Page 91 of Murder Most Haunted

‘Shut up,’ said Noah, crossly. ‘She had a bloody great embroidery hook.’

‘I’m not old,’ said Midge. ‘Are you all done now?’

But Noah was staring at the tray of fixer in front of him, transfixed.

‘Noah?’ asked Midge.

Noah’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. He turned to them, slowly. ‘I think you better wake Rona up.’

Chapter59

Inside Noah’s pantry dark room, several strips of film had developed. Noah brought them out into the kitchen one by one, and held them up for the others to see against the light of the window above the Belfast sink.

It didn’t take them all long to get the general gist.

The negatives were of Rona, alone in her room, in various states of undress.

‘Oh my God!’ Rona said, holding her head. ‘What the actual...’ She flung the negative strip she had been grasping down on to the table, where it disturbed a cloud of flour left over from Noah’s baking. Midge dusted it away.

‘You fucking pervert, Noah,’ shouted Rona, trying to reach across the table to grab him. Bridie pushed her arm back, coughing with the effort. ‘You’re my stalker, aren’t you?’

‘Hey... hold on!’ he said, his voice rising. ‘You think it was me that took the photos? I didn’t take these. What are you talking about – a stalker?’

‘What don’t you understand?’ snapped Rona. ‘That you are a sad little boy who gets his kicks photographing women? Asexual, my arse.’

‘Why would I steal my own camera?’ said Noah. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

Midge frowned at the flour on her fingers and brushed it off. The action jogged something in her mind, throwing up another flour-dusted memory. At that moment, everything started to fall into place.

‘It was the doctor.’

Everyone looked at her. ‘Dr Mortimer was stalking Rona?’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ said Rona, but her voice sounded unsteady.

‘It was the doctor who stole the camera from Noah’s room. Earlier, I found some flour on his jumper.’ Midge considered them all. ‘When the doctor came into Noah’s room after the theft, he was brushing something from his jumper. It was flour. Noah had just been baking, and the flour must have transferred when the doctor attacked him.’

‘Are you saying the doctor was the intruder?’ frowned Bridie.

‘No ghosts?’ asked Noah, disappointedly.

Midge shook her head, ordering her thoughts as excitement coursed through her. ‘The only real explanation is that the doctor was in your room, took the camera and lashed out when you caught him. He then knocked me over on his way out, then had to double back to make it look like he had just arrived, but only after he had hidden the evidence.’

‘But why? Are you saying he was the one secretly taking pictures of me?’

‘I found a card in his pocket that said, “I HAVE PHOTOS”,’ said Midge, frowning.

‘This may explain it.’ Noah, trying his best to avoid eye contact with Rona, shuffled through the rest of the negatives, holding them up to the light as they all gathered round.

They were all of Dr Mortimer and Rona, talking together inside her room, taken from the same camera angle as the others.

Rona’s eyes widened. ‘What the hell!’ She tried to snatch them away, but Midge stopped her.

‘I think Rona and the doctor may have been having an affair,’ muttered Noah, edging away from the pop star. ‘And whoever took these pictures was blackmailing him.’

‘Don’t be so gross,’ said Rona, dry retching. ‘As if I’d toucha wrinkly old man...’ She paused before slurring slightly, ‘No offence, Harold.’

‘None taken,’ replied Harold uncertainly.