A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)(15)

It was what I was doing just then, placing my order (and asking them to skip the snowman face they drew with strawberry syrup onto the whipped cream, I did have some last reserves of dignity) when Anwen walked up beside me. It wasn’t yet seven o’clock, but the café table behind her was heaped with books. I could just see the title of the one on top: Speech and Motivation in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.

“I’d thought you looked familiar last night,” she said, by way of greeting. “I must have seen you here before. I’m here most mornings in the summer.”

“Oh,” I said, because I hadn’t had my latte yet, and that was about all I could muster.

She’d been up for some time, clearly: her hair in a fishtail braid, her nails freshly painted. I could still smell the polish.

She seemed to want me to continue, so I said, “So you come here often?”

“I mean, yeah?” she said, as though I was daft. “Uh, yeah, this is one of our regular spots. Convenient to St. Genesius—the theater’s right over there, do you see it? Through the window. Which doesn’t matter much to Rup, he’ll follow me and Theo pretty much anywhere.”

I nodded. The barista handed me my drink.

Anwen looked at me again, as though she was waiting for me to give her something in return. Talkative people didn’t often do this, pause for the other person to speak; usually, when presented with a willing listener, they’d prattle on until stopped. But Anwen seemed to want something specific from me.

“I live down the street,” I offered.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s quite a nice address, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said, and waited.

“Jamie’s very nice.”

“I’ve often thought so.” Despite my request, the barista had gone and drawn the snowman face onto my drink anyway. When I took a drink, I made its eyes bleed across the whipped cream. Anwen watched, fascinated. Her eyes flickered back up to meet mine.

I don’t often feel the need to apologize for myself or my actions in a social setting (really, I’ve come to like myself quite well in the day-to-day) but there was something about this girl that made me feel deeply ridiculous. My snowman wasn’t helping.

I thought for a moment. “I don’t have a lot to say before my coffee.” It was the sort of thing, after all, that people said.

“Rupert suggested that I ask you to run lines with me,” she said. It was a particularly ham-fisted sort of insult. Framed this way, Anwen herself would never want to run lines with me; she was only suggesting it out of obligation. “I’m doing costumes, but I’m auditioning for Ophelia, too. Rupert says I play her a bit unusually. It would be interesting to have your take.”

I had told her the night before I was auditioning for the part. This was either a bald-faced power play, or she was so assured in her own talent that she thought I ought to bask in it as well.

Or she wanted to be my friend. That was, perhaps, the scariest of all.

She didn’t know I’d already been called in to understudy the role, so the pressure was entirely off. And the possibilities ripe. “Do you want to meet at the theater?” I asked, putting just the tiniest bit of quaver in my voice. There it was, the whir of my brain; the coffee must have kicked in.

“Perfect,” she said, reaching out to lightly touch my arm. “I’ll meet you at the doors at noon.”

After an encounter like that, I wasn’t going to stick around.

Instead I had my usual constitutional. I chose a building on the St. Genesius grounds I hadn’t yet explored (the boathouse) and mapped it top to bottom. I loitered by the door, looking intently at my phone, until the clerk at the desk disappeared into the back, and then made a quick inventory. The number of punts; the number of poles, aluminum and wooden; the entrances and exits, the photographs on the walls.

I charted it all down in my head. The next day, I’d explore the meadow across the river. It would be good to know how long it would take to cross it if one were running flat out (being pursued by wild dogs or similar). I was still setting up a hypothesis in my head when I rounded the corner to my flat and found Watson at my front door, a paper bag in hand.

“He thinks it was Anwen’s foot,” he said.

I snorted. “Good morning to you too.”

Yawning, he held out the bag between us. Inside was an untouched blueberry scone and the crumbs of a second. “Rupert kept me up until dawn. ‘What was Anwen thinking,’ and ‘Anwen said this last year to me in the pub but maybe I misheard her what do you think did she really say “I want to kiss your neck” or maybe my neck had mist on it?’ and ‘God, Jamie, Anwen’s foot felt just like heaven—’”

“He did not,” I said, laughing, and he took my arm as we set off back toward school.

“He came pretty close. Is that what you wanted? For him to need to spill, and for me to be there?”

I nodded. “He couldn’t tell Theo. You’re new, so you have no alliances, and you have a girlfriend, so there’s less chance you want Anwen for yourself. You’re perfect.”

We passed the St. Genesius library, its weathered brick (excellent for climbing) and high stained-glass windows (somewhat less ideal). “Theo made it sound like we’re going to live in there, with all the work we’ll be doing,” Watson said, craning his neck.