A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)(27)

“Like that happens.”

I gave him a look. “You should know better than to say that, pumpkin.”

“You’re a jerk,” he said, reaching out to tousle my hair, and I ducked. “No, for real. Show me how you to do it.”

“It’s simple.” I took his hand and shut my eyes and let him pull me along for half a block. “Stationery shop, bookstore, used bookstore, kebab shop. New paper and ink; new paper; old paper; lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“I like kebabs.”

He tangled his fingers with mine. “Nothing lost on you, then.”

“Not a thing,” I said, and he tugged me up against him for a moment, and because he was Watson, because the sky was milk-white and open and the morning smelled clear and because he trusted me (somehow, he trusted me), he didn’t ask a single question about where I was leading him.

“So Leander gave us the place to ourselves,” he said. “Do you want me to stay with you, then? Keep you company? Keep the wolves from the door?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I did once knock out Lucien Moriarty in a restaurant bathroom,” he reminded me.

“Point,” I said. “I’d of course like you there.” I glanced down at our clasped hands. “Here. Alongside me. But it might also be useful for us to spend some nights digging up dirt on Theo and Anwen and Rupert, and your staying in your rooms makes it easier.”

“Are those your suspects?”

“I don’t have suspects. They’re our entrée into this community. Did I tell you about the text messages I lifted off of Anwen’s phone?”

Watson slowed to a stop.

We were in front of a café. “Oh. Are you still hungry?” It seemed improbable, given the acres of toast he had consumed, but many things about Watson were improbable.

“I need . . . something,” he said, after a moment. “And you . . . you need to sit there and not touch anything.”

Five minutes later, I had settled in to watch Watson drain a cup of tea. “You lifted her texts?” he asked, finally, creasing the cup with an anxious hand.

“She made the mistake of letting me watch the time on her phone while she practiced her monologue.” I shrugged. “I still have one of Milo’s ‘little mice’ from our jaunt in Berlin; I plugged it in, stuck it under a magazine, and thirty seconds later I had her text message history.”

“And she has no idea.”

Anwen was fairly perceptive, but I didn’t think she’d clocked me as the particular threat I was. “No. And to be clear, I didn’t download all her information.” I would have, had I had more time, though Watson didn’t need to know that. It was always odd to me what upset him (small violations of privacy; blunt truths) and what made him proud (breaking someone’s nose in a restaurant bathroom). Though as I’ve grown, I’ve found that to often be the case—most are more comfortable with explosions and bodily harm than the expression of ideas using language they don’t like. “The results were scattershot. I only have some of her messages. Nothing between her and Rupert. Quite a few between her and her mates back in Wales, setting up study dates. But—and here’s the kicker, as they say—I have nearly everything between her and Theo for the last nine months.”

“Back to September, then.” Watson leaned in, despite his earlier compunctions. “So?”

“Theo and Anwen were texting semi-regularly through the fall. Nothing about the attacks—”

“The Orchid Attacks?” The capital letters were implicit.

“Watson,” I said. “We are not naming this case.”

“The Adventure of the Bloody Orchids.” He waved a hand to indicate a marquee. “The Curious Case of the Untaped Back Stairs—”

“That sounds like a euphemism—”

“The Adventure of A Midsummer’s Night . . . mare?”

“—in fact,” I continued, “their messages seemed to deliberately avoid the subject. How are classes; how are ‘things’; a picture of a Cornetto with the caption ‘thinking of you’—an inside joke, I imagine. Then, apropos of seemingly nothing, October 12, Anwen asks Theo how he’s holding up after, and I quote, ‘Matilda broke up with you.’ Had they been in regular phone communication, she wouldn’t have had to add the caveat. No matter the context, it feels a bit like salting a wound. The girl had disappeared. Who cared if she had dumped him?

“Theo responded tersely. ‘Fine.’ Like that, the one word. And really after that there wasn’t much to their messages. Whatever Anwen had wanted from him, she didn’t get it. Then, silence, until the end of December, over the winter holiday. It makes sense. They’re away from class and friends and daily distractions, and they think to catch up with those they haven’t seen. December 23. Anwen wrote Theo to ask what he wanted for Christmas; Theo sent an image of a menorah, ostensibly to remind her that he was Jewish; Anwen apologized, said that ‘my house is making me crazy and forgetting things now too lol.’ Chitchat about gifts, food, Theo’s brother watching too much hockey. Then, on Boxing Day, the tenor of the conversation changed.”

When I paused, Watson knit his brow. “And?”

I would be lying if I said I didn’t love these moments—him looking at me like I had in my hands a curtain pull, that I could reveal the underbelly of the world. “Theo said, and I quote: ‘You need to call me as soon as you get this.’ A period at the end of the sentence, which hadn’t been his style before. Anwen responded instantly: ‘can’t get away what’s going on.’ then three question marks. An hour later Theo responded, ‘Anwen. Call me now.’”