Headphones in, Slyvie walked across Queenstown Road Bridge, just another teenager on her way home from a shopping expedition. She didn't stand out in the crowd, passersby would think her just as distractible and boring as the rest. She scoffed at the thought. No other girl she knew was excited by microscopes and chemicals and the promise of scientific experiments. Boring was something she hated, something she would never be. Boredom reeked of stagnation. That made her think of stagnant water. Mosquitos laid eggs in stagnant water. The saliva of female mosquitoes carries the protist Plasmodium, which causes Malaria in humans and other animals. There had been 219 million documented cases of malaria this year, between 660,000 and 1.2 million people had died. 219 divided by three was 73. There were 73 windows on the east-facing side of her school building. The windows were uneven, and that bothered her. The school in general bothered her, its smell of mold and ineffective antiseptic, and the other girls were constantly prattling on about boring, mundane details. But, she'd graduated. She was going to university in the fall, finally,she was free of them all. Those were the leaps her mind made, all in one breath, as she made her way to her godmother's bookshop on the Chelsea Embankment.
"Martha?" Sylvie breathed in the comforting smell of the bookshop, setting her bags on the back steps that led to the flat she shared with Martha above the shop. Rationally, she knew that she smelled Lignin, a close cousin of Vanillin, a polymer that keeps trees upright, but could not keep from associating the familiarly musty smell with happy memories. No one answered, the shop empty of customers, as it so often was. There was a cup of tea on the sales desk. Half empty, lukewarm. She took a deep breath through her nose. It was herbal, not the Whittard 1886 Blend that her godmother usually preferred. That meant she was having hip trouble. Lukewarm and half empty, she had stepped out but was expecting to be back soon, before the tea was totally cold and undrinkable. Otherwise, she would have finished the cup. Martha hated waste. Probably the pharmacy, that was logical. Sylvie smiled; she loved it when things were logical. The pharmacy was on Elbury, that would be a fifteen minute trip, adding five minutes for time spent browsing, so that meant Martha would be back in around seven minutes, seeing as how it would have taken the tea several minutes to cool, several more minutes to decide that she was going to give in and buy a pain reliever, and two more minutes to close the shop before she left. Added together, it would make the twenty minute trip.
Sylvie settled herself into a leather arm chair in the dusty back of the shop. It was her favourite, the old leather soft and comfortable. She pulled a book from a nearby shelf and flipped it open. It was in German, which wasn't a problem. Sylvie prided herself on her language skills.
Right on time, she heard the bells above the door clink as it opened. Martha hummed as she shuffled through the store, making her way back to the desk and her tea. She was an older woman,in her seventies at least, who had been widowed. An old friend of Sylvie's father, she had taken Sylvie in after his death, and after Sylvie's mother had moved on. Sylvie barely remembered him, but had read plenty of the papers about his death and other things that had come to light post mortem.
"Is your hip alright?" She didn't move from her chair, which Martha couldn't see from her desk.
"Sylvie! I didn't realize you were back already."
"Obviously."
"You're in your sulking chair, aren't you?"
"I'm not sulking. Just bored."
"You are so much like…Never mind."
"My father. Yeah, thanks." She sighed inwardly. And look how bloody well he turned out, a suicidal fake genius. Grand.
"Don't be contrary. He was a great man."
"But not a good one." Sylvie whispered, not wanting Martha to hear her; Martha practically worshiped her father. Plus, they'd been through the argument fifty-seven times that month. It was old-hat, more of a routine than anything, and her heart wasn't in it.
"That reminds me, we're having company for dinner, so you may want to freshen up."
"What? Whom?"
"One of my old clients is in town and I invited him to pop in for a bite to eat. He's got a son your age."
"How wonderful." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"It's rather last minute, all of it."
"I'll say. I suppose you want me to wear a dress."
"Your black one is lovely."
Sylvie sighed, heading for the back stairs. All of her dresses were black. In fact, almost all of her clothes, the ones she actually wore, were. She thought that bright colours clashed with her pale skin and dark hair, making her look like a corpse. When people asked her about her color preference, she usually joked about it: "to match my heart."
She checked her watch, estimating dinner time and taking into account the current time. She would be able to get ready for Martha's impromptu dinner party and still have time to start a new project. She sighed. She hated dinner parties, almost as much as she hated when Martha tried to officiate friendships for her. Tonight's event reeked of both. She didn't need friends, or forced social interactions. But, there was no telling Martha that. She looked in her mirror and scowled. Her hair was curly and unruly, her icy eyes too large, her cheekbones sharp and her nose long. She was what the girls at school had called "exotic looking," which was not to be confused with "exotically pretty." And, it wasn't as though she tried particularly hard to please any of them, anyways. She favored leggings and scarves, a black leather bomber jacket she had found at a thrift shop, and an ancient pair Steve Madden boots that were worn and comfortable. She wasn't decidedly unstylish, but she wasn't quite on-trend, either.
Abandoning trying to force her hair into a bun, or anything at all, really, she pulled on a dress and went over to her microscope. It was old, but still worked amazingly well because it had been carefully cared for. It had been her father's, and Martha had kept it after his death, giving it to Sylvie for her thirteenth birthday. Martha had kept most of her father's things, and left his room the exact way it had been the day of his death. Martha owned a townhouse, and had rented out rooms for a while. When her last client has left, she decided to convert the lower floor into the used bookshop, and fixed the rest of the house up to make more room. It was around this time, when Sylvie was five, that her mother had left her with Martha. The only room left untouched was what had once been flat B. Martha had placed multiple padlocks on the door, and seemed to have thrown away the key. When she was younger, Sylvie had spent hours trying to pick the locks, but there were so many, and Martha always caught her in the process. Although she never actually got into the room, she picked up a pretty useful skill.
Because she had so few of his possessions, Sylvie treasured the microscope, even though it was technically outdated, making slides and examining them whenever she could. Smiling, she clicked the power on, turned the knobs of the fine focus, and zoomed in on the microscopic world under the lens. Bacteria scuttled back and forth, standing out against the iodine dye. She stared at them and made notes in one of her journals, losing track of time completely.
She heard voices in the hall, heading for the kitchen. A man and Martha, making small talk. That would be the dinner guest, then. She turned the microscope off, saying goodbye to the bacteria she had become acquainted with and skulked into the hall, not looking forward to meeting the guests.
A short man stood with his back to her, shoulders back and braced, obviously someone with military experience. He leaned on a cane. A gawky boy with sandy blonde hair stood beside him. She took in basic details, as much as she could, but then Martha saw her standing in the doorway and was ushering her into the kitchen proper.
"Sylvie! There you are! I was just telling John and Hamish about you..." The man turned around as Martha was talking, and Sylvie recognized him from the newspaper articles she had poured over: her dad's best friend.
"Why didn't you tell me?" She ignored the guests, zeroing in on Martha.
"What?"
"That it was him! Not just any old client! They knew each other."
"I didn't think it was important…"
"Of course it's important! Everything is important!" Sylvie rolled her eyes, exasperated.
"Enough. Be polite." Martha gave her a look that said she would be hearing about this later. Sylvie smiled insincerely, trying to think of something to say.
"How are you? You were just a baby the last time I saw you." John smiled kindly, his grey eyes shone with a sort of sad light.
"I'm doing quite well, thank you." She tried very hard not to scowl as he turned back to Martha.
"I'm Hamish." The gawky boy supplied, reaching out his hand. Sylvie resisted the urge to say 'yes, you are,' and shook hands with him instead. He had blue eyes, a sort of rounded nose similar to John's, and freckles. His jumper was too short on his arms, the sleeves ending halfway down the wrists. Recent growth spurt. His fingernails were short, the cuticles red. A worrier, who took his stress out on his hands. What did he have to worry about? She glanced at John. They were obviously well off, so it couldn't be money that concerned him. John's hands were meticulously clean. Doctor. On his left ring-finger, a sliver of skin was a lighter shade, standing out against his tan. Aha. His wife, Hamish's mother, was out of the picture. That explained the too-small sweater; a mother would have picked up on that and purchased him a new one, and the fingernails.
"Dead or divorced?" Sylvie blurted.
"What?" His blue eyes went wide. Surprise. Confusion.
"It's divorce, isn't it? If she'd died, your father would have kept the ring. People do. Sentimental."
"I don't… Mrs. Hudson told you, then, did she?"
"No. I figured it out."
"How?" He was interested. Not freaked out. That was new.
"Well… Firstly, your fingernails. Then your jumper and your dad's ring-finger. It wasn't hard."
"That's… cracked."
"Well, I was right, wasn't I?" She scowled defensively. He was just like the people at school. Unappreciative prick. He shrugged.
"It's a bit rude, y'know, saying things like that to people." He bobbed his head in a sort of nod, as though he were agreeing with himself. Sylvie was about to snap back with something ornery, but then Martha was ushering them into the dining nook where they all sat around a small table, and she decided it would be bad form to insult Hamish in front of John.
"So, you've graduated too, like Hamish?" John was trying desperately to keep the conversation flowing.
"Yes, sir."
"I went to Eton." Hamish supplied. His eyes were big like a puppy dog's. He wanted attention. Validation from his father. Interesting.
"Didn't Myc- ah, your uncle go study there, Sylvia?"
"I'm not sure. I don't talk to him much." She could feel her eyebrows crinkling into a glower and tried to smile. Her uncle had only ever been cold and uncaring, so it was no great disappointment to her that she hadn't seen him in several years. She had never found out the full story, but it seemed that Mycroft had held a grudge against her mother, relating to a government scandal. There had been a case, one her father and John, she reminded herself, had worked on together, which was how her parents had met.
Martha started prattling on, something about the summer holiday, but Sylvie wasn't paying attention. She ate hurriedly and mechanically, itching to get back to her experiments, and thoroughly bored by the dinner.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Martha offered coffee. Sylvie grabbed a cup, dropped in two sugar cubes, and made for the stairs.
"Where are you off to?" Hamish. She'd forgotten about him. Martha and John would be catching up in the parlor. That meant being polite to Hamish would fall to her. Grand.
"My lab." Maybe if she didn't elaborate, and kept walking, he'd leave her alone and read a book or something. Right.
"You've got a lab?"
"Well, sort of. It's also my bedroom."
"But with microscopes and beakers and Bunsen burners and whatnot?"
"Yes, the whole lot." She sighed, taking a sip of her coffee.
"Can I see?" His eyes were wide again. Excited. Maybe he wasn't as much of a git as she'd thought. Maybe he knew about chemistry. She doubted it.
"Just, don't touch anything." She gave in, opening her door. He stood in the doorway for a moment, staring about.
"It's so…orderly." He seemed almost confused. Sylvie hadn't ever thought about how neat everything was, she just kept things in their places, and those places happened to be compulsively organized and sorted. She didn't have any posters on the walls, only a large magnetic whiteboard hanging above her desk. Her bed was shoved in a corner to make room for a long metal lab table. Next to the table were sets of shelves housing beakers, magnifying glasses, gloves, a triple-beam balance, glass jars that were meticulously labeled, stacks of moleskin journals with her observations carefully recorded, and her precious microscope. The only real touch of personality in the room was a tattered pillow with the union jack design done in needlepoint, which sat on the bed.
Hamish continued to gaze around, but Sylvie ignored him, going over to the lab table and setting up her microscope. Clicking it on, and adjusting the fine focus lens, she zoomed back in on the slide she had been studying before dinner.
"What're you doing?" She had almost forgotten about Hamish.
"Looking at a bacterium."
"May I look?" He came to stand next to her. She scowled. "I mean, if you'd rather I didn't, that's fine too." He stammered, backpedaling.
"Why are you so polite? It's annoying." Sylvie looked up at him, resting her elbows on the table and putting her fingers together in a sort of steeple. He didn't meet her eyes, instead rubbing at his thumb nail. Embarrassed.
"John said I had to be nice." He muttered.
"I see. You call your father by his first name?" Interesting. That usually showed a lack of respect, possible rebelliousness. There was more to Hamish than met the eye, she decided.
"What? Oh, yeah."
"You two don't get on, then."
"Is it that obvious?"
"No." She looked at Hamish out of the corner of her eye, and he surprised her by laughing. "What?"
"Nothing, it's just…You're exactly like John said you would be."
"He doesn't know me."
"No, but he knew your dad."
"Do you want to see this slide or not?" Sylvie didn't meet his eyes as she stood up and stepped to her bookcase to grab a notebook, trying to process what she was feeling. Embarrassment. She was never embarrassed, she thought of it as a useless feeling, and yet, here it was. Why? Why did she care if this boy pitied her or not?
Hamish opened and closed his mouth, and shrugged, obviously about to say something and thinking better of it. She sat down across from him.
"Does he…" Sylvie swallowed "Does John mention him very much, then?" She drummed the fingers of her right hand lightly along the edge of the table, miming playing a scale on a piano. It was her tick, and it bothered her when she noticed she was doing it. She scowled at the offending hand and clutched it into a fist.
"Only all the time. Like he was some sort of superhero or something. I've got this theory that it's why Mum split, that she couldn't take it anymore. He's a bit cracked, John is. You wouldn't notice it but it's there. He won't go to his therapist anymore, y'know? I swear he's got some sort of PTSD…" Hamish trailed off, realizing he'd said more than he'd meant to.
"Will you two be in town long, then?" Sylvie desperately cast about for a new topic of conversation. Small talk was so tedious. And difficult to keep up.
"I think so, the whole summer probably. At least, I will be. John's going to stay with his sister." Hamish scowled, obviously he was unhappy with that. Possible issues with extended family?
"I don't get on with my uncle, if that's any consolation."
"What?"
"When you mentioned your aunt, staying with her, your eyebrows scrunched forward and together. Something about that thought upset you. I assumed that you two didn't get on. I was trying to be polite. I don't know if my uncle and I get on or not, actually. I haven't seen him in years, I can't even remember what he looks like."
"Oh. Well, you're wrong. Aunt Harriet and I get on fine. In fact, better than John and I do. Which is why he doesn't want me spending time with her, the bugger."
"That's strange. I'm not usually wrong, not ever." She mentally kicked herself. "Well, then where will you go, if John's with your aunt and you're not?"
"I think he's made arrangements with Mrs. Hudson."
"There's something you're not telling me."
"That's because you won't like it."
"You don't know me."
"You're not as hard to read as you think."
"Oh, really?"
"No, the air of hatred for humanity really gives you away, not to mention the sullen glares and scathing comebacks."
"I don't like you."
"That's fine. No one said you had to."
"You're staying here the whole summer, aren't you? Those are the arrangements."
"Figured that out, did you?" He raised his voice, making it mocking "oh, you're ever so clever!"
"I would like for you to stop talking, now."
"Fine."
"Thank you." She glowered at him over the top of the notebook she was scrawling in. She could see that his jaw was tense as he stared into the microscope.
After glaring at him for a while longer, she slammed her notebook shut, leaving it on the table, and went to get more coffee. She didn't ask Hamish if he wanted any, feeling superior.
Sylvie woke up at her usual early time, and went to seek out coffee in the kitchen. She lived on the stuff. It appeared that no one else was awake, or at least moving about yet. Good. She checked the time on her phone; just after seven. She sighed, hopping up onto the counter. Martha hated when she did it, which was probably why she bothered at all.
Halfway through her coffee, Sylvie's phone buzzed. She'd been bored ages ago, and hacked a local police scanner . Now, whenever they sent out reports or alert, an identical one went to her phone.
DOUBLE SUICIDE. 344 ARGYLL ST. Sylvie smiled. This could be fun. She topped off her coffee, and went to wake up Hamish.
She knocked on his door softly, not wanting to wake up Martha. No response. She knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing. She exhaled quickly in anger. Bloody awful heavy sleepers. She tried the doorknob, abandoning knocking, and surprisingly enough, it opened.
"Hamish?" She hissed. The room was dark. He still didn't respond. God, was he dead? That would be interesting. She found a light switch on the wall and flipped it on. He was still asleep, lying on his back with his arms thrown out to the sides. His hair stuck up funny against the pillow. She said his name again, louder this time, and he opened his eyes.
"What the hell?" He wasn't angry, more confused than anything.
"Get up."
"What're you doing here?"
"I live here, idiot. Now, get up."
"No, why are you in my… Nevermind. That coffee for me?" He nodded at the mug in her hand. She frowned, and glanced between the coffee and him, then handed it over grudgingly.
"Are you always this sedimentary?"
"That's a type of rock." He yawned, and she rolled her eyes. "Why do I have to get up? Where's Mrs. Hudson?"
"She's asleep. We're going on an adventure."
"I don't wanna. Too early." he muttered into the mug.
"For Godssakes, who are you, Bilbo Baggins? Get dressed. Wear something...Hip." She slammed the door, and glanced at Martha's room surreptitiously.
While Hamish got himself ready, Sylvie changed clothes, a plan forming in her mind. Shoved in the back corner of her closet was a roller-board, carry-on suitcase filled with clothes that she rarely wore. Usually, they had been given as gifts from distant relations, or hand-me downs from grandchildren of Martha's friends. There was something just a bit not 'right' about them as everyday clothes, but she valued them for use in disguises. Rifling through the case, she found a silky, red v-neck shirt. She pulled a short faux-leather skirt from the closet's 'real clothes' section. Her first choice for shoes would have been her boots, but they made the outfit look more trying-too-hard-gothy than urban-and-edgy, so she swapped them for a pair of flats. She looked in the mirror, pulled a few strands of hair back with a bobby pin, and scrunched up the rest of her hair so it would be curlier. As a last-second decision, she pulled on a pair of yoga shorts under the skirt. You never knew when you might need to move quickly, and it was better to be able to do so and still regain some modesty, she thought. She nodded at her reflection, it was good enough.
"Hamish, are you ready?"
"Mm." He stumbled out of his room, still not totally awake. He was wearing a white button-up, half-heartedly tucked into skinny navy pants, and a pair of light brown loafers. It wasn't quite what Sylvie had had in mind, but she decided not to make him change.
"Where are we going?" Hamish yawned again.
"I'll fill you in on the way." Sylvie said distractedly, scribbling a note to Martha. Taking Hamish sightseeing. Back eventually. SH.
"Are you sure we should be here?" Hamish was pulling at his ear, another of his nervous ticks. Sylvie stood with her hands on her hips, looking up at the building. It was a theatre, a bit dilapidated, relatively old. There was a fee escape about 15 feet up, with a fold out ladder, that probably led to dressing rooms. But, she couldn't jump 15 feet. She'd have to climb. There was a window ledge five feet up, and then another one, and another. She wished that she'd thought further ahead when planning her disguise.
"Give me a boost." She said to Hamish, bracing one foot against the wall and reaching up for the sill. He looked skeptical, but dutifully cupped his hands together for her to step onto. She was really glad that she'd thought about wearing the shorts.
She scrambled up, and realized she would need to grip the bricks to get to the next sill. Balancing carefully, she pulled her flats off, and shoved them in the waistband of her skirt. It was just like a climbing wall, she told herself. She kept climbing, working her toes into the crannies between bricks and digging her nails into the tops of the sills. It was surprisingly easy, and soon she was in reach of the fire escape. She paused, taking a deep breath, bent her knees, and reached out her arms. Counting to three in her mind, she sprung from the ledge, grabbing the railing and rolling over it onto the platform. It went far more smoothly than she had expected.
"Stand back!" She called down to Hamish, and pushed against the folded up ladder until it opened up and extended down to the ground. He began the climb, and she out her shoes back on.
"You're psychotic, you know."
"I'm creative. There's a difference."
"Not much of one." He muttered. She scowled at him. "So, what now?"
"Now we go inside." She gestured to the door in front of them.
"Why are we doing this again? Doesn't this count as breaking and entering? That's illegal."
"We're doing this because it's fun. And, the jury is still out on how illegal we're being."
"Oh, how lovely. Let's get on with it, then." He reached for the handle, and jimmied it around. It wouldn't open. "The door's bloody locked. Now what?"
"Well, gracious, I don't know. I guess we ought to just pop back home and have ourselves a cuppa." She rolled her eyes at him. "Move." She pulled a bobby pin from her hair, and deftly picked the lock. The lock was old, and therefore wasn't even that hard to pick. Hamish was more impressed than he should have been, but she wasn't about to tell him that.
He reached for the handle, but she held up a hand, stopping him.
"If anyone sees us, let me do the talking. If they ask you something, restate what I've already said. If anyone asks, we are university students. My name is Rachel, yours is Scott. Don't give a last name, unless they ask. Tell them your mother's maiden name if they do. Got it?"
He nodded, and she opened the door, praying it wouldn't squeak. It didn't. And, as she had assumed, they were in the empty dressing rooms. Which was convenient. There were makeup kits spread all over a counter, a rack of clothes in the corner, and a mini fridge. Lying on top of the mini fridge was a red and yellow flyer, advertising for a circus. Sylvie picked it up, and flipped through it. The Circus of the Czars, 344 Argyll Street. Interesting that the circus was, presumably, held inside. She put the flyer back, and looked around again. It was a rather depressing room.
Her outfit was fine, but she needed a little something more to complete her disguise. Trying not to think about germs and the like, she grabbed an eye-shadow palette and brush. When she was finished, she looked a lot more like her mother than her father, almost pretty, she thought. Bright red lips and sparkly eyes, long lashes and pink cheeks, the sharp angles of her face and jawline less pronounced. Her hair was good enough, she decided, and she looked around to find Hamish.
"You need a scarf." She whispered.
"What?" He was looking at her in confusion. "You look really different..."
"Yes, that's the point." She snapped. "You're a male theater student. You need a scarf." There was a green plaid one hanging on the clothing rack. Sylvie grabbed it and handed it to him. He tossed one end over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows skeptically at her. He obviously did not have much experience styling scarves. Sighing in exasperation, Sylvie took both ends of the scarf in her hands. Hamish tensed, and she realized that they were standing very close to each other. She shook her head, looping the scarf around his neck and tucking the loose ends into his jacket, and stepped back quickly.
"There. Ready?"
"Ready." He wouldn't meet her eyes. Strange.
She opened the door slowly and peeked out into the hall. It was empty. Good. They seemed to be behind the stage, but on an upper level. There was no one around, which was to be anticipated. It was part of a crime scene, after all. She and Hamish snooped around, a strange mix of trying to seem at home, but also trying to move as quietly as possible. It was very exciting.
A few times they heard voices echoing up from downstairs, and they both froze. The words were hard to make out, but the tones were obviously upset. At one point a particularly loud shout carried the word "tiger" up to them. She filed it away mentally, for later use.
Sylvie could feel herself grinning from ear to ear, the blood pumping in her veins. Hamish looked rather seasick. Oh, well.
There was a door at the end of the hallway.
"Remember the plan, Scott?"
"Sure thing, Rachel."
"Good."
The door opened onto a catwalk above the stage and house portions of the theater. There was police tape across the main doorway in the back of the house, and various people scurried back and forth. The real show-stopper was on the stage. There were two bodies, considerable amounts of blood, and, oddly enough, what looked like the components of a romantic dinner.
An older woman, Sylvie presumed she was the head Detective Inspector, and a younger, red haired man were surveying the scene. Sylvie could tell that they hadn't been there long.
"I want to get closer." She whispered to Hamish.
"Are you mad? There's all sorts of cops down there an-"
"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport. I can get around them. I can't see a thing from up here."
"Really? Because I can see plenty. There's two dead blokes and loads of blood and people who could arrest us! I can't get a arrested! I'm supposed to go to university in the fall!"
"But I can't see the details!"
"If you want to stick your fingers in some congealed blood, be my guest. I'm staying right here."
"Suit yourself. Go wait in the alley if you want. I'll find you when I'm done."
"Fine!"
"Good!"
They crawled back to the door, standing up when they were back in the hallway with all the dressing rooms and the staircase down to the main level.
"Try not to get arrested."
"Do I look like someone who'd get arrested?" She smirked, and traipsed down the stairs, leaving Hamish in the empty corridor.
She would have to waltz in like she owned the place, and time it perfectly so that the head detective was distracted. She didn't doubt her ability to twist around an officer in training, but a head detective was a different story.
The stairs brought her down into another corridor of dressing rooms, which led eventually to the wings of the stage. There was a notepad on the prop table. She grabbed it, and stepped out from the shelter of the curtains.
"Oh my god!" She faked astonishment, clutching the notebook against her chest with one hand and grabbing onto the nearby curtain, as if for support, with the other. She glanced up, noting thankfully that the woman detective was deep in conversation with a specialist of some sort, most likely forensics. The redhead was striding towards her. He walked with confidence, his eyes were a calculating green.
"Excuse me, miss, who let you in here?" His voice was clipped and proper.
"Oh, I let myself in, the back door." She raised her voice a bit, and struck a cockney edge. He took a small notebook out of his pocket. This was not good. She did not want him to write down anything about her, to research later and find out it was all a front. She also didn't want to tell him anything real about herself. It was quite a conundrum.
"What business have you got here? This is a crime scene, you know."
"I'm studying to be a journalist, see, and for my photography class we have to make a portfolio, and I've got this friend who does plays here and we thought we'd do a couple shots on the stage, like. I wanted to come and see what sort of space I was working with, toy with it in my mind." He was nodding, and didn't look suspicious of her hasty lie at all. That was good. Way better than expected.
"What did you say your name was?"
"Rachel, Rachel Addler." She blinked up at him, and, so that she wasn't totally lying, said: "It's my byline." in a smug tone.
"Cute." His voice was sarcastic, but his face was emotionless. He seemed to be losing interest. Bad. She needed to keep his attention long enough to get an in. Throwing caution to the wind, she reached out and placed a hand on his arm, a casual enough gesture. He didn't seem shocked. That was good. Deep breaths. She hated affection, physical contact, all of it. She couldn't remember the last time she had purposely touched anyone. Well, she'd touched his arm. Now what? She desperately thought back to Martha's soap operas. At the time, she'd tried to block them out. So annoying, dreadfully misogynistic, terribly historically inaccurate. Depending on the half-deleted memories now was a nightmare. Oh, God save her. She tried to bat her eyelashes.
"This is just awful, all this. I really ought to leave you to your investigating and all that, shouldn't I?" So, she hadn't really gotten a chance to snoop, but there was no way to be sure he wouldn't catch on to her lies soon. She needed to get out, but keep her options open. Maybe…
"I technically ought to question you.."
"Me?"
"Yeah, but…" He peered over his shoulder, Sylvie guessed that he was looking for the older woman detective. He seemed to make some sort of decision.
"Here, have you got a mobile? So,uh, if anything comes up I can call you in to the station." He reached into his pocket hurriedly and pulled out his phone. Really? They were exchanging numbers? She decided to give him Hamish's.
"Mine's dead, actually. But here, I'll type my number in, if you want to write yours down." She offered him the notebook she'd taken from the prop table, flipped to a clean page, as he handed her his phone.
"Edgar!" The woman detective shouted, and he snapped to attention. Edgar. Sylvie filed it away. Interesting; either he had an unusual last name, or was familiar enough with the Inspector to go by first names. But, he was hardly even an officer yet. Family connection? They bore no remarkable resemblance to each other, but one could never be sure. Maybe he was adopted.
"Coming!" He shouted back, to Sylvie he said "just a minute." And handed back her appropriated notebook, a number scrawled on the page in blue ink.
Perfect. She keyed Hamish's number into the field, and typed 'Rachel A.' into the name blank. She thought about leaving a note ("I'm a private detective, but not really, because I'm only eighteen, and I'd like very much to snoop about this crime scene. Let's have dinner.") But decided against it.
She stood there for a moment, but saw her chance for escape and took it. She set his phone down on a nearby foldable chair, and slunk back to the dressing room hallway. She tore the page from the notebook, leaving it on the prop table where she has found it.
She hadn't gotten very far, when one of the doors along the hallway opened. A very large man with scraggly grey hair and an even scragglier grey mustache peered at her.
"You are with the police?" His accent was thick, but not one she had ever heard before, which was odd. She was very good with languages, after all.
"Yes."
"You want to ask me questions?" He narrowed his eyes angrily, misty pupils shrinking .
"Not at the moment, thank you." She almost wished she had said yes, but was intimidated by the man, and conscious of the fact that she and Hamish had split up sometime ago. She gave the man a half hearted wave and walked away, back up to the fire escape and from there back into the alley. Hamish was sitting waiting for her, playing on his phone. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Did Nancy Drew solve the mystery of the nasty stiffs in the scary old theater?" He smirked.
"No, but a handsome young police sergeant asked for her mobile number. She gave him yours, by the way. So if you get any weird texts, that'd be why."
"Lovely. What was the point of all that, exactly?"
"Well, didn't you think it was exciting? Sneaking around, disguises, thrill of the chase?" She didn't understand why he wasn't as enamored with playing detective as she was.
"No, no I didn't, actually. I don't get off on felonies and waiting around in dirty alleys while you go off, and, and chat up some detective, and give him my phone number, no less!"
"Why are you being so difficult? And, I was hardly 'chatting up' anyone, you know. Besides, felonies almost don't count if you can't get in trouble for them." She could feel the buzz she'd gotten from all the adrenaline fading, leave it to Hamish to ruin a good day, she thought with a scowl.
"What do you mean you can't get in trouble for felonies? That's the whole bloody point of it!" They were whisper-shouting at each other, still in the grimy alley behind the sad theater.
"I've got diplomatic immunity, practically. Family name and all that." She shrugged.
"That's it. That's what your problem is!" His eyes lit up with a sort of cold light, and she wondered for a split second if they weren't all that different, if he loved figuring things out too. "You don't think rules apply to you! You have no idea of what is acceptable and what isn't, because no one's ever told you off for it. I doubt you were ever disciplined as a child." He looked at her then, his jaw sort of thrust forward in a way she already associated with him feeling any kind of strong emotion. "Go on, then, tell me that I'm wrong. I know you love to."
"You are wrong, actually. And I'm not just saying that. I lived with Irene until I was eight and she decided that she didn't want me around anymore. She..." Sylvie thought for a moment, her mind flashing through a plethora of childhood memories.
She remembered being four or five, excited about wearing an orange sundress one of the maids had given her, coming downstairs to show it off and being told 'Colors don't suit you, Sylvia. Change your clothes.'
A year later, the first and only time she had asked about her father, she could still hear Irene's smooth, glacial voice 'Holmes didn't know you existed. He went and offed himself before I got the chance to tell him. It's better, he would have been ashamed.' Sylvie swallowed hard, pushing the memories back, forcing herself to ignore them.
"... She was awful to me quite a lot then, you know. Like it was my fault, everything that happened with...with my father. Which was totally ridiculous, but I suppose that she felt guilty about some of what happened. I blame her for a lot of things, mostly my personality, and its faults. You see, I know that there are things wrong with me, that it's like I'm not all the way human. Did you really think I wouldn't notice that people think I'm a robot, that I don't know if I'm capable of feeling things? And, back to the part about you being wrong. I suppose that I don't think rules apply to me, I'll give you that, but it's not because I have some sort of Freudian issue with boundaries. It's as though I'm more… highly evolved, or something, there are rules, yes, and then there are rules for me. Most of the normal-people rules do not apply to me, therefore I do not follow them." She paused for a moment. "I didn't mean to say all that."
"John always talked like your mum was dead, too."
"Did he tell you to pity me? Poor little orphan Sylvia, all alone in the world." She glared at him, angry at herself for saying all that she had, angry at Hamish for being so easy to talk to, angry at herself again for being awful and enjoying it.
"There you go again, being horrid just because you can."
"I don't see the problem with it." She was lethargic, suddenly. Their argument, the alleyway, everything, had bored her.
"There is a problem with it! Doesn't it bother you that no one likes you, that you haven't got friends?" He seemed to realize that he may have crossed a line, and he opened and closed his mouth for a moment, fishlike.
"No, it doesn't bother me. In the first place, I've made it quite clear that I don't need anyone to like me, or friends, or any of that plebeian foolishness. It's like chess, all strategy. If I'm not secretive about how awful I am, and I do know that I'm awful, then no one's surprised or offended when it comes up later, and only people worth being friends with try. It's easy."
"You don't have any idea how basically cracked that statement is. Think about what you just said."
"Lay off, would you. This is boring."
"Everything's boring to you." he muttered, trying to elicit a response, but she only shrugged. "You told Martha that we were going sightseeing. Shouldn't we, I dunno, go to the houses of parliament or something? Feed ducks in Kensington Park?"
"God, no. Can you think of anything more dreadfully bucolic?"
"I'm hungry. Is there a Pret or something nearby?"
"There's one on practically every corner. I want to get this mess off my face." She rubbed at her cheek with the back of her hand.
"It looks alright." Hamish offered uncomfortably, and Sylvie looked at him with disgust.
"Stop."
"Sorry. Trying to be nice."
"Don't."
"Right, then."