Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley

Author:Alan Bradley [Bradley, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-53868-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

• SIXTEEN •

We were standing on the riverbank at the end of Cater Street, well away from Miss Tanty’s ears. We had walked there in total silence.

Now, the only sound was that of the running river, and the muted muttering of a few ducks that paddled round in circles on the current.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Old habits die hard.”

“Is that part of your cover?” I asked. “Being an ass?”

I had heard the term “cover” used in one of the Philip Odell mysteries on the BBC wireless. “The Case of the Curious Queen,” if I remembered correctly. It meant pretending to be someone else. Someone that one wasn’t.

I had only occasionally had the opportunity to try the technique myself, since nearly everybody in Bishop’s Lacey was as well acquainted with Flavia de Luce as they were their own mothers. It was only when I was a safe distance from home that I was able to take on another character.

“I suppose it is,” Adam said, giving his nose a twist with his fingers. “There. I have switched it off. I am quite myself again.”

His grin was gone and I took him at his word.

“Miss Tanty thinks we should join forces,” I told him. “Form some sort of detection club.”

“Share information?” Adam asked.

“Well, yes, I suppose that’s what she was getting at.”

“I wasn’t aware of her detective aspirations,” he said. “Perhaps I should have been. Which means, of course, that that ghastly performance in the church yesterday was all a sham. As was her well-advertised breakdown this morning. Very clever of you to have spotted it.”

“I didn’t spot it,” I said. “She confessed before I was halfway in the door.”

“But why? It makes no sense. Why go to all that trouble and then blow the gaff with no provocation whatsoever?”

Now he was talking to me as if I were a grown-up and I have to say I loved it.

“There can be only one reason,” I told him, returning the favor. “She needs to make an ally of me.”

Adam’s eyes went hooded for a moment, and then he said, “I think you may be right. Are you prepared to play along?”

Up until that moment, my usual response would have been to nod, but I did not.

“Yes,” I told him.

“Good,” he said. “And so shall I.”

He stuck out a hand and I shook it to avoid making a scene.

“Now that we’re partners, so to speak, there’s something you ought to know, but before letting you in on it, I must have your most solemn pledge that you won’t breathe a word.”

“I so pledge,” I said. I had heard the expression somewhere and thought that it suited the occasion admirably. We were not partners, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

“I also want you to promise me that you will not go prowling about the church—at least not alone. If you feel that you need to go there for any reason, let me know and I shall come with you.”

“But why?”

I was hardly going to saddle myself with someone old enough to be my father.

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