A Game Most Foul, page 19
“Ashley, oh, thank goodness you—” The elderly woman stopped speaking at once, and it was heartbreaking to see the way her face fell. “You aren’t my granddaughter.”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, I’m so sorry, I—um. I’m—my name is Jules. I’m one of Ashley’s classmates from the seminar.”
“I see.” The old woman nodded, her lips pressed together in a tight line, and she was blinking rapidly. I was doing the same thing too, trying not to cry. “And you have her iPad, why?”
“Oh, I—that is we—” I gestured to Suruthi and Percy off screen even though she couldn’t see them. “We just wanted to, um, hang out in Ashley’s dorm for a while, maybe do a little bit of writing together.”
The old woman did not look convinced. I couldn’t blame her—it was a lame excuse. But it sounded a lot better than the truth: that we’d asked an apparently not fictional detective to do some sleuthing to see if there was something we were missing about Ashley’s disappearance, and if that went well, could he possibly help us find her?
“I see,” was all the old woman said.
“You must be her grandma,” I said, feeling stupid, but I wanted to keep the conversation going. “Ashley, she—she talks about you a lot, but I don’t think she ever mentioned your name.”
The elderly woman gave a barely-there smile and I realized just how unwell she looked when she used one hand to fix the cannula in her nose used to administer oxygen. She was very thin, with dark circles under her eyes and thinning gray hair.
“My name is Edith.” Edith spent another moment fiddling with the cannula before continuing. “Not that it isn’t nice to meet you, Jules, but . . . well, foolish as it is, I’ve been calling Ashley religiously, hoping she might pick up.”
Edith’s voice cracked on the last word, and I felt my heart skip through a few beats.
“I’m so sorry,” I said in a rush. “I’m so, so sorry. I wish there was a way I could—”
“Oh, you really don’t need to apologize, Jules,” Edith said, speaking over me. It sounded like this took her a lot of effort. “None of this is your fault.”
Wasn’t it though? At least somewhat. I’d been the last one to see Ashley. I’d been there with her when she’d disappeared.
“Well, is there anything we can do for you?” I asked. “I know we’re in London, but maybe if we . . .”
Maybe if we what? Held hands and put on a candlelight vigil, Ashley might be found?
Edith gave another halfhearted smile. “I appreciate you asking, but I don’t think so. Although . . .”
Her lips began trembling as she frowned, and I jumped on it. “What is it?”
“Did Ashley ever mention anything about wanting to see a friend?” Edith asked in a rush. “A friend by the name of Valerie.”
It took me a full minute to decipher what she’d said, Edith had spoken so quickly.
“A friend,” I repeated. “Um, no. Not that I can think of.”
I looked at Suruthi and Percy and said, “Do you guys remember Ashley having said anything about wanting to see a friend?”
“No,” Percy answered at once. “You both spent more time with her than I did.”
“Likewise,” Suruthi said. “Never heard a thing about a friend named Valerie.”
“Ah.” Edith cleared her throat a few times before she spoke again. She either looked very disappointed or very relieved. “Well, it was a long shot, but I did wonder . . .”
“Should Ashley have mentioned anything about wanting to see Valerie?” I asked Edith.
I wasn’t sure where this line of questioning was going, but if there was any chance there was a reason Ashley would have run away . . .
“Valerie used to be Ashley’s old babysitter when she was younger,” Edith explained, her smile more of a grimace. “More like an older sister, really. They spent so much time together while I had to work to support us. She moved to Britain for schooling a few years ago and Ashley was pretty devastated. Can’t remember what university she was going to, but last I heard, Valerie was only a few hours outside London. They’ve exchanged letters and had phone calls every now and then and of course Ashley always has a standing invitation to visit, but I never really considered that a possibility.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“International flights aren’t cheap, dear,” Edith said, and I felt stupid for asking. “It’s a blessing Ashley was able to fundraise the money she needed to afford your writing seminar.”
At this point, I was willing to investigate any possible avenue that didn’t suggest something bad happened to Ashley.
“Do you think Ashley would’ve run off on her own to go see Valerie?” I asked.
Edith shrugged. “Ashley likes to put on a brave front and act like nothing ever bothers her, but she was really upset when Valerie moved. Said she felt like she was being abandoned. I do know she would be thrilled to see Valerie, no matter how long it’s been.”
So maybe . . . maybe Ashley had gone to see Valerie. Why she would’ve needed to up and leave in the middle of a field trip to Oxford, I didn’t have an answer though. Had she arranged ahead of time for Valerie to meet her there?
“And you . . . you told the police this, right?”
“Of course I did.” Edith frowned. “They said they would follow up on it and let me know.”
Somewhere behind me I heard Holmes make one of those psh noises.
“Well, maybe that’s where she’s gone,” I said, trying to muster up some optimism. “And she’s just having trouble reaching out to you or something.”
“Maybe,” Edith said, and her frown deepened. “Although I have to ask. Did Ashley have her inhaler on her?”
Inhaler? I again looked at Suruthi and she was already shaking her head, mouthing, I didn’t know.
“I didn’t know she had asthma,” I admitted. “I don’t know if she had her inhaler with her or not.”
“She’s usually very good about keeping her inhaler in her bag,” Edith said, a nervous edge creeping into her voice. “She hasn’t had too many asthma attacks over the years, but . . . well, a grandmother worries, you know.”
“I know she had her bumblebee pin though,” I said quickly. “On the strap of her bag.”
Edith’s worried expression lessened just the slightest bit, and her smile seemed to reach her eyes this time. “Thank you for telling me that, Jules.”
“Of course,” I said. “We just . . . if there’s anything we can . . . I mean, I just want to . . .”
This was strange for me, not being able to come up with the right words to speak. Thankfully Edith seemed to understand. I gave her my cell phone number and promised to reach out to her if I happened to hear anything from the police on this side of the pond.
When the video call ended, I shut the iPad off and set it on the desk, leaning against the edge for support.
“Well.” Percy’s voice sounded too loud in the empty dorm. “That was . . .”
“Awful,” Suruthi said. “I think that’s the word you’re looking for.”
“So, now what?” I said to no one in particular. “We take the iPad to the police?”
“With our fingerprints on it?” Suruthi yelped. “Have you lost your marbles, Jules?”
“Probably,” I said. “But we’ve been in here before Ashley went missing, so that’s reasonable doubt right there, isn’t it?”
“Might I suggest you children stop playing detective,” Holmes interjected, “as that is my profession, and let us take this to Watson instead. He has been your primary contact with the police, has he not? From there we can determine what to do with this device.”
“Again, Holmes, we’re not children,” Percy said flatly. “But I suppose that’s not a bad idea.”
“Uh, it could be,” I said. “I don’t think Watson’s made it a secret he wants us to stay out of this so the police can do their job. If we give him the iPad, I’m not so sure he’ll keep us in the loop, and I sincerely doubt the police will let us know what’s on this thing either.”
“Holmes?” Suruthi said, looking to him.
Holmes took a moment to ponder this. “I would not be so quick to judge your professor, young lady. Watson can be a reasonable man, and no one would doubt the sincerity of your intentions.” He reached out to pluck the iPad from my hands before I could object. “Allow me to speak with Watson on your behalf.”
“That’s awfully kind of you,” Suruthi said to Holmes. “But before you go and pull a Houdini on us again, maybe you can give us your mobile phone number first. Much more civilized.”
Holmes did so and begrudgingly accepted our own cell phone numbers.
“This is all very well,” Percy said, sounding strangely formal, “but where does that leave the three of us?”
“Come again?” I said.
“The three of us,” Percy repeated, motioning toward himself, Suruthi, and me. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“Return home,” Holmes said flatly. “You have my word I shall be in contact should I have any new information to share.”
“Yeah, see, that’s not going to work for us, mate,” Suruthi said before Percy and I had the chance to object. “Ashley is our classmate and we invited you in on this. So, here’s what the three of us will do.”
Suruthi turned her back to Holmes and beckoned Percy and me closer.
“I can’t speak for the two of you, but I’m not about to sit around and twiddle my thumbs while we wait for Holmes to get back to us,” Suruthi said in an undertone. “And let’s be honest. Are we really sure we can trust him to follow up with Watson? He hasn’t seemed too fond of the professor from the start. I’m willing to give Holmes the benefit of the doubt, but there’s some kind of bad blood between them. I’d rather not take the risk of Holmes doing something petty to get back at Watson, like holding on to the iPad. We need to have a contingency plan.”
“You do realize I am still present,” Holmes interjected. “I can hear every word you’re saying.”
“Yep,” Suruthi told him. “So, I propose we focus our energy on finding out who Valerie is. If Edith was right and there’s a chance Ashley did go visit Valerie, maybe we can use the power of the Google to find out where she lives.”
I tried to keep my anxiety from skyrocketing as I exchanged a glance with Percy. I couldn’t be sure what his line of thought was, but I was thinking Suruthi’s plan maybe had some merit. At any rate, it was more of a plan than what I’d come up with on my own. Beyond searching Ashley’s dorm room, I had no idea what to do next.
“Okay,” I said. “I say we give it a shot.”
Percy didn’t seem so easily sold on the idea, given the fierce scowl he was wearing. But then he nodded and Suruthi clapped her hands together with a little squeal.
“Excellent!”
“So,” I said awkwardly. “Should we ask Holmes when he plans to talk to Watson, or—”
“We could,” Percy said. “But he’s gone.”
“Huh?”
Percy made a sweeping gesture to the door that was now swung wide open, with Holmes nowhere in sight. “Saw himself out, I reckon.”
“Clearly,” Suruthi grumbled.
I groaned, scrubbing my face with my hands.
It probably wasn’t a good thing we were all apparently way more oblivious than I’d originally thought.
Chapter 22
Have You Ever Played Armchair Detective?
Alright,” I said to the blinking cursor on my laptop screen. “This is how it’s going to go.”
It was a good thing Dreams of Antiquity was empty, otherwise someone might overhear me having a conversation with an inanimate object. I didn’t see any other way around it though; I had to lay down the law somehow.
“I’m going to spend the next hour or so writing until Suruthi shows up. There’s a story somewhere in my brain, maybe a mystery or a thriller, needing to be written.” The thought of having a one-to-two-hundred-page manuscript ready to hand in in just a few weeks, when I only had about a solid twenty or so pages, was nightmare-inducing fuel. “So, I am going to absolutely put this time to good use.”
I got comfortable in my favorite armchair, tucking my legs up underneath me, and got my hands in the proper position, hovering over the keyboard.
I can do this, I told myself. You’re on a deadline. You can do this, Jules.
A half hour later, it became evident that I could not do this.
There was one glaring problem staring me right in the face and I felt stupid for not realizing it sooner.
I wasn’t sitting down to write because I wanted to. I was doing it because I had to. That made trying to write even more like pulling teeth. Not only was I on a deadline, but I’d worked so hard to be able to save up to cover the seminar fees, not to mention the airfare. It wasn’t as if I had a thriving social life in high school to begin with, but once I’d gotten my acceptance letter from Ashford, any sports games or school dances or weekend get-togethers became an impossibility because I needed to work to save money.
If I couldn’t produce a manuscript by the end of all this, then what was the point of my having come to London?
What I wanted to do was find Ashley. Every time I replayed that conversation with her grandmother in my mind, it became easier to tell myself that Ashley really had met Valerie in Oxford. Then maybe they had just lost track of time or decided to head back to where Valerie lived, but Ashley had lost her phone and she didn’t have any of our numbers memorized, so she couldn’t—
“Jules, why are you sitting upside down like that?”
My eyes flew open in alarm at the sound of that voice, and I was shocked to find Suruthi looming over me, looking equally confused.
“Geez!” I struggled to sit upright, not quite sure how I’d ended up sitting upside down in the armchair, my laptop cast aside on the floor. “Sorry, Suruthi, you scared me.”
“For a moment there, Jules, I thought the worst had happened,” she admitted. “Do you often sleep upside down like a bat?”
“I wasn’t sleeping, just—thinking, is all,” I said lamely. “Sorry.”
I didn’t have a good response for this when my honest answer would have been that I was daydreaming about uncovering Ashley’s whereabouts instead of trying to make some progress on my manuscript.
“Wait, where’s Percy?” I asked, peering around Suruthi. “I thought he was supposed to be coming with you.”
“Supposed to be, yes,” Suruthi said unhappily. “Our charming Mister Byers didn’t answer his phone when I called. I even messaged a couple times, and nothing, so I can only assume he’s ignoring us for some reason.”
I almost did a double take. “Seriously? That doesn’t sound like Percy.”
Suruthi gestured toward my phone laying nearby. “See for yourself.”
I grabbed my phone and quickly pulled up Percy’s number. The line rang three times, then went to voicemail.
“He sent me straight to voicemail,” I told Suruthi, a little offended.
“I told you.”
A new text message popped up on my phone screen before I could start complaining again, and it was from Percy: Sorry, won’t be able to make it.
I simply sent back numerous question marks in reply.
Percy wrote back. Doing my own research. Let me know what you two find out.
My response was: ☹
“Right then,” Suruthi said after I’d showed her Percy’s messages. “Rather than mope, it’s probably better we get to work.”
An extra pair of eyes would’ve been more helpful, but . . .
“Right.” I grabbed my laptop off the floor and went to the sofa so Suruthi could take a seat beside me. “Let’s do this.”
And by this, we merely opened up a new search engine and got to typing.
“This is . . . well, I’m not going to lie, this is boring,” Suruthi said a short while later as I clicked out of the fifteenth profile for Ashley James on some social media site.
Turns out there were quite a few Ashley Jameses in Ontario.
“It honestly didn’t cross my mind how popular Ashley’s name is,” I admitted sheepishly. “We could . . . try searching for her grandmother?”
Suruthi narrowed her eyes at me in thought. “Does your gran have social media?”
“No, but that would be because she’s dead.”
“That would do it.”
We started over, typing Edith Longmont into the search engine. That narrowed down our results somewhat, but it still left us coming up empty-handed.
“And we’re positive Edith never mentioned Valerie’s last name?” Suruthi asked for about the tenth time.
“Positive,” I said, biting back a sigh. “I suppose we could try texting her?”
“And have her start asking questions about what we’re up to? Probably not the best idea, Jules.” Suruthi blew a raspberry, slouching back into the sofa. “Well, you know what they say. If you haven’t found what you’re looking for on the first page of Google results, then it’s pointless.”
“It’s not pointless,” I insisted, closing my laptop. “We just need to look at this from a different angle, maybe. Go back to the drawing board or something.”
“Meh.”
“Look, it’s only Saturday,” I said. “Holmes said he was going to give Ashley’s iPad to Watson, right? Maybe by Monday we’ll have more answers.”
“One can only hope,” Suruthi grumbled.
***
I didn’t consider myself a spiteful person, but I was doing this out of spite: showing up over half an hour early to the seminar on Monday morning. If Professor Watson wanted to instill the virtues of punctuality, then I would show him I’d taken that to heart.
“Why, Miss Montgomery, you’re here awfully early.”
I looked up from the doodling I’d been doing in my notebook, seated on the floor outside the classroom. Professor Watson was approaching, tucking his briefcase under his arm as he pulled out his key ring to unlock the door.
He seemed considerably less frazzled today, which had me thinking that maybe he had managed to find something on Ashley’s iPad or the police had had some sort of breakthrough on the case.
