I run until I come to a cemetery. I don’t know if it’s in poor taste to jog through a cemetery, but maybe pondering mortality and being among the wisdom of the passed-on will give me a nice little reprieve.
I’m feeling very irritated at all the dead people and how unhelpful they are when finally, I see something that does pull me from the whirlpool in my brain. Seated on a blanket in front of a small gravestone, with a book in his hand and a leather weekender bag by his side, is Lesley.
He sets his book down in surprise as I make my way toward him.
“Well, fancy seeing you here,” he says.
“Just out for a little jog,” I say, wheezing.
Lesley raises his eyebrows. “All the way out here? We’re at least ten miles from the house.”
Jesus. Ten miles?
“I just … needed to clear my head a little.”
He scoots over and pats the blanket next to him, and I collapse onto it.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him.
He thumbs through his book. “I always used to read to my sister. Never saw a reason to stop. Oh, sorry—” He lowers the book, gesturing back and forth from me to the tombstone. “Roxie, Agnes. Agnes, Roxie.”
“Nice to … meet you,” I say awkwardly to the stone.
“She can’t hear you,” he says, licking a fingertip to turn a page. “She’s dead.”
He begins to read aloud, a chapter from a cozy mystery about a Welsh schoolteacher turned detective. Initially it feels like I’m intruding on something sacred. But as Lesley continues telling the story, doing the voices and everything, I feel honored to witness this little ritual.
Eventually, he comes to the cliffhanger at chapter’s end and tucks a worn bookmark between the pages. “To be continued,” he says toward Agnes’s stone, giving it a pat.
Her grave marker is small and unassuming, bearing only the wordsIN LOVING MEMORY OF AGNES MARY BURNS—MAY 6, 1952–OCTOBER 23,1960. She was only eight. Most of the stones around us have fallen into illegible disrepair, dappled with moss and mildew, but Agnes’s is clean and well kept.
Lesley’s been a vivid presence since we met, but this moment adds some shading to my image of him. In his flurry of coming and going, his workshops and clue-hunting and any incognito street art sessions he may or may not have undertaken, I wonder how often he’s quietly slipped away to read to Agnes.
“She’d have been a proper investigator one day,” Lesley says, pulling me from my thoughts. “We solved mysteries as kids, you know. Who ate the last biscuit, who broke the window, that sortof thing. We called ourselves Detective Higgins and Detective Wiggins. I’d eventually get bored and arrest our dog for the crime, but Aggie was relentless. She’d go stomping down the road, questioning every last neighbor. She once interrogated the postman until he cried.” He chuckles at the memory. “I could never figure out how such a small person could hold such a big spark. Lissa reminds me of her in that way.”
“What happened?” I ask quietly, hoping I’m not crossing a line.
He brushes some dirt from Agnes’s stone. “Cancer,” he says. “Cruelest killer I ever met. No mercy. Not even a motive.” He sighs. “Me, I grew up and made loads of money and got bored living the dream. So I figured I may as well try to live hers for her.”
I feel an ache as it sinks in, what Lesley really wants from this crime-solving business. Not revenge or glory; just closeness with someone he loved and lost. He doesn’t want to close the book on their childhood and the life she should have led, no matter how many years it’s been. He may be a bit bumbling as detectives go, but I can’t help but feel Agnes would be proud all the same.
It occurs to me then that Agnes never actually existed. That even Lesley, sitting in front of me with a book cradled in his sunspotted hands, the soft crinkles of his eyes peeking out from behind his glasses, doesn’t exist. Not really. And I hate that thought, so I dismiss it. What is reality, anyway? Lesley and I might not occupy the same one—but for now, I’m glad to be living in his.
While we’re sharing, I hazard another question: “What’s the deal with Wally?”
Lesley scrunches his nose with distaste. “He’d like to forget that we were a team once. Like partners, except that one of us was a copper and the other would never dream of being so dull.It was all very hush-hush, of course. I’m not always strictly aboveboard with my operations.”
“You don’t say.”
He chuckles. “My methods were all very well and good when they benefited him. Then there’s a little hiccup in pursuit of a suspect, and all of a sudden I’m aliabilityand animpediment to justice.” He rolls his eyes. “Honestly, you crashonepolice car. It isn’t like they don’t have more.”
He dismisses the memory with the wave of a hand. “Anyway, it was for the best. I went my own way, hired Lissa, and here we are. Turns out, I’m better off without Wally slowing me down. Take the Facebook group, for instance: I found it after some idiot killer dropped his phone at the crime scene. You call it tampering with evidence; I call it the motherlode. If Wally had found it, it’d be wrapped up in plastic and red tape, left to fester in police storage.”
He clicks his tongue, shaking his head at the pity of it all. “I guarantee, if you and Grant hadn’t tipped him off, he’d never have gotten the Takeawayer. He’d just be going in his usual circles, catching no one and threatening to arrest me for interference.”
“Why doesn’t he?” I ask. “It seems like he has grounds, no offense.”
He scoffs. “Please. He owes me too much. And he’d never risk revealing the secret behind his former success. Now he’d rather fail alone than succeed with my help. It’s like he doesn’t evenwantthe crimes solved.”
