Rufus and Vini were listening carefully. They must not have heard any of this, either.
“Do you think your old power made it possible?” Rufus asked. “You’ve always been able to manipulate memories. Did that help you remember?”
Norma nodded. “I think so. When I first became a ghost, I started testing the limits of my power to control my own memories. I managed to train myself to remember who I was, just in case I could come back in a new body. It worked. As soon as I saw this building, my brain knew what to do. If I’d never come to Mulcture Hall, I might have died without knowing who I really am.”
“No one else could do what you did, brother,” Vini said, bursting with pride. “You’ve changed history. You’re a genius!”
Norma smiled, her wrinkled cheeks creasing with pleasure. “Oh, you young fool. Stop it.” She rubbed her knuckle against his cheek affectionately. Vini leaned into it, like a touch-starved kitten.
They loved her. Both of them really and truly loved Norma, in a way that Harriet never had. They adored her – him? – to the depths of their souls. Somehow, they saw Norma as someone good and admirable and worthy of love. They’d grieved her for eighty years, and patiently waited for her to come back. Just because she’d said she would. They’d trusted her implicitly.
How could it be possible?
“So when you killed my parents, you didn’t know that you were Fabian?”
Norma’s smile dropped. “Still caught up on that, are you? Do let it go, Harriet – we have a lot to be getting on with. You should feel lucky that it wasn’t you, too.”
Harriet flinched – Norma really didn’t regret a thing.
“But I suppose it was all Norma,” her gran continued. “I had no idea I had ever been anyone else when I killed your parents.” She smirked at Rufus. “I guess it was natural talent.”
“You’ve always been precocious!” Rufus said. “Barely seventy years old and you were already taking the initiative. So admirable!”
Harriet rubbed her eyes. How was any of this real? Could this be happening? “You just … killed them, then? There was no special ghostly reason for that?”
Norma waved her hand airily. “It was a long time ago. If I’d known that ghosts existed, I would hardly have killed them in some little house in the suburbs of Coventry. What use is that? They’re still stuck there on their own. I’d have put them somewhere they could have been useful. I killed them because it had reached the point where they were refusing to do what I said any more. They had to go. They were taking you away from me, Harriet. You’re the only one of them who listened to me. My little protégée.”
Harriet blanched, acid rising in her throat. So she was just easily influenced? She’d been indoctrinated since she was a child.
“Tell us what happened after your real memories came back,” Rufus said.
Norma patted his hand, which rested on her arm. “Well, I remembered how strong and powerful I’d been here, ruling unchallenged for so many centuries. After that, I couldn’t be happy any longer in this body.” Norma gestured down at herself. “I was frail and weak, disrespected and ignored. I wanted – needed – to be my old self again, reunited with my dear brothers. Even if that meant becoming a ghost.”
Harriet had been so upset when Norma died. It had seemed such a pointless accident, just tripping and hitting her head. Was she saying that it wasn’t an accident at all? “You committed suicide?” Harriet gasped.
Norma sniffed. “I don’t like that word.”
“But you killed yourself? You hit your head like that on purpose?”
“Well, yes. I wanted to be back with you all! My loved ones!” When she held out her arms, Vini tucked himself under her armpit and squeezed her waist. “Now we can all be together for ever. A family again,” Norma said, in satisfaction.
This wasn’t right. Norma wasn’t telling them the whole story. If Norma had planned to kill herself here, then it must have been a huge surprise to find out that Harriet had died here only days beforehand.
Unless…
Now she thought about it, Norma had been the one who suggested that Harriet come to Mulcture Hall to take photographs of the abandoned building in the first place. Otherwise, it would never have occurred to her.
She had been on the phone with Norma just before she’d tripped and fallen. What if it had never been an accident? What if her ankle had caught on something – some kind of tripwire, maybe – left by her grandmother? The hazard signs had been hidden out of sight, too. She’d only noticed them afterwards. Had they been deliberately moved?
Norma kept saying that she wanted to spend eternity with the three of them. Not just her brothers, but Harriet, too. She could have killed herself here on the day of the tour when her memories returned, over a year ago. But she’d waited until Harriet was here.
Norma had killed Harriet. Just like she’d killed her husband, her son and his wife.
“Did you set up my death?” Harriet asked politely, suddenly completely calm.
“Not at all,” Norma said, sounding surprised. “I would never do that to you, Harriet.”
Vini looked at Rufus, mouth tightening.
Harriet asked him, “Did she visit you in the basement? Before she set up the wire?”
Vini looked somewhere over Harriet’s shoulder. “What?”
“She must have done, you were expecting her today! And – Greg told me that you were looking up a woman online using my phone. That was her, wasn’t it? You were talking to her. She planned
