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Unquiet Spirits: Whisky, Ghosts, Adventure
Bonnie Macbird
The new novel from the author of Art in the Blood. December 1889. Fresh from debunking a “ghostly” hound in Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes has returned to London, only to find himself the target of a deadly vendetta.A beautiful client arrives with a tale of ghosts, kidnapping and dynamite on a whisky estate in Scotland, but brother Mycroft trumps all with an urgent assignment in the South of France.On the fabled Riviera, Holmes and Watson encounter treachery, explosions, rival French Detective Jean Vidocq… and a terrible discovery. This propels the duo northward to the snowy highlands. There, in a “haunted” castle and among the copper dinosaurs of a great whisky distillery, they and their young client face mortal danger, and Holmes realizes all three cases have blended into a single, deadly conundrum.In order to solve the mystery, the ultimate rational thinker must confront a ghost from his own past. But Sherlock Holmes does not believe in ghosts…or does he?
Copyright (#ulink_a3ee5e09-1ee7-5d76-99b2-e8a5dcc47034)
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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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Bonnie MacBird 2017
All rights reserved
Drop Cap design © Mark Mázers 2017
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 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
Dedication (#ulink_0dad9b7c-86f0-57b5-b0be-d863dcd68f48)
For Rosemary and Mac
Contents
Cover (#u1003ae66-0fc8-52cf-ae6b-cbc74b823e87)
Title Page (#u9cfc0692-e286-5fb5-8f1d-d8d83705e339)
Copyright (#ue06594d2-2742-58d5-b128-dd3b8781bae1)
Dedication (#u5384168d-a458-50d9-b6d2-ba494b3f2979)
Preface (#u5aef8e46-1d18-51ed-b8fe-87123e78a712)
PART ONE – A SPIRITED LASS (#ue5f3b7c5-961e-5d22-a6cc-305f5fa1e056)
1. Stillness (#u4ec51616-49e3-5f47-a1be-0b136e5f6d9c)
2. Isla (#ubaa24737-3fe8-5246-851d-6077179d7d3e)
3. Rejection (#u13bfeeeb-6a09-5a1b-b3ba-ed1bfef9104e)
4. Brothers (#u168bf45b-2d6d-5c13-8160-aae9d892fa3d)
5. Nice (#u8feec32b-e7e2-5c9d-8cc9-711761d0f376)
6. Docteur Janvier (#u34f94619-e442-5f92-bcec-0e44984ee103)
PART TWO – GETTING AHEAD (#u99b2ad8b-0919-5486-977e-377e1497c581)
7. Vidocq (#u1e3ce55e-8f9a-5822-bc06-38dcb7c1ce72)
8. Ahead of the Game (#u3f4fea42-5d89-5051-b2d8-a1e4cc533801)
9. The Staff of Death (#litres_trial_promo)
10. Unwelcome Help (#litres_trial_promo)
11. A Fleeting Pleasure (#litres_trial_promo)
PART THREE – NORTHERN MISTS (#litres_trial_promo)
12. Arthur (#litres_trial_promo)
13. Braedern (#litres_trial_promo)
14. The Highland Magic (#litres_trial_promo)
15. Cameron Coupe (#litres_trial_promo)
16. The Groundsman’s Sons (#litres_trial_promo)
17. Catherine (#litres_trial_promo)
18. Charles (#litres_trial_promo)
19. The Laird’s Sanctum (#litres_trial_promo)
20. Reviewing the Situation (#litres_trial_promo)
PART FOUR – A CHILL DESCENDS (#litres_trial_promo)
21. Dinner (#litres_trial_promo)
22. Ghost! (#litres_trial_promo)
23. Alistair (#litres_trial_promo)
24. Obfuscation (#litres_trial_promo)
25. Where There is Smoke (#litres_trial_promo)
PART FIVE – THE DISTILLATION (#litres_trial_promo)
26. The Whisky Thief (#litres_trial_promo)
27. Divide and Conquer (#litres_trial_promo)
28. Fettes (#litres_trial_promo)
29. Thin Ice (#litres_trial_promo)
30. Romeo and Juliet (#litres_trial_promo)
31. Getting Warmer (#litres_trial_promo)
PART SIX – MATURATION (#litres_trial_promo)
32. The Angel’s Share (#litres_trial_promo)
33. Circles of Hell (#litres_trial_promo)
34. The Missing Man (#litres_trial_promo)
35. You Must Change Your Thoughts (#litres_trial_promo)
36. The Ghost of Atholmere (#litres_trial_promo)
37. Charlotte (#litres_trial_promo)
38. Golden Bear and Silver Tongue (#litres_trial_promo)
PART SEVEN – THE POUR (#litres_trial_promo)
39. The Lady (#litres_trial_promo)
40. A Wash (#litres_trial_promo)
41. 221B (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Preface (#ulink_f3b36b0a-2dea-5e15-b75c-e14adecea1e7)
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
PART ONE (#ulink_48b2c955-8696-5aa2-ba01-e59b6db3de0c)
A SPIRITED LASS (#ulink_48b2c955-8696-5aa2-ba01-e59b6db3de0c)
‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave … when first we practise to deceive’
—Sir Walter Scott
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_bd189caf-4e88-5336-8034-81b6f5f8daa6)
