Page 24 of Murder Most Haunted

So far it had taken Dr Mortimer, Harold and Noah twenty minutes to dig a path down to the gates.

Midge, who had been watching them from Gloria’s bedroom window, had observed that the first ten minutes of that, at least, had been spent arguing amongst themselves about who was doing what.

It reminded her of the excruciating team-building workshops she had been forced to endure in the police.

Until, to everyone’s relief, Health and Safety had stepped in and queried the wisdom of having Midge hoisted several feet above the ground in a tree-climbing harness.

The Mortimers had secured themselves one of the biggest rooms in the hall after Rendell’s, albeit one now slightly messier than Midge would have expected.

The bickering outside had taken Gloria’s mind momentarily off the dead body, as she provided Rona and Midge with a running commentary on the progress, or lack thereof, of the path-digging.

Harold said that if the doctor was as good at digging as he was standing around pointing out the bloody obvious then the driveway would be clear a lot sooner, which made Noah laugh, but the doctor said that having to explain to Noah which end of a shovel to hold hadn’t helped.

Noah replied that he didn’t understand why they had to conform to the patriarchal norms of men doing the heavy work.

Which was when the doctor announced that he had known handing the phones over to Rendell was a ridiculous idea in the first place and Noah said that ‘of course he did’, because he was a ‘know-it-all’.

At which point Harold, finally, climbed into the coach to give it a start and discovered that it wouldn’t move.

‘What’s going on now?’ asked Rona, sitting forward in her armchair. She had changed out of her kaftan and was now wearing an odd mixture of khaki cargo trousers and a silk blouse.

‘It looks like the engine won’t start,’ said Midge, who would have started with the engine before all else.

‘Didn’t they try that first?’ asked Rona.

‘No, it’s running,’ said Gloria. ‘I can hear it. What’s wrong?’ she shouted out of the window.

Harold had jumped out and was looking at the tyres at the back of the coach. He called over the doctor and Noah and showed them something.

‘What is it?’ asked Rona. ‘What can you see?’

‘They’re all looking at the tyres,’ said Gloria. Midge watched as they took a step back and Harold scratched his head. ‘Oh dear, it doesn’t look good. They’re coming back in.’

Harold glanced up at the window as they walked back towards the front door.

The three of them waited in silence until the men made an appearance in the room, Harold striding immediately over to the radiator to begin warming his hands.

‘Well?’ asked Rona.

Dr Mortimer shook his head as Harold spoke. ‘All of the tyres are flat and I’ve got no spares. That coach isn’t going anywhere.’

‘“No spares” sounds like piss-poor planning to me,’ said the doctor.

Harold glared at him. ‘Rendell was supposed to check the bus.’

‘How convenient! Blame the dead man,’ said Dr Mortimer.

They were all silent for a moment, thinking about the body in the bath only a few doors away from them.

‘All of them are flat?’ Midge frowned. ‘Didn’t you notice earlier?’

Harold stared at her. ‘It’s only just happened. And I’ll tell you another thing, it’s no accident either.’

Of course. Midge didn’t believe it would be, not all four of them.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Gloria.

‘Some bugger has slashed them,’ said Harold. ‘And now we’re all stranded here.’

‘Stuck here?’ said Rona, her eyes as wide as saucers. ‘With a dead body?’

‘How exciting!’ breathed Noah. ‘Phantom Files will never compete with this.’

‘It’s ridiculous,’ snorted the doctor. ‘You probably drove over something on the way here, bouncing around all over the place. Who would go out of their way to sabotage the coach?’

‘The White Lady, of course!’ said Noah, smacking his forehead with an open palm. ‘I’m telling you, we are witnessing a classic example of a psychic attack.’

‘Are you sure you looked everywhere for the phones?’ asked Dr Mortimer, changing the subject abruptly. ‘I mean properly, with your eyes.’

‘I’m not aware of any other way to look.’ Midge sucked in her breath. ‘We couldn’t find them.’

‘What do you mean, you can’t find them?’ asked Rona, her face pale. ‘My entire life is on that phone. It’s not just the photos. My agent was supposed to be getting back to me about a new gig, some sort of comeback . . . I need my phone!’

‘I mean exactly that – we can’t find them. They’re not where Harold saw Rendell put them.’ That was assuming, of course, that Harold was telling the truth.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Gloria. ‘Are you saying we’re stuck in this house with that . . . thing in the bath . . . until someone notices that we’ve not come back?’

‘Everybody just calm down,’ said the doctor, although in Midge’s opinion it was only Gloria who looked mildly worked up. In fact, Noah and Harold both looked positively joyful at the prospect of being stranded.

‘I’m sure Harold’s wife will raise the alarm when she realizes that he’s not turned up,’ pointed out Midge, who was struggling to find somewhere to sit that wasn’t taken up by Gloria’s varied medicinal paraphernalia.

‘I told you, she’s away,’ said Harold.

‘Surely someone at your office will notice that the coach hasn’t returned, then?’ said Rona, twisting a strand of pink hair around her finger. Harold just shrugged.

‘And in the meantime, there’s still the mystery of the hauntings to investigate,’ said Noah, who seemed to have forgotten about Rendell already. ‘So we may as well settle back and make the most of it.’

‘Exactly!’ smiled Harold.