A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)(50)

“Rupert—”

He blew out a deep breath. “I’m worked up about nothing,” he said. “She’ll have a reason.” I could tell he believed it. “A good one. I’m just being a baby. But yeah. Yeah, I should look up some stir-fry recipes. I’ll be fine, Jamie, won’t need your help. Good. Excellent. I should get to it—I’ll go ahead and see you all later—”

That was all we were getting from him today, that much was clear. Still, I watched him for a minute from the hall. Pacing, searching through recipes on his phone, heating up the sad little hotplate. His sweet, delicate face, his pointed chin, the slub neck of his too-expensive T-shirt.

Though I knew it wouldn’t matter, I hoped that his stir-fry turned out brilliantly.

“Anwen,” Watson said, as we walked out onto the quad, some distance from their open windows.

“Anwen,” I echoed. “Always Anwen. I have a few thoughts about our next step . . .”

But he was shaking his head. “Love,” he said—that word was new between us; I watched the way he said it, the slope of his shoulders, the slight step toward me—“I have a story due, beginning of next week, that I haven’t even started. I’m going to explore the Bodleian Library, I think. Find a spot to sit in there where no one has written anything brilliant before.”

“It’s a very old library,” I said. “In Oxford. You might be setting yourself up for failure.”

“Nothing new, then,” he said.

“No,” I agreed.

He snorted. “You’re awful.”

“Yes, but you’re a bit silly.” I took a step forward, and only then did I realize I was presenting myself to be kissed. I tried very hard to keep from blushing.

But Watson leaned down to brush his lips against mine. As he pulled away, I found myself listing forward, wanting more, wanting to follow him home like a shadow in the night. “No one,” he said softly, “sees you like . . . like this, do they?”

“You do,” I said, though for how much longer I couldn’t say.





Seventeen


AS I WALKED BACK TO MY FLAT, I TOOK MY PHONE OFF silent and saw that I had a number of missed calls. Two messages. The first, from my aunt Araminta: “Lottie, hello. Leander tells me he’s spoken to you about my upcoming visit. I’m calling to say that my plans have changed; one of my potential clients has rescheduled for tomorrow, so I’ll be coming in tonight on the six forty-two from Eastbourne. I won’t be in your hair, of course, but I’d like to see you and your friend for dinner. Or perhaps a coffee? A drink? Ah. Perhaps I shouldn’t be suggesting that? . . . Give me a call . . .”

The second, from DI Sadiq: “Holmes. Got a call back from George Wilkes. Told him about Larkin, and requested his presence at the station to go over some information. He’s on his way from London, but he won’t get in until tomorrow afternoon, when I’ll be off shift. Maybe you and I can work out a time to talk in the morning, run through any questions you think are pertinent?”

I confirmed with Araminta for tonight; I confirmed Sadiq for tomorrow morning. I texted Watson about both, and then caught a bus home to clean up the flat before my aunt arrived and drew conclusions, accurate or not, about her niece’s lifestyle.

There really had been a lot of rum last night.

As I did the washing up, I ran through the list of investigative avenues I hadn’t yet gone down. Though I’d done cursory social media searches for everyone I’d met in this case, I hadn’t found anything more compelling than some general (quite natural) alarm about the attacks. Had I the resources, I’d be pulling phone records and sorting through suspects’ email accounts. But outside of DI Sadiq, my brother Milo was the only one I knew with that ability, and I wanted him and his methods nowhere near this case.

Again it struck me, the difficulties of participating in a full-scale investigation of this kind with one hand tied behind my back, as it were. As I scrubbed another glass tumbler, I thought about what I’d told Rupert. How my forebear had said, to wit, fuck it all, and abandoned university to take cases from his armchair. Only those cases that were otherwise overlooked. Only those cases that only he, and he alone, could solve.

Oh, it was tempting. Wildly tempting. I turned the tumbler in the light, looking for spots then scrubbing it again, and I told myself I wouldn’t make any decisions, not yet. Not when I had a case to wrap up and a flat to clean.

An hour or so later, I took my cloth bags down to the market to replenish our pantry. Our “guests” the night before had cleaned us out, and I wanted to be a good host for my aunt, as well as cover my own ass, as it were. I’d texted to ask Leander when he was planning on coming home, and I hadn’t yet had a response, but it was better to battle two thousand armies in the driving rain than to face Leander Holmes having eaten all his Jaffa cakes.

I finished my shopping an hour or so before Araminta’s train was set to arrive. Rather than heading straight home, I found myself taking a path through St. Genesius College. It was blocks out of my way, but the day was cool and clear, and I enjoyed the swing of the heavy bag along my side, the tap of my boots on the pavement. The theater, when I passed it, was bare of the blockades and tape the police had put up that morning.

A constable was sitting on the marble steps, extravagantly bored.