“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.’”
“And?” Watson said. “And?”
“I don’t have the call logs,” I reminded him. “It’s also possible they used a video chat app, as Theo lives in America. Whatever it was—whatever was said—it effectively ended communication between the two of them.”
He sat back, thinking. The breeze ruffled his hair.
“You need a cut,” I said, sitting on my hands to keep from reaching out to push a curl off his forehead. And then I remembered that I could, and that he wouldn’t mind—that he might in fact like me to—and so, slowly, I did.
“Hi,” he said softly.
“Hi,” I responded. I still wasn’t sure of the point of this ritual, but I appreciated it for its simplicity.
“That was it for them?” he asked. “Nothing after that?”
“Not until the first week of May,” I said, “when Anwen asked, ‘are you coming back?’ Theo responded ‘yes.’ With the uncharacteristic punctuation once again. And though I can’t be sure, I think that was it until they sat down for orientation.”
“Things to dig up.”
“Indeed.” I stood, and he followed. Walking a city that I was still learning was how I preferred to think—there was the surface data (the city map), which provided enough stimulation for me to make more subconscious connections below it. (I also thought quite well while brushing out and organizing my wigs.)
“We’re not headed to the theater,” Watson said, though he didn’t sound bothered. “Weren’t auditions today?”
“At two this afternoon. Callbacks are directly after, at five. The cast list will be posted immediately after dinner, and then the new director will bring in Dr. Larkin at seven tonight to lecture on Hamlet and the history of the Dramatics Soc.”
“That’s a weird choice,” he said, “seeing as they fired her.”
We’d reached the part of the High Street with two drugstores, a Sainsbury’s, and several shops in a row that sold readily consumable fashion for girls. Here the crowd grew thicker, though it was before noon on a Thursday, and I had to pause as I cataloged the information coming at me as I walked. Two German girls who worked in a pub in this neighborhood—one still wore her work shirt, and the other her no-slip shoes, and even without those markers they were still talking about the git who stiffed one on her tab. An administrator with a briefcase full of files and a pair of expensive patterned socks that he showed off with pants tailored a quarter inch too high. Dogs on too-long leads. A small child buckled into her pram, old enough to walk but worn out from the morning’s jaunt. Her mother had a bit of cereal milk on her jumper.
I filed it away, to dump out later if I needed, and pulled Watson through the throng. We had a schedule to keep. “It is a bit brutal, but Dr. Larkin did technically step down before they could sack her. Still, she’s teaching the seminar on Shakespearean tragedy this summer for the precollege. It would be strange for them not to bring her in. Either way it works for us; I’m looking forward to seeing how the students react to her being there. Are you coming to auditions? Do you have class?”
“Not Tuesdays and Thursdays,” he said, “so yeah, I’ll be there. Maybe I can audition to carry a spear.”
I frowned. “I don’t think there are spears in Hamlet.”
“It’s an expression.” I had tugged him over to the curb, and he looked down at me plaintively. “Are we going to lunch?”
We were at a bus stop, which he would know if he looked up. Bus stops did not sell lunch. “How are you possibly hungry again?”
“Holmes,” he said, “people generally eat more than once a day.”
“Watson. You ate an hour ago.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to march me home to eat more toasts.”
“There are plenty of anchovy ones left.”
“They were so good,” he said solemnly, “that I wanted to make them last.”
I checked the timetable again. Our bus was running two minutes late, and I found myself slightly put out. I had wanted to spirit him right onto it and on our way. “You’re a terrible liar,” I told him.
“We’ve established that. Where are we headed?”
“You want to know now?”
“I always want to know,” he said, putting his hands into his pockets, “but I’d rather follow you to find out.”
“Follow me, then,” I told him, and there it was, the bright red bus trundling up the road as though it had been listening, as though it wasn’t late at all.
Eleven
WATSON INSISTED ON SITTING ON THE SECOND STORY OF the bus, I imagine for the view. None of the seats were clean—they never were—and I amused myself by imagining what exactly had been responsible for the stickiness of the vinyl we sat on. I had come up with a number of explanations and had wound around to suggesting “cat vomit” before Watson turned green. He took a stray newspaper—the arts section—off the seat beside him and sat on it, as though that would mitigate any cat-related damage.
The city ambled by us, as slow as if we were behind a horse in a hansom cab, and when we were still a stop away I hammered down the steps and jumped off, Watson at my heels, the newspaper section (sticky) in my bag.
“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.”
&n
bsp; 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.”
“I’m aware,” Sadiq said, and for a minute or so she didn’t say anything more. “Matilda—that was a high-profile case.”
“Missing white girl,” Watson said. “The media loves that.”
She gave him a sharp look. “Yes. The media does. But aside from the theoreticals, she’s a person. Not an idea. And she’s still missing.” Slowly, her shoulders relaxed. “I was assigned to her case. Not as the lead detective—I was assisting. Oftentimes, you think you have a kidnapped girl when what you have instead is a runaway, so I was looking into her family. It wasn’t any good, you know. We don’t know where she is. Is that your interest, Charlotte? Tracking down Matilda?”
I shook my head. “Not primarily.”
Sadiq nodded impassively, and there was something to her manner that suggested that I had failed her, so I hurried on. “The adviser for last year, Dr. Larkin, asked for our help now that all of last year’s players are back for the summer. I’m hoping to prevent further incidents from happening this summer. Think of it as a way of conserving police resources.”
“I see.”
She and I stared at each other.
“You’re just consulting for us, then.” DI Sadiq had a glimmer in her eye.
“Something like that.”
She unlocked her drawer and pulled out a file, then slid it across her desk. “Twenty minutes,” she said, not unkindly. “I need to get back to my investigation. He can take notes, but don’t photograph anything. And if you pick the locks on anyone’s desks while I’m gone . . .” She glanced meaningfully up at the camera in the corner of the room. I had clocked it when I’d walked in.
“That goddamn Daily Mail article,” I said. “Is it really my fault if people insist on buying the most basic locks—”
“Yes,” DI Sadiq said, and left.
She’d disappeared on a Thursday. It was more or less as we’d been told. On the night before Earnest’s opening, after their final dress rehearsal, she had gone out with a group of friends—Anwen, Theo, Rupert, and a boy named Sebastian Wallis—for a drink at a pub called The Bell and Book. They’d stayed out later than they intended, and it was one in the morning by the time Matilda made her way home. She would normally have walked with the other students back to their shared housing, but her parents were in town to see her performance the next night, and so she was staying with them at their hotel just outside the city center. She hadn’t taken a cab, despite the hour. She’d wanted to “walk off her two pints,” and the weather was still warm late that night.
It was, ultimately, a mistake.
There hadn’t been a CCTV camera on that final street she had turned down, Waterbury Lane. A brief bit of road, connecting two larger thoroughfares.
The next day, officers had canvassed the area, knocking on doors and asking if any residents had heard a commotion, a scuffle, anyone scream. Two different women, both with bedroom windows facing the street, had told police that they’d heard a heated argument. It had been brief and not particularly loud. They’d seen no reason to call the police. When played a sample of Matilda’s voice (from a video she’d posted to social media, her running a David Mamet monologue), neither
could positively identify Matilda’s voice as one that they’d heard.
As for the street itself: there had been no blood. No sign of a struggle. All they had found was one of Matilda’s earrings, a pair of diamond solitaires her parents had given her on her sixteenth birthday. It hadn’t been torn from her ear (at that note in the file, Watson had shuddered); it looked more like it had fallen naturally.
Her father, George Wilkes, had reported his daughter missing at dawn. By the morning, he was at the police station, hounding detectives for information. He was followed by Theo Harding, followed finally by Matilda’s mother, at nearly noon. The latter had taken longer because she’d driven straight back to Kensington—their wealthy London suburb—and returned with a bag of Matilda’s things “that might be important in the investigation.” This had struck the officer as extremely odd; the bag was full of class notes and diary entries that suggested nothing more than your bog-standard teenage girl. When questioned, George said that his wife was “a very nervous woman, not quite right, but desperate to do what she can to help” and soon after provided a letter from his wife’s psychologist and a pair of prescription slips substantiating his claim. CCTV footage of the street outside their hotel showed that she had left when she’d said and not before. The detective chalked up her aberrant behavior to nerves and cautioned her against driving in such a state again.
(“She didn’t go back only for Matilda’s things,” Watson asked, reading over my shoulder. “There had to have been something else. What was she picking up?”
“Or,” I said, “what was she taking home to hide?”)
CCTV wasn’t any help in identifying who else could have been on Waterbury Lane that night. A raucous group had left a venue a few blocks over after an “’80s vs. ’90s” club night, and many of them had taken the same path as Matilda as they left only fifteen minutes later. When tracked down and questioned, none reported any sight of her.
A Question of Holmes Page 9