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

"It was during one of these inspections that the great scheme was born. I don't remember now if it was Wolfgang or I who first came up with the idea.

"We were walking around Kathi's tail — Kathi was the thinly disguised name painted on the nose of our aircraft — when suddenly one of us, I think it might have been Wolfgang ... or it might have been me ... said, 'Do you suppose the heather is in bloom today on Haworth Moor?'

"It was that simple. In just those few moments, the die, as Julius Caesar remarked, was cast.

"And then, as if she had been listening at the door, Fate again stepped in. Two days later we were given an objective in South Yorkshire: a railway yard and a bicycle factory thought to be producing Rolls-Royce engines. Photographs only. 'A piece of cake,' as the RAF blokes used to say. A perfect opportunity to deliver, in person, our little gift.

"The flight across the Channel was uneventful, and for once, we were not bounced by Spitfires. The weather was beautiful, and Kathi's engines were purring away like a pair of huge, contented cats.

"We arrived over the target on time — 'on the dot,' as you say — and took our photographs. Snap! Snap! Snap! and we were finished. Mission accomplished! The next quarter of an hour belonged to us.

"The parsonage at Haworth now lay less than ten miles to the northwest, and at our speed, which was three hundred miles an hour, it was no more than two minutes away.

"The problem was that we were too high. Although we had descended to seventeen thousand feet for the photographs, for our personal mission, we needed to lose more altitude quickly. A Messerschmitt with black crosses on its wings swooping down like a hawk upon a quiet English village would hardly go unnoticed.

"I shoved the control column forward, and down and down we circled in a giant spiral, our ears popping like champagne corks. Beneath us, the heather on the moor was a sea of purple billows.

"At a thousand feet I began to pull out and dropped nearly to hedge level.

"'Get ready!' I shouted to Wolfgang.

"We came in from the east, and suddenly there it was atop its hill: the village of Haworth! We roared along, skimming the fields, barely clearing the farmhouse chimney pots.

"As we came in over the Haworth road, I caught my first glimpse of the church at the top of the steep high street: then, a hundred yards behind it, beyond the churchyard, the familiar shape of the Brontes' parsonage. It was exactly as I had always imagined it: the dark stained stones and the empty windows.

"'Now!' I shouted, and Wolfgang shoved our gift out the open port in the canopy and into the slipstream. Although I couldn't see it, I could picture our wreath arcing down through the air, tumbling over and over, its purple ribbon streaming out behind it as it fell. Later, someone would retrieve it from among the old tombstones near the parsonage door, and read the message: gold letters the color of gorse on heather-colored silk, saying All the World Loves You — — Rest in Peace .

"It was too risky to climb back to cruising altitude. We should have to go home by hedgehopping from point to point, keeping to the open countryside. Of course, we would burn more fuel that way, but both of us were young and foolish, and we had done what we had come to do. As soon as we were spotted, we knew, all the hounds of Hell, the Hurricanes and Spitfires, would be on our tail.

"But it was a perfect August day. With a bit of luck and a tailwind, I was telling Wolfgang, we might even manage to overfly Thomas Hardy's house on the way home at no additional cost to the Reich.

"It was at that precise moment that the canopy in front of my face shattered in a rain of exploding bullets. We were hit!

"'Spitfire!' Wolfgang shouted. But it was too late. A dark shadow shot past us, then banked and turned, its red, white, and blue roundels flashing like mad eyes in the summer sun.

"'Watch out,' I yelled. 'He's coming round for another pass!'

"It was then that I noticed that our port engine temperature gauge was pinned to the top. It was overheating. I glanced to the side and, to my horror, saw the black smoke and orange flames that were billowing out from beneath the cowling. I feathered the prop and switched off the engine.

"By now the Spitfire was behind us again. In what was left of my rearview mirror, I could see his fragmented image rocking gently from side to side, riding our slipstream. He had us in his sights.

"But he held his fire. It was most unnerving.

" Come on , I thought. Get it over with . He was playing with us like a terrier with a rat.

"I don't know how long it went on. You cannot judge time when you are about to die.

"'Why doesn't he shoot?' I called out to Wolfgang, but there was no answer. With my shoulder harness locked, I could not twist round far enough in my seat to see him.

"But even on one engine, Kathi was easily able to stay aloft, and for what seemed like an eternity, that British hound chased the German hare across the green countryside.

"The shattered windscreen had reduced forward visibility to zero, and I had to tack sharply from side to side in order to see what lay ahead. It was a dicey situation.

"And then the other engine died. Phut! Just like that! I had only seconds to make a decision. The trees on a wooded hill were rushing by beneath the wings. At the edge of the wood was a sloping field. It was there that I would put her down. No wheels, I thought. Better to make a belly landing and come to a stop more quickly.

"The sound of the crash was louder than I ever could have imagined. The aircraft slewed from side to side as the earth tore at her belly, battering and banging along, lurching, bucking — it was like being thrown alive into a millrace.

"And then the unearthly silence. It took a moment to realize that we were no longer moving. I unbuckled my harness, threw back the front canopy, and jumped out onto the wing, then ran back and peered in at Wolfgang.

"'Get out!' I shouted. 'Quickly! Get out!'

"But there was no reply.

"Inside the glass canopy, in a sea of blood, Wolfgang sat with a happy smile on his face. His dead eyes were staring out almost feverishly at the green English countryside.

"I jumped down from the wing and vomited into the long grass.

"We had come to rest at the far side of the field. Now, from higher up the hillside, two men, one tall, the other short, had emerged from the trees and were clumping slowly, warily, down towards me. One of them was carrying a shotgun, the other a pitchfork.

"I stood there, not moving. As they drew near, I put one hand in the air, slowly pulled my pistol from its holster and threw it away, making sure they saw what I was doing. Then I put up the other hand.

"'You're a German,' the tall man called out as they approached.

"'Yes,' I shouted back. 'But I speak English.'

"He seemed a little taken aback.

"'Perhaps you should call the police,' I suggested, jerking my head towards the battered Messerschmitt. 'My friend is dead in there.'

"The tall man edged cautiously over to the aircraft and peered inside. The other stood his ground, staring at me as if I had landed from another planet. He drew the pitchfork back, as if he were about to jab me in the stomach.

"'Let him be, Rupert,' the man with the shotgun said. 'He's just had a bad crash.'

"Before the other man could respond, there was a high-pitched screaming in the sky, and the Spitfire shot past, lifting at the end of the field into a victory roll.

"I watched it climb straight up into the blue air, and then I said:

"The two men looked at me as if I had suddenly fallen into shock — and perhaps I had. Not until later would it come crashing home to me that poor Wolfgang was dead.

"George Meredith," I told them. "'The Lark Ascending.'"

"Later, at the police station in the village, the Spitfire pilot paid me a visit. He was with a squadron based at Catterick, and had taken his machine up to check the controls after the mechanics had made a few adjustments. He had not the slightest intention of getting into a scrap that day, he told me, but there we were, Wolfgang and I, suddenly in his gunsights over Haworth. What else could he do?

"'Hell of a prang. Bad luck, old chap,' he said. 'Damned sorry about your friend.'

"All of that was six years ago," Dieter said with a sigh. "The tall man in the field with the shotgun, as I was to find out later, was Gordon Ingleby. The other one, the man with the pitchfork, as perhaps you have already guessed, was Rupert Porson."

RUPERT PORSON? BUT HOW could the man with the pitchfork have been Rupert?

My mind was spinning like a painted tin top.

The last place on earth I had ever expected Dieter's tale to end was in Jubilee Field at the Ingleby farm. But one thing now became perfectly clear: If Rupert had been at Culverhouse Farm six years ago, during the war, it would explain, at least in part, how the wooden face of his puppet Jack had come to be carved in the image of Robin Ingleby.

Father let out a sigh.

"I remember it well," he said. "Your machine was brought down in Jubilee Field, just below Gibbet Wood."

Dieter nodded. "I was sent for a short time to a prisoner-of-war camp with thirty or forty other Luftwaffe officers and men, where our days were spent ditching and hedging. It was backbreaking work, but at least I was still in England. Most German pilots who were captured were sent abroad to camps in Canada, where there was little hope of escape.

"When I was offered a chance to live and work on a farm, I jumped at it; although it was not compulsory, many of us did. Those who did not called us traitors, among other things.

"But the war was moving towards its end, and a lot of us knew it. Better to begin paving my own personal road to Oxford, I thought, than to leave my future to chance.

"No one was more surprised than I was to find I had been assigned to the Inglebys' farm. It amused me to think that Gordon, who only a short time before had had me at the end of a shotgun, was now helping Grace fry my kippers in the farmhouse kitchen."

"That was six years ago, you say — in 1944?" I asked.

"It was." Dieter nodded. "In September."

I couldn't help it. Before I could stifle the words, I found myself blurting, "Then you must have been at Culverhouse Farm when Robin was found hanging in Gibbet Wood."

"Flavia!" Father said, putting his cup and saucer down with a clatter. "We will have no gossiping about the grief of others."

Dieter's face went suddenly grim, and a fire — could it have been anger? — came into his eyes.

"It was I," he said, "who found him."

You who found him? I thought. Impossible! Mrs. Mullet had made it perfectly clear that it was Mad Meg who had discovered Robin's body.

There was a remarkably long silence, and then Feely leapt to her feet to refresh Dieter's teacup.

"You must excuse my little sister," she said with a brittle laugh. "She has rather an unhealthy fascination with death."

Full points, Feely , I thought. But although she had hit the nail on the head, she didn't know the half of it.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty much a thud. Father had made what I admit was a noble attempt to switch the conversation to the weather and the flax crops, while Daffy, sensing that little else was worthy of her attention, had crawled back into her book.

One by one, we made our excuses: Father to tend to his stamps, Aunt Felicity to have a nap before supper, and Daffy to the library. After a while, I grew bored with listening to Feely prattle on to Dieter about various balls and outings in the country, and made my escape to the laboratory.