Page 66 of Murder Most Haunted

Rona said she felt defiled. Bridie said that for someone who only wore nipple tassels on stage, perhaps she was overreacting a tiny bit, which Midge hardly felt was fair.

And then Harold, inspecting the negatives again, announced that most of the shots had come out too blurry anyway, because of Noah’s archaic equipment.

Which was when Noah chimed in to say that he better not have broken anything, and so Harold asked what everyone was having a go at him for, and in his opinion you could see more round the swimming pools on foreign holidays.

Then Rona called them all arseholes, locked herself in the library and refused to come out.

‘I think she’s having an episode,’ said Harold, standing in the hall outside the library door with Midge, Bridie and Noah five minutes later. ‘You know what these pop stars are like . . .’

Midge didn’t know and, she rather suspected, neither did Harold.

‘I expect she’s trying to get away from you, you thieving geriatric pervert,’ said Noah.

Harold opened his mouth but shut it again after a moment’s consideration. ‘Fair enough, but –’ he held up his finger – ‘in my defence, I was going to give all the photos back if the doctor paid up.’

‘How noble!’ snorted Noah. ‘It’s a bit like calling yourself a vegan and eating a hamburger because the cow was already dead.’

‘Shhhhhh!’ snapped Midge. There was a hissing noise from behind the door. ‘Rona?’ she said, pressing her ear to the wood. ‘Is that you?’

‘Tell them to stop arguing, Midge, they’re ruining my train of thought,’ Rona whispered back through the door. ‘I won’t come out until the police arrive.’

They all looked at each other, and took a few steps back from the door.

‘When exactly are we expecting the police?’ asked Bridie.

‘Well, the ranges are still live, so we’re still stuck here until the roads clear a little more.’

‘With a murderer amongst us,’ said Bridie, glaring at Harold.

‘What’s that look supposed to mean?’ asked Harold, defensively.

‘Well, it just seems a bit suspicious that the person responsible for us all being stranded,’ said Bridie, ‘is also the one knee-deep in a blackmail plot. What else have you been up to?’

‘I told you I didn’t kill either of them,’ said Harold, lifting his hands up in agitation. ‘It’s not my fault Rendell hid the phones.’

‘Or so you say, anyway,’ said Noah. ‘You haven’t exactly been honest up until this point, have you? Let’s face it, it’s not such a leap from blackmailing deviant to gun-wielding killer, is it?’

Midge, who had been staring at the rifle display while the others argued, suddenly spoke up. ‘Harold didn’t shoot Dr Mortimer. Well, at least not with the missing rifle.’

‘I didn’t shoot him, full stop.’

‘Someone did,’ shrugged Midge. She pointed at the display with her cane. ‘But not with one of these.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Bridie.

‘Because,’ Midge continued, ‘no rifle was ever stolen.’

‘What?!’ Even Harold looked confused.

‘Take a closer look at the cabinet,’ explained Midge. ‘There are twelve pins for the rifles – one pin for the barrel end, one for the stock end, so six pairs. Counting the one that Rona grabbed, there are six rifles in total, and I suspect there always were.’

‘But just before Bridie arrived, we saw a ruddy great gap in the middle of the row,’ said Harold.

Midge nodded. ‘When the doctor stole the camera, he would have been under pressure to hide it and the film quickly before we all started searching for the intruder. He must have returned to remove the film from the camera at a later time, hoping to conceal it separately. Presumable, he was disturbed as he hid it in the gun and didn’t have a chance to put the gun back properly.

It would have been lopsided, or off-centre, drawing the eye to the existing gap next to it. ’

‘But surely we would have noticed the gap before?’ frowned Harold.

‘Not really,’ shrugged Midge. ‘How much attention do people pay to something that is always there? It wasn’t until the banging and lights from the artillery that our attention was focused.

And when we finally did see the gap, we assumed a gun was missing, but in fact they were all there, right in front of us, only one of them was askew. ’

An object where it shouldn’t be.

‘So, if it wasn’t one of us with the gun, who did kill the doctor?’ asked Rona, frowning.

‘The White Lady of the Moor!’ said Noah, excitedly. ‘It has to be! Or are you still trying to tell me that the ghost has nothing to do with any of th—?’

He was interrupted by the chiming of the grandfather clock above them on the landing.

Midge stared at it, Noah’s words going round in her head. With its final clang signalling 2 p.m., everything suddenly clicked into place.

If in doubt, go back to the scene. Recreate and see what is out of place. Midge frowned as she sifted through the evidence in her mind, pulling out items that had been stored there, waiting to be used.

A carefully recorded visit in a doctor’s journal.

A clock that was read as he entered his patient’s room.

‘No,’ said Midge, every slumbering nerve in her body suddenly alive with electricity. ‘I was wrong. The ghosts have everything to do with it. All through this, someone has been trying to point us in the direction of the hauntings.’

Bridie frowned. ‘But there are no ghosts?’

‘Of course there are no ghosts, Bridie, but that is not the point. We have been persuaded into thinking there are – even portraits have been vandalized in order to distract us. The similarities of the deaths this weekend to the Atherton deaths can’t be ignored.’

‘Why?’ asked Noah. ‘Why would anyone go to all of that trouble?’

‘Let’s start with the how, Noah,’ said Midge. ‘I find it’s usually the best way.’