London (7 page)

He stood at the top of our steps, just as tall, broad-shouldered, and biker-boy cute as I remembered, hair tousled, leather jacket on, smiling at me. And although there was a bit of shuffling around and eyeing each other as I invited him in (FYI: seeing the person you fancy like mad for the first time after months apart is
weir
d
), soon enough, we were standing face-to-face, close enough that I could smell him.

And suddenly it was as if time and distance had never intervened. Sebastian reached out and pulled me to him. I'd be lying if I said I didn't go weak in the knees. He had that kind of effect on me. After a long hug, he pulled back and gently pushed my hair behind my ears as he smiled at me in that slow, tender way he has. “I've missed you, Holmes,” he said. But I didn't get a chance to answer because his hand suddenly dropped from my face as if it were a hot coal and his eyes darted to something behind me.

“Why, Sebastian! How lovely to see you!”

Of course. It was my mom.

Honestly, I thought as I listened to their small talk, what was the point of finally being in the same city if we couldn't even have five minutes alone together?

“So, are you excited about seeing the London sights?” Mom asked.

Sebastian's eyes darted to me quickly before he politely answered. “Uh, yes, Mrs. Anderson, thank you. I'm looking forward to it.”

“Anything in particular? Which exhibitions do you have lined up?” I bit my tongue as I heard my mom quiz Sebastian. But as always, he was prepared.

“Well, I'm especially looking forward to seeing Rubens at the National Gallery, and Tracey Emin at the Hayward Gallery.”

“Well, that sounds like a good plan,” Mom answered. She was smiling but I could tell she was surprised—even pleased—by his perfect answer. She quickly moved on. “And how do you like Bloomsbury? Axelle tells me you're staying there with an aunt…” The chitchat continued for a few more minutes until Mom's phone rang and she answered it.

There was a moment of awkward silence as my mom left the room. It was as if she'd broken the spell. But then Sebastian suggested we grab a bite to eat, an idea I jumped on. I was hungry, in need of some fresh air, and eager to escape from Mom.

“I'm starving,” he said. “I only had a sandwich on the Eurostar. Can we get a burger anywhere near here?”

At least one thing would never change, no matter the distance between us, I thought ruefully: our mutual love of a good burger and hot fries. “Absolutely, Watson. Follow me.”

I made for the door as quickly as possible after a quick good-bye to Halley. (London is not Paris. You can't just walk to a local restaurant with your dog and sit at a table together, unless you're outdoors. In Paris, it's
jamais un problème
!
) But if I was hoping Mom would let us go without sticking her oar in again, I was wrong. Her head popped around the kitchen doorway as we were making our escape.

“Not longer than two hours, please, Axelle. You have to be in Mayfair for your show fitting with Belle La Lune at eight thirty a.m. We'll have to leave at seven forty-five to get across town in time. Sebastian, it was lovely to see you—though I'm sure I'll see a lot more of you this week.”

Believe it or not, my mom said that bit about seeing Sebastian all week without the tiniest trace of a corny smile or wink.

While she'd been thrilled when I first met Sebastian in Paris, now after months of watching us struggle to spend time together—and not really succeeding—my mom had finally intervened and told me that she felt I was too young to have a boyfriend who lived so far away.

“You should be going out and having fun, Axelle—here and now—making the most of your opportunities and making new friends, not glued to your phone waiting to speak to someone who lives three hundred miles away…”

That was the part of her argument that always made me roll my eyes, because what seemed to fly completely over my mom's head was the fact that I'm not glued to my phone waiting for Sebastian to call. I'm glued to it hoping someone will call with a new mystery for me to solve.

Grrr! Mom!

We shut the door behind us and walked out through the front gate and onto the street. As we turned right and walked past St. Stephen's Church, I realized we were the only people around. The street was empty. Sebastian must have noticed too, because he grabbed my hand and pulled me into a huge rosebush that was growing wild over a wall. He dipped his head toward mine. My heart skipped a beat (okay, maybe a few)… But just as we were about to kiss, the vicar from St. Stephen's appeared as if from nowhere. “Axelle, good evening!” he called from across the road. “What a lovely time of year. Summer's in the air, isn't it?”

I was red in the face and flustered, only able to nod and wave as the vicar went on his way, but Sebastian just laughed. “And I thought being in the same city would make kissing easier,” he said. “Come on, let's go get a burger.”

Two minutes later I pushed open the swinging door to my favorite local hamburger joint, the Lucky Seven Diner (“the most authentic diner experience this side of the Brooklyn Bridge”), and let the smell of cheeseburgers, fries, and milk shakes waft over me for a moment before sliding into the nearest available booth (which was, in fact, the only available booth).

Sebastian and I placed our orders—cheeseburger with Kraft cheese for me, a bacon cheeseburger with Monterey Jack cheese for Sebastian, and a side of fries for both of us. I couldn't wait to tell him about the new case. It would no doubt take Sebastian by surprise and definitely mess with our sightseeing plans. Apart from the exhibitions he'd told my mom about, we'd planned to go on the London Eye, see a play that a friend of his aunt's was performing in, and take a day trip to Oxford. But regardless, I was certain he wouldn't mind. After all, he was as eager to be a crime journalist as I was to be a detective—and since both occupations complemented each other, solving cases was fun to share.

“Your eyes are sparkling, Holmes. And as much as I'd like to think it was due to me, I think there's more to it than that, isn't there?”

Of course I wasn't immune to the way his gray-blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at me from across the table, or how his tousled, light-brown hair looked totally touchable… Then again, a case is a case—and romance aside, it was time to get working.

“Actually, Watson, someone came to see me this morning…”

I'd brought my laptop along, so after bringing Sebastian up to speed on my meeting with Tallulah that morning, we started on our vanilla milk shakes while scrolling through the images on Gavin's flash drive.

“How do you start figuring this one out?” Sebastian asked as we stopped at the last image—the photo of the old photo. He ruffled his hair and leaned back in the banquette opposite me. “From everything you've told me, this case seems about as murky as the Thames.”

“Hmm…it could be, yeah…but on the other hand we're lucky to have a fixed location.”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows at me.

“We know more or less where Gavin was attacked, and we have specific times for where he was that morning.”

“Not that that tells us much…”

“Well, not yet, but still, I think it's safe to deduce that the location by the Thames must have some kind of link to what happened—especially since his shoes and jeans were wet.”

“You think he stepped into the river?”

“Maybe…” I suddenly remembered a thought I'd had earlier. I typed
Thames tides
into Google. A few moments later I clicked onto a site that listed the precise times for high and low tides for the entire year. “Look…the tide was at its lowest that Sunday morning.” I turned my laptop so that Sebastian could read it. “I know it's possible to get right down to the waterline if the tide is low and you're in the right place. And there must be a few points with direct public access to the water near Westminster Palace. I just don't know where exactly.”

“That's something I can look into tomorrow,” Sebastian said.

“Thanks. That would be great.”

“And what about Johnny Vane? Have you ever met him or worked with him?”

I shook my head. “Not yet—but I've already been warned to be careful around him.” As I pulled my laptop back toward me and started bringing up information on Johnny Vane, I quickly told Sebastian about my conversation with Charlotte. Sebastian slid onto the banquette next to me and watched as Johnny's Wiki page came up. Trying to ignore Sebastian's warmth and his nice smell (leather, trees, and adventure, mixed with a light touch of French sophistication), I sat next to him as we read the piece I'd looked at on the Tube earlier in the afternoon.

“So he lost his father, his twin, and his mother in quick succession. How horrible,” Sebastian said as he came to the end of the piece.

“True…but…” There was something I found odd now that I was rereading Johnny's entry.

“But?” Sebastian said.

“Well, at least his father's death has a clear medical explanation: ‘heart attack,' right?”

“Yes.”

“And it states that he died at his club after supper…”

“So?”

“So his brother ‘drowned' and his mother ‘died in an accident at their home.' Those descriptions both sound fairly vague, don't you think? Like,
where
did Julian drown? And what kind of accident did Clarissa have? And take a look at this…” I clicked onto Clarissa Vane's page and waited while Sebastian studied the photos of her early modeling career and read about her jet-setting days as a fashion muse.

“She was beautiful,” he said.

“She was. But again there are no specific details about the way she died.”

“Should there be?”

“Well, if Johnny's father's death was clearly documented, then why not the deaths of Johnny's mother and brother?”

Drowned.
The word kept turning in my mind. I went back to the file with Gavin's pictures and scrolled down to the old photo. “I mean, look. I'm pretty sure the boys are standing in the Thames here. And the fact that Gavin focused on this particular image makes me wonder whether that's where Julian drowned.”

“You're thinking it could have happened near Westminster? Where Gavin was found?”

“Something like that, yes,” I said before turning back to my computer. “Maybe that's why Gavin was there. Maybe there's some connection.”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows at me.

“You don't have to give me that look, Watson. I know I'm leaping to a lot of conclusions,” I told him. “Of course, for all I know Julian could have died in the bathtub at home. Either way, I think we should find out what exactly happened to him and his mom. Old newspaper clippings might be a good place to start. The deaths must have been reported somewhere.” Quickly I checked the references at the bottom of the Wikipedia article.

“Hmm…” I said as I motioned to Sebastian to look at my screen again. “For the deaths of his mother and twin brother, they list an old article in
Vogue
as their reference. But”—I rapidly scrolled down to where they mentioned his father's death—“here they list the
Times
.”

“So?”

“So his father's death came first, right?”

Sebastian nodded. “I think I see what you're getting at, Holmes. No newspaper—and certainly not the
Times
—would have let the subsequent deaths of James Vane's son and wife go unreported. Three tragedies make too good a story to miss, and the journalists couldn't have resisted linking them together. So the
Times
archive must have the details of all three deaths.”

“That's exactly what I'm thinking, Watson. Let me have a quick look…”

I tried searching for old articles about the Vanes—with no luck.

“It's not that easy,” Sebastian said. “To access old material, you need to subscribe to the archive that's storing it or ask them directly. But that's something I'm good at. I'll access the
Times
archive online first thing tomorrow morning and start with that. Anything else I can do?”

I nodded as I finished my milk shake. “It would help if you could find out more about Gavin's background, friends, and so on. I know the police have been looking into it—although Tallulah is convinced they're only going through the motions—and I've been through his phone and emails, but there may be something we've both missed, or that he kept well hidden.”

“I can look into his background, no problem.”

I went back to studying the old photo again. I just couldn't seem to leave it alone. There was part of a brownish ring in its upper left-hand corner that I'd noticed when I was on the Tube earlier. Now, in the bright-neon light of the diner, it looked like a stain from a cup of coffee or tea—and it didn't look old. To my eye, the ring appeared too dark and well defined to have been made years ago.

“You're convinced there's something more to this picture, aren't you, Holmes?”

I shrugged. “Well, why did Gavin include it on the stick when it wasn't part of his
Harper's Bazaar
brief?”

“Maybe he just liked it?”

“Tallulah said the photos on the stick were an edited selection. He sent the same choice of images, minus the old one, to
Harper's Bazaar
. She checked his emails.”

“The old one really wasn't part of the shoot then…so why include it on the stick?”

“Exactly, Watson.”

Sebastian had finished his milk shake and sat quietly watching me. “What are you thinking about now, Holmes?” he finally asked.

“Still the past, Watson.”

Sebastian waited silently for me to continue.

“Let's assume for a moment that Gavin discovered something thanks to the old photograph, that maybe the photo is a clue to something important that happened around the time it was taken…”