He shrugged. ‘No, she’s fine. Away herself this weekend, as I believe I’ve said. With the choir, in fact.’
That is not what you said yesterday, thought Midge.You said she was at her sister’s.
‘I’ve been having a think,’ said Rona, dropping forward on to all fours and curving her back towards the floor while Noah tried very hard not to stare at her bottom. ‘About what we can do.’
‘Does it involve music?’ asked Midge, really, really hoping it didn’t. ‘Only, the Haunting Holiday Excursions guidebook was quite explicit about no loud music.’ It had been one of its saving graces when Midge had researched the trip.
‘No music.’ Rona’s face was reddening from the exertion. ‘But I’ve come up with a way that we can find out what really happened to Rendell. A tarot reading!’
Noah shook his head. ‘The guidebook was also quite clear thatthere should be no unsupervised paranormal activities without the consent of the tour guide.’
‘Rules are made to be broken, Noah,’ smiled Rona. ‘Just as I told the chief of police at Shakira’s fortieth birthday party. After all, what’s a sixty-foot anaconda between friends?’
‘It’s reckless,’ said the doctor.
‘It was actually pretty harmless,’ said Rona. ‘Someone had defanged it.’
‘Anacondas are non-venomous,’ Midge put in. ‘They constrict their—’
‘I meant tarot reading!’ Dr Mortimer snapped.
‘I thought you didn’t believe in all of that anyway?’ asked Harold.
‘I should like to take part,’ said Gloria.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Gloria,’ said her husband.
‘I’m not.’ Gloria looked around the room, as Rona paused her exercise. ‘What’s the alternative? Sitting around this draughty house, imagining the worst and counting KitKats?’
Chapter24
Extract fromThey Do It With Stringspodcast
‘The Tin House’: Episode Two
[Audio: muted conversation]
Noah:Many observers of the paranormal can quickly become sucked in by charlatans pedalling tarot card reading. It is a common misconception that an interest in psychic phenomena is the same as an interest in astrology. Put simply, tarot reading is less about fortune-telling and more about stories.
The Tarot is made up of two sections called the Arcanas – the word means ‘secrets’. There’s the Major Arcana, which contains twenty-two cards, and the Minor Arcana, which contains fifty-six.
Within the Minor, you find four suits that are each associated with a different aspect of the self. The suits are: the Cups, associated with water and the emotional self; the Pentacles, linked to earth and the physical self; the Wands, the suit of fire, which are about how you apply your energy; and the Swords, the cards of air, which are all about the mind.
Chapter25
Noah had positioned himself close to the fire, doing his best to fake disinterest as Rona explained the zodiac to Harold, but Midge observed him pulling faces every now and then.
‘I bet that you’re a Sagittarius,’ she was telling Harold as she held his hand, palm up.
‘Isn’t that an old goat?’ he asked Midge, who was perched uncomfortably behind a large floor lamp in the hope that Rona would not turn her astrological attentions on to her.
Rona laughed. ‘You are half human and half horse.’
‘Maybe half donkey... eh?’ Harold winked at Midge, who immediately retreated even further behind the lampshade.
‘Urgh,’ said Noah.
‘Harold, be serious for a moment, I’m trying to read your lines.’ Rona had her head bent over his palm and Harold tried his best to follow her eyes.
