Scottish Diaries: Mystery in the Murray House

By Ada Aggarwal

The pandemic puts a damper on Isabel and Hugh’s plans for what would have been a fantastic year and instead, they are forced to enjoy the dull monotony at home. A sudden fire in their house……. the general suspicion of it being no accident….. branding this septuagenarian couple as ‘incapable’ of living alone…….. finally target of a local scam ………...
The couple find themselves inter-twined in the middle of an intrigue. Will Isabel and Hugh see the light of sunny days again?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: May 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781543708592

Ada Aggarwal

Ada Aggarwal is a teenager who felt extremely lonely during the pandemic and took up writing as a hobby. This hobby turned out to be one of her strengths. She started expressing herself by writing and when the idea of writing a book was suggested to her, she started working on it immediately.

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Copyright © 2022 by Ada Aggarwal.

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FOREWORD

New Delhi, India

March 22nd, 2022

When I first met Ada, she was a hide-behind-the-curtains introvert, studying in the seventh grade at boarding school. I was helping her get out of her shell and communicate freely and with confidence. As a part of my mentoring, I suggested her to write a book. She immediately took to the idea and wanted to write fiction.

This novel is the upshot of that decision.

Beautifully penned, this story is a testimony to the fact that Covid has affected each one of us, directly or indirectly, albeit in a unique way. Ada has imaginatively captured anxieties and concerns of the young and old as they grope their way through unprecedented times.

The learnings that Ada confesses to have imbibed during her writing journey are immeasurable. Evidence of this will be the sequel to this novel, that she is planning to write next.

Today, as I write this foreword to Ada’s captivating teen fiction, I am overwhelmed with pride and joy. It is always a pleasure seeing your students rise and shine!

I wish her lots of luck in her creative journey.

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Sarika Singh

Author, Poet, Creative Writing Facilitator

Contents

CHAPTER 1

The Status Quo

A ‘Welcome’ Change

The Blues and Good News

CHAPTER 2

The Long-Awaited Visit

Alarm

Battle of the Nerves

CHAPTER 3

Pure Commotion

The Police Enquiry

Peace Comes from Solving Problems

CHAPTER 4

Worries and Excitement

Don’t Be a Pile On

Marriages Are Made in Heaven

The Medical Rendezvous

Nostalgia Sets In: How We Met . . .

CHAPTER 5

What’s True, What’s Not

Legal Advice

Threats and More

CHAPTER 6

Confusion Reigns

The Concall

What’s in the Drive

Deeper Than What Seems

The ‘Good’ News

CHAPTER 7

Connecting the Dots

Fallout from the Article

Surprising Shock . . . the Truth

Dedicated to my grandmother

Rita Aggarwal

and my parents,

Tina and Pankaj

PROLOGUE

If there is anything that this present pandemic bedevilling the entire planet has taught us, it is that everyone—no matter their age or abilities—is vulnerable in the face of such a disaster and that each has to find within himself or herself the ability to keep their spirits up.

The pandemic has clearly shown that this is no easy feat: solitude and isolation, when involuntarily imposed and mandated, are not conducive for creativity. On the contrary, they may lead to despondencies. This pandemic period has indeed been a wake-up call to us regarding the problems—personal, social, and mental—that one can have when confined even to one’s own home, without any inkling of when things would return to normal.

As an adolescent, whose pre-pandemic life was filled with bustle and activity and the company of my social peers, I keenly felt the blues imposed by confinement. Humans are not meant for long periods of isolation. This has been the singular most bizarre, outside-of-normal experience I have ever had in my young life. I can only hope, like I see so many others doing, that things return to normal as soon as possible.

During this difficult time, pondering about the problems we have as teenagers stuck at home for abnormally long periods of time, I took up the hobby of writing as a way to vent my pent-up thoughts and feelings. Long days of online classes and online socializing got very boring very quickly and soon presented its own challenges. It was the first time that I’d spent so many hours at a stretch peering into a computer screen, and screen time so suddenly was a difficult experience on the mind and body. And writing was a way for me to move away from the computer screen and jot my thoughts using pen and paper.

I first thought of how unlucky my friends and I were, feeling stuck, unable to meet, unable to take part in anything fun or different. Oh well, thought I, at least we could FaceTime each other when things became too lonely.

That led me to think of others who had it much worse than people like me did: people who were technologically challenged; people who were old, incapacitated, and lonely; and people who were social pariahs, even before the coronavirus.

I thought of old people, especially those living by themselves, away from family and friends. I heard tales of people dying in senior centres, heartbroken and unable to say goodbye to their loved ones. And those stuck at their own homes didn’t fare much better, having to rely on neighbours and friends for their rations and