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Lockwood had offered her a key to Portland Row a dozen times, but she’d always turned him down, preferring to use the spare he kept under a ceramic frog in the back garden. She liked the option of using it when she felt like it.
But she stopped in her tracks as soon as she let herself into the kitchen. The counters were scrubbed clean, the lights dimmed. The Thinking Cloth was nearly pristine, dotted here and there with sparse text.
“Something’s not right here,” she mumbled under her breath.
She crept quietly through the kitchen, her muddy wellies silent, and peeked around the corner. “Where’re you headed?” she asked.
George jumped, nearly dropping his rapier as he tried to buckle his belt. “For Christ’s sake, Flo!” he said. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
She grinned, shrugging one shoulder. “I think that’s on you, Georgie.” He huffed in frustration as he yanked his belt into place. “Heading off to a job?”
“Fourth one this week,” he grunted. “Activity’s been more intense in the past month than we’ve seen in ages. I heard they’re starting to call it the Black Winter.”
“It’s a colder winter than usual this year for sure,” she said, leaning against the doorframe and crossing her arms over her chest. “Thought I’d pop by and invite myself to dinner, if you don’t mind.”
“Course not. There’s leftover bolognese in the fridge, knock yourself out.”
Holly trotted down the stairs as she buttoned her coat. “I think he’ll be all right, but he’s in an awful mood,” she sighed. “If he could just sleep it would- oh! Flo, I didn’t know you were here.”
“Let myself in,” Flo said. She frowned, squinting up the dark staircase behind Holly. “You’re leaving Lockwood behind tonight?”
“He’s…a bit under the weather,” Holly said. “We agreed it’d be best if he stayed home.”
Flo snorted. “I’m sure he took that well,” she said. “Guess Lucy’s staying home to play nursemaid. Figures.”
George and Holly exchanged a look, their expressions falling, and Flo straightened up. “What? What’s going on?”
Holly looked down at the toes of her polished boots. “Lucy left, Flo,” George said.
“Left? Like…left to visit her sister again-“
“As in, announced at dinner she was quitting and then moved out in the middle of the night,” George said bitterly. “Without so much as a goodbye.”
“George, I’m sure she-“ Holly started to say.
He rounded on her. “No, Holly, we’ve already had this discussion a dozen times already, and there’s no possible good reason for her to fucking vanish like that,” he said. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been after the Aickmere’s case and she left us all in the lurch!”
Flo tilted her head. “Don’t tell me that’s all you’re pissed about,” she said. “That she’s not here to work.”
George reddened. “She…I thought we mattered to her,” he said. “She mattered to us! Did that not count for anything?” He kicked at his kit bag. “She didn’t even leave a note. Not for any of us.”
“How’s Locky taking it?” Flo asked.
“Poorly,” Holly admitted. “He won’t talk about her, but…we all know it’s all he can think about. He’s been working himself to the bone and worrying himself sick.”
Flo took off her hat and dropped on an end table, untangling a lock of hair from her collar. “I’ll keep an eye on him while you’re gone,” she said. “I know how he can be when he’s worked up.”
Holly sighed deeply. “Thank you so much, Flo,” she said. “I was starting to think one of us ought to stay, but we couldn’t reschedule-“
“Don’t worry, I can handle him,” Flo said. “Run along, you two. I’m sure you’re already running behind.”
Right on cue, a distant honk echoed from the curb. “That’s our night cab,” Holly said, gathering up her things. “Come on, George.”
He hefted his kit bag onto his shoulder. “Don’t get him worked up, Flo,” he said. “Not right now. He’s worked up enough as it is.”
“I’ve known him longer than you, I think I can manage Anthony Lockwood,” she retorted. She playfully cuffed him on the shoulder. “Go on, Georgie. I’ve got this handled.”
It all clicked now- the Thinking Cloth bare without Lucy’s drawings and badly misspelled notes, her blue mug with the chip missing from the sink, her coat and boots and rapier gone. The quiet heaviness in the house made sense.
Flo kicked off her wellies and busied herself with making tea, then carried the mug in both hands up the stairs. “Lockwood?” she called as she peeked into his room. The bedcovers were rumpled, the curtains drawn, but he wasn’t there. She blew out a long exasperated sigh. “He’s moping, isn’t he?”
Sure enough, when she climbed the stairs to the attic she found him sitting on the window ledge, one long leg folded to his chest as he stared out the window. “How did I know I’d find you up here?” she said.
Lockwood barely glanced at her. “Hi, Flo.”
“I heard you’re skipping out on the job tonight.”
He scoffed. “Being grounded like a child is more like it.”
His voice sounded thick and raspy with congestion; even in the waning early evening light she could see how flushed his face was. “Made you some tea,” she said, holding out the mug like a peace offering.
“Thanks,” he said, but he made no move to take it.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, fuck me, I guess.” He didn’t look away from the window. “Come on, Locky. Stop sulking and take the damn tea.”
Reluctantly he reached for the mug but he didn’t take a sip. At closer range she could see the dark circles under his eyes and the sallow pallor of his skin. “Hungry?” she asked. “George said something about leftover bolognese.”
He said nothing, folding his hands around the mug as he balanced it on his thigh and resumed leaning back against the window frame. Flo took a step back and glanced around the attic. “Well,” she remarked. “She cleaned everything out in a hurry, didn’t she?”
That got his attention. “They told you?” he said, straightening up.
“Yeah, they did.”
Lockwood’s shoulders sagged. “She told us she was quitting but I didn’t believe her,” he said. “I thought…I thought maybe she was just stressed about the last case. She just needed some time. But the next morning…”
He trailed off, pressing his lips together tight. “She’s allowed to make her own decisions, Locky,” Flo said.
“She didn’t even say goodbye.” He coughed into the back of his wrist. “She didn’t-“
He coughed harder, his shoulders bowing. Flo took the mug before he could drop it. “She’s…she’s living in a shitty little flat in Tooting,” he said when he could catch his breath. “Just her and that…that stupid skull. She’s doing freelance work.”
“She’s a smart girl, she can make it on her own,” Flo said.
“I don’t want her to make it on her own, I want her home,” Lockwood said desperately. He knuckled his eyes. “If I can find a case big enough…that I can justify hiring her for it…that she would say yes to…maybe I can convince her to…to come back.”
“You can’t talk her into anything she doesn’t want to do,” Flo said softly.
He drooped against the window and it reminded her of when he was younger and smaller, when he’d just moved back to live at Portland Row alone and he begged her to stay with him. In so many ways he’d grown so much since he was that skinny little kid, and in so many ways he hadn’t.
“I’d die for her, you know,” he said, half to himself and half to his reflection.
“Or you could live for her instead, she might prefer that,” Flo said.
“That won’t make her change her mind and come home,” he said softly. “She left. She left like…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but she knew. She reached out tentatively to touch the back of her hand against his cheek, then the side of his neck. “You’re burning up,” she said. “You’re going to catch your death if you stay by that window.”
His pulse fluttered too fast against her knuckles. “Everyone leaves,” he said dreamily. “I should have known. I should’ve seen it coming.”
Flo set the mug of tea down on Lucy’s abandoned nightstand. “You’re not thinking straight, Locky,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get you away from the window.”
She tucked her hand around his elbow and tugged. He allowed her to pull him away, his long legs unfolding. “What did I do?” he mumbled. “Flo, why’d…why’d she leave? Why won’t she come back?”
She guided him away from the window, away from Lucy’s empty bed. “I don’t know,” she said. “Whatever’s going on in her head, she’s got to figure it out for herself.”
Another cough seized in his lungs and she paused on the stairs, holding him upright until the fit passed. “I’ll do anything,” he said, his eyes fever bright. “To get her back. Anything.”
“I know you will, you reckless boy,” she said. “Right now you’ve got to get some rest or you’ll never get the chance.”
She pulled the rumpled covers back on his bed and he crawled into it, still fully dressed. “Do you think…she thinks about me?” he asked.
Flo busied herself with prying his tie off his neck. “I’ve seen the way that girl looks at you,” she said. “I’m sure she’s worrying herself sick about you the way you are about her.”
Lockwood sagged against the pillows, his eyes drifting shut. “Flo,” he mumbled. “Stay?”
“Just for now,” she said. “Till George and Holly come back.”
His eyes closed, and by the time she settled in the armchair in the corner he was asleep, snoring lightly. Flo leaned her cheek in her hand. “Lucy Carlyle,” she said to herself. “I hope you have a pretty good fucking reason to walk out of here without looking back.”