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though the horses were stubborn and the wind was cold and the rain was wet, it felt good to be out of doors. The scenery was amazing and out here in the daylight I just couldn’t believe the vengeful-ghost theory. OK, so I couldn’t come up with an explanation but that was because I didn’t know all the facts. After what Isabella had said last night, I knew that Steve had actually died in that weird shower-related accident. And Richard – whoever he was – had been killed in South America. Yet another dead person. Bruce brought it to a grand total of three corpses. How were they linked? And how was I going to find out?
    After an hour or so we headed for home and the animals sped up into a nice brisk walk. As soon as we entered the yard, Cathy jumped down from her horse and handed the reins to Mike.
    “Sorry,” she said, running for the house. “Desperate for the loo, I’ll be back in a second.”
    By the time she’d returned and we’d shut the horses up in their stables we were all looking forward to another of Donald’s hearty meals.
    “Go on in, kids,” urged Mike. “Give Donald a hand laying the table. Tell him it’s time to get the food on to plates.”
    But the kitchen was empty and dark, and no pans were simmering on the stove.
    “What the…?” said an irate Alice.
    “I’m starving!” complained Jake. “I thought Donald was supposed to be cooking.”
    “Something’s wrong,” whispered Graham, looking at me. “He ought to be here. Something bad has happened, hasn’t it?”
    I didn’t answer because at that moment the grown‑ups came in, and although they seemed worried Mike tried to hide his concern. “He was always doing things like this at university. He’s probably gone for a walk and forgotten the time.” He smiled at Isabella. “Remember when he invited us all over for a meal and we ended up having to cook it ourselves because he’d gone off in his canoe?”
    Isabella didn’t smile back. She didn’t look upset. She didn’t even look worried. She looked … what?
    All of a sudden I remembered an old film I’d watched once about Mary, Queen of Scots. Isabella looked exactly the way the queen had looked right before her head was chopped off. Resigned. Like there was no escaping what was about to happen. Like she’d accepted her fate and just wanted it all to be over.
    “The children need feeding,” Isabella said, and her voice was calm but oddly flat and emotionless. A dead voice. It turned my stomach inside out.
    “It’s too late to start cooking anything complicated,” answered Cathy. “Have we got any burgers, or chicken nuggets, or anything? I’ll knock us up something quick.” She crossed the kitchen to the walk-in freezer, unfastened the lock and pulled open the door.
    A second of silence. Cathy’s scream. And then Donald, stiff as a giant fish finger, fell out and hit the floor.
    He was frozen solid.
    It was another accident, according to Mike. “He must have gone in to get something to cook for lunch and the door blew shut behind him. Yes … that’s it. That’s what happened. It’s the problem with old houses – they’re so draughty.”
    But all the time he was babbling, Isabella was shaking her head. “We’re being punished,” she said suddenly. “Can’t you see? We should never have left him.”
    “Donald was thirty-two, Isabella,” snapped Cathy, “the same as you. Surely he was old enough to be left on his own?”
    “I wasn’t talking about Donald.” Isabella fixed her with a stare and Cathy turned away, flustered and uncomfortable.
    “We still need to get everyone fed,” Cathy muttered.
    In the end she found bread and cheese and some fruit and we ate in the sitting room. They’d had to stuff poor Donald back in the freezer to keep his body frozen so no one felt like eating in the kitchen.
    “It’s horrible!” Meera was crying. “Isn’t there anywhere else they could put him?”
    “There’s no undertaker here,” I said. “I