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

As I stretched luxuriously, my fingers touched something: the skin of a human leg, by the feel of it. Before I could let out a scream, someone clapped a hand tightly over my mouth.

"Keep still!" a voice hissed into my ear.

My eyes rolled like a horse's in a slaughterhouse. Even in that dim light I could see the face of the person who was stifling me.

It was Nialla.

My first inclination was to bite off one of her fingers: I have a phobia about being physically restrained, and there are times when my reflexes are faster than reason.

"Don't make a sound!" she whispered, giving me a little shake. "I need your help."

Damn! She had given the female password — spoken those magic words that stretched back through the mists of time to a bond made in some primordial swamp. I was in her power. I went instantly limp and nodded my head. She removed her hand.

"Are the police looking for me?" she asked.

"I — I don't think so. I don't know," I said. "I'm not exactly one of their confidantes."

I was still a little miffed at being seized and shaken.

"Oh, come off it, Flavia," she said. "Don't go all shirty on me. I need to know. Are they looking for me?"

"I haven't seen the police since Saturday night, right after Rupert was — after Rupert — "

Although I have no qualms about the word, I couldn't bring myself to say it to Nialla's face.

"Murdered," she said, falling back into her seat. "Nor have I. That Inspector simply wouldn't stop asking me questions. It was horrid."

"Murdered?" I spat out the word as if the thought had never crossed my mind. "What makes you think Rupert was murdered?"

"It's what everyone thinks: the police, and now you. You just said 'right after Rupert was — ' That implies something, doesn't it? Murdered ... killed, what difference does it make? You certainly weren't about to say 'right after Rupert died,' and don't pretend you were. I'm not a fool, Flavia, so please don't keep treating me as if I were."

"Perhaps it was an accident," I said, stalling to get my thoughts organized.

"Would the police have spent half the night grilling the audience, if they thought it was an accident?"

She had a point.

"What's worse," she went on, "is they think I did it."

"I can see why," I said.

"What? Whose side are you on, anyway? I told you I needed help and suddenly you're accusing me of murder!"

"I am not accusing you of murder," I said. "I'm merely stating the obvious."

"Which is?"

She was becoming angrier by the minute.

"Which is," I said, taking a deep breath, "that you've been in hiding, that Rupert had been beating you, that there was Another Woman, and that you're pregnant."

In these waters, I was well in over my head, but still, determined to swim like a dog tossed off the end of a pier. Even so, the effect of my words on Nialla was quite remarkable. I thought for an instant that she was going to slap my face.

"Is it that obvious?" she asked, her lip trembling.

"It is to me," I replied. "I can't speak for anyone else."

"Do you think I did it? Killed Rupert, I mean?"

"I don't know," I said. "I shouldn't have judged you capable of such a thing, but then I'm no Spilsbury."

Although Sir Bernard had been a dab hand at fingering murderers, including those two great poisoners Dr. Crippen and Major Armstrong, he had, oddly enough, taken his own life by gassing himself in his laboratory. Still, I thought, if Spilsbury were alive, he would be the first to point out that Nialla had the means, the motive, and the opportunity.

"Stop prattling on like that," she snapped. "Do you think I murdered Rupert?"

"Did you?" I shot back.

"I can't answer that," she said. "You mustn't ask me."

I was no stranger to such female sparring: Eleven years under the same roof as Feely and Daffy had made me quite immune to that sort of ducking and dodging.

"All right," I persisted, "but if you didn't, then who did?"

By now, I had become accustomed to the dusky light of the coach house, and I watched as Nialla's eyes widened like luminous twin moons.

There was a long, and rather unpleasant, silence.

"If it wasn't you," I said at last, "then why are you hiding out here?"

"I'm not hiding out! I needed to get away. I told you that. The police, the Mullets — "

"I understand about the Mullets," I told her. "I'd rather spend a morning in the dentist's chair than listen to an hour of Mrs. Mullet's rattling on."

"You mustn't say things like that," Nialla said. "They were both very sweet, especially Alf. He's a lovely old gentleman — puts me in mind of my grandfather. But I needed to get away somewhere to think, to pull myself together. You don't know what it's like to come flying apart at the seams."

"Yes, I do. More than you might think. I quite often come here myself when I need to be alone."

"I must have sensed that. I thought of Buckshaw at once. No one would ever think to look for me here. The place wasn't actually that hard to find."

"You'd better get back," I said, "before they notice you're gone. The Inspector wasn't at the church when I came past. I expect they had rather a late night. Since he's already questioned you, there's no reason you shouldn't be taking a long walk in the country, is there?"

"No ..." she said, tentatively.

"Besides," I added, getting back to my usual cheerful self, "no one but me knows you were here."

Nialla reached into the side pocket on the door of the Rolls-Royce and pulled something out. It came free with a rustle of wax paper. As she opened it out into her lap, I couldn't help noticing the razor-sharp creases in the paper.

"No one knows," she said, handing me a cucumber sandwich, "... but you — and one other person. Here, eat this. You must be famished."

"GO ON! GO ON!" Dogger growled, his hands trembling like the last two leaves of autumn. He did not see me standing there, in the doorway of the greenhouse.

With one blade of his pocketknife opened at a near right angle, he was clumsily trying to hone it on a whetstone. The blade skittered crazily here and there, making ghastly grating noises on the black surface.

Poor Dogger. These episodes came upon him without warning, and almost anything could trigger them: a spoken word, a smell, or a drifting snatch of melody. He was at the mercy of his broken memory.

I backed away slowly until I was behind the garden wall. Then I began whistling softly, only gradually increasing the volume. It would sound as if I were just coming across the lawn towards the kitchen garden. Halfway to the greenhouse, I broke into song: a campfire ditty I had learned just before I was excommunicated from the Girl Guides:

I strolled square-shouldered into the greenhouse.

"G'day, mate!" I said, with a hearty, Down-Under grin.

"McCorquedale? Is that you?" Dogger called out, his voice as thin and wispy as the wind in the strings of an old harp. "Is Bennett with you? Have you got your tongues back?"

His head was cocked to one side, listening, his wrist held up to shield his eyes, which were turned blindly up to the glare of the greenhouse glass.

I felt as if I had blundered into a sanctuary, and the flesh crawled on the back of my neck.

"It's me, Dogger — Flavia," I managed.

His brows knitted themselves into a look of puzzlement. "Flavia?"

My name issued from his throat like a whisper from an abandoned well.

I could see that he was already fighting his way back from whatever had seized him, the light in his eyes coming back only warily from the depths to the surface, like golden fish in an ornamental pool.