Free A Murder of Magpies by Judith Flanders Page A

“I don’t need an ambulance. I’m fine.” I sounded about Bim’s age, but slightly less bright.
    Mr. Rudiger, to my surprise, broke in. “You’re very far from fine. You have to make sure you haven’t got a concussion, you have to have your cuts and scrapes cleaned, and if someone can stop your nosebleed, it would make me happier about you sleeping in my spare room tonight.”
    My nose? I wiped my hand across my face. I was such a mess I hadn’t even thought to wonder where the blood was coming from. Sure enough, my nose was bleeding, and from long experience I knew it would go on doing so until I got it cauterized. It happened often enough for no reason at all—I had to go and get it dealt with at least once every two or three years. I began to take stock. A roaring headache, but no blinding lights, no fuzzy vision. I probably wasn’t concussed, but checking was reasonable enough, even though I didn’t want to be reasonable. I wanted to bite somebody. That would probably be poor tactics so instead I argued, with the false civility all girls internalize before they’re twelve. “I can’t possibly stay here, Mr. Rudiger. Thank you, but I’ve caused enough trouble.”
    He gave me a wintry little smile, not fooled for a minute. “Trouble, yes, but not intentionally, and I don’t see how you can stay downstairs.”
    â€œWhy? What? What’s happened downstairs?” I was agitated again.
    Inspector Field returned from the phone, where he’d been having a low-voiced conversation. “Nothing much. The door’s been broken open with a tire iron. It’s messy, and it won’t lock for the moment, but there’s nothing too serious inside, mostly just things pulled out of cupboards. It looks like they were going to make it appear to be a robbery—all your electrical goods are by the door. Once you came home early, there was no point so they’ve left everything. Of course, we won’t really know until you’ve been down to look, but—” He pushed me back on the sofa, disregarding my attempts to extricate myself from Mr. Rudiger’s blanket. “No. We need to dust for prints, and the photographer has only just arrived, and we’re going to make the place even more untidy for the moment. The ambulance is here. I’m going to take you downstairs, but you are not to go into your flat. Do you understand me?”
    I was feeling mutinous again.
    â€œI mean it. A constable will go with you, and bring you home if the hospital doesn’t want to keep you for observation. If they release you, then you are coming straight up here. I’ll bring up some clean clothes, and and then that’s it. You’re out of the game. Understood?”
    I sighed theatrically. I was really far too knocked about to start going through a ransacked flat, but I was damned if I was going to be bossed around without some sort of protest.
    Both men appeared unmoved. My drama queen routine needed work.

 
    5
    Mr. Rudiger called my mother while I was at the hospital—he and Inspector Field were plotting behind my back, and I guess they decided that Helena would be a nice old duck who could look after me. She arrived in the Casualty department, terrorized the nurse who was cauterizing my nose, reminded the registrar that his wife had appeared against her in a court action the year before, told the constable his shirt was untucked at the back, and all in all had the place whipped into shape in about thirty seconds flat. By the time the registrar agreed that no, I didn’t need to stay in overnight, the entire staff had that glazed, deer-in-the-headlights look that my mother can induce at will.
    Mr. Rudiger, by contrast, appeared gently amused by her and, even more oddly, she quite clearly approved of him. My mother never approves of people who don’t have jobs and stay at home for what she refers to dismissively as