A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)(49)

Perhaps I wanted to be a chemist. Perhaps I wanted to be a gardener, or jewel thief, or a beekeeper. Perhaps I wanted to be a detective after all. But three months ago, I was an invalid, and three months before that, I was on the run from someone who wanted my head on a platter.

All I knew was that I wanted Watson with me. But I also knew that the girl with informant status with the Thames Valley Police and a lockpicking kit in her purse was infinitely more compelling than the girl I was becoming now. Someone who wanted to eat Nutella toast on the sofa while rereading the encyclopedia article on waxwings, because she thought she’d seen one in the garden.

That girl wasn’t nearly as compelling. Wasn’t as clever or as dangerous. Wasn’t the kind of girl you followed anywhere.

I wasn’t giving Watson enough credit. I knew that. It didn’t stop me from being afraid.

“Interrogations,” I was telling Rupert. “I don’t like them. The detective’s allowed to keep you there for hours. Leave abruptly. Come back. Dig into the most private parts of your life. Lie to you about your lover seeing someone else behind your back. Insist you were somewhere you know you weren’t and then convince you of it. Confuse you. Frighten you, badly, start you babbling. Or make you think that they’re your best friend, that they agree with everything you’ve done. That they understand the part of you that killed that girl, that she had it coming, yeah? The way she was looking at that other guy. Offer you coffee, then take the cup ‘to throw it out for you’ so they can test your saliva at their lab. All of it . . . the way the police operate is so foreign to me. It isn’t how my family solves crimes. I was taught to treat the suspect’s confession as a sacred act, as someone bringing you an offering. The two of you could decide together what you did with it.”

My feelings on interrogation practices were far more complex than this little speech suggested. These methods were the kind that found missing girls like Matilda Wilkes. That said, there had, in fact, been many times when Sherlock Holmes had heard his culprit’s story and decided to let them escape into the night, rather than sending for Scotland Yard.

Judge, jury, stay of execution.

My father and my brother took a page from this book, but their decisions tended toward the bloodier side.

Luckily, Rupert couldn’t see inside my head. He was nodding along, as I knew he would. “It’s all mind games. And these are the people who are supposed to protect us? Please.”

Watson stretched; his back popped. “Trust me, Charlotte and I have been there. You should’ve seen the shady shit the American cops pulled on us, during the first investigation we helped solve.”

“It’s just unfair,” Rupert said. “They separated Anwen and me and I could hear her crying in the next room. And the detective, she was asking all these questions about last year. I could tell she didn’t like my answers, but I was telling the truth! What do you say to that?”

“Double down,” Watson said. “You know the real story. Don’t let them bully you into admitting to things you didn’t do.” He talked like he was rubbing Rupert’s shoulders in a boxing ring, playing to his sense of urgency.

“It wasn’t even my story,” Rupert said, voice rising. “It’s like they were trying to . . . write me into something I didn’t know about. They kept asking if I’d spoken to Matilda!”

“Have you?” I asked.

“No!” he exploded, and there it was, the payoff. “No one knows where she is! She was Theo’s girlfriend, she was cold as ice, and even if none of that mattered, she’s gone! Anwen tried to send her a text last night about Dr. Larkin . . . none of us were thinking straight, and I don’t know, maybe Anwen forgot for a moment that Matilda was missing, and the police won’t let it go. Like that weird slipup means that she kidnapped her. Or like she knows that she’s alive, that she just ran away.” Rupert slammed a hand flat onto a table, a gesture so out of keeping with his usual bumbling pleasantness that Watson jumped. “They’re upsetting Anwen. They can’t do that.”

The phrasing was odd. They can’t do that. Because they’re adults and should know better? Because treating Anwen this way would have consequences?

What consequences?

I stood and put a hand on Rupert’s shoulder, taking my mug to the kettle for more hot water. Now that Watson had him going, it was best to let him take the lead. “Are you worried Anwen’s going to bolt or something?” Watson asked. “It seemed like, last night, when you left together . . . was there something going on?”

“She went to take a call right after we got outside,” Rupert said miserably. “I waited up for her, but it was hours before she got home. Hours. I tried texting her. I waited in the kitchen so I could tell if she’d gotten home safe, but . . .” He looked from me to Watson and back again, not wanting to ask, and then he steeled himself and said, “She came back up for Theo, didn’t she.”

“Actually, no,” Watson said. “Theo passed out on our couch. He was there all night, we had breakfast together this morning. I think . . . Anwen was somewhere else.”

Rupert bobbled his head up and down a few times, like a ball floating in a bath. “Okay,” he said jerkily. “Well. Good thing I told the detectives she did, then. That she went back and shagged him senseless. I told you, they wanted me to confess to something, they kept digging, and that was what I gave them. And it isn’t true? Good thing I embarrassed myself in front of them. No. It’s fine. I—”