keep to himself. My bedroom had once been his, and over time all, or most, of its secrets had been revealed.
“You’ve got your bloody nerve,” I said. The thought of someone invading my laboratory made my skin crawl, as if an army of red ants were swarming up my arms, fanning out across my shoulders, and up the back of my neck.
“I’m sorry, Flavia,” she said. “I know it wasn’t you that attacked Fenella. I can’t have been thinking straight. I was confused. I was tired. I came back to apologize.”
“Then you’d better get at it,” I said.
I was not going to be mollified—wasn’t that the term Daffy had used when she’d said the same thing to me: “mollified”?—with just a couple of token words. There are times when “I’m sorry” is simply not enough.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am. It’s all so upsetting. It’s just too much.”
Suddenly she was in tears.
“First there was Fenella—now they won’t let me see her, you know. They’ve got a constable in a chair watching the door to her room. Then there was that awful business of the man we found hanging from the fountain—”
“Brookie Harewood,” I said. I’d almost forgotten about Brookie.
“And now this latest body they’ve dug up in—what do you call it?—the Palings.”
“What?”
“It’s all too much,” she said, wiping her nose on her forearm. “I’m going back to London.”
Before I could say another word, she dug into her pocket and pulled out a five-pound note.
“Here,” she said, prying open my fingers and pressing them closed upon the banknote. “That’s to feed Gry until Fenella’s discharged from hospital. And …”
She looked straight into my eyes, still gripping my hand. Her lips were trembling. “If she doesn’t recover, he’s yours. The caravan, too. I came here to tell you I’m sorry, and I’ve done it. And now I’m leaving.”
“Wait! What did you say about another body?”
“Ask your inspector friend,” she said, and turned towards the door.
I made a lunge for the key and slammed the door shut. We tussled for the doorknob, but I managed to grab the key, jam it into the inside lock, and give it a frantic twist.
“Hand it over. Let me out.”
“No,” I said. “Not until you tell me what you saw in the Palings.”
“Come off it, Flavia. I’m not playing games.”
“Nor am I,” I told her, crossing my arms.
As I knew she would, she made a sudden snatch at the key. It was an old trick often used by Daffy and Feely, and I suppose I ought to have been grateful for having learned it from them. Being ready for the next move, I was able to hold the key out, at arm’s length, away from her.
And then she gave up. Just like that. I could see it in her eyes.
She brushed her hair away from her face and walked back to one of the laboratory tables, where she splayed her fingers out upon its surface, as if to keep from toppling over.
“I went back to the caravan to pick up my things,” she said, slowly and deliberately, “and the police were there again. They wouldn’t let me anywhere near it. They were lifting something out of a hole in the ground.”
“Lifting what?”
She was staring at me with something that might have been defiance.
“Believe me, it wasn’t gold.”
“Tell me!”
“For God’s sake, Flavia!”
I waved the key at her. “Tell me.”
“It was a body. Wrapped in a carpet, or something—not very big. A child, I think. I only saw one of the feet … or what was left of it.
“A bundle of old green bones,” she added.
She clapped her hand across her mouth and her shoulders heaved.
I waited patiently for more, but if there were any further interesting details, Porcelain was keeping them to herself.
We stared at each other for what seemed like a very long time.
“Fenella was right,” she said at last. “There is a darkness here.”
I held out the key and she lifted it from my open palm with two fingers, as if it—or I—were contaminated.
Without a word, she unlocked the door and let herself out.
What was I supposed to feel? I wondered.
To be perfectly honest, I think I had been looking forward to having Porcelain dog my every step as I went
