As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce #7)(77)

“Do you think she’s listening to us—right now, I mean?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sal. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“But what about this note?”

Marge gave out a laugh that was a little too confident. “Dollars to doughnuts it’s one of our dear sweet girls. One of our dear, sweet, innocent little darlings that hopes to give us a heart attack. She’s probably hiding behind the boiler at this very moment with her fist shoved in her mouth.

“AREN’T YOU, DEARIE?” she shouted. “Hand me the broom, Sal. I’ll give her what for.”

There came a wild whacking on the wall and I caught a glimpse of Marge’s hairnet. I could almost have reached down and touched her, but I thought better of it.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Sal cackled.

It had become a game, and I was the quarry.

“Ready or not, you must be caught. First caught’s it!”

These two grown women had, in a matter of seconds, reverted to the kind of primitive urge that once made gentle housewives willingly assist in hauling old women off to the village green to be burnt or drowned as witches.

Drowned—was that what her killers did to Francesca Rainsmith? It didn’t make sense. My mind was reeling.

For the first time since coming to Miss Bodycote’s I was genuinely frightened.

“We’re coming to get you!” they began chanting, one at first and then the other. “We’re coming to get you!”

They began banging on the steam pipes, presumably with brooms, or whatever else was handy. The din was ferocious.

Fear, Dogger had once told me, is often irrational, but is nevertheless real because it is generated by the reptile part of our primitive brain: the instinctive part that is designed for dodging dinosaurs.

It was this uncontrollable reflex that caused me to do what I did: Instead of clinging to the duct and trying to hide, I scrambled to my feet and came clattering down the ladder—into their very midst, like a flushed rat.

The effect upon Marge and Sal was electric. They were as surprised as I was.

Marge put her hands on her hips and took a step toward me; Sal put her hands behind her back and stepped cautiously away. Both of them went red in the face like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

“I told you,” Marge said. “I told you she was up there, didn’t I?”

Sal nodded wisely.

“What are you up to?” Marge demanded.

I looked from one to the other, pausing as long as I dared so that my words would have their maximum effect. When I judged the moment to be precisely right, I said: “I’m investigating the murder of Francesca Rainsmith.”

There are times when truth is the simplest and the most effective weapon, and this was one of them. It’s risky, but it sometimes works.

“Investigating?” Sal scoffed—almost spat. “A girl like you?”

I looked her in the eye. “Yes,” I said. “A girl like me.”

Utter silence.

“I hope you’ll be able to assist me,” I added, just as a way of oiling the cuckoo. The word “assist” is so much more civilized and lubricating, I find, than “help.”

“Depends,” Marge said, her voice cracking.

Hallelujah! I was halfway home!

“How well did you know Francesca Rainsmith?” I asked. “Did she come here often?”

“She used to bring her laundry in—his, too. Said she didn’t have time, and she used to give us a plant at Christmas—a poinsettia, generally, in colored foil.”

“Was she a medical doctor?”

Sal blew out air. “Her? No. I don’t know what she did. Nothing, I think. I saw her one time on a Wednesday afternoon—I remember because it was my day off—at the Diana Sweets, having tea in the middle of the afternoon. Shopping bags everywhere, on the chairs, on the floor. She nodded at me, I think, sort of.”

“Did they have any children?”

Facts, again. I needed facts. I was trying desperately to piece together out of thin air a detailed portrait of a woman I had only seen once, and even then, dead and decapitated.

She had not been at her best.

“Good lord, no! She hated kids. Used to cover her ears when she came around. Kept well away from them. Said they made her nervous. Wasn’t much more than a kid herself, to tell you the truth … tiny bit of a thing. Girlish.”

“Was she ever a student here?” I asked, in what seemed to me a sudden burst of inspiration.

“What makes you think that?” Marge said suddenly.

“I don’t know,” I told her truthfully. “It was just an idea.”

A cloud had come over Marge’s face, as sudden as a summer storm. “Say, is this anything to do with that body in the chimney?”

“Yes,” I said, watching her face carefully. “I’m afraid it is.”

Marge’s and Sal’s hands went to their mouths at the same time, as if they had been stitched together at the elbows. It was obvious that, until this moment, they had not made the connection. I watched as horror crossed their faces.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m only telling you this because I trust you. I’m sticking my neck out. If anything comes out I’ll be held responsible.”