Page 1 of Murder Most Haunted

The night before Midge’s retirement party, Bridie convinced her to go to bed with a cucumber and mint face mask on.

‘Please try it, Midge. Sylvia swears by them.’

‘Who’s Sylvia?’

This produced the slightest of sighs. ‘From my amateur dramatics group. Apparently, the polypeptoaminoacids get rid of large pores.’

Bridie, it turned out, had no idea what a polypeptoaminoacid was, and never, in Midge McGowan’s fifty-five years, had she been aware of her large pores.

But it wasn’t often that Bridie asked something of her and she had been so dreadfully excited about the retirement party that Midge didn’t have the heart to say no.

It took her approximately fifteen minutes to apply the mask, which left her with only thirty minutes before bed to work on her handkerchief embroidery.

With a base of white linen and edged with lace, the handkerchief was a canvas for a vibrant canary, embroidered with meticulous care, perched near one corner.

It was the final one in a set of six canary hankies and involved a rather complicated lazy daisy stitch.

Only having half an hour meant she made a mistake with the cross-overs, ruining the entire birdcage and forcing her to start afresh with new material, which was bothersome to say the least.

While she slept, Midge had a dream.

She was sitting in her rocking chair, inside a locked, gilded cage.

With each movement of the chair, a tiny bell connected to a circular mirror beside her rang out.

As she rocked, her face in the reflection changed.

Just when she was pulled from sleep by Bridie’s gentle shaking, she recognized the features.

She’d seen the eyes, nose and mouth many times before in her dreams. But only once to touch in the flesh.

It was the baby.

It was always the baby.

The banner in the property office read, ‘Happy Retirement DS MAGOWAN’.

The party was more disappointing than the typo.

They had put the food table upstairs so that by the time Midge had huffed and puffed her way up to it, her gouty knee was aching and she had to lean on the cane more than she wished.

It was hardly worth the effort except that she found common dining areas fascinating.

It was Midge’s opinion that the importance of eating habits in identifying personalities was greatly undervalued.

‘McGowan, there you are.’ Detective Chief Inspector Helen Goodall was standing next to the cupcakes but chose instead to pick up a carrot stick from the plate nearby. ‘Can’t stay for long. I’ve got an area meeting with the Gold Team.’

Midge nodded while she caught her breath, propping the cane against the table as she did so.

‘I just wanted to say thank you for all of your hard work and good luck with the retirement. Thirty years . . . Goodness!’

The look of pity said it all. DCI Goodall was only twenty-eight and already two pips above Midge.

Of course, she had been fast-tracked, but she would undoubtedly finish her career as an area commander.

This generation of women had no idea how good they had it, thought Midge.

When she’d started out as a probationer, they were still pulling up the skirts of the WPCs and stamping their bottoms with the station property stamp.

No doubt, her retirement as a mere detective sergeant was as distasteful to DCI Goodall as the carrot stick she was pretending to enjoy.

‘I expect you’ll be glad to get out of the property office, finally.’

‘Yes . . .’ Midge replied, unsure of what to say next. ‘. . . Helen.’

Midge had spent the majority of her career in what was really a civilian role, overseeing the evidential property office – the room where every item of physical evidence from a criminal case was logged and stored should it ever be required for trial.

What had started out as a temporary secondment soon evolved into something more permanent with no one seemingly in a rush to ask for her back.

Not that Midge had ever considered complaining.

Despite the cold of the old sandstone building, she’d enjoyed the inanimate irrefutability of the property records, and before long she and the register book had become synonymous.

Need to find the hairbrush in the Langham case for court?

Ask Midge the Register! And so, she’d made it her second home; hidden away inside the endless rows of material evidence that had unlocked so many crimes.

An alibi-wrecking train ticket, the misplaced knife in a rack, even the hidden clay on the soles of trainers .

. . However clever the criminal, regardless of their meticulousness in covering up, there was always an object that didn’t fit or belong and that would eventually become their undoing.

Things were far more reliable than people, Midge often concluded.

And there was something oddly comforting about the neat rows of identification labels attached to each evidence bag.

Labels were important.

Right down to the plastic hospital tag on a newborn infant’s wrist.

‘What a lovely dress,’ the DCI remarked.

Midge fiddled with the cuff of the rainbow-coloured smock which she had bought because she knew absolutely nothing about clothes and thought it practical to have a colour to match any jacket.

‘Yes.’

Usually, Bridie bought all of her outfits.

But on this occasion, she had insisted on Midge going shopping by herself.

Where was Bridie? Midge did a quick scan of the room.

She would know how to keep the conversation going.

Well, nearly always. At least, when she was on her uppers.

‘The art to small talk,’ she would say, ‘is telling them something about your day.’

Midge tried her best. ‘I wore a face mask last night. Cucumber and mint.’

The DCI blinked. ‘Oh.’

‘It had peptopolyaminoacids,’ she finished.

‘Well, fancy,’ responded the DCI. ‘Just think. Plenty of time for pampering yourself now. Hopefully, you’ll be able to rest up that knee and lose the cane soon enough.’

‘I’m not injured. I’m overweight,’ frowned Midge, before clarifying, ‘Morbidly.’

The DCI bit down into her carrot stick and asked, ‘Your friend not with you?’

The emphasis was deliberate. Another thing this generation had to be grateful for. Twenty-five years of introducing Bridie as her companion. Of course, Midge was more than aware that the world had moved on, but these things were just not as simple as that.

‘I was looking forward to finally getting to meet her. I’ve heard she’s quite the life of the party.’

Her beautiful, bright Bridie bird.

But the brightest lights shine only against the darkest of backgrounds . . .

Bridie had made it upstairs and was walking towards her, cheeks flushed from a passing conversation with Inspector Rowan.

Involuntarily, Midge checked the rest of her face.

The echo of her laugh had a high pitch to it that undoubtedly had more to do with excitement than the power of the inspector’s joke-telling.

But there were no tell-tale dark rings under her eyes and, for this evening at least, the shadow of illness was absent.

She squeezed Midge’s shoulder as she reached them. Years of habit while in company made Midge stiffen slightly and pull back. If Bridie noticed, she didn’t show it and, instead, turned smoothly towards DCI Goodall, extending the touch that had just been spurned.

‘Hello, Ma’am,’ she said, waiting for DCI Goodall to balance her paper plate before shaking hands. ‘Lovely to meet you. What a fantastic spread you’ve put on.’

Midge didn’t think she meant it. A beige buffet, she’d whispered to her when they’d arrived.

The DCI smiled while checking her watch. Bridie rolled her eyes at Midge.

‘Sorry, McGowan,’ said Goodall. ‘I’m going to have to go. Like I said, big meeting. Anyway,’ she pulled an envelope out of her pocket, ‘the station had a whip-round for you. Hope you enjoy it.’

Midge accepted the envelope marked with the property office stamp with all the enthusiasm of someone who had been handed their next dental appointment.

She went to put it straight into her handbag (also rainbow coloured), when a gentle nudge from Bridie alerted her to the fact that more was expected. ‘Open it then, silly!’ she laughed.

Obediently, Midge tore open the envelope. Inside was a voucher of some sort.

It read:

A HAUNTED CHRISTMAS WEEKEND

20–22 DECEMBER

AT

THE FAMOUS ATHERTON HALL

Courtesy of HAUNTING HOLIDAY EXCURSIONS

Cost: ￡175 (inclusive of police discount)

Coach transfers included

She frowned. ‘The price is still on it.’

‘Oh, yes,’ the DCI waved her hand, ‘sorry about that. Should have markered that off.’

‘A hundred and seventy-five pounds?’ said Midge. ‘But I have thirty direct colleagues. The normal donation amount is ten pounds per person. Which would make an expected total of approximately three hundred pounds.’

The DCI’s mouth was opening and closing slightly.

‘Oh, Midge!’ squealed Bridie, clapping her hands together like a schoolgirl. ‘It’s a haunted house trip, how marvellous! Just like they do on the television!’

‘But ghosts aren’t real.’ Midge, who couldn’t think of anything more ludicrous, did not understand Bridie’s excitement.

‘You know all that stuff is nonsense.’ They’d once accidentally watched a paranormal investigation show together, full of flashing lights and shaky night-vision camera footage that had given Midge a migraine even before the posturing of the overly made-up presenter had started.

Midge considered the voucher again. ‘Unless it is a birthday, of course, then the average contribution drops to five pounds per person.’

‘Really?’ said the DCI. ‘I believe some people may have been off sick.’

Midge herself was always very careful to put in the appropriate amount of money for the numerous office whip-rounds.

At her own father’s funeral, an overheard declaration from her mother that she had ‘only received fifty pounds for him’ had led to a young Midge spending several years under the misunderstanding that rather than being dead, her father had in fact been raffled off to the highest bidder.

‘Midge!’ Bridie’s side-eye informed Midge that her reaction was not what was expected. ‘Don’t be so ungrateful. I think it’s a fantastic idea.’

Midge decided that a joke of some sort must be being played on her and pushed the voucher back towards the DCI.

‘Perhaps this present was meant for someone else . . . DI Atkins is retiring next week . . .’ DI Atkins was certainly the type to enjoy this sort of foolishness.

He’d once tried to engage Midge in a conversation about star signs, of all things.

‘No,’ replied Goodall, shaking her head. ‘Definitely for you. Apparently, Haunting Holiday Excursions is run by an ex-copper who retired a few years ago. HR get a discount, so we’re all stuck with these for the foreseeable. What’s his name? . . . Jack . . . Randall, I think.’

The room around Midge shifted to the side suddenly.

‘John Rendell?’ She swallowed to moisten a throat that had turned dry. ‘Do you mean Rendell?’

Midge could feel Bridie’s inquisitive eyes boring into her as she waited for the DCI’s response.

‘Uh, yes. That’s it, think so. She nodded. ‘Bit before my time, of course, but you probably knew him.’

Midge pushed the voucher back into the envelope, still conscious of Bridie standing beside her. ‘I can’t . . . we’re busy.’

‘What are you talking about?’ frowned Bridie. ‘You’re not doing anything then.’

‘Your chemo . . .’ protested Midge, slightly breathless.

‘You weren’t coming to that anyway,’ replied Bridie. ‘It will be good for you, instead of sitting at home on your own.’

Midge wasn’t sure at what point ‘sitting at home on your own’ had become either a good or bad ‘thing’ but Bridie had certainly been putting more emphasis on it lately.

‘Look, feel free to do what you want with it,’ interrupted the DCI. ‘Personally, I’d much prefer a set of golf clubs.’

‘Oh, come on, Midge. It’ll be fun!’ cried Bridie, as they watched DCI Goodall walk off across the room. ‘You never know, you may enjoy it.’

Midge, who knew she most certainly would not enjoy it, said, ‘But it’s with other people . . . a group . . .’ There would be introductions, hand shaking, the expectation to make small talk and, God forbid, the confusion of air kissing.

Bridie squeezed Midge’s hand. ‘Just think of it as a stately home tour, then, if nothing else.’

And a coach? They were to journey in a coach? That not only meant impossibly small seats for a person of her size but also a communal lavatory that actually travelled with them.

‘Really, when you think about it, all ghost stories are just unresolved murder cases,’ said Bridie.

Midge frowned, opening her mouth to challenge the statement.

‘Look, I tell you what,’ Bridie stopped her as they watched the DCI head for the exit, ‘do this for me and I’ll try extra hard at the treatment not to swear at the nurses again. ’

Which was a little unfair, Midge thought.

So, unsurprisingly, by the time they had finished their cocoa later that evening, the proposed trip was already a fait accompli.

Midge had exhausted every possible argument she could think of, and Bridie was still cheerily emphatic that she would enjoy herself.

Therefore, at 10 p.m., when Bridie extended her arm towards the stairs and asked her usual, ‘Shall we, old girl?’, Midge responded with a rather sulky, ‘You go on, these lights won’t turn themselves out.

’ The prolonged debate about the trip had meant that by the time Midge climbed into their Laura Ashley bed it was already too late to even look at her embroidery – at which point, considering the intensity of the last few months, she actually began to wonder if a little time apart from Bridie would not be such a bad thing.