Page 42 of Evil at the Essex House
I looked around at four unadorned stone walls and a staircase winding upwards to the tower.
“After you,” Christopher said, and gestured to it.
I shot him a look over my shoulder even as I started up. “Are you quite certain you don’t want to go first in case something jumps out at me?”
“That’s precisely why I’m behind you,” Christopher said, following, “so I can catch you if you fall.”
I sniffed, but continued to climb. “You just don’t want to face whatever it is first.”
“That’s true,” Christopher agreed, “but I would also do a better job of catching you than you would of catching me if I fell.”
Since that was also true, I didn’t say any more about it, just kept climbing until I reached the top of the bell tower. The bell itself was gone, to scrap I assumed, but we could see where it had hung, and we could also see out across the roofs of Southwark, and—from the opening on the other side of the tower—across the Thames to the steeple of St Magnus the Martyr, the fish market, and in the distance, the top of the Tower of London as well as the bulk of Tower Bridge.
“Nice view from up here,” Christopher commented. He was staring out the south-facing window at the brick of London Bridge and below, Tooley Street.
“Nicer from this side, I’d say.”
He glanced at me across the tower, and beyond me to what lay on the other side of the river, before he nodded. “Of course. Scenically speaking. But I meant that this would be a good place for someone to stand and watch fifty thousand American dollars arrive. Nice and private.”
I tore myself from the ripples of the river and the buildings beyond to arrive next to him on the other side of the tower, where I peered down as he had done. “You’re right.”
“I’m usually right,” Christopher said.
“If it were me, though, I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a tower with only one ingress and egress. If the Schlomskys do end up informing the police, and they do surround the place, this would be the last place I’d want to be. Stuck up here with no way out.”
Christopher nodded. “I wasn’t thinking of them. I was thinking of us. I’m sure, if the kidnappers are planning to keep watch—and if it were me, I would…”
I nodded.
“—they’ll be doing it from somewhere on the ground, and possibly from inside a motorcar, for a quick getaway. I meant for us.”
“You want us to hide here tomorrow night?”
He glanced at me. “Do you have a better idea? You did want to be present for the ransom drop, I assumed.”
Of course I did, but I hadn’t thought about the details beyond that. “What if the kidnappers really are stupid and they do decide to hide up here? And we walk in on them?” Or they on us.
“We’ll pretend to be idiot Bright Young People on a scavenger hunt,” Christopher said. Clearly he had already thought of a solution to that hypothetical issue. “This is the type of place for it. Or we’ll be a couple of lovebirds looking for somewhere private to snog each other stupid, or something like that.”
I shot him a look. “If you think I’m going to kiss you, Christopher, you’d better think again.”
“I don’t,” Christopher said, “thank you very much. I don’t want to kiss you, either. I’ll phone Crispin, and you can kiss him instead.”
Ewww. “Don’t you dare. There’s absolutely no reason to drag him all the way up here from Wiltshire for this.”
“You know he’d want to be around for the excitement,” Christopher said. “Especially if there’s snogging.”
“There will not,” I told him severely, “be any snogging. Even if we pretend to be a stupid couple looking for somewhere to snog—and I’m talking about you and me, Christopher, not Crispin—even then, we won’t have to prove it by kissing in front of them. They’ll have to take our word for it.”
His lips twitched. “If you say so.”
“I do say so. And I am not letting you involve St George. I’ll kiss you before I kiss him.”
“He’d be devastated to hear it,” Christopher said.
I snorted. “He would not. He’s well aware of how I feel about him, thank you very much. Besides, he gets more than enough kisses from other people.”
“More than enough, is it?” He smirked.
