Cruel Sister: A Haunted Ballad

Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes's brother has returned from Hong Kong with a comfortable fortune and a new bride and is planning to build a house on land he's inherited. Because they want a house as much like an Elizabethan mansion as its "mod cons" will allow, they ask Penny's lover, Ringan Laine, to work on it as a consultant. Ringan is not only a noted musician but also a designer and architect well versed in the first Elizabeth's colorful period.The house is to be on the Isle of Dogs, and Penny's brother, his new wife, and Penny herself are delighted with the site. Ringan, however, comes away feeling very uncomfortable. A few weeks later, in London on business, he goes back alone, hoping to clear up any misgivings he has about the place. But this visit is even worse than the first. He hears women's voices, frightening and full of passion, coming from the air around him.That evening, Ringan is sleeping in Penny's flat; she has taken her theater troupe to Italy. A late-night phone call from Penny reveals to them both that they had an identical dream. In it, two young women on the Isle of Dogs are fighting. One is begging the other not to drown her. Their speech and their clothes put them firmly in the reign of Henry VIII. Once more, Penny and Ringan are being visited by tragic spirits from their country's past. This is the fourth in Deborah Grabien's gripping and unusual Haunted Ballad series. Her stories pair two sophisticated and very likable people whose lives are invaded by tortured souls from England's history. With each encounter, Penny and Ringan are forced to find a way to lay a long-suffering ghost to rest.

From Publishers Weekly

In Grabien's mesmerizing fourth mystery of ghostly suspense (after 2005's Matty Groves), actress Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes gets a call from her long-absent brother, Stephen, who has returned to London from Hong Kong with his wife, Tamsin, to claim land he inherited on the Isle of Dogs, situated on the Thames. Stephen wants Penny's lover, Ringan Laine, a folk musician and expert in period restoration, to consult on his plan to build a Tudor-style manor house on the site. Ringan's uneasy first steps on the isle are only the prelude to the horror of visions to come. A girl who drowns her sister, a pack of baying dogs and a musician from Henry VIII's court invade Ringan's dreams and his waking life. As in previous entries to the series, one of Ringan's folksongs figures into the story and enhances the drama. Grabien's skillful blend of reality and the supernatural will chill even skeptical readers. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Traditional musician Ringan Laine is also an expert on period architecture, which is why his partner, Penny, asks him to help her brother and his new wife build a Tudor-style manor house in London's newly trendy Isle of Dogs neighborhood. As he begins to work on the project, Ringan is troubled by visits from the ghost of a long-dead Italian musician, who may be an ancestor. It seems that the Isle of Dogs was the site of a bomb accident after World War II. It also appears to be the location of some tragic events involving the Italian musician and assorted young women during the reign of Henry VIII. Ringan and his associates must put the ghosts to rest before he suffers the fate of his Italian relative. As she did in Matty Groves (2005), Grabien blends folklore, music, suspense, and the supernatural to create a genre-bending mix of historical mystery and ghost story. Fans of both will be pleased. Barbara BibelCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One There lived a lady by the North Sea Shore,Two daughters were the babes she bore.As one grew bright as did the sun,So coal dark grew the other one. On a sun-washed April afternoon, Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes and Ringan Laine sat drinking cider on the grass behind Ringan's Somerset home, Lumbe's Cottage. "Wasn't that a lovely wedding?" Penny's first action on arrival had been to kick off her shoes. She wriggled her bare toes in the grass. "I thought Char looked sensational. So did Julian, of course, but then, one expects that of him. What's the point in being a movie star if you can't look like Adonis at your own wedding?" "Charlotte looked amazing. A definite change from the usual clothing of choice. I was half-expecting her to turn up at the door of St. Giles draped in purple and orange homespun burlap, but that wedding dress was brilliant on her. I noticed her hair still wasn't behaving, though; there were red-gold bits flying everywhere." Ringan, never comfortable in formal dress, had changed clothes entirely. He took a deep chug at his cider, and sighed. "I expect they'll be quite happy. They're weirdly well suited. And it was nice to be able to walk into Callowen House and not worry about ghosts. But how nice to be home again." "Isn't it?" Penny agreed. "As much as I'd love to sit in this chair and get snockered on cider for the rest of the week, I have to head back to London tomorrow. And aren't the Broomfields coming here to rehearse for your new CD? Is that tomorrow as well? What time are they due to arrive? I'd love a few minutes with Jane before I head out. . . ." The conversation continued, idle and pleasant: their notes on the wedding they'd just attended; Ringan's upcoming time in the studio recording a new CD with his band, Broomfield Hill; Penny's reluctant agreement to be interviewed for a television piece on the difficulties faced by women in theatre. Both of them were old enough to recognise and treasure these brief interludes of peace, and neither was inclined to break the moment, even for dinner. In the tall grass, the local cat, an orange Persian called Butterball, stalked butterflies and pounced on pillbugs. The afternoon sun touched the grass, the people, Glastonbury Tor in the near distance, with soft colour and vagrant warmth. They had reached the point of Penny suggesting that scrounging for a scratch meal might be desirable, and Ringan bemoaning their lack of foresight in not stealing some of the sumptuous goodies Miles Leight-Arnold, Lord Callowen, had provided for his only daughter's nuptials, when they heard themselves hailed. Albert Wychsale, Baron Boult of Glastonbury, Ringan's landlord and Penny's business partner, strolled across the grass towards them. "Hello, Ringan, Penny--I see you had the same idea I did, shedding the fancy plumage and pouring a good stiff drink." Albert, sixtyish and on the round side, settled carefully into a lawn chair. "Good to be back where it's quiet." "Hello, Albert. What on earth are you doing back so soon? And do you want some cider?" Penny waved a languid hand towards the kitchen's Dutch doors. "There's lots. Only, I'm being a lazy cow and not getting up, so you'll have to fetch your own glass." "Thank you, Penny, but no, I've already had some. It was the first thing I did when I got home, that and getting rid of the tie." Albert moved his fingers in the grass, and Butterball pounced. "Silly cat, are you glad to see everyone? Anyway, I'm home early because, having done my duty as a godparent and stood at Charlotte's side and supported the bride during her wedding, I consider that my responsibilities stop well short of watching a display of, er, well, foreplay." Penny blinked. Ringan, quicker on the uptake, grinned. "Ah. I gather they'd reached the smooch-and-meaningful-glance stage?" "Oh, no, that would have been tolerable, not to mention normal, and expected. But this is Char we're talking about, remember? No inhibitions at all? Julian was nibbling her ear and feeding her petits fours, and she was just beginning her announcement that she was glad everyone had come and now could we all get the hell out of it so that she and the groom could go upstairs and have a lovely slap-and-tickle?, thanks ever so, goodbye, and drive carefully. I heard the last of it as I joined a small throng of guests backing out as fast as our legs would carry us. Julian was grinning like a very handsome satyr." Albert shuddered. "She certainly does know how to empty a room." On the lawn near Penny's chair, something suddenly buzzed furiously. Albert jumped. "What on earth was that?" "My cell phone. Damn!" Penny scrabbled for the vibrating phone, and peered at the caller identification. Her jaw dropped as she registered the name. "Oh my God, it's my brother!" She clicked the answer button. "Stephen! Is that really you? Right, sorry, it took me a minute. Where are you? Are you calling from Hong Kong? What?" She was silent for a long minute, listening, her face growing perceptibly slacker. "You're what--you did what? Are you joking? Do Mum and Daddy know?" As she listened to the tinny rattle of her older brother's voice, Ringan and Albert watched her face, at all times mobile and reflective of her feelings, going through a remarkable variety of changes: pleasure, surprise, caution, bewilderment, and, at the end, something less easy to identify. The two men exchanged glances; Penny was not an easy woman to confound. "Right," she said finally. She sounded stunned. "Well. Stephen, look, hang on a bit, would you? Just--give me a moment. This is a bit much to take in. I'll put you on to Ringan, but first of all, you can't really think I wouldn't be staggered. I mean, you're fifty-something, you've been gone for twenty years, and all of a sudden you're in London and you've got a wife? Who is she--no, not her name, you told me her name, and a very pretty name it is, too. So I've now got a sister-in-law called Tamsin. That's lovely. But where did you meet her?, what--?" The rattle started up again, stopped. Penny shook her head, rather in the manner of a swimmer trying to clear water from her ears. "All right," she told the phone. "Here. You talk to Ringan--yes, I'm aware you've never met, but really, as Scots go, he's very social. Not a hint of dour. And besides, if I understand you, this is his patch you want to be on, not mine. Here he is." She handed the phone to Ringan, who, slightly slack jawed himself, was staring at her. "This is my brother Stephen on the phone," she told him, enunciating carefully and clearly. "He's back from living for donkey's years in Hong Kong, and he's got a new wife called Tamsin, and it seems that Tamsin is keen to build a house, and Stephen says you're what's needed for the purpose. Here. Cope with it, please." Ringan, blinking in bewilderment at Penny, took the phone. "Hello? Ringan Laine here." "Yes, I know." The voice was deep, and commandingly firm. "My sister told me she was giving you the phone. This is Stephen Wintercraft-Hawkes. I was wondering if you might be available to consult on an architectural project." "Consult? What sort of project?" Ringan was beginning to understand Penny's reaction; there was something unexpected about Stephen, a kind of eccentricity. It was there in the very cadence of his voice. "Penny said something about building a house. I don't do anything in the way of modern architecture; I specialise in period restoration." "Yes, I'm aware of that. But I believe you're just the person we need for this. Here's why. . . ." It was now Penny and Albert's turn to watch Ringan's face go through a succession of rapid changes. Really, Albert thought, Penny's brother Stephen seemed to have a peculiar effect on facial muscles. "Yes, well, right. Of course." Ringan sounded as bemused as Penny had. "Okay, then. I'll give you my number--I'm busy rehearsing and recording for most of the next month, but I have got this weekend free. I could come up to London and have a look. Did I hear you say the building site is on the Isle of Dogs? Which bit--on the river itself? Bloody hell. No, nothing. Tell you what, does Saturday work for you? If it's all right with Penny, I can come up late Friday, and we can discuss this over lunch. Yes. Yes, of course. See you then. Yes." He clicked the phone shut, and stared at Penny. There was a long silence. "The Isle of Dogs?" Albert finally managed. "Did you say something about a building site on the Isle of Dogs? On the Thames?" "He said that, yes. Land down there goes for, what? About two trillion quid per half cubic yard of dirt, or something?" Ringan looked at Penny. "Would you mind if I asked what your brother does for a living to make that kind of money? The only thing I can think of would be something like international arms merchant, or maybe official blackmailer of potentates." "He's a banker and financial adviser for wealthy industrialists." Penny remembered her cider, and drained the glass. "But that land wasn't bought; I've just remembered about it. It was his coming-of-age gift from my uncle Stephen, and yes, that same uncle Stephen who was married to my eccentric French aunt. My brother was named for him. He's had that patch of ground for nearly thirty years. I remember that it wasn't worth much back then; it was really filthy. All polluted and whatnot--the Isle of Dogs used to be your basic mix of environmental disaster area and occasional bit of green parkland. But these days, I don't even want to think what a nice tidy patch of residential zoned building land on the Isle of Dogs, all cleaned up, is worth. However . . ." She looked meaningfully at Ringan. "Right now, I'm far more interested in this new wife and this consulting job they want to offer you. Since when are you willing to touch moder...

About the Author

Deborah Grabien, a former resident of England, now lives with her husband in San Francisco, California.

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