Read Online Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets by Guy Adams, Kasey Lansdale, Glen Mehn - Free Book Online Page B

times, just to really rub it in.
    At least in this seat next to the counter, he could enjoy the coffee aromas. Rich, dark, roasted—it smelled like freshly-brewed heaven. Here he could also hear the espresso machine singing its tempting siren wail. Oh, god, he was losing his mind...
    One mozzarella bagel and one unsatisfying coffee later, John dropped his paper cup into the bin outside the cafe, and found himself looking up into grey smoke and darker, greyer eyes behind it. John was surprised to find himself thinking how beautiful these eyes were, but stopped when he realised who they belonged to.
    The barista inhaled from a long, thin cigarette and, being tall, bent down to John’s level. “Why did you lie to me?”
    T HE NEXT MORNING , with dawn still disappearing from the sky, Jane met Charlotte at the back gates of the school.
    Jane had known Charlotte would be there —they did this every day before lessons started. And Charlotte wasn’t the kind to hold grudges. Quick to anger, but quick to forgive—Jane found it refreshing. Eric had held onto grudges like they were his only friends. Always jealous of her time, he’d once fallen out with her when she’d helped Charlotte steal school records (crucial clues in the case of the School Disco Flasher) instead of going bowling with him, and he hadn’t talked to her for nearly a month.
    “I brought you a coffee.” Jane held out the peace offering.
    Like the coffee, her breath steamed in the crisp morning air. “Mmm, thanks.” Charlotte fished a packet of Mayfairs out of her long black coat, and lit one with practised ease. “I brought you a culprit.”
    Charlotte gestured with the cigarette to where classrooms could be seen through the wrought iron fence. The lights were on inside and among other early arrivals Jane could see Eric quite clearly, sitting at his desk, probably finishing last night’s homework. It was something he struggled with, now that he didn’t have Charlotte and Jane to help him with the answers. “We already have a culprit. That is the exact culprit we already have. He confessed, remember?”
    “And what did he say, exactly? Tell me again.”
    “I confronted him, as he was the only person in the library with me when the notebook went missing. He actually admitted his guilt! I asked him what he was planning to do with my book and he told me he hadn’t decided yet. What could he mean by that?”
    Charlotte took out her phone and checked the time. “Are you listening to me?”
    “If he hasn’t decided what to do with it yet, he’s likely keeping it close by. Any move he makes against you is going to happen at school—you know how afraid he is of your mum—but he’s unlikely to keep the book on his person in case we pay one of the rugby team to hold him upside down and empty his pockets.”
    “That’s not fai—oh wait, yes we have done that.” They’d found deciding evidence in the curious case of the Kidnapped School Tortoise.
    Suddenly, a persistent, repetitive ringing noise started up from inside the school. Jane realised why it sounded unfamiliar—she had never heard the fire alarm from outside the school grounds before. It sounded muted and strange.
    Charlotte put her phone away with a satisfied smile. “That was you?”
    “Those rugby boys will do anything on a dare.”
    They’ll do anything for you, is more like it, thought Jane. In Jane’s seventeen-year-old opinion, Charlotte was far too old to be doing the puppy-dog-eyes look at eighteen. But it worked. It was the hint of mischief behind the pleading grey eyes that Jane herself couldn’t resist—she wondered if others saw it too. “There, look!” Charlotte grabbed her and pointed at Eric’s classroom. It was emptying fast as students made their way to the fire assembly point on the lawn, but Eric was skulking behind. As soon as he was alone he bent down in front of one of the filing cabinets and fished around the back of the unit. “He must have known I’d