Alan Bradley - The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

I wanted to say "Elementary," but I knew this was no time for cheek.

"I did a lysozome test on the handkerchief you used."

Nialla scrambled to her feet and seized me by the shoulders. "Flavia, you mustn't breathe a word of this! Not a word! Nobody knows but you."

"Not even Rupert?" I asked. I could hardly believe it.

"Especially Rupert," she said. "He'd kill me if he knew. Promise me. Please, Flavia ... promise me!"

"On my honor," I said, holding up three fingers in the Girl Guide salute. Although I had been chucked from that organization for insubordination (among other things), I felt it was hardly necessary to share the gruesome details with Nialla.

"Bloody good job we're camped in the country. They must have heard us for miles around, the way the two of us went at one another's throats. It was about a woman, of course. It's always about a woman, isn't it?"

This was beyond my field of expertise, but still, I tried to look attentive.

"It never takes long for Rupert to zero in on the skirt. You saw it; we weren't in Jubilee Field for half a tick when he was off up the wood with that Land Girl, Sarah, or whatever her name is."

"Sally," I said.

Although it was an interesting idea, I knew that Rupert had, in actual fact, been smoking Indian hemp in Gibbet Wood with Gordon Ingleby. But I could hardly tell Nialla that. Sally Straw had been nowhere in sight.

"I thought you said he went to see about the van."

"Oh, Flavia, you're such a — " She bit off the word in the nick of time. "Of course I said that. I didn't want to air our dirty laundry in front of a stranger."

Did she mean me — or was she referring to Dieter?

"Rupert always smudges himself with smoke, trying to cover up the scent of his tarts. I smell it on him.

"But I went a bit too far," she added ruefully. "I opened up the van and threw the first thing at him that came to hand. I shouldn't have. It was his new Jack puppet: He's been working on it for weeks. The old one's getting tatty, you see, and it tends to come apart at the worst possible moment.

"Like me," she wailed, and threw up again.

I wished that I could make myself useful, but this was one of those situations in which a bystander can do nothing to help.

"Up all the night he was, trying to fix the thing."

By the fresh marks on her neck, I could see that Rupert had done more in the night than patch up a puppet.

"Oh, I wish I were dead," she moaned.

There was a banging at the door: a sharp, rapid volley of rat-a-tat-tat knocks.

"Who's in there?" a woman's voice demanded, and my heart cringed. It was Cynthia Richardson.

"There may be others wishing to use the facilities," she called. "Please try to be more considerate of other people's needs."

"Just coming, Mrs. Richardson," I called out. "It's me, Flavia."

Damn the woman! How could I quickly feign illness?

I grabbed the cotton hand towel from the ring beside the sink, and gave my face a rough scrubbing. I could feel the blood rising even as I worked. I messed up my hair, ran a bit of water from the tap and mopped it across my reddening brow, and let loose a thread of spit to dangle horribly from the corner of my mouth.

Then I flushed the toilet and unbolted the door.

As I waited for Cynthia to open it, as I knew she would, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: I was the very image of a malaria victim whose doctor had just stepped out to ring the undertaker.

As the knob turned and the door swung inwards, I took a couple of unsteady steps out into the hallway, puffing out my cheeks as if I were about to vomit. Cynthia shrank back against the wall.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Richardson," I said shakily. "I've just sicked up. It must have been something I ate. Nialla's been very kind ... but I think, with a bit of fresh air, I'll be all right."

And I tottered past her with Nialla in my wake; Cynthia didn't give her so much as a glance.

"You are terrifying," Nialla said. "You really are. Do you know that?"

We were sitting on a slab tomb in the churchyard as I waited for the sun to dry my feverish face. Nialla put away her lipstick and rummaged in her bag for a comb.

"Yes," I said, matter-of-factly. It was true — and there was no use denying it.

"Aha!" said a voice. "Here you are, then!"

A dapper little man in slacks and jacket with a yellow silk shirt was coming rapidly towards us. His neck was swathed in a mauve ascot, and an unlit pipe protruded from between his teeth. He stepped gingerly from side to side, trying not to tread directly on some of the more sunken graves.

"Oh, God!" Nialla groaned without moving her mouth, and then to him: "Hello, Mutt. Half-holiday at the monkey house, is it?"

"Where's Rupert?" he demanded. "Inside?"

"How lovely to see you, Nialla," Nialla said. "How perfectly lovely you're looking today, Nialla. Forgotten your manners, Mutt?"

Mutt — or whoever he was — turned on his heel in the grass and trod off towards the parish hall, still minding where he stepped.

"Mutt Wilmott," Nialla told me. "Rupert's producer at the BBC. They had a flaming row last week and Rupert walked out right in the middle of it. Left Mutt holding the bag with Auntie — the Corporation, I mean. But how on earth did he find us? Rupert thought we'd be quite safe here. 'Rusticating in the outback,' he called it."

"He got off the train at Doddingsley yesterday morning," I said, making a leap of deduction, but knowing I was right.

Nialla sighed. "I'd better go in. There's bound to be fireworks."

Even before we reached the door, I could hear Rupert's voice rising furiously inside the echoing hall.

"I don't care what Tony said. Tony can go sit on a paintbrush, and so can you, Mutt, come to think of it. You've shat on Rupert Porson for the last time — the lot of you."

As we entered, Rupert was halfway up the little staircase that led to the stage. Mutt stood in the middle of the hall with his hands on his hips. Neither seemed to notice we were there.

"Oh, come off it, Rupert. Tony has every right to tell you when you've overstepped the mark. And hearken unto me, Rupert, this time you have overstepped the mark, and by quite a long chalk at that. It's all very well for you to stir up a hornet's nest and then dodge the flak by taking your little show on the road. That's what you always do, don't you? But this time you at least owe him the courtesy of a hearing."

"I don't owe Tony a parson's whistle."

"That's where you're wrong, old boy. How many binds has he extracted you from?"

Rupert said nothing as Mutt ticked them off on his fingers.

"Well, let's see: There was the little incident with Marco. Then there was the one with Sandra Paisley — a nasty business, that. Then the thing with Sparkman and Blondel — cost the BBC a bundle, that one did. To say nothing of — "

"Shut your gob, Mutt!"

Mutt went on counting. "To say nothing of that girl in Beckenham ... what was her name ... Lulu? Lulu , for God's sake!"

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Rupert was into a full-fledged tantrum. He came storming stiff-legged down the steps, his brace clattering dreadfully. I glanced over at Nialla, who had suddenly become as pale and as still as a painted Madonna. Her hand was at her mouth.

"Go get in your bloody Jaguar, little man, and drive it straight to hell!" Rupert snarled. "Leave me alone!"

Mutt was not intimidated. Even though they were now nose to nose, he didn't give an inch. Rather, he plucked an imaginary bit of lint from the sleeve of his jacket and pretended to watch it float to the floor.

"Didn't drive down, old boy. Came by British Rail. You know as well as I that the BBC's cutting back on expenses, what with the Festival of Britain next year, and all that."