The House on Findlater Lane

**From author, Helen Goltz, a romance with a ghostly presence, and a twist of mystery! **

Holly Hanlon, 27, was running away. She preferred to think of it as having a sea change away from London to her aunt’s cottage in Findlater Lane in a seaside village. It was just what she needed to get back on her feet after a nasty break-up.

There, Holly would continue her small business, Missing Me – Lost, Found and Broken. Since she was a young girl items found Holly… hats blown away in a storm, missing pets, lost jewellery, random keys and love letters… it seemed a natural progression with her counselling diploma to offer a service for all things lost and broken.

There was one small hiccup, Aunty Kate’s little seaside cottage was struggling to find a regular tenant thanks to the portrait in the living room – a portrait of the very handsome Sergeant Alexander Austen. You see sometimes he was in the frame and sometimes he wasn’t. Was Holly afraid? Ha… a little. Ghosts weren’t her thing. But if Sergeant Alexander Austen stayed in the frame of his portrait as he was meant to do, then all would be well as far as Holly was concerned. Although, she felt braver saying that in the daylight.

Despite the belief that her grandmother Lily – or Loopy Lily as the family had nicknamed her – had been known to talk with the Sergeant, that was no excuse for him to stick around, especially as Lily had departed this earth. Frankly, that ghost should be long gone and Holly decided that she would help him pack if he wasn’t.

But Sergeant Alexander Austen, who was in his early thirties when he died and has stayed that way, liked living alone at Findlater House. The years he had spent there as a newlywed with his wife, Meghan, before his untimely death in the 1970s, were the happiest days of his life. He liked to play his records at all times of the day and night – Creedence Clearwater , the Rolling Stones , all the classics from that era, and he didn’t like to make small talk.

The Sergeant had no intention of moving on until the mystery of his death could be solved… in essence, he wanted someone to find him. And, he hoped in vain that his now-aged wife Meghan might visit, even just once for old times’ sake.

Up until now, The Sergeant had done a reasonable job of scaring off potential tenants and he anticipated this new girl would be no problem. She can’t have been more than five foot five, petite and blonde. How hard could it be?

And so, Holly and The Sergeant were both calling Findlater House home. For now.

(Written in British-Australian English)