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Pixie Tate grasped Ulysses’ hand as they settled into their business-class seats on the aeroplane.

She was terrified of flying. Given the nature of her business, this was surprising.

She was comfortable travelling out of her body, and, indeed, through time, but trusting a man-made machine to carry her safely into the sky was something she was deeply uneasy about.

She simply couldn’t understand the physics of it.

However, she was much more afraid of her mother.

The very idea that the woman was now out of prison and hoping to make contact was so appalling that when the College of Psychic Studies in South Kensington had reached out to Ulysses about an earthbound spirit in a hotel in Manhattan, she’d immediately agreed to the job.

Pixie did not want to think about her mother.

She’d torn up the letter she’d received a few weeks ago and thrown it in the bin.

She hadn’t been able to breathe easily since.

Thoughts of her mother induced a crippling anxiety, stirring up memories so dark and frightening that she was reduced to a trembling child again, struggling to make sense of what had happened.

No, she most certainly did not want to dwell on that.

New York beckoned to her like a life raft unexpectedly and blessedly floating by a drowning woman, even when that life raft was, in itself, decidedly unappealing.

‘Champagne, madam?’ A smartly dressed air steward with immaculate hair and big white teeth held out a tray of glass flutes filled with the sparkling golden liquid.

‘Don’t mind if I do.’ Pixie leant over and took two, knocking them back one after the other. She grimaced as the champagne fizzed its way down her gullet. The air steward’s eyes bulged.

‘Do you really need that, Pix?’ Ulysses asked, settling into his seat with a contented sigh. He nodded his thanks at the shocked steward and reached for a flute of his own.

‘I absolutely do,’ she replied. ‘I hope it’ll knock me out, so I wake up when the plane lands.’

‘I don’t know what you have to be nervous about. Planes rarely crash. You’re safer in a plane than in a car. In fact, you’re safer in a plane than crossing the road. You’re much more likely to—’

‘Okay, I get it. I don’t like feeling out of control, thousands of miles above the earth.’

He frowned. ‘You who travels through time as easily as most people breathe.’

‘That’s different. That’s perfectly natural. It scares me to think of the great weight of the plane, full of people and luggage, taking off. I mean, how does it do it?’ She shuddered and glanced at her empty glasses. ‘I think I need another one.’

She made to get up, but Ulysses put a hand on her arm.

‘No, you don’t, Pix,’ he said softly. She looked at him and he saw the genuine fear in her eyes.

He took her hand again and squeezed it reassuringly.

‘We’re in business class, Pix, and I’m with you all the way.

Trust me, you’re going to be fine. Next stop, the Aldershoff Hotel.

Isn’t it exciting! We’re going to New York!

’ He let go of her hand and looked out of his pod into the aisle.

‘Now I’m going to go and make amends with that rather dishy air steward you’ve frightened something terrible. ’

Pixie shut her eyes, muttering under her breath. With any luck, she’d fall asleep before take-off. She didn’t notice the other travellers lifting their eyes off their devices to stare at Ulysses as he walked past, so devilishly good-looking and golden, like a film star.

‘Excuse me?’ Pixie heard a woman’s voice.

She opened her eyes, frustrated that she had shut them for barely two minutes and already someone was disturbing her.

The voice belonged to a chic blonde woman who was sitting in the pod opposite her.

She had intelligent blue eyes and a full and generous mouth that looked as if smiling was its natural repose.

Her English accent was cut glass, but her obvious warmth softened it.

Wrapped in cream-coloured cashmere, she exuded elegance and comfort, like a luxurious cat.

‘I couldn’t help hearing that you’re staying at the Aldershoff Hotel,’ the woman continued.

‘That’s where we’re headed, too. My assistant Lara and I.

It’s a very special place.’ She gestured at the tall, leggy girl who was striding towards them in a sharply tailored black trouser suit, holding a couple of wine glasses.

‘There she is.’ The girl gave her boss one of the glasses and put the other on the ledge in the next-door pod.

She flicked her long flaxen hair off her shoulders, sat down and switched on her iPad.

‘I’m Tanya Roseby, by the way.’ Tanya put out a graceful hand.

Pixie sat up, her irritation evaporating immediately. ‘Pixie Tate,’ she replied, reaching out to shake it. ‘What a coincidence!’

‘Isn’t it.’ Tanya smiled. ‘Of all the hotels in New York and we’re heading to the same one.’

‘Have you been before?’

‘Only once, for the opening party in the spring. It’s an old Gilded Age mansion that’s been converted into a rather special hotel.’

‘That sounds interesting. Do you know anything about its history? I’ve never been before and I have a thing for old buildings.’

‘It’s my job to know its history,’ Tanya said. ‘My company represents some of the most magnificent hotels in the world. We’re going to look at a couple of very unique ones that are vying for our services. The Aldershoff is one of them. It’s particularly famous, and infamous, of course.’

‘Oh, do tell.’ Pixie leant forward eagerly, forgetting her fear of flying at the thought of learning something about the building that harboured the earthbound spirit that refused to leave. She knew at once that there was nothing coincidental about this chance meeting.

‘Well, it was built in eighteen seventy-two by William Aldershoff, a Dutchman who came to America as a young man to seek his fortune. He made a massive amount of money in railroads and built a wildly extravagant mansion, as all the new rich did in those days, on Fifth Avenue. At that time there was no inheritance tax and no income tax, so you can imagine how wealthy they became. William’s wife, the notorious New York socialite Didi Aldershoff, famously spent over a quarter of a million dollars in today’s money on flowers for her debut party. ’

‘That’s a lot of flowers!’ Pixie exclaimed.

‘Sure is. Their lives revolved around society and money, and nothing was more important than being invited to the right parties and knowing the right people. But the Aldershoffs were, in old New York’s eyes at least, new money like Vanderbilt and Carnegie, so the old families like the Astors looked down their noses at them.

To the snooty “Old New York”, the nouveaux riches were very common.

So, William Aldershoff bought the famous Potemkin Diamond, which impressed everyone. ’

‘What was that?’

‘One of the most valuable diamonds in the world, more valuable even than the Koh-i-noor. It was given to Catherine the Great of Russia by her lover, Prince Potemkin. William Aldershoff displayed it in a glass case in the mansion and showed it off to all the grandees – no one declined an invitation to their house after that, not even Mrs Astor. But following an attempted robbery, he hid it, confiding the hiding place only to his eldest son, who inherited the diamond upon his father’s death.

Unfortunately, Walter-Wyatt died before telling anyone where it was hidden.

No one has ever found it. It’s been a mystery ever since. ’

‘Oh, do you think it might still be in the house?’ Pixie asked.

‘Well, the building has gone through various renovations and no one has found it. William Aldershoff also built a big palace in Newport, by the sea, which is now a museum, but the diamond has never turned up there, either.’

‘I love a mystery,’ Pixie murmured thoughtfully. She wondered whether she’d be able to find it with a dowsing crystal. ‘Are there any Aldershoffs left?’

‘Only one of note. Alma, Walter-Wyatt’s second daughter, who in spite of having married more than once, still goes by the name Alma Aldershoff.

Must be in her nineties. I remember seeing her in Cipriani’s in the late eighties.

Big hair and shoulder pads and lots of gold jewellery, surrounded by the rich and fashionable.

You know the type. They seem to constantly be divorcing and marrying someone else.

I’m not sure how many husbands she’s had, but it must be at least four. ’

‘Sounds like quite a character,’ Pixie mused.

‘Formidable, I should think.’ Tanya laughed.

‘So, when did the house become a hotel?’ Pixie asked.

‘In the late nineties. It was owned by a big hotel chain. Before that it was a museum and a club. The lovely thing is that Henry Stirling, who owns it now, has kept the integrity of the original home, so it’s unusual.

It doesn’t feel like a hotel. All the bedrooms are different and incredibly beautiful.

The bones of the house haven’t changed. He opened four months ago after five years of renovations. ’

‘That’s a long time.’

‘Well, he wanted to restore it to its former glory and was meticulous about detail. I’d say he’s pulled it off beautifully. One really does feel one’s in the Aldershoffs’ home.’

At that moment Lara appeared over the top of the divider that separated her pod from Tanya’s. ‘Can I jump in here?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ Tanya replied, raising her wine glass. ‘Come and join the party!’