Bonnie Macbird - Unquiet Spirits - Whisky, Ghosts, Adventure

This book is a new and original work of fiction featuring Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson, and other fictional characters that were first introduced to the world in 1887 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, all of which are now in the public domain. The characters are used by the author solely for the purpose of story-telling and not as trademarks. This book is independently authored and published, and is not sponsored or endorsed by, or associated in any way with, Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. or any other party claiming trademark rights in any of the characters in the Sherlock Holmes canon.

COLLINS CRIME CLUB

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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © Bonnie MacBird 2017

All rights reserved

Drop Cap design © Mark Mázers 2017

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017

Bonnie MacBird asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008129712

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008201104

Version: 2017-09-22

For Rosemary and Mac

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

PART ONE – A SPIRITED LASS

1. Stillness

2. Isla

3. Rejection

4. Brothers

5. Nice

6. Docteur Janvier

PART TWO – GETTING AHEAD

7. Vidocq

8. Ahead of the Game

9. The Staff of Death

10. Unwelcome Help

11. A Fleeting Pleasure

PART THREE – NORTHERN MISTS

12. Arthur

13. Braedern

14. The Highland Magic

15. Cameron Coupe

16. The Groundsman’s Sons

17. Catherine

18. Charles

19. The Laird’s Sanctum

20. Reviewing the Situation

PART FOUR – A CHILL DESCENDS

21. Dinner

22. Ghost!

23. Alistair

24. Obfuscation

25. Where There is Smoke

PART FIVE – THE DISTILLATION

26. The Whisky Thief

27. Divide and Conquer

28. Fettes

29. Thin Ice

30. Romeo and Juliet

31. Getting Warmer

PART SIX – MATURATION

32. The Angel’s Share

33. Circles of Hell

34. The Missing Man

35. You Must Change Your Thoughts

36. The Ghost of Atholmere

37. Charlotte

38. Golden Bear and Silver Tongue

PART SEVEN – THE POUR

39. The Lady

40. A Wash

41. 221B

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Several years ago, while researching at the Wellcome Library, I chanced upon something extraordinary – an antique handwritten manuscript tied to the back of a yellowed 1880s treatise on cocaine. It was an undiscovered manuscript by Dr John H. Watson, featuring his friend, Sherlock Holmes, published in 2015 as Art in the Blood .

But what happened last year exceeded even this remarkable occurrence. An employee at the British Library whom I shall call Lidia (not her real name) found Art in the Blood in her local bookshop, and upon reading it was struck by the poignancy of Watson’s manuscript surfacing so long after the fact.

It triggered something in her mind and shortly afterwards, I received a phone call in my newly rented flat in Marylebone. This was curious, as our number there is unlisted. She identified herself as ‘someone who works at the British Library’ but would not give her name, and wanted to meet me at Notes, a small café next door to the London Coliseum. She refused to give me any information about the purpose of this meeting, saying only that it would be of great interest to me.

I could not resist the mystery. I showed up early and took comfort in a cappuccino, watching the pouring rain outside. Eventually a woman arrived, dressed as she had told me she would be with a silk gardenia pinned on the lapel of a long, black military-style coat. A pair of very dark sunglasses and a black wig added to her somewhat theatrical demeanour.

She carried a large nylon satchel, zipped at the top. It was heavy, and the sharp outlines of something rectangular were visible within. ‘Lidia’ then sat down, and in deference to her privacy I will not reveal all she told me. But inside her bag was a battered metal container that had come from the British Library’s older location in the Rotunda of the British Museum many years ago. It had somehow been neglected in the transfer to the new building and had languished within a stained cardboard box in a basement corner for some years.

It was an old, beaten up thing made of tin and was stuck shut. She pried it open gently with the help of a nail file.

Certainly you are ahead of me now.

Within that metal box was a treasure trove of notebooks and loose pages in the careful hand of Dr John H. Watson. You can well imagine my shock and joy. Setting my cappuccino safely to the side, I pulled out a thick, loosely tied bundle from the top. It had been alternatively titled ‘The Ghost of Atholmere’, ‘Still Waters’ and ‘The Spirit that Moved Us’ but all of these had been crossed out, leaving the title of Unquiet Spirits .

Like the previous manuscript, this, too, had faded with time, and a number of pages were so smeared from moisture and mildew that I could make out only partial sentences. In bringing this tale to light, I would have to make educated guesses on those pages. I hope then, that the reader will pardon me for any errors.

She left the box in its satchel in my care, wishing me to bring the contents to publication as I had my previous find. As she stood to go, I wanted to thank her. But she held up a black-gloved hand. ‘Consider it a gift to those celebrants of rational thinking, the Sherlock Holmes admirers of the world,’ said she. She never did give me her name, and while I could have ferreted it out in the manner of a certain gentleman, I decided best to let it lie.

I later wondered if she had actually read the entire story that was the first to emerge from that treasured box. But let me not spoil it for you.

And so, courtesy of the mysterious ‘Lidia’, and in memory of the two men I admire most, I turn you over to Dr John Watson for – Unquiet Spirits .

—Bonnie MacBird

London, December 2016

‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave … when first we practise to deceive’

—Sir Walter Scott

s a doctor, I have never believed in ghosts, at least not the visible kind. I will admit I have even mocked those who were taken in by vaporous apparitions impersonating the dead, conjured by ‘mediums’ and designed to titillate the gullible.

My friend Sherlock Holmes stood even firmer on the topic. As a man who relied on solid evidence and scientific reasoning, he saw no proof of their existence. And to speak frankly, to a detective, ghosts fulfil no purpose. Without a corporeal perpetrator, justice cannot be served.