“I think it’s beyond that. It’s not a bad murder mystery, but the script itself feels dead.”
Rob paused, tapping a finger against his knee, thinking. “The internal conflict could be sharpened. We could tighten thepacing.” He paused, seeing she was unconvinced. “Or…go bigger, restructure it completely.”
“Ooh, yes, we could put the ending first. Make it a how-dunit instead of a whodunit.”
He raised both eyebrows and smiled. “That’s brilliant.”
“I might suggest it to McKenzie, he could talk to the writer,” she said, then hesitated a moment. “Can I send you some of my old scripts? Projects I’ve abandoned halfway through. Maybe you can help me figure out where I lost the thread.”
“It would be my pleasure,” said Rob, looking thrilled at the prospect of being given a task. “We make a good team, don’t we?”
They were. This was yet another thing Rob was helping her with. Chloe had always worked things out by talking; it was why she struggled to work alone. Maybe she didn’t need Sean to get her writing again. Maybe she just needed a sounding board, someone she trusted. Maybe all she needed was a Rob.
After an afternoon spent reading and writing, plotting and planning, it was soon time to change for formal hall. Rob had packed a dinner jacket, sleek, tailored, and devastatingly effective. He looked like James Bond in his Adonis era. Chloe wore a black dress she’d had for years. It was simple, it was elegant, and it fit her perfectly. When she wore it, she felt imbued with an old confidence. This was the dress she’d worn to her graduation, the dress she’d worn in Tuscany with Kiko when they’d been chatted up by two hot Italians. Good things happened when she wore this dress.
Formal hall was held in Lincoln’s dining room, a space straight out of a historical novel, with dark portraits hung on the walls, long oak trestle tables, flickering candlelight, and the soft gleam of silverware. The three-course meal was silver service, with all the familiar pomp and ceremony that the hallcommanded. Chloe scanned the seating plan, pinned at the entrance. “Gaudy Dinner,” the formal term for an Oxford reunion, had been written out in sweeping calligraphy. The style tugged at something in her memory, then it hit her: it was the Imp’s handwriting. She reached out, tracing a fingertip lightly over the ink. A flicker of something stirred—territorial, almost possessive, as if these letters belonged to her.
“There we are,” said Rob, pointing to their names, as though her hesitation were down to not being able to find them. He tapped her name, between Sean and Mark on the first table, with Rob directly opposite. Her throat tightened as she scanned the list for John’s name, and found it at the far end of the second trestle table. Nowhere near her.
“Shall we go in?” Rob asked, and she nodded, linking her arm in his.
Walking into the dining room, she instantly spotted John, flanked by Freya and Salma, already deep in conversation. For a moment, she watched him laugh at something Salma had said, gesturing with his hand midair, animated and at ease. She forced her attention back to the table in front of her, walking along to where Mark and Sean were already seated.
“Did you know ‘gaudy’ comes from the Latin ‘gaudium,’ meaning ‘joy’?” Mark said, as she sat down beside him.
“I didn’t,” she said.
Mark looked sharp in his black dinner jacket, his bow tie as symmetrical as his neatly parted hair. She noticed he was wearing silver double-helix cuff links, which made her smile.
“Wasn’t it fromAntony and Cleopatra? ‘Let’s have one other gaudy night,’ ” Sean said, joining their conversation. He was in the same uniform as every other man in the room, though his bow tie sat a fraction looser than Mark’s, more statement thanoversight, and his shirt collar was slightly rumpled, like he’d changed in a rush or simply didn’t care. “How many words do you think Shakespeare added to the dictionary?”
“One thousand seven hundred,” said Rob, taking the seat opposite, and everyone within earshot at the table turned to look at him.
“Rob’s got a knack for fact retention,” Chloe said with a nervous laugh.
“Good man to have on a pub quiz team, then,” said Mark.
“Or a rounders team,” said Sean, nudging Chloe.
A bell rang, the proctor said grace in Latin, and then the servers came in with the starters, a salmon mousse with homemade crackers and watercress. Chloe felt transported back in time by the echoey sound of the hall, the clinking of cutlery and crystal glasses, the Lincoln-embossed crockery that only came out for special occasions. A decade had passed, and everything in this room was just the same.
As people started to eat, they settled into one-on-one conversations, Rob talking to Elaine, Chloe to Sean.
“So, I finally unmasked the Imp,” she told Sean. He did a double take, assessing her face to check she wasn’t bluffing. “John.”
He raised his hands and gave a slow clap. “Well done, Miss Marple. You’re the only two people I know who think treasure hunts are an acceptable pursuit past the age of ten.”
“Excuse me, wasn’tProbe and Prejudicebasically one long treasure hunt?”
“Yes, to save the universe, not find a chocolate rabbit,” he said, laughing.
“Well, respectfully, I disagree. I won’t stand for your anti-treasure-hunt propaganda,” she said, then after a beat she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me it was John, back then?” Sean shrugged,glancing away, a new tension in his smile. There was a flash of something else in his eyes. Guilt?
“He never talked about it. Maybe it was awkward, he knew I liked you too.” Sean fiddled with his knife, moving it around on the table like a clock hand. “I remember asking him for ideas for your birthday once, and he was like, ‘Oh, take her to Old Boars Hill, she loves wildflowers, and the bluebells are out now.’ Or ‘She’s obsessed withBrideshead, so take her on a road trip to Castle Howard.’ ” Sean wrinkled his nose. “That’s when I knew. I was like, ‘Mate, I was thinking of getting her a book or a decent bottle of wine.’ ”
A new warmth settled in Chloe’s chest as she thought of John making these suggestions.
“I warned him off you,” Sean said quietly. “I knew you didn’t see him that way, I didn’t want him to embarrass himself. I’d already embarrassed myself enough for the both of us.”
