Page 33 of A Scottish Country Escape

I looked up to see where the disembodied voice was coming from. An elderly lady in a crackly flower-print apron was hovering at the front door to no. 4. She had hair like a giant snowball.

‘She’s probably recognised me,’ said Dexter.

I performed a comical eyeroll and strolled over to her.

‘Please forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn,’ she apologised, lowering her voice and casting a surreptitious glance towards Adam Fraser’s cottage next door, ‘but I had only just come out to collect some mint from my garden when I overheard you mention Linda Carlucci.’

Optimism sprung up inside me. ‘Do you know her?’

She squinted out of dark-blue eyes, making her plump skin feather at the corners. ‘Maybe you and your young gentleman should come in.’

I pretended to look around for the young gentleman.

‘Very funny,’ Dexter carped. ‘And not very original.’

The outside of her cottage was similar to no. 2, but this one sported pillar-box red shutters and a white-paned front door, bearing stained-glass images of pink roses. Ceramic tubs of lavender thrummed with excited bees.

The lady introduced herself as Fran Boyd and led me and a puzzled-looking Dexter down her hallway. It smelled of pine polish and dark-wooden furniture.

She insisted we settle ourselves in her sitting room, which led off to the right. That also featured an abundance of dark wooden fittings, together with ornamental China dogs and printed yellow curtains.

Dexter and I eyed each other while Fran bustled to her chair.

We took up positions next to each other on her two-seater toffee-coloured sofa. ‘Do you think she knows something?’ he muttered to me out of the corner of his mouth, but before I could reply, Mrs Boyd’s slanting deep-blue eyes glittered with appreciation. ‘May I just say you make a very handsome couple!’

I flapped my hands in protest. ‘Oh no! We’re not a couple. Nope. Not at all.’

I slid an awkward side-eye at Dexter beside me. He offered me a look back that was indecipherable.

‘So, you were saying about Linda Carlucci?’ I prompted, eager to move the conversation on.

Fran took a couple of seconds to consider what she was going to say. ‘There were always rumours about the Carlucci family,’ she began. ‘Strange rumours.’

Dexter shot forward. ‘Like what?’

Fran dropped her voice, even though there appeared to be no one else around apart from us in her home. ‘My own grandmother told me fifty-odd years ago now about the rumours of their so-called abilities.’ She threw her delicate hands up into the air, before letting them fall back into her apron-clad lap. ‘I know it must sound ridiculous, but so many people around here were saying the same thing.’

Dexter gave me a brief look of triumph while my mind cartwheeled with what Fran had just told us.

She continued talking, her gaze switching between Dexter and me. ‘There were stories about the Carlucci women possessing some sort of ability after Maria, Linda’s great-grandmother, discovered that her sister, Eva, had been treated badly by her then beau.’

‘What happened?’ I probed, my interest piqued.

Fran sat back in her chair and laced her fingers together. ‘Some say it was an awful illness; others alluded to the possibility that Eva died of a broken heart after her beloved Jonathan cheated on her.’

We fell silent. All that could be heard was the rhythmical ticking of a green and gold carriage clock on the mantlepiece.

‘Anyway, Maria swore revenge on Jonathan after the death of her sister and, soon after, his printing business failed, his new fiancée dumped him at the altar after discovering he had no money, and then he became addicted to gambling.’ Fran shrugged her shoulders. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Many people did. It could all have been a matter of coincidence.’

Dexter and I listened, entranced, as Fran described Jonathan Swinson’s sudden fear of the family and his insistence that Maria Carlucci had placed some sort of curse on him.

‘He was adamant,’ said Fran. ‘He insisted that was what had happened. If the rumours are true, Maria visited his home three times immediately after Eva’s death and it was said to be after the first visit that she wished him financial ruin and suffering as retribution for her sister.’ Fran shrugged. ‘The Carlucci family used to read tea leaves, make and sell arts and crafts, that kind of thing. I think a lot of the narrow-minded locals were wary of them from the off.’

Fran reached her fingers towards the base of her neck, as if to illustrate the point.

‘The story goes that Maria clutched at some sort of pendant around her neck as she cursed him.’

From beside me came a loud intake of breath from Dexter. He turned pale and tried to steady himself. ‘This pendant… do you know what it was supposed to look like?’