A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)(29)

“The police station,” Watson said, sounding a bit disappointed.

“Did you want me to bring you to the circus?” I asked, holding the door. He rolled his eyes and walked in.

There was a policeman, a constable by the insignia on his arm, stealing a pen from the cup at the front desk. He was in his fluorescent high-vis vest and still looked fairly alert. His shift in traffic must’ve just been beginning.

“I have an appointment with DI Sadiq,” I said. Watson cleared his throat. “We do, rather.”

He scanned the list at the desk. “You’ll want the criminal investigation department, then. Let me see . . . ah, here we go.” The PC squinted at me, then grinned toothily. “Charlotte Holmes, huh? Got any ears for me, Charlie?”

“No. And you can call me Ms. Holmes,” I said, crossing my arms.

I could always tell when someone had read that Daily Mail story on us that had come out the year before, after Lucien Moriarty was put away. The Mail provided a list of bullet points called “Key Facts” before the article, and one of them had read “Charlotte Honoria Holmes and James Watson Jr: a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, with ANGER ISSUES? Their Sherringford classmate tells all!” Yes, we had taken down a criminal mastermind; yes, I had lost people I loved as we had done so; yes, I did in fact have that wretched middle name, but despite what Cassidy from Watson’s French class told the Mail, I had never once bitten off someone’s ear because they wouldn’t give me a cigarette.

If the need had been urgent enough, I would have simply taken one.

“Miss Holmes,” the PC said, with exaggerated courtesy, opening the door to the hallway behind him. We followed him down to the CID. The desks were clustered together in fours, and most were empty, the computer monitors off, files safely tucked away. “DI Sadiq is in with a suspect, but she’ll see you shortly.”

“You shouldn’t read the Mail,” I told him. “It rots your brain.”

“Holmes,” Watson said. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re a mouthy little girl, aren’t you,” the PC said, and I perhaps would have said more, but Watson clamped his hand around my arm as the man left.

He sighed, plunking himself down. “Can you please not get us locked up? Especially in a place where it’s so very convenient for them to lock us up?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I remembered the taste of cartilage, and went temporarily mad.”

“Are you scaring off my constables?” asked a voice behind me.

“Your constables are too easily scared,” I said, and DI Sadiq laughed.

She wore the kind of viciously tailored suit that told me she’d been taken less than seriously before in her life and was done with that, thanks very much. It was several seasons old, a take on the 2015 Balmain blazer and slacks. (It behooved any good detective to follow fashion; a more readily classifiable means of self-presentation didn’t exist, except perhaps one’s grooming.) Her hair was in a perfect chignon; she had a pencil stuck through it for convenience’s sake, or because it softened her look an infinitesimal amount. She was early forties, give or take, had two piercings in her right ear, smile lines on the left side of her face, and she was reaching out to shake my hand.

I liked her immensely.

“Your sergeant asked me about the ears,” I told her. “This is Watson.”

“Jamie,” he said, standing. They shook. “I didn’t realize that anyone remembered that story.”

“The story about the teen sleuths who took down Lucien Moriarty?” DI Sadiq settled down behind her desk. “Everyone here remembers it. Especially that you’re a Holmes. You know, of course, that the Metropolitan Police’s crime database is named after your forebear?”

Watson didn’t, I could tell by his face. I fixed a smile on mine. “Home Office Large Major Enquiry System.”

“HOLMES,” Watson said, delighted.

DI Sadiq shrugged. “Proof is in the pudding. Anyway, we all followed the Moriarty case. It’s a good thing you’re here over lunch, or you might be signing autographs. Lucien was a big fish, you know. DI Green was happy to get her hands on that one. DCI Green, I should say.”

Detective Inspector Lea Green had, understandably, been promoted after Lucien Moriarty had been extradited home for his crimes. For now he’d been remanded, so he was languishing in prison until his trial at Old Bailey at the end of the summer.

I counted this exchange as the two minutes a day I allowed myself to think about Lucien Moriarty. I took a breath in, a breath out, and then I refocused my eyes on DI Sadiq.

She hadn’t missed my reaction. I watched her note it, then move on. “Lea and I took our detective exam around the same time. Stayed in touch, after; it isn’t easy being a woman on the force. She called a few months back to tell me she was passing along an informant, to give you whatever information you wanted, if you wanted it. I pulled the file you requested, but I’d like to hear why from you first.”

At that, Watson clicked his pen. He’d produced a notebook from somewhere and had it open on his knee.

“Within reason,” DI Sadiq said, eyeing Watson.

“I’m studying at St. Genesius this summer. As is Watson, here. There were a series of incidents at the Dramatics Society performance last summer—I’m not sure if you’re aware. Purposeful accidents. That sort of thing. Culminating in a girl named Matilda Wilkes disappearing.”