Page 73 of Murder Most Haunted

She found Bridie in their bedroom sitting in one of the chairs, looking out of the window at the stars, her knees covered with a blanket.

Midge eased herself on to the side of the bed next to the chair and reached across to hold her hand. The two of them sat in silence for a moment, Midge listening to the sound of Bridie’s breathing as she had done so many times before.

‘When did you realize who he was?’ asked Midge, quietly.

‘Who?’ Bridie turned to face her, a smile on her lips.

‘Rendell.’

Bridie turned her head back to the window and patted Midge’s hand. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I couldn’t work it out at first,’ Midge agreed. ‘Why anyone would go to so much trouble to make us believe in a ghost just so we would think the murders were connected.’

‘They are connected,’ said Bridie. ‘You said so yourself. Each one follows the Atherton deaths.’

‘No.’ Midge shook her head. ‘It was a distraction. To hide the real target.’

Bridie shifted in her chair, frowning. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The Mortimers needed to die so no one would dig too deep into Rendell’s past for a motive.’

Bridie tucked the blanket up around her knees with her free hand. ‘Don’t be silly, Midge. You’ve only got Rona’s word that someone was trying to kill Gloria,’ said Bridie.

‘Rona isn’t a liar,’ said Midge.

‘But I am?’ asked Bridie, her cheeks flushed with anger.

‘Objects don’t lie,’ said Midge, going to her bedside drawer and pulling out the ladies. She laid them out on the bed. Six of them now, including the one that Noah had given Gloria. The complete set.

But the handkerchief that she had just retrieved from Rona’s bedroom made seven. She unfolded it, carefully. ‘When I saw the handkerchief on the ground in the mine, I assumed Noah had dropped the borrowed one.’

‘You and your collections,’ said Bridie. ‘It’s not normal, you know.’

The words stung.

‘Oh yes, and not just the handkerchiefs,’ Bridie continued. ‘I’ve seen them. In your drawer, your assortment of lost things.’

Midge’s cheeks flushed. ‘I’m just waiting to put them back where they belong.’

‘You can’t give everything a home, Midge.’

Midge frowned, ignoring her. ‘I thought Noah had dropped the borrowed handkerchief,’ she repeated.

‘So I didn’t look too closely before Harold snatched it up.

But it turns out Noah still had it. This one, that we used in the mines for Rona to bite down on – she held up the handkerchief – ‘is different. This one was the first one I made. I’d made a mistake on the cage door and so I started again. ’

Bridie looked at her. ‘I like it. It looks like the cage door is open.’

‘I gave you this hankie,’ said Midge.

Bridie sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re being forgetful and packed it by accident.’ She stared at Midge for a while. ‘How else would my hankie have been used when I wasn’t even here?’

Midge stared at her, her heart beating faster. ‘Because you’ve been here the whole time, haven’t you? It’s the only way that you could have murdered Rendell as well. You were in the mine. It was you that Rona saw.’

‘Don’t be absurd.’

‘When you first arrived, you said you had been banging on the servants’ door to get in, but you couldn’t possibly have known that it was the servants’ door without having been inside the house before.’

They stared at each other for the longest time.

‘And your new pills.’ Midge walked over to the table and picked them up, her eyes shutting briefly as she confirmed her suspicions. ‘The label on the back shows one of the active ingredients is arsenic.’

Bridie folded her hands in her lap. ‘At the retirement party,’ she said, leaning back and closing her eyes.

‘Pardon?’ She was speaking so quietly Midge couldn’t quite catch all the words.

‘That’s when I realized who Rendell was. I saw your face, when they gave you the voucher.’ Bridie spoke still with her eyes shut. ‘I know you better than you know yourself, Midge.’

Midge’s breath caught in her chest as Bridie’s eyes opened.

‘I saw the pain on your face and I knew then that he was the father.’

‘You shouldn’t . . .’

‘He took advantage of you, Midge,’ said Bridie, suddenly reaching forward and grabbing hold of Midge’s arm.

‘All those years ago and you would never say who he was. He got you drunk and you said nothing. It’s why you took the photograph, isn’t it?

Were you looking at his children and wondering what your own son looks like? ’

They stared into each other’s eyes.

‘Your baby,’ said Bridie. ‘We could have had a family . . .’

The baby.

‘Mother said I couldn’t look after myself, let alone a baby . . .’ Midge licked lips that were suddenly dry. ‘She knew best.’

She could still feel him in her arms. Her beautiful boy.

‘But you didn’t even put a name on him then, did you?’

The blank space on the certificate. The blank space on the label.

The blank space on the adoption form, hastily organized by Mother.

‘And so I left it. And I never asked.’ Bridie sank back, breathing heavily.

‘And we never spoke of it, did we? Because that’s your way.

And I had to watch you making yourself more and more invisible, stuck in that stupid property office that he banished you to, wasting all of your skills as a detective.

Punishing yourself about giving the baby up, every day.

But at that party, with that voucher, I knew.

And that’s when I knew I had one last chance to help you. ’

‘Help me?’ Midge frowned, struggling to push past her memories.

Bridie stared at her, her blue eyes suddenly intense once again. ‘I’m dying, Midge. You know it, I know it.’

Midge went to shake her head, but Bridie took hold of her chin. ‘I’ve always been there to look out for you. And I couldn’t leave you knowing that he got away with treating you like that.’

Midge stared at her in horror as the full impact of Bridie’s words hit her. ‘But the others? Dr Mortimer and Gloria? What did they ever do to you?’

It all came out in a rush then, Bridie telling Midge how when she had realized who Rendell was, she had also seen an opportunity to get rid of him.

After researching the Atherton Hall story, a plan had formed in her mind.

She had called the Haunting Holiday Excursions office and booked two extra guests, asking to be picked up at Tiverton Services, knowing this would mean the coach would stop.

When everyone was inside, she had settled herself into the broken toilet for the journey down.

From that moment, it had just been a case of waiting for an opportunity to kill Rendell, moving about under the guise of Beth Hallow and sleeping in the woodshed outside until her ‘appearance’.

Her eyes shone fiercely, but she had to stop several times while her body was wracked with fits of coughing.

Midge came to sit on the bed next to her again.

‘And what about Dr Mortimer?’ asked Midge.

‘I saw him sneaking out for his sordid little meeting with Harold, so I followed him,’ said Bridie, touching her cheek with her hand. ‘But he must have got confused in the dark and he was halfway across the ranges and the army guns were firing and, I don’t know, suddenly he fell.’

‘He was shot on the ranges?’ said Midge.

‘Yes, I swear,’ said Bridie, nodding her head. ‘It was an accident. So, I made the most of the opportunity and I dragged him back, to make it look like the ghost again.’

‘And the portraits? That was you?’

‘Yes.’ Bridie nodded before smiling. ‘It was actually quite liberating.’

‘Where’s the letter opener?’

‘In my case.’

Midge took Bridie’s hand from her cheek. ‘And what about Gloria?’

‘Gloria hasn’t been poisoned,’ said Bridie, looking out of the window again. ‘You all jumped to that conclusion on your own. You must be careful, Midge, when I’m gone, not to get swept along in these big personalities.’

‘You mean we made her throw up for nothing? There is no death by arsenic?’

Bridie turned around, before leaning in and whispering, her eyes bright in the lamplight, ‘Well, not for Gloria at least.’

Midge heaved a deep sigh that made her heart ache. ‘Oh, Bridie, what have you done?’

‘Is she OK?’ Bridie asked, tilting her head to the side. ‘Gloria.’

‘No,’ said Midge. ‘I don’t think waterboarding was high on her list of holiday activities.’

‘Are you being sarcastic, Midge?’ Bridie raised an eyebrow. ‘Another change. Well, tell her I’m sorry for all the fuss.’

‘Where are the phones, Bridie?’ asked Midge. ‘We need to get help.’

Bridie stared at her for a moment, her eyes cloudy, before nodding, slowly. ‘Always doing the right thing, aren’t you, Midge?’

‘I’m a police officer,’ said Midge. ‘It’s been my whole life.’

‘And you’ve been mine,’ said Bridie, simply. She pointed with a hand that shook slightly. ‘Under the bed.’

Midge sat for a while longer, holding her hand as the pair looked out into the dark night.

Bridie looked up and smiled at her. ‘I hope you aren’t going to handcuff me.’

Midge touched her face, gently. ‘You know I don’t have any.’

‘Do you have a handkerchief, Midge?’ asked Bridie.

Midge reached into her pocket and pulled out the one she had been working on. ‘It’s my latest one, I’ve been waiting to show you,’ she said, unfolding it. ‘It’s a hedgehog.’

Bridie took it. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

Midge considered this as Bridie pulled the material up to her face and breathed it in, closing her eyes as she inhaled deeply.

‘I love you, Midge,’ she said, clutching the handkerchief.

‘I love you too, Bridie.’

They stared at each other for what seemed for ever until Midge walked to the door, opened it, and said to her wife, ‘Shall we, old girl?’

Bridie smiled, her eyes bright with tears as she reached for the rest of the tube of pills on the bed.

‘You go on and join your friends,’ she whispered. ‘These lights won’t turn themselves out.’