Page 93 of Murder Most Haunted
‘Depends on how graphic the photos are, really,’ said Harold. ‘If you’re talking full frontals and lots of bare—’
‘Oh my God, have you got no shame? You really are a full-on deviant.’ Rona inhaled deeply, dropping more ash on to the floor. Midge hoped that Noah wasn’t going to bring up the deposit again.
‘Anyway.’ Harold cleared his throat. ‘I thought it was my lucky day when I caught the doctor and her.’
‘So, you’ve been blackmailing him?’ said Noah.
‘He thought I was in on it,’ slurred Rona, suddenly. ‘He didn’t want to give me any more pills because he thought I was going to tell someone.’
‘You wrote on the mirror? And fixed the tarot cards?’ said Midge.
Harold frowned. ‘I don’t know nothing about the mirror, I just thought that was Rendell messing about. But yeah, I fixed the tarot cards to put the wind up him.’
‘And the card in his pocket?’
Harold nodded. ‘I slipped it into his pocket when the lights went out during the power cut. He must have worked out it was me and trashed my room, looking for the photos.’
‘And when he couldn’t find them, he must have realized that the only other place they could be was on Noah’s camera,’ said Midge.
‘Rendell was supposed to give me my phone back to take the pictures, but he went and died beforehand. So I had to improvise...’ Harold shrugged. ‘I had to leave the camera with Noah, so he wouldn’t realize I was using it. I was going to grab the film back just before we left. When the doctor said he was going to gethelp the next morning, I panicked. I told him to meet me near the engine house that evening to try and come to an arrangement, but he never turned up.’
‘When you were meant to be getting the snow for Rendell?’ Midge said, thoughtfully.
Harold nodded. ‘I swear I didn’t kill him.’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Noah. ‘The power cut. You just said the doctor was in the drawing room when the lights went out, so he couldn’t have been the one who disconnected the fuse and trashed your room.’
‘He was standing next to the light switch.’ Midge thought back to the events of that evening. ‘It’s possible that he turned off the drawing room lights, convincing us all that there was a fault, and then made his way out of the French windows.’ Midge remembered the shadowy figure bumping into her right next to them, but decided not to reveal she’d actually been in the room all along. ‘From there, he would have been able to access Harold’s room before returning to tamper with the hall fuse, making it look like a regular power cut.’
‘I told you I thought I was being watched.’ Rona turned her back to Harold and spoke instead to Midge. ‘You just thought I was being a narco pop star.’
‘Narcissistic,’ replied Midge, automatically.
‘I think she meant narcotic,’ said Bridie. ‘Although either would fit.’
Rona glared at her. ‘You can fuck off too.’
Chapter60
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 ofthought,’ 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.
