‘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.
