Page 16 of Murder Most Haunted

‘You’ve ruined my concentration,’ said Rendell, crossly, lifting his finger from the glass, which had stopped moving.

Gloria drew in a shaky breath as she sat back in her seat. ‘That is amazing. To be so close to the spirits. I . . . I could feel something with us.’

‘Rubbish!’ Dr Mortimer slapped the table, making her jump. ‘Absolute hoo-ha. As I said, someone was clearly pushing that glass around and having a fine old time at our expense.’

An owl hooted outside the window, causing Gloria to jump.

Rendell raised an eyebrow as he faced them. ‘Shall we see if the ghost has any other messages?’

The others nodded.

Rendell cleared his throat. ‘Are you still with us?’ There was the smallest of jerks and then the glass started to move again. Gloria grasped Midge’s forearm, tightly.

They all watched the glass as it went straight to ‘YES’.

‘Do you have a message for someone in the room?’ asked Rendell, looking around the table.

The glass stayed where it was.

‘Who for?’ he asked.

The glass moved.

‘M. W.’

‘Mmm . . . Oh! Midge, it’s you! It’s Midge!’ shouted Rona, nearly taking her finger off the glass in her excitement. ‘What do you want to tell Midge?’

‘F. I. N. D. H. I. M,’ read out Harold, slowly.

‘Find who?’ asked Gloria, staring at Midge.

The glass suddenly toppled over, causing Rendell to slump forward dramatically. ‘She’s gone,’ he said.

Midge felt her insides run cold. Any hunger she had been feeling dissipated in an instant as the room shifted around her. Coming after the message in the mirror, this seemed more than a coincidence.

‘Who are you meant to find?’ asked Rona. Midge could feel all six pairs of eyes on her. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’

‘No.’ She removed her hand and leaned back into her chair. ‘No, of course not.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s wrong.’ This was the second lie that Midge had ever told her in life, and all within the space of twenty-four hours.

‘Why’s the spirit only talking to her?’ It was hard to ignore the note of jealousy in Noah’s voice.

‘I think we’ve all seen enough pageantry for one day,’ said Andrew Mortimer, pushing his chair back.

‘No!’

The shout made Midge jump. Gloria was flushed bright red but put her hands out calmly on to the table, palms down. ‘I want to try again.’

Rendell raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m tired, Gloria,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s time for bed.’

To everyone’s surprise, including her husband’s, Gloria didn’t budge. ‘No, Andrew. One more time.’

‘You go, girl,’ whistled Rona, placing her finger back on the glass and indicating for Midge to do the same.

Andrew Mortimer frowned before sitting back in his chair and intertwining his hands. ‘If it’s all the same, I think I’ll sit this one out.’

The others all placed their fingers on to the glass, one more time. ‘Is there a spirit in the glass?’ called Rendell.

There was the slightest of judders before the glass scraped across the board.

‘R. M,’ read out Rona. ‘Does anyone know an R. M.?’

‘Stop it,’ said Andrew Mortimer, quietly.

Rendell looked at him, frowning. ‘Do you know an R. M.?’

‘Stop all of this right now,’ the doctor repeated. His eyebrows were drawn together and his fingers wound so tightly that the knuckles had turned white. ‘Gloria?’ he pleaded. But she was ignoring him, her face transfixed by Rendell as if he were the only person in the room.

‘Our son, Robert Mortimer,’ she said, her eyes burning intensely. ‘R. M.’

Midge thought she saw a flicker of something cross Rendell’s face.

‘Is there something you want to say, Robert?’ asked Rona.

The glass started to move again. This time it was Noah reading it out. Rendell had fallen silent.

‘YOU . . . BETRAYED . . .’

Rendell yanked his hand back from the glass with a shout, now visibly shaken as it appeared to carry on moving across the tabletop.

‘ME.’

With a sudden dreadful scrape, Gloria pushed back her chair and ran from the room sobbing.

While the rest of the group sat in stunned silence, the doctor cradled his head in his hands before eventually speaking.

‘Our son, Robert. He died in a car crash a few years ago. My wife . . . Gloria, she hasn’t been the same since.

She was a nurse at the JR, but gave it up .

. .’ He drew in a ragged breath and continued, ‘It was her idea to come to this. She’s been obsessed with the idea of an afterlife ever since.

This has all been . . . very . . .’ He trailed off, shaking his head, before abruptly standing up.

In one broad sweep, he had grabbed the glass from the table and dashed it against the fireplace, where it exploded into a million lethal pieces.