‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Midge.
‘I’ll be keeping a close eye on her all the same,’ mouthed Noah to Rona.
‘Has the doctor left already?’ asked Midge. ‘I’ll take a cup of tea up to Gloria.’
Rona shrugged.
‘What else were you two talking about when I came in?’ asked Midge, pouring a cup of tea from the pot.
Rona and Noah shared a look. So, it hadn’t been her imagination.
‘Must have been a bit of a shock, Bridie turning up like that,’ said Rona, suddenly appearing very interested in her nails.
‘It was unexpected,’ replied Midge.
‘I’m just wondering... whether—’
‘Rona, stop,’ Noah interrupted her.
But she ignored him. ‘It’s just... does she always talk to you like that, Midge?’
Midge cleared her throat before carefully pouring some cold water into Bridie’s teacup to cool it down. No milk, one sugar. She stirred it with a metal spoon three times before placing the spoon gently to the side on the counter. ‘She has cancer.’
She didn’t know why she said it, certainly not as any kind of explanation. It was true, of course, but it had never been spoken out loud to anyone by Midge. All the months of chemo. Nothing.
‘Come with me,’ she said, suddenly.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Noah.
‘To put something back where it belongs,’ replied Midge.
‘Now,’ said Midge, when they were standing in front of the giant grandfather clock on the landing. ‘The clock has stopped working.’
‘Yes, we know that,’ said Noah, rolling his eyes as if humouring a geriatric. Midge chose to ignore his tone for the moment.
‘And that is because, if you look here –’ Midge pointed to a small hole in the middle of the clock face – ‘it should be wound up every so often with a key.’
The other two obligingly looked at the hole.
‘So, what we have is a missing key, and a key on the floor in the bathing room that shouldn’t have been there,’ said Midge, impatiently waiting for the others to catch up.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Rona.
Midge pulled something from her pocket. ‘Someone staged the locking of the bathing room door from the inside.’
‘Staged? It was locked. Rona and I had to bash it down. Look, I’ve still got the bruise.’ Noah started to roll his sleeve up.
‘Don’t embarrass yourself Noah, you didn’t even touch the door,’ said Rona.
‘I mean, it was locked. But not from the inside,’ said Midge.
‘We saw the key on the floor when we got inside.’
‘You sawakey,’ said Midge. ‘But it wasn’t the key to the bathing room. That was locked from the outside. What you saw was this key.’
Midge held up the brass key she had retrieved from her drawer and briefly explained her findings in the bathroom, how the little key had been deliberately placed inside the keyhole, to fall on to the tiles when they got the door open.
Rona folded her arms across her chest and frowned. ‘But hang on, how did the murderer get inside the bathing room in the first place? I can’t imagine Rendell taking a bath without locking the door.’
