glossy-haired receptionist, it was another woman—older, grey-haired and as pleasant as a receptionist should be.

  “Welcome to Stowe Manor,” the woman said. “What can I do for you this morning?”

  The wind knocked out of her sails, Emmie forgot what she’d planned to say. She was too tired. In place of the tirade she’d rehearsed on the way over, she launched into a decidedly embarrassing monologue.

  “My name is Emmie. Emmie Tunstall. I’m curator at Tullybrae House. I was here yesterday because I wanted to see any historical records you might have that came from Stowe Castle—if they still exist. But I was told unequivocally by that horrible girl that I wasn’t allowed, so I had to leave and take a room at an inn. But I’m back now because I really need to see them. I need something, anything that might help solve a problem I’m having at Tullybrae. And I’ve really got to try.”