The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

by Alan Bradley

  Gripping the nape of my neck with one hand, he used the other to seize my upper arm in a vise-like grip, shoving me roughly ahead of him along the towpath.

  "Just keep putting one foot in front of the other until I tell you to stop."

  I tried to call out for help, but my mouth was jammed chock-full of wet handkerchief. I couldn't produce anything more than a swinish grunt. I couldn't even tell him how much he was hurting me.

  I suddenly realized that I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life.

  As I stumbled along, I prayed that someone would spot us; if they did, they would surely call out, and even with my head bound up in Pemberton's jacket, I would almost certainly hear them. If I did, I would wrench sharply away from him and make a dash towards the sound of their voice. But to do so prematurely, I knew, risked tumbling headlong into the river and being left there by Pemberton to drown.

  "Stop here," he said suddenly, after I had been frog-marched what I judged to be a hundred yards. "Stand still."

  I obeyed.

  I heard him tinkering with something metallic and a moment later, what sounded like a door grating open. The Pit Shed!

  "One step up," he said. "That's right. now three ahead. And stop."

  Behind us, the door closed like a coffin lid, with a wooden groan.

  "Empty your pockets," Pemberton said.

  I had only one: the pocket in my sweater. There was nothing in it but the key to the kitchen door at Buckshaw. Father had always insisted that each of us carry a key at all times in case of some hypothetical emergency, and because he conducted the occasional spot check, I was never without it. As I turned my pocket inside out, I heard the key fall to the wooden floor, then bounce and skitter. A second later there was a faint clink as it landed on concrete.

  "Damn," he said.

  Good! The key had fallen into the service pit, I was sure of it. Now Pemberton would have to drag back the boards that covered it, and clamber down into the pit. My hands were still free: I would rip his jacket off my head, run out the door, pull the handkerchief out of my mouth, and scream like old gooseberries as I ran towards the High Street. It was less than a minute away.

  I was right. Almost immediately, I heard the unmistakable sound of heavy planks being dragged across the floor. Pemberton grunted as he pulled them away from the mouth of the pit. I'd have to be careful which way I ran: one wrong step and I'd fall into the open hole and break my neck.

  I hadn't moved since we came in the door, which, if I was correct, must now be behind me with the pit in front. I'd have to estimate a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn blindfolded.

  Either Pemberton had a finely tuned psychic ability or he detected some minute motion of my head. Before I could do anything, he was at my side, spinning me round half a dozen times as if we were beginning a game of blind-man's buff, and I was It. When he finally stopped, I was so dizzy I could barely stand up.

  "Now then," he said, "we're going down. Watch your step."

  I shook my head rapidly from side to side, thinking, even as I did so, how ridiculous it must look, swathed in his tweed jacket.

  "Listen, Flavia, be a good girl. I'm not going to hurt you as long as you behave. As soon as I have the stamp from Buckshaw in my hands, I'll send someone to set you free. Otherwise."

  Otherwise?

  ". I shall be forced to do something most unpleasant."

  An image of Horace Bonepenny breathing his final breath into my face floated before my covered eyes, and I knew that Pemberton was more than capable of following through on his threat.

  He dragged me by the elbow to a spot I assumed was the edge of the pit.

  "Eight steps down," he said. "I'll count them. Don't worry, I'm holding on to you."

  I stepped off into space.

  "One," he said as my foot came down on something solid. I stood there teetering.

  "Easy does it. two. three, you're almost halfway there."

  I put out my right hand and felt the edge of the pit nearly level with my shoulder. As my bare knees detected the cold air in the pit, my arm began to tremble like a dead branch in the winter wind. I felt a tightness gripping at my throat.

  "Good.four.five.just two more to go."

  He was shuffling down the steps behind me, one at a time. I wondered if I could seize his arm and pull him sharply into the pit. With any luck he'd crack his head on the concrete and I'd scramble over his body to freedom.

  Suddenly he froze, his fingers digging into the muscle of my upper arm. I let out a muted bellow and he relaxed his grip a little.

  "Quiet!" he said in a snarl that wasn't to be trifled with.

  Outside, in Cow Lane, a lorry was backing up, its gears whining in a rising and falling wail. Someone was coming!

  Pemberton stood perfectly still, his quick breath rasping in the cold silence of the pit.

  With my head muffled in his jacket, I could only faintly hear the voices outside, followed by the clanging of a steel tailgate.

  Oddly enough, the thought that came to mind was of Feely. Why, she would demand, didn't I scream? Why didn't I rip the jacket from my head and sink my teeth into Pemberton's arm? She would want to know all the details, and no matter what I said, she would rebut every argument as if she were the Lord Chief Justice himself.

  The truth was that I was having difficulty just managing to breathe. My handkerchief—a sturdy no-nonsense piece of cotton—was stuffed so tightly into my mouth that my jaws were in agony. I had to breathe through my stuffed-up nose, and even by taking the deepest breaths I was only just able to draw in enough oxygen to keep afloat.

  I knew that if I began coughing I was a goner; the slightest exertion made my head spin. Besides that, I realized, a couple of men standing out there beside an idling lorry would hear nothing but the noise of its motor. Unless I could contrive something earsplitting, I'd never make myself heard. Meanwhile, it was best to keep still and to keep quiet. I would save my energy.

  Someone closed the lorry's tailgate with a clang of steel; two doors slammed shut, and the thing lumbered off in first gear. We were alone again.

  "Now then," Pemberton said, ". down you go. Two steps more."

  He gave my arm a sharp pinch and I slid my foot forward.

  "Seven," he said.

  I paused, reluctant to take the last step that would put me in the bottom of the pit.

  "One more. Careful."

  As if he were helping an old lady across a busy street.

  I took another step and was instantly ankle-deep in rubbish. I could hear Pemberton stirring around in the stuff with his foot. He still had a fierce grip on my arm, which he relaxed only for an instant as he bent to pick something up. Obviously the key. If he could see it, I thought, there must be a certain amount of daylight at the bottom of the pit.

  The daylight at the bottom of the pit. For some unfathomable reason, the thought brought back to me Inspector Hewitt's words as he drove me home from the County Constabulary in Hinley: Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie, Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie?

  What did it all mean? My mind was awhirl.

  "I'm sorry, Flavia," Pemberton said suddenly, breaking into my thoughts, "but I'm going to have to tie you up."

  Before his words had time to register, he had whipped my right hand round behind me and tied my wrists together. What had he used, I wondered. His necktie?

  As he tightened it, I remembered to press my fingertips together to form an arch, just as I had done when Feely and Daffy had locked me in the closet. When had that been? Last Wednesday? It seemed a thousand years ago.

  But Pemberton was no fool. He saw at once what I was up to, and without a word, he pinched the backs of my hands between his thumb and forefinger and my little arch of safety collapsed in pain. He pulled the bonds tight until my wrists were squeezed together, then double-and triple-knotted the thing, giving it a hard, tight tug at each step.

  I ran a thumb over the knot and felt the slick smoothness of it. Woven
silk. Yes, he had used his necktie. Precious little chance of picking my way out of these bonds!

  My wrists were already perspiring, and I knew that the moisture would soon cause the silk to shrink. Well, not precisely: Silk, like hair, is a protein, and does not itself shrink, but the way in which it is woven can cause it to tighten mercilessly when it is wetted. After a while, the circulation in my hands would be cut off, and then…

  "Sit," Pemberton commanded, pushing down on my shoulders—and I sat.

  I heard the click of his belt buckle as he removed it, whipped it round my ankles, and pulled it tight.

  He didn't say another word. His shoes grated on concrete as he climbed the steps of the pit, and then I heard the sound of the heavy boards being dragged back across its mouth.

  A few moments later, all was silence. He was gone.

  I was alone in the pit, and no one but Pemberton knew where I was.

  I would die down here, and when eventually they found my body, they would lift me into a gleaming black hearse and transport me to some dank old morgue where they would lay me out on a stainless-steel table.

  The first thing they would do would be to open my mouth and extract the soggy ball of my handkerchief, and as they spread it out flat on the table beside my white remains, an orange stamp—a stamp belonging to the King—would flutter to the floor: It was like something right out of an Agatha Christie. Someone—perhaps even Miss Christie herself—would write a detective novel about it.

  I would be dead, but I'd be splashed across the front page of the News of the World. If I hadn't been so frightened, so exhausted, so short of breath, and in such pain, it might even have seemed amusing.

  twenty-four

  BEING KIDNAPPED IS NEVER QUITE THE WAY YOU imagine it will be. In the first place, I had not bitten and scratched my abductor. Nor had I screamed: I had gone quietly along like a lamb to the September slaughter.

  The only excuse I can think of is that all my powers were being diverted to feed my racing mind, and that nothing was left over to drive my muscles. When something like this actually happens to you, the kind of rubbish that comes leaping immediately into your head can be astonishing.

  I remembered, for instance, Maximilian's claim that in the Channel Islands you could raise the hue and cry merely by shouting, “Haroo! Haroo, mon Prince! On me fait tort!"

  Easy to say but hard to do when your mouth's stopped up with cotton and your head's wrapped in a stranger's tweed jacket that fairly reeks of sweat and pomade.

  Besides, I thought, there is a notable shortage of princes in England nowadays. The only ones I could think of at the moment were Princess Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip, and their infant son, Prince Charles.

  This meant that, for all practical purposes, I was on my own.

  What would Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier have done? I wondered. Or for that matter, her husband, Antoine?

  My present predicament was far too vivid a reminder of Marie-Anne's brother, cocooned in oiled silk and left to breathe through a straw. And it was unlikely, I knew, that anyone would come bursting into the Pit Shed to haul me off to justice. There was no guillotine in Bishop's Lacey, but neither were there any miracles.

  No, reflecting upon Marie-Anne and her doomed family was simply too depressing. I'd have to look to the other great chemists for inspiration.

  What, then, would Robert Bunsen, for instance, or Henry Cavendish have done if they had found themselves bound and gagged at the bottom of a grease pit?

  I was surprised by how quickly the answer came to mind: They would take stock.

  Very well, I would take stock.

  I was at the bottom of a six-foot pit, which was uncomfortably close to the dimensions of a grave. My hands and feet were tied and it would not be easy to feel my way around. With my head wrapped up in Pemberton's jacket—and doubtless tied tightly in position with its arms—I could see nothing. My hearing was muffled by the heavy cloth; my sense of taste disabled by the handkerchief stuffed in my mouth.

  I was having difficulty breathing and, with my nose partially covered, the slightest exertion used up what little oxygen was reaching my lungs. I would need to remain quiet.

  The sense that seemed to be working overtime was my sense of smell, and in spite of my wrapped-up head, the stench of the pit came seeping at full strength into my nostrils. At bottom, it was the sour reek of soil that has lain for many years directly beneath a human dwelling: a bitter scent of things best not thought about. Super imposed upon that background was the sweet odor of old motor oil, the sharp undulating tang of ancient petrol, carbon monoxide, tire rubber, and perhaps a faint whiff of ozone from long-burnt-out spark plugs.

  And there was that trace of ammonia I had noticed before. Miss Mountjoy had mentioned rats, and I wouldn't be surprised to discover that they flourished in these neglected buildings along the riverbank.

  Most unsettling was the smell of sewer gas: an unsavory soup of methane, hydrogen sulphide, sulphur dioxide, and the nitrogen oxides—the smell of decomposition and decay; the smell of the open pipe from the riverbank to the pit in which I was trussed.

  I shuddered to think of the things that might even now be making their way up such a conduit. Best to give my imagination a rest, I thought, and get on with my survey of the pit.

  I had almost forgotten that I was seated. Pemberton's order to sit, and his pushing me down, had been so surprising I had not noticed what it was that I sat upon. I could feel it beneath me now: flat, solid, and stable. By wiggling my behind, I was able to detect the slightest give in the thing, along with a wooden creaking sound. A large tea chest, I thought, or something very like one. Had Pemberton put it here in anticipation, before he accosted me in the churchyard?

  It was then that I realized I was famished. I had eaten nothing since my skimpy breakfast, which, come to think of it, had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of Pemberton at our window. As my stomach began to send out little pangs of complaint, I began to wish I'd been more attentive to my toast and cereal.

  Moreover, I was tired. More than tired: I was totally exhausted. I had not slept well, and the lingering effects of my head cold were further choking off my oxygen intake.

  Relax, Flave. Keep a cool head. Pemberton will soon be arriving at Buckshaw.

  I had counted on the fact that when he entered the house to retrieve the Ulster Avenger, he would be accosted by Dogger, who would put paid to him in no uncertain terms.

  Good old Dogger! How I missed him. Here was this Great Unknown living under the same roof and I had never thought to ask him, face-to-face, about his past. If ever I managed to find my way out of this infernal fix, I vowed that, at the earliest opportunity, I would take him on a private picnic. I would punt with him to the Folly, where I would ply him with Marmite on bread and pump him like billy-ho for all the gory details. He would be so relieved at my escape that he would hardly dare refuse to tell me all.

  The dear man had pretended that it was he who had killed Horace Bonepenny, albeit by accident during one of his spells, and he had done so to protect Father. I was sure of it. Hadn't Dogger been there with me in the corridor outside Father's study? Hadn't he overheard, as I had, the row that preceded Bonepenny's death?

  Yes, whatever happened, Dogger would look after it. Dogger was fiercely loyal to Father—and to me. Loyal even unto death.

  Very well, then. Dogger would tackle Pemberton and that would be that.

  Or would it?

  What if Pemberton actually made his way into Buckshaw undetected and gained entry to Father's dressing room? What if he stopped the chimneypiece clock, reached behind the pendulum, and found nothing there but the mutilated Penny Black? What would he do then?

  The answer was a simple one: He would come back to the Pit Shed and put me to the torture.

  One thing was clear: I had to escape before he could return. There was no time to waste.

  My knees popped like dry twigs as I struggled to my feet.

  The fir
st and most important thing was to make a survey of the pit: to map its features and discover anything that might aid in my escape. With my hands tied behind me at the wrists, I could only map out the concrete wall by going slowly round its perimeter, my back steadied against it, using my fingertips to feel every inch of the surface. With any luck, I might find a sharp projection to use as a tool in freeing my hands.

  My feet were tied so tightly I could feel my anklebones grating together, and I had to invent a kind of hopping frog gait. My every move was accompanied by the rustling of old papers underfoot.

  At what I judged to be the far end of the pit, I could feel a current of cold air blowing on my ankles, as if there were an opening down near the floor. I turned and faced the wall, trying to hook a toe into something, but my bonds were too tight. Every move threatened to pitch me forward onto my face.

  I could feel that my hands were quickly becoming covered with a rancid filth from the walls; the smell of the stuff alone was making me queasy.

  What if, I thought, I could climb up onto the tea chest? That way, my head should be above the level of the pit, and there might be some kind of hook higher up the wall: something, perhaps, that had once been used to suspend a bag of tools, or a work light.

  But first I had to find my way back to the chest.

  Bound and tied as I was, this took far longer than I expected. But sooner or later, I knew, my legs would crash into the thing and, having completed my circumnavigation of the pit, I'd be back where I started.

  Ten minutes later I was panting like an Ethiopian hound and still hadn't come up against the tea chest. Had I missed it? Should I carry on or go back the way I came?

  Perhaps the thing was in the middle of the pit and I had been tiring myself by hopping in rectangles all round it. By what I could recall of the pit from my first visit—although it had been covered with boards and I had not actually looked down into it—I thought that it could be no more than eight feet long and six wide.

  With my ankles trussed, I could hop no more than about six inches at a time in any direction: say, twelve hops by sixteen. It was easy enough to conclude that with my back to the wall, the center of the pit would be either six or eight hops away.