Once all the candles were alight, Father William bade the novice leave the chapel.

‘Thank you, my son. I need to pray on my own this evening.’

The hooded figure extinguished his taper and left.

It had been a long day. The Head of the Order of St Saviour tried to pray, but the words would not come. The events of the last seven days went round and round in his mind: Szabo, principal; Foster, educational psychologist; Day, chair of the board. Each and every one of those three had a lot to answer for.

Father William pushed himself up to a standing position. Every bone in his body ached. He shuffled to the high altar. There was a sound in the organ loft at the west end of the chapel. Or so he thought, but nothing could be seen when he turned to face the grandiose instrument. If only our founder were still with us! Templeton Taylor would never have let us run out of money!

Father William looked up and around the ceiling of the grand, mock-perpendicular chapel. Between the gold stars, backed by a Cambridge-blue sky, the letters ‘TT’ intertwined around every apostle, all the angels and archangels and even, if one knew where to look, the Lord God Almighty himself. What vanity and arrogance man had! To have himself up there like that! Was this chapel a holy place or a monument to the works of Sir Templeton Taylor?

Again, there was a creak, as if someone was tiptoeing round the west gallery. Once more the Head of the Order of St Saviour turned round.

‘Who is there? Show yourself!’

Father William thought to turn on the electric lighting, then remembered that the power had yet to be restored to Templeton Towers and the back-up generator was proving difficult to start, despite its being hydraulically powered. William pondered on how old TT had been ahead of his time: a green Victorian! Despite all the smoke from his factory chimneys down in Hartley Valley and across the Dale.

‘I say again – who is there? Show yourself?’

The candle flickered. Perhaps a door was slightly ajar: the acolyte as he left; or an unknown visitor joining the Reverend Father in prayer. Could it be someone wanting to have their confession heard?

‘That would be something of a surprise, given the numbers we now have within the school who profess any kind of faith, let alone the Anglo-Catholic variety’. William Clair sighed. ‘I am just tired; stressed; overwrought. This business about the future of the school will not go away. Szabo is making it worse; wanting to sell all that land for housing; and Diana Foster’s grand ideas about how to educate high-functioning autistic children are pure academic balderdash! We have been doing it for nearly 100 years without any interference from educational psychologists!’

Father William determined to pray, and in earnest. If he brought all his problems to God, then God would take away the worry and the pain and show the way forward, both for the Order of St Saviour and its Head. He bowed in prayer once more; still the words would not come; there was too much going around inside his mind – his soul, even - to wash away the anguish and the anger of what was happening to his beloved school and the OSS. Was there no future for men like him in this modern, target-setting, objective-bound, profit-dominated world?

Clair decided that there was nothing for it but to recite the Lord’s Prayer. He had got as far as the words ‘Forgive them that trespass against us’ when he was murdered.

***

Frederick Dawson May was pleased with himself. It was the first weekend that he had not gone home from Templeton Towers to stay with his parents and, though he said it himself, he had coped rather well. Not only that, but he had got himself a girlfriend; two, in fact. It could have been just the one, but here was a package deal if ever such an arrangement was to be had. Freddie had encountered Camilla at the introductory week. She shared his interested in criminology and was super-impressed when he told her that his father was Detective Chief Inspector Donald May, Head of Hartley CID.

‘You mean the man who solved the Holme Hill Murders?’ she had said.

‘Yes, I do’, Freddie had replied, ‘with my help, that is!’

‘I saw that programme on television about it all. What was it called?’

‘I think you mean Murdertown. It made my father a celebrity, sort of.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, there were all kinds of reminiscences and serializations in the tabloids. A woman called Pauline Philbey sold her story to the Daily Mail. “I was serial murderer’s secret lover”, I think it was called. My father was very angry at the time.’  

‘Gosh! But it must all be so ace! All that detective stuff to talk about when your Dad gets home from work!’

‘You talk like something out of a 1950s adventure story for boys and girls, Camilla!’

So do you, Commander Frederick May of the Yard!’

‘How do you know I call myself that?’

‘I have my ways of finding things out.’

Freddie had been cross, but not for long, for this girl intrigued him. He had never met anyone like her. She could be so changeable, both in temperament and appearance. Then it had dawned on him.

‘You aren’t Camilla, are you? You are sometimes, but not now.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about, you silly boy!’

‘It took me a while to work it out, but I did eventually. How you could forget things that we had talked about only the previous day and then remember them clearly the following day. That’s when I started to become suspicious. Then I noticed that sometimes you wrote with your right hand; then at other times you used your left.’

‘So what? I am ambidextrous, that’s all.’

‘Well, you might be, but that was not the piece of evidence that gave the game away.’

‘No? What was it then?’    

‘Camilla – if that is her name – has a slight nervous tick in her left eye. You do not.’

The girl smiled at Freddie.

‘Very well, Commander May, of the Yard. If I let you into my secret, will you keep it absolutely to yourself and not tell anybody? Not even your father?’

May nodded, at which point the girl took him by the hand and virtually pulled him up the staircase and into the new wing of the school where the student bedrooms were located.

Freddie had never had any physical contact with a member of the opposite sex before, and his hand grew sweaty with nerves, anxiety, and the exertion of running along the corridor to which male student access was forbidden. Without knocking, the girl pushed open the door of the room right at the end of the student wing. 

‘You are right. I am not Camilla. This is Camilla, my sister. I am Vanessa.’

Freddie May looked from one to the other, then back again. He had never seen twins before – at least not identical ones – and could not stop looking at the two girls standing in front of him.

‘Stop gawping, boy!’ Vanessa giggled.

‘I cannot help it. But why? And how?’

Camilla and Vanessa smiled at each other and told Freddie to sit down on the chair by the study table while they sat on the bed. They spoke in absolute unison.

‘Money, that’s why, Fred.’

‘I prefer to be called Freddie or Frederick, thank you.’

‘He does, Vanessa. I forgot to tell you that.’

‘What do you mean “money”?’

‘Well Fred – Freddie – our parents so wanted to send us to Templeton Towers, but, as I imagine your Dad has told you, it is very expensive here. So why not make the most of the fact that we are identical?’

‘You mean…’

‘Yes, we do, Freddie’, Camilla nodded. ‘Two for the price of one!’

‘We take it in turns to go to lessons, and stuff’, Vanessa added.

‘And what about accommodation?’

‘Easy, Fred – Freddie – there are lots of spare rooms, and we are very good at picking locks and things like that. Don’t be so shocked. I bet you know how to do it, thanks to that Dad of yours!’

Freddie May blushed. ‘Well, I do actually.’ He paused for a moment, then continued. ‘What are we going to do now?’

‘What should we do? What do we need to do?’ Camilla and Vanessa spoke in turn.

‘I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.’

‘Good. That was the right answer Commander Frederick Dawson May. Now we have a little case that we need your help with.’

Freddie scratched his hand.

‘Don’t worry; we won’t bite. It will be fun. We can all play detective!’

‘OK. What is the case, then?’

‘Well, this room looks out onto the school chapel. And we have seen some strange goings on over the last few days. We want you to help us find out if the chapel really is haunted.’

‘Haunted?’

‘Yes, Freddie. We keep seeing a ghost.’

***

János Szabo was beginning to wish he was back in the Royal Navy. The post of Principal at Templeton Towers had seemed so attractive: what better way to continue his career than by going into teaching? After all, he had been rated as one of the senior service’s top trainers; teaching was in his blood and the opportunity to develop genius children – despite all the challenges that some of their behaviour might bring – was one that the former Lieutenant Commander had to take.

The job had started well enough, and Szabo was welcomed both at Templeton and within the local community, despite the school’s remoteness, perched as it was on top of the hills overlooking Hartley Valley, with its river, canal, noisy railway, and busy road. Szabo had begun to encourage links with the villages down below, and especially Holme Hill, the nearest place of human habitation.

Szabo was keen to move the school ahead. Being a native of Hartleydale had its advantages, especially when it came to building bridges with, and raising funds from, the local education authority. Templeton Towers was not what it seemed. Though espousing the need for change, Father William had so far resisted every attempt that Szabo had made to improve the finances. The proposal to sell off two-thirds of the grounds to a property developer met with abject refusal to co-operate, despite the Chairman of the Board’s willingness to consider it seriously. At least Andreas Day was enough of a realist to accept what needed to be done to keep the school solvent.

Szabo was about to send an email to Clair asking for an urgent meeting in the morning to see if a compromise could be reached when there was a knock at his office door. It opened as soon as he uttered the words ‘come in.’

‘Diana! I didn’t expect to see you this evening. You should be enjoying your weekend.’

Szabo watched his educational psychologist enter his office. She looked flustered; she was breathing heavily and her face was red.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Your appearance.’

‘I’ve been out running. I’m training for the local triathlon. I find that exercise de-stresses me.’

‘Perhaps I should join you. I could do with less stress.’

‘Tomorrow’s Board meeting preying on your mind, Jan?’

‘Just a bit.’

‘You’ll get what you want, I know it.’

‘Perhaps; perhaps not. What was it you wanted to see me about?’

Foster took out a plain brown envelope and handed it to Szabo.

‘What do you make of that? I’ve never had a death threat before, but I suppose there is always a first time.’

***

 Detective Constable Georgie Ellis was feeling smug. She was pleased enough to open a second bar of Old Jamaica chocolate, a treat reserved for the most special of occasions. This was one such: her appointment had finally been confirmed. There had been times when she thought the transfer across from uniform would never happen, especially in the light of going off grid on the Holme Hill murders. She might have disobeyed orders, but she had been a major player in catching the criminals, which had stood her in good stead when it came to the inevitable disciplinary hearing; that and DCI Donald May’s arguing strongly that she was a valuable asset to the police and should be treated as such.

As she savoured every bite of the chocolate, George Ellis relived the meeting with her DCI.

‘I want you to be my first DC, Georgie, now that Charlie has been promoted to DS. You showed both initiative and determination in that hostage situation, and you deserve a chance to develop your career, with grit like that.’

DC Ellis smirked at the thought that May had started to form the word ‘balls’, then thought better of it and changed the compliment to ‘grit’ at the last minute. And now she was plain clothes and raring to go. It was as if the telephone had read her mind, for the ringing began immediately after her daydream had finished. She assumed that it would be Tiggy, who usually called late on a Sunday evening, blissfully ignorant of the fact that ordinary working people had to get up to go to their jobs on a Monday morning. It was not Tiggy though. It was her boss, and he needed her help urgently on a murder investigation; her first, but not her last over the following few months.