Archive of Our Own

It was starting to rain as Hazel turned the corner onto her street, and she clutched her coat tighter around her and cursed herself for forgetting her umbrella. She’d thought she’d be fine to nip around to the shops for ten minutes, but she was once again foiled by the English weather. Even after ten years, it still got her sometimes.

Hazel ducked inside her front door and took off her coat, hanging it up in the closet just inside the doorway. Her eyes went immediately to the pair of shoes sitting at the foot of the stairs; brown boots, slightly worn, but not in the way that all of Daisy’s incredibly expensive, incredibly good quality leather shoes were. Probably only a few months old, Hazel thought. Who they belonged to, though, she had no idea.

Kicking off her own shoes and readjusting her bags, she made her way up the stairs, pondering the identity of Daisy’s guest. A new case perhaps?

She rounded the top of the stairs and stopped dead.

Daisy was standing over by the window, one arm around the waist of an unfamiliar girl, and they were kissing. Fairly enthusiastically, too, if the noises the other girl was making were anything to go by. Hazel felt like she should leave, or clear her throat, or something, but she couldn’t move.

Just when the shock had started to fade and she was beginning to feel like a voyeur, Daisy broke the kiss and, catching sight of her, said,

“Oh, Hazel!”

The girl she had been kissing turned around, which did nothing to enlighten Hazel as to her identity. She looked fashionable, but effortlessly so, like she had just happened to put on exactly the right combination of clothes to make her look perfectly on trend. Her hair was dark and shiny, and she was, Hazel had to admit, very pretty. She had a small nose ring, and if pressed, Hazel would guess she was a friend of Daisy’s from the drama club.

Daisy was flushed prettily, her hair mussed and her lips pink, and she wasn’t meeting Hazel’s eyes.

“Um,” Hazel said ineloquently. “Sorry, I’ll just...” She hurried through the sitting room and into her own bedroom, closing the door behind her. She felt embarrassed, and hot all over, partly from what she’d seen and partly at her own reaction. But she had known Daisy for three years, and been her best friend for most of those years, and she had never seen Daisy demonstrate the slightest bit of romantic interest in anyone.

She sighed and dropped her bag on the floor, sitting on her bed and pulling out her phone. She scrolled through her messages, not sure who she wanted to talk to, or what she even wanted to say. She heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs (two sets), and of the front door closing.

She pulled up Alexander’s thread.

Hazel (14:56) Daisy’s being weird.

Alexander’s speech bubble appeared almost instantly.

Alexander (14:57) Daisy’s weird a lot of the time

Hazel smiled.

Hazel (14:58) She’s not weird, she’s just...Daisy.

Alexander (14:58) ok, ok no need to be defensive, I was just saying.

Hazel (15:00) she’s being weird for Daisy

Alexander (15:01) what did she do?

Hazel hesitated, unsure she wanted to say anything specific.

Hazel (15:04) nothing specific, just general weirdness

Alexander (15:05)

Hazel (15:05)

She tossed her phone onto her bed and frowned at it. She really just ought to ask Daisy about her...friend, whenever she came home. Daisy, however much she loved discovering the secrets of others, didn't usually keep her own from Hazel.

Hazel flopped backwards and stared at the ceiling. She had an essay to write, and a problem set to do for her macroeconomics class, but she couldn’t bring herself to do either of them. She was too...distracted. She snatched her phone up again.

Feeling slightly guilty, she pulled up Facebook and scrolled through Daisy’s profile. It was a carefully-curated masterpiece; a perfect mixture of sunny, smiling photos of Daisy and messages from her friends and pictures of Daisy in plays and playing sports. There was no hint of the Daisy that Hazel had seen touch a dead body without a second thought, or that had dragged Hazel out of windows in the dead of winter to climb three stories up to spy on a suspect.

Scrolling through some of the pictures from the drama club’s last performance almost immediately showed Hazel a picture of Daisy and the girl, along with six or seven other classmates. Hazel’s guilt suddenly overwhelmed her; Daisy would forge ahead without blinking, but Hazel closed the app. She would just ask Daisy about it like a normal person when she came home.

She hauled herself up and moved over to her desk, determined to get some work done. It took a while, but Hazel was nothing if not determined, and she eventually fell into the rhythm of work.

Daisy wasn’t gone long, and when she got back she bounced into Hazel’s room and flopped down on her bed.

“I’m bored,” she said with a sigh.

Hazel ignored her, determined to finish the paragraph. Once Daisy had her attention, it was hard to drag it back to more mundane things.

“Hazel,” Daisy said, sing-song, but Hazel determinedly powered through until she wrapped up her thought. Then she turned to face Daisy, who was sprawled out on Hazel’s bed like it belonged to her.

“Your friend didn’t have to leave on my account,” she said, watching closely to see how Daisy would react.

Except all Daisy did was shrug one shoulder.

“I’m bored,” she said again.

So apparently this was going to be something they didn’t talk about.

“What do you want to do?” Hazel asked, instead of pressing the issue.

Daisy shrugged again. Hazel sighed. A bored Daisy was generally not good news for Hazel.

“Do you want to go back to the Sherlock Holmes museum?” she asked. “I’ll even let you complain about the inaccurate trouser lengths and tacky gift shop.”

Daisy sat up, eyes shining.

“Really?” she asked. Hazel laughed and closed her laptop.

“Really,” she said. “Get your wig and let’s go.”

Two years ago Daisy had been banned from the museum for an enormous row with the manager and a grinning photo of her now adorned their wall of shame. Disguises were therefore necessary whenever they went back.

Hazel suspected this was 90% of the reason Daisy always wanted to.

Hazel was having a pleasant, if slightly odd dream about an endless room of strawberry tarts, which the patissier promised her would each taste better than the last, when she became aware of a weird pressure on her feet. She looked down, but there was nothing to be seen. When she tried to move, though, her feet wouldn’t, and she was just starting to panic when her eyes blinked open.

Daisy was sitting on her feet.

“Get up, Hazel,” she said insistently, throwing a T-shirt at Hazel’s face. Hazel was still half-asleep and couldn’t react in time to stop it hitting her in the face. “We have a new case!”

“Wha—?” Hazel said, sitting up. This wasn’t the first time she’d been unceremoniously awoken by Daisy.

“Case,” Daisy said impatiently. She leapt up and started rummaging through Hazel’s wardrobe and pulling out, Hazel noted, her favourite pair of jeans and a jumper. Hazel swung her legs out of bed and stood up, stretching. Daisy thrust the clothes into her hand and stared at her. Hazel stared back, hesitating a little longer than she usually would have, but before she could say anything Daisy rolled her eyes and left the room.

Hazel sighed and started getting dressed.

“What’s the case?” Hazel asked, once they were outside the flat and walking briskly down the street. It was chilly, but not unbearably cold, but Hazel pulled her jacket a little tighter around herself. She hated English winters, possibly even more than she had when she first lived here. At least the cold was a novelty then.

“Someone has been stealing things from people in one of the residence halls,” Daisy said. She had on a jaunty plum hat that went perfectly with her camel coat, and her blonde hair was curling perfectly under it. Daisy was, Hazel often felt, unfairly perfect. “Laptops, phones, that kind of thing, all taken from rooms on the same corridor. It’s not the most exciting case, but things have been so horribly quiet lately,” Daisy added with a frown, as though the criminal element of London had personally disappointed her.

“How do you know about it?” Hazel asked, shoving her hands into her pockets, and thinking mournfully of the tea she hadn’t had time to drink this morning.

“I know a girl who lives there, she’s an old friend of the family,” Daisy said. “She called me and asked me to look into it.”

“Why hasn’t it been reported to the police?” Hazel asked, following Daisy across the street.

“The police aren’t going to care about some petty theft in a university residence hall,” said Daisy. She pulled out her phone and started typing. “Besides, it’s only a few things, it could easily just be people losing stuff.”

She abruptly turned right and, grabbing Hazel’s arm, pulled her into a shop. Hazel looked up and blinked. It was a cafe.

“You’ll be useless to me if you’re only thinking about how cold you are,” Daisy said, stepping into the line. It was only three people long, but she already looked impatient. “While I doubt this case will need both our brain power, it’s more fun when you can pay attention.”

Hazel rolled her eyes, but couldn’t entirely hide her smile. Five minutes later Daisy shoved an almost too-hot cup of coffee into her hands (“Peppermint mocha, because I know you love it even if you pretend not to.”) and lead her back out into the cold.

Kate met them outside the house and let them in, leading them up to her room.

“It’s only this corridor that’s had stuff go missing, I think,” she said. “It’s almost entirely singles, with two twin shares at the end of the hall.”

She let them into her room, and gestured for them to sit wherever. There was not a lot of choice. Hazel took the desk chair, and Daisy stood, looking around the room curiously. It was messy but, if Hazel was any judge, expensively furnished. The shoes kicked around the room were all designer, and there was a brand new laptop sitting on the desk. A lacrosse stick was lying next to it, along with a muddy pair of shoes.

Well, Daisy had said old family friend. Daisy’s family friends tended towards the wealthy and aristocratic.

“...Hazel?”

Hazel blinked and looked up at Daisy. “Yes?”

Daisy huffed impatiently.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you today. Are you paying attention at all?”

“Sorry,” Hazel said automatically, turning to Kate, who looked slightly amused. Hazel disliked that look, instinctively.

“I was just saying, so far it’s me and four others who’ve had things go missing, at least that I know of. I wrote up a list—” she gestured at the piece of paper in Daisy’s hand, “—and I have a list of the people I know on this corridor, but it’s not complete.”

“That’s fine,” Daisy said, “I know a woman who works here and she owes me a favour, we can get a complete list from her if we need to.”

“It could be anyone in the building,” Hazel said, trying to focus on the case. “You only need a keycard to get in, once you’re inside you have access to the whole place.”

“True, but the fact that no one has seen anything unusual suggests that it’s someone who wouldn’t look out of place in this corridor,” Hazel argued. “Besides, if we eliminate everyone on this corridor, we can always turn our attention to the rest of the building.”

“Okay,” Hazel said, even though she found Daisy’s logic somewhat lacking. She wasn’t in the mood to argue.

“Excellent,” Daisy said. “Let’s go.”

“What was stolen from Kate’s room, again?” Hazel asked, trying to get her bearings.

“Laptop,” Daisy said. Hazel frowned.

“But she had a laptop on her desk.”

“It was brand new, the charger next to it still had the acetate sticker on it, and the box was in the corner,” Daisy said. She peered at Hazel. “You’re off your game today,” she said.

Hazel couldn’t deny it.

“You go down to the office and see if you can get the list of tenants,” Daisy said bossily, getting back to business. “And I’ll—”

Hazel’s phone beeped and she fished it out, losing the thread of what Daisy was saying. It was Alexander.

Alexander (09:55) Daisy still being weird?

Hazel sighed.

Hazel (09:55) not really?

And she wasn’t. Daisy was acting like nothing out of the ordinary had happened yesterday. Hazel had started to wonder if she had imagined the whole thing. Daisy, for all her charm and bluster, was not good at hiding things from Hazel. But there was no sign of anything strange in her demeanour today at all.

“Hazel, will you stop texting Alexander and pay attention?” Daisy complained. How she’d known it was Alexander, Hazel didn’t even want to know. She put her phone back in her pocket.

“Lead on,” she said.

Daisy smiled, and grabbed her hand, hauling Hazel forward down the hall. Her hands were warm and soft, which wasn’t something Hazel could remember noticing before. She shook the thought out of her head and focused on the case at hand.

“Change of plan,” said Daisy. “Let’s start with the interviews. Then I’ll go down and get the list and we can work from there.”

Kate’s list had the names and room numbers of the thief’s victims, but as they made their way along the corridor, knocking, they didn’t have success.

“Everyone must be in classes,” Daisy said, disappointed. She tried knocking on room 109 again, as if the occupant would somehow have missed it the first time.

The door to room 111 swung open instead and a head peeked out.

“Hi!” Daisy said immediately, all charm. “Sorry to bother you, do you have a minute?”

The girl looked at her curiously but nodded, opening her door a little wider.

A quick peek at the list of tenants in Hazel’s hand revealed that this girl wasn’t someone Kate had included. And one look at Anna and a glance at her room was enough evidence for why Kate didn’t know her. Her room was sparsely furnished, and she wasn’t at all the type of person Hazel suspected Kate had for a friend. She had curly brown hair and brown skin, and square glasses that made her look, in Hazel’s opinion, intimidatingly smart.

“I’m Daisy, this is Hazel,” Daisy said, stretching out her hand. The girl took it.

“Anna,” she offered in return.

“Have you heard anything about things going missing on this floor?” Daisy asked. “Phones, laptops, that kind of thing?”

Anna looked bemused.

“No,” she said. “I haven’t, sorry.”

“Nothing of yours has gone missing either?”

Anna shook her head. “No,” she said. “And I’d notice something like that,” she added with a small, self-deprecating laugh.

“Mike next door’s speakers were stolen!” A voice piped up from inside the door. Frowning, Anna pushed open the door to reveal an averagely-handsome looking guy sitting on her floor. He waved at them.

“I don’t live here, just a visitor,” he said, shooting a look at Anna that Hazel could immediately interpret. “But Mike was complaining extremely loudly on the phone last night, and these walls aren’t the thickest. Anna sleeps like the dead, though, so I’m not surprised she didn’t hear anything.”

“Okay,” said Anna slowly. “Who else has reported things missing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, only Kate that I know of, she just mentioned it to me and I thought I’d see if anyone else was having trouble,” Daisy said, shrugging. Anna, to Hazel’s surprise, rolled her eyes.

“Room 104?” Hazel asked. “You know her?”

“Who doesn’t,” Anna replied. “Sorry I can’t really help you out.” She was clearly ready for the conversation to be over.

“If you think of anything, can you message me?” Daisy asked, and handed her a piece of paper. “Here’s my number.”

Anna nodded and shut the door.

“Do you suspect her?” Hazel asked as they made their way downstairs.

“We can’t rule her out,” Daisy said. “But she didn’t seem the sort to do it, did she?”

Hazel agreed.

Getting the full list of residents was easier than it should have been, especially since Daisy had decided Hazel was too distracted to be left on her own and had charmed the list out of the receptionist with disturbing ease.

Daisy circled all the names that had had things stolen, then put the end of the pen in her mouth.

“No immediate connection,” she mused. “Maybe it’s in the layout? Or maybe there’s a pattern in the items themselves.”

She was tapping the pen against her lips and Hazel suddenly found herself thinking she was kissing someone with those lips less than 24 hours ago.

“I have to go to class,” Hazel blurted out.

Daisy tsked but waved her away.

“Go, if you must,” she said. “I’ll get started on this and see you tonight.”

Daisy only went to half her classes, but Hazel knew for a fact that she was going to graduate with a first. Not that Daisy seemed to care a whit; she knew what she wanted to do with her life and a history degree wasn’t going to do her much good, first or no.

Hazel sometimes envied the absolute certainty Daisy lived her life with. Hazel never felt half so sure of anything, it felt like.

Hazel sat in the back of her game theory lecture and doodled. It was usually her favourite module, the only one out of all her third year economics modules that she actually truly enjoyed, but today she was entirely distracted. About halfway through, she felt someone drop into the seat next to her, and she looked up, startled, and met Alexander’s eyes. He was grinning.

Hazel sometimes still got a small flutter in her stomach when she looked at him, even though she knew her feelings for him were entirely in the past. It was merely a hard habit to break; he was rather good-looking, after all.

“You’ve been ignoring my texts so I thought I’d make it impossible to ignore me,” he whispered.

“Shh,” she whispered back. “I’m listening to the lecture.”

He gave a pointed look at her notebook, which was covered in black swirls. Hazel ignored him.

“Alright, but we’re having lunch after this,” Alexander said, pulling out a book and settling down to read.

Having him next to her actually helped her to concentrate and the last half of the lecture passed fairly quickly. Their favourite lunch spot was only a ten minute walk from the lecture hall, and they made idle conversation on the trip over.

“Okay,” said Alexander once they’d collected their sandwiches and drinks and found a table. “Spill it.”

He looked so curious, and he’d always been a good friend to her, so she might as well just tell him. He was sharp and observant, even if Daisy had never been willing to admit it, and had even helped them out on one of their cases (which Daisy was even less willing to admit).

“I came home yesterday,” she started, and she could already feel her cheeks flushing. “And there was a girl at our flat, with Daisy, and they were…” she waved her hand, not sure how to finish the sentence.

Alexander’s eyes widened, and Hazel could tell what he was thinking.

“No, not that,” she said quickly. “Just...kissing.”

His expression didn’t change.

“For Daisy just kissing is quite a lot,” he said. Hazel nodded frantically.

“Exactly!” she said. “She’s never… I’ve never seen her… Well, you know as well as I do that it’s just never been her thing,” she finished, almost pleadingly. Alexander hmmed, and Hazel looked back down at her plate.

“Anyway, she stopped when she saw me, and I went to my room, and she hasn’t brought it up since,” she finished. “It shouldn’t feel like a big deal, but it does.”

“She hasn’t said anything at all?” Alexander mused. “Has she been acting differently?”

“No,” Hazel said slowly, thinking back over the morning. “Not at all. She’s had that look on her face all day, you know the one, how she looks in the middle of a case?” Alexander nodded. “But then, we are on a new case, so I don’t think that means anything.”

Alexander’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, now you have to tell me about it!” he said eagerly, leaning forward. “Maybe the case has something to do with it?”

“I can’t see how,” Hazel said. “She only heard about the case this morning, and it’s not a very exciting one.”

“What’s the case?” he asked.

Hazel hesitated, and Alexander gave her an incredulous look.

“You know she doesn’t like me telling you about them!” Hazel protested. “Especially not before we’ve solved them.”

“Alright, keep your precious case secret,” he said. “Tell me about the girl, then who is she?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never even seen her before.”

Alexander fixed her with a stare. “Hazel Wong, I know you are not a detective for nothing. You can’t tell me you haven’t done a little investigating.”

Hazel blushed again.

“I knew it!” Alexander said.

“I looked around a bit on Facebook,” she admits. “I found a picture, but I felt guilty, like I was violating her privacy, so I stopped.”

Alexander pulled out his own phone and starting tapping. “But you clearly have no such reservations,” Hazel said drily.

“Please,” Alexander said, and he suddenly sounded very American. “As if Daisy would hesitate for a second if the situation were reversed. After I met you, I know for a fact that she looked up every single thing she could find on me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she asked that uncle of hers for information about me.”

Hazel couldn’t respond, because he was perfectly correct. Daisy had not been fond of Alexander when they had first met, and liked him even less when she discovered Hazel’s feelings for him.

Alexander handed her his phone and, sighing, Hazel found the photo for him and handed it back.

“Pretty,” he said, zooming in on the mystery girl’s face. “She’s not tagged in the photo, but she might be in another one.” He navigated back to the album and started flicking through the photos. Hazel wanted to protest, but she was burning with curiosity herself.

“Hmm…there we go,” Alexander said. “Natalie Wilson.” He put his phone on the table facing towards Hazel, who leaned in. “Her profile’s pretty locked down, but she’s clearly from Daisy’s drama club. Second year, studying maths. No other mutual friends with me, which is strange.” It was. Alexander knew more people than Hazel could really understand.

Hazel studied the profile. There really wasn’t much to it. Her profile picture was simple, just Natalie in a summer dress, her head thrown back in a laugh. She really was very pretty.

“You know, if she does drama with Daisy and is studying maths, it wouldn’t be too hard to find her,” Alexander mused. Hazel glared at him.

“I’m not stalking this girl more than we already have,” she said, pushing the phone back towards him. “As far as I know it was a one-time thing, and if it’s not, I’m sure Daisy will tell me about her.” She bit her lip. It did hurt, the thought of Daisy keeping secrets from her. They were best friends. Daisy only kept secrets when she thought it would help one of their cases, and even then Hazel could usually suss it out with a minimum of effort.

“I’m sure she will,” Alexander agreed, his expression softening. “Daisy thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

Hazel stared glumly at her coffee.

“It wouldn’t hurt to just...look her up,” Alexander said. “It’s not stalking it’s just satisfying curiosity. I promise it won’t be weird.”

“It will definitely be weird,” Hazel replied, but she did really want to at least see this girl again, so she couldn’t find it in her to protest.

“Do you have class this afternoon?” Alexander asked, already typing away at his phone.

“No, only about a hundred things to do.”

Alexander looked up and grinned, and Hazel remembered why she liked him so much in the first place.

“Perfect,” he said.

In the end, tracking Natalie down was fairly easy. Hazel suggested Alexander ask Elena, his good friend who was in the drama club with Daisy, if she knew Natalie, and subtly tease out any extra information on her. Elena had been extremely forthcoming with information, even accepting the flimsy premise that Alexander had met her once at a party and lost her number. She’d volunteered the phone number and the information that Natalie attended a seminar in the mathematics building every week on Friday afternoon, if Alexander wanted to catch her there and ask her out like that.

Which was how Hazel and Alexander came to be sitting in the back of a medium sized lecture hall full of fourth year and graduate students, trying to look like they fit in.

“This is creepy,” Hazel whispered to Alexander, although she didn’t take her eyes of Natalie. Natalie was studiously taking notes, paying no attention to her friend who kept nudging her and leaning over to whisper things to her.

“Only a bit,” Alexander whispered back. “You and Daisy have done worse, I know it.”

“In the pursuit of a criminal, not…” Hazel gestured between her and Natalie. “Idle curiosity.”

“She is pretty,” Alexander said, as if Hazel hadn’t said anything. Hazel sighs. Natalie was exactly as pretty as Hazel remembered her. “Smart, too, if she’s doing honours mathematics.”

His phone buzzed and he looked down at it and sighed.

“I have to go,” he said.

“What?” Hazel hissed at him. The boy sitting in front of her turned and frowned at her and Hazel held up a hand apologetically.

“I have to go pick up George, he’s up in London for the weekend. We should all have drinks, yeah? I’ll text you.”

Which left Hazel alone with no one to assuage her guilt for following this poor girl. She debated leaving, but it seemed like a waste after the effort she and Alexander had gone through to track her down. She would just sit until the end of the lecture, and then maybe...what? Follow Natalie to her next class? Talk to her?

Natalie saved her the trouble. She caught sight of Hazel as they both stood to leave at the end of the seminar, and after a moment’s hesitation, waved cheerfully, and made her way over to Hazel.

“Hi, sorry, you’re Hazel Wong, right? Daisy’s friend,” she said, sticking out her hand for Hazel to shake.

“Um, yes,” Hazel said, feeling like an idiot.

“I thought so, we kind of met yesterday, right?”

“Kind of,” Hazel agreed cautiously.

“Sorry if it was kind of awkward,” Natalie said, laughing a little. “I’m Natalie, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you properly.”

“I didn’t know you were studying maths?” Natalie asked, as they made their way out of the lecture hall.

“I’m not,” Hazel said, casting around furiously for an excuse. “It’s—it’s—”

“Oh, cool, I get it, I won’t say anything,” Natalie said, looking around. “Daisy mentioned that the two of you are...consulting detectives? Are you on a case?”

“Yes,” Hazel said faintly. Daisy hated people knowing about their work, unless it was absolutely necessary. The idea of her volunteering the information to anyone was almost unthinkable.

“Great,” Natalie said. “Well, I don’t want to get in the way. Good luck!”

And she touched Hazel gently on the forearm and left her standing in the hallway, utterly perplexed.

Hazel pondered the encounter all the way home, unsure of what to make of it. Why had Daisy told her about the Detective Society? And why had Natalie been so accepting of Hazel’s totally flimsy excuse for being in her seminar? It was unsettling when a mystery was solved so easily, only to throw up another raft of questions.

She gets a message from Alexander just as she’s unlocking the front door.

Alexander (17:47) drinks, bunbreak, 8pm?

“Daisy?” she calls out as she enters.

“Here!” comes her voice from upstairs.

Daisy has a bunch of photographs spread out on the coffee table, and shuffling them around when Hazel walks in.

“Our suspects?” she asks, dropping her bag next to the sofa and sitting next to Daisy.

“Mmhmm,” Daisy says. “Arranged by room. The ones who’ve had something stolen have a sticky note next to their picture.”

Hazel studied the layout.

“Still no obvious pattern,” she said slowly. “Between the rooms or their owners.”

“No,” Hazel agreed. “It seems almost totally random.”

“I was thinking,” Hazel said, picking up the list of stolen items. “What’s the point? A new phone, sure, but this other stuff; a four year old laptop, a bunch of textbooks? It’s not stuff that’s easy to make money from. I bet you couldn’t even get a hundred pounds for that laptop.”

“True,” agreed Daisy, taking the list from Hazel. “It’s almost like someone’s taking this stuff to use rather than sell.”

“Nothing helpful from the interviews?”

“Only these three were in their rooms,” Daisy said, tapping the pictures of a brunette, posh-looking girl, and two almost indistinguishable white guys. “They’re brothers,” she added, when she saw Hazel squinting at the pictures. “Fred and Harry. They didn’t seem that bothered by the thefts, but Anna,” she tapped the picture of the brunette, “was very worked up about it. She said the halls had gotten a lot less safe in the last few years and that her father had decided she would no longer live there next year.”

“What was taken from her room?” Hazel asked.

“A three-year-old laptop,” Daisy replied. “Which is odd, because—”

Daisy’s phone beeped, interrupting her.

“George is in town for the weekend,” she said, sounding pleased. “He’s asking if we want to have drinks with him and Alexander tonight, at Bunbreak.”

“Yes, Alexander just texted me.” Hazel fished her own phone out of her bag.

“Of course he did,” Daisy said, frowning. She still exhibited a weird kind of jealousy over Alexander sometimes. “Shall we go?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t want to see George,” Hazel said. “I know you like him better than practically anyone else in the world.”

“Don’t be silly, Hazel,” Daisy said, scooping up all the pictures into the file and stuffing it into her bag. “You know I like you best of all.”

She said it without a trace of irony or humour, and Hazel’s heart glowed.

The warmth in Hazel’s chest lasted all the way up until they stepped out into the cold night air. Daisy had on her perfectly fitting Burberry trench coat and a beret that Hazel thought would look ridiculous on anyone else, but just looked charming on Daisy.

The bar was only a twenty minute walk away, but Daisy hadn’t even suggested they walk, hailing a taxi as soon as they stepped outside. Alexander and George were already there when they arrived, sitting at a corner table, and they all fell into conversation easily.

Hazel loved watching Daisy and George talk; George was the only person who could really get the better of Daisy in an argument, and rather than infuriating Daisy, which she might expect, it only seemed to intrigue her.

“Shall we get more drinks?” Alexander asked, nudging her as George and Daisy debated the validity of microscopic hair comparison as a forensic technique.

Hazel stood up and they made their way over to the bar. It was busy, but not crazy for a Friday night, and they only had to wait five minutes to be served.

“I talked to her,” Hazel blurted out. Alexander, to his credit, caught on immediately.

“After the seminar?”

Hazel nodded.

“She recognised me, and came over and said hello. It was so awkward.” Hazel buried her face in her hands.

“Aw, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Alexander said, patting her shoulder.

“She was perfectly nice, and I sounded like an idiot.”

“Did she say anything to you about,” Alexander’s eyes darted over to Daisy and then back, “the kissing?”

“Not really, only that she was afraid our first meeting was a bit awkward. She was so nice, Alexander.”

And really, Hazel didn’t know why that distressed her so much.

At that point, they were interrupted by the barman, and they collected their drinks and returned to the table.

“Took you long enough,” Daisy said, taking her [drink] from Hazel and taking a sip. “I was just telling George about our case, it’s not a very interesting one, is it?”

Of course Daisy would spill the beans to George, and still be annoyed if Hazel had done the same with Alexander.

“Not really,” Hazel agreed. “Nothing too big has been stolen, and it can really only be someone on that corridor so it’s a simple matter of elimination of suspects. Maybe a stakeout.”

“Oh, a stakeout, that is a good idea,” Daisy said, tucking her free hand through Hazel’s arm. “Might be faster to just try and catch the thief red-handed.”

“We could either set up a camera and watch from Kate’s room, or just wait in the cloakroom at the end of the hall,” Hazel suggested. “Might be a bit of a tight squeeze, though.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Daisy said, waving a hand dismissively.

George was watching them with a curious smile on his face, one that always made Hazel slightly uncomfortable. But he didn’t say anything unusual, only asked for more details, and Hazel sat back, letting Daisy talk.

Daisy was in full flight, talking and gesturing, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol. She was, contrary to what anyone who knew her well would expect, an utter lightweight. Daisy would be pleasantly buzzed after one drink and thoroughly tipsy after two. At one and a half currently, she wasn’t slurring yet, but she was extremely excitable, her eyes bright and her laugh easy. She was totally irresistible.

Before she realised her drink was empty, Daisy had sent Alexander back to the bar for more, and then stood up to follow him, clearly not believing he could get the order right.

“So, Hazel, how’ve you been?” George asked once they were alone together.

“Oh, much the same as always,” Hazel said. “Uni, cases, Daisy.”

George laughed. “As I suspected.” He shot a look at Daisy and Alexander at the bar, and then said quietly,

“So Alexander told me what happened with Daisy.”

“Oh my god,” Hazel said, burying her face in her hands. “Of course he did.”

“You know he’s terrible at keeping secrets from me,” George replied. “Don’t blame him too much.”

“I don’t,” Hazel said, sighing. “It’s just, it makes me feel like I’m making a big deal out of nothing.”

“Why does it bother you so much?” George asked curiously. Hazel flushed.

“It doesn’t bother me,” she said, and then paused. “It’s more that—I thought I knew Daisy. She’s my best friend, she’s terrible at hiding things from me. But here’s this whole big thing I got wrong about her and I just…” Hazel shrugged. “I want to understand.”

George gave her that look again, and Hazel frowned right back at me.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, “I only wonder whether you— ”

He never finished the sentence, as Alexander and Daisy returned from the bar at that moment. Daisy had a glass of what smelled like a gin and tonic and, slightly clumsily, placed a one of Bunbreak’s signature teacup cocktails in front of Hazel.

“A China Rose for my China rose,” she said, and laughed loudly like it was the funniest thing anyone had ever said. Hazel blushed, and glared at Alexander.

“Did you do shots at the bar?” she asked and Alexander shrugged sheepishly.

“Only one?” he said and started to laugh as Daisy tucked herself in close to Hazel. Hazel ignored him in favour of shifting her chair so Daisy could be more comfortable.

George held up his glass, and the other three followed suit.

“To mysteries,” he said, looking Hazel directly in the eye.

“To mysteries,” she echoed, and drank.

Hazel woke up the next morning at nine, surprised that she’d not been woken sooner by Daisy. When she made her way into the kitchen, she found Daisy’s door standing open and her room empty. Daisy was not usually an early riser after she’d had a bit to drink; she was normally comatose, and then lethargic and grumpy all day.

She made herself some tea and breakfast and sat at the kitchen counter to eat it, feeling a little forlorn in the empty flat. At ten am exactly, her laptop dinged, indicating an incoming Skype call. Hazel sat down at her desk and answered the call.

“Hi dad,” she said, smiling.

“Hazel,” he said, matching hers.

Her father hadn’t been excited by the idea of her moving off-campus with Daisy, and even now, two years later, he still sometimes brought it up. Her father thought Daisy trouble, and although Hazel couldn’t fault him for that opinion, she wished he could get to know her better. She can’t help but think her life would be better if the two most important people in it were friends.

“How are you?” her father asked. He squinted at the camera. “Have you been drinking?”

Hazel laughed. And her father wondered where she got her detecting skills from.

“Only a little bit, I promise,” she said. “How’s home? How’s mother?”

Her father’s comfortable chat about their family, and his work, eased something inside of her that Hazel hadn’t realised needed soothing.

“Hazel, are you alright?” her father asked her, after she asked him to repeat a question for the third time. “You seem somewhat...off, today.”

Of course he would notice. Hazel felt a slight prick of tears at the corners of her eyes, a wave of homesickness suddenly crashing over her.

She heard the front door bang, and Daisy’s footsteps on the stairs.

“I’m okay,” she said. “It’s just been a strange week.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

And Hazel did. She wanted to unload all her feelings onto her father, and ask for his advice, but she didn’t know how to string the words together.

“Not really,” she said. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry, dad.”

“If you’re sure,” he said, his voice gentle. There was a time when he would have pressed, but now he lets it go. “Are you keeping up with your studies?”

“Of course,” she replied.

She talked him through her classes, what she was enjoying, what she found challenging. Economics had never been her passion, but her father had been so eager for her to study it, and she knew he wanted her to take over his company one day, so she had gone along with it. It wasn’t terrible, and there was nothing else she’d particularly longed to study, so it didn’t seem too terrible a sacrifice. It wasn’t until she’d met Daisy and they’d started solving mysteries together that Hazel had discovered what it felt like to do something you truly loved.

After only fifteen minutes or so, she heard Daisy traipsing down the stairs again, and the front door opening and closing.

Hazel sighed.

“I should go,” she said to her father. “I have an assignment to start and an essay to write.”

“Of course,” her father said. “I’ll let you get on with it. I love you, Hazel.”

“Love you too, dad,” she replied, and ended the call before he could see her getting emotional. It frustrated her that she could still feel homesick after so long.

Hazel grabbed her phone of the desk and headed out into the kitchen, planning to call Daisy and find out what on earth she was up to. Only, on the kitchen counter there was a small box, with a note on top.

Watson,

I’m following a lead, and I know this is when you talk to your father, so I’ll fly solo this time. Fill you in when I get back!

Underneath was a box of macarons, all champagne flavoured because no matter how many times Hazel protested she liked to try different ones, these would always be her favourite.

She couldn’t stop the grin from spreading over her face. She really did love Daisy.

Oh.

Hazel rewound that thought and played it again, and oh.

She was the worst detective ever.

The fresh air did not, as she’d hoped, clear her mind, but made her slightly miserable. Abandoning the cliche, Hazel ducked into the first cafe she saw and ordered a hot chocolate.

Hazel was confident she knew her own mind, that she knew herself, and it was unsettling to think that she’d missed this. How long had it been? Was is obvious to anyone else? She thought back to George’s look from the night before. Oh.

Pulling out her phone, she contemplated messaging him, but another thought struck her. She grimaced at it, but it would get her the answer she wanted.

Hazel (12:23) I think I’m in love with Daisy

She got a reply almost instantly.

Kitty (12:25) (Face With Rolling Eyes ) (Face With Rolling Eyes )
Kitty (12:25) NO SHIT

Well, there was her answer.

It felt simultaneously life changing and like the most obvious thing in the world. Before she could really begin to figure out what to do with this information, her phone beeped again.

Daisy (12:31) meet me at Kate’s hall, asap

Abandoning her hot chocolate, she hurried to the door and hailed a cab. Hazel suddenly felt guilty that her preoccupation with Natalie and Daisy had made her totally neglect their case. Daisy had been doing all the work on this one. And while normally Daisy would prod and pick at Hazel until she did what she wanted, she’d given her her space on this one, not insisting that she be involved and cheerfully bullying her into anything.

She knew Daisy wasn’t in trouble—they had a code for that—but she was worried nonetheless. Daisy could be reckless, especially without Hazel around to talk her down. She leapt out of the cab when it pulled up to the street corner, and ran towards the building, her phone out dialing Daisy’s number.

Daisy’s phone rang and rang and eventually went to voicemail. Hazel, starting to feel worried, circled the building, craning her neck and trying to find Kate’s window. It was the third one from the left, if she remembered right.

The window was cracked open just a little, and Hazel was contemplating tossing a small stone at it to get attention when she saw a body shoved up against it. It was hard to tell from the angle, and in daylight, but it looked like they had their hands up to their neck, possibly grasping at someone’s arms.

Oh god.

Hazel looked frantically around, but there was no way into the building without a swipe card. When she looked back up, hand shading her eyes, the figure was gone from the window, which only filled her with dread. Hazel’s eyes fell on the drainpipe next to it and her stomach plummeted.

She’d climbed worse, dragged out of windows at midnight by Daisy on more than one occasion, but it never got less terrifying.

Hazel rushed over to the pipe and grasped it firmly. It seemed sturdy enough, and there was enough grip on the rough brick of the wall to give her purchase. Still, it took all her strength and concentration to hoist herself up and start to climb, breathlessly thankful that Kate’s room was on the first floor.

The window was just close enough for her to swing over to it, and she shoved the window open, one arm clinging to the drainpipe, and then tumbled into the room.

Kate was standing over Daisy, hands around her throat, shoving her back into the wall with a furious expression in her eyes. Daisy seemed to be able to breathe just fine, but Kate’s grip was too strong to break.

Spying the lacrosse stick next to the desk, Hazel grabbed it and smacked Kate hard across the shoulders. Kate yelled and let go, stumbling back and turning towards Hazel with a murderous expression. She started towards her, but Daisy flung her leg out and tripped her, following her down to the floor and then pinning Kate down, a knee in her back, grabbing her hands and twisting them behind her before she could react.

Hazel dropped the stick and rushed over to her.

“Are you okay?” she demanded.

“Of course,” Daisy said impatiently. “Find me something to tie her hands with!”

Hazel grabbed the tie off the dressing gown hanging on the back of the door and tossed it to Daisy, who tied Kate’s hands in a perfect handcuff knot.

“I wasn’t going to kill you,” Kate complained, her voice muffled by the carpet. “I was just angry.” She twisted sharply, trying to squirm out of Daisy’s grip.

“Daisy, what—” Hazel started, but Daisy interrupted her. Her eyes were gleaming like she was having the time of her life. Hazel’s heart was still pounding.

“My phone’s under the bed,” Daisy said. “Get it and call campus security, I’d rather deal with them than the police, I think. David Hughes’s number is in my phone, call him.”

“No, come on, Daisy! You know I’m not a criminal,” Kate insisted. Hazel fished Daisy’s phone out and unlocked it.

“Stealing things makes you a criminal,” Daisy said sternly, and Hazel couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Oh come on, you know I didn’t really steal them,” Kate scoffed. “It was just a bit of a prank.”

Daisy ignored her, and the three of them sat in silence, occasionally punctured by a complaint from Kate, until the security officers arrived.

“You took your time,” Daisy said when they finally did.

“Daisy,” David said, nodding. “Hazel. Always a pleasure.”

They’d run into David Hughes more than once while working a case, and despite his initial utter mistrust of them, he’d eventually come around on them.

Kate, to Hazel’s surprise, agreed to be escorted back to the security centre, although she was muttering under her breath and the words “Father” and “lawyer” were all Hazel could catch.

“Are you going to press charges?” David asked. “We’ll be in contact with the police, regardless.”

“No,” said Daisy, rubbing her neck where Kate had gripped her. “She really wasn’t going to kill me.”

“She tried to strangle you!” Hazel protested. “It’s assault at the very least.”

“Not very well,” Daisy retorted. “It was just the heat of the moment. I’d have had her off me in a moment, if you hadn’t arrived.”

“You’re welcome,” said Hazel, unable to take her eyes off the slight bruising around Daisy’s neck.

“I didn’t say I didn’t appreciate the assistance,” Daisy said, grinning.

David sighed. “Care to walk me through it?” he asked.

“She’s been stealing stuff from people on this corridor,” Daisy started. “A phone, a tablet, some speakers, things like that.”

“Really?” David asked doubtfully, looking around the room.

“Not to keep,” Daisy said impatiently. “She was going to plant it in Anna’s room and try and get her expelled.”

This was news to Hazel.

“How did you know?” she asked, wondering how she’d managed to stay so completely out of the loop on this case.

“I was suspicious when she called me in the first place,” Daisy said. “We’ve never gotten along, and it’s not like her to ask me a favour. And it was clear that Anna didn’t like her, which seemed strange when Kate didn’t even seem to know her. It didn’t quite add up. I asked around a bit, and it turns out they’ve had something of a rivalry going since the start of the year.”

“Rivalry?”

Daisy shrugged. “They’re both reading history and law. Anna’s an international scholarship student and, by all accounts, far and away the brightest person in her cohort. Kate’s not used to being outdone.”

“So you snuck in to look around,” Hazel said, frowning. She hated Daisy doing things like this without her; she usually ended up in trouble.

“I was going to wait for you,” Daisy said, “but I got bored. It wasn’t hard to sneak in, since I’d nicked Kate’s swipe card this morning when I came to see her. The lock on her door wasn’t hard to pick, and she’d just left all the things in her wardrobe, not hidden at all.”

“But how did you know she wanted to frame Anna for it?” Hazel asked, still not quite seeing.

Daisy sighed.

“No impressive sleuthing there,” she said, sounding disappointed. She gestures at the laptop open on Kate’s desk. “Her laptop password was embarrassingly easy to crack. I read her old Facebook messages; she’d told her friend her whole plan. She was going to plant them in Anna’s room and have me find them. As for the motive—”

“Let me guess,” Hazel said slowly, looking around the room. She took in the pictures of Kate and a dark-haired guy who looked vaguely familiar. “Jealousy.”

“In one, Watson,” Daisy said, beaming. “She thought Anna stole her boyfriend, and it was the final straw after a year of resentment. A bit ham-handed, I admit, but she was cunning enough to only steal things Anna could plausibly needed; a new phone, a newish laptop, a couple of textbooks she needed for class.”

Hazel thinks back to Anna’s room, and how sparse it had been. She feels a flare of anger.

“Seems a little extreme, just over a boyfriend,” David said doubtfully.

“Not just a boyfriend,” Daisy reminded him. “Kate has always gotten exactly what she wants. She doesn’t take being denied well. She wouldn’t blink twice at ruining someone else’s life for a chance at revenge.”

David had a few more questions, but agreed to let them go for now, promising to be in touch the next day. Daisy, although she claimed she was fine, was looking a little peaky, and didn’t protest when Hazel made them get in a cab. She’d wanted Daisy to go to the hospital and be checked out, but Daisy had flatly refused.

“It’s nothing, Watson,” she’d insisted, but had stood patiently with her head tilted back as Hazel examined the bruising. She wasn’t an expert, or a medical student, but she’d read enough on injuries and forensic analysis to consider herself an informed amateur.

“If it’s bad in the morning, or if you have trouble breathing at any point, we’re going in,” she’d said. Daisy’s skin was warm under her palms and she didn’t want to take her hands away. All the feeling and confusion from earlier in the day, that had been buried under adrenaline and panic, had rushed back, and her hands shook a little. She dropped them quickly.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been much help on this case,” she said quietly.

Daisy looked at her curiously. “You’ve been very distracted lately, Hazel,” she said, not quite disapprovingly, but with a little discontentment in her voice.

“I know,” Hazel said. She wanted to offer an explanation, to apologise again, but the words stuck in her throat.

Daisy rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything further. She did, however, sit close to Hazel in the backseat of the cab, and took her arm when they climbed out.

As soon as they were inside, Daisy made for the shower, and Hazel sat down on the sofa and tried to breathe normally. Their lives were necessarily more full of excitement and danger than the average university student, and Hazel sometimes wished she could embrace that with the same abandon Daisy does.

But she feels the fear every time, feels it deeply, and the ensuing emotion when they’re both safe, both home, is always a sharp relief.

Today felt different; she felt different. She knew why, and she also knew that she was terrified of things changing.

Hazel had never been one to shy away from awkward conversations, although she couldn’t remember ever contemplating one as awkward as this.

So I think I’m in love with you, seemed to abrupt, but any waffling around the point would only irritate Daisy. She had contemplated simply not telling Daisy, but the thought of trying to hide this from Daisy indefinitely exhausted her. Daisy, for all that she could be bossy and didactic, wasn’t cruel, would never be cruel to her. They could get past this.

“Hazel, what’s wrong?” Daisy asked before she’d made it three steps into the room. Her hair is damp and she’s wearing pyjamas. She looked beautiful, Hazel thought, with a warm kind of fondness. And that was it, really. For all that these feelings scared her, that they seemed to make the future simultaneously broad with possibility and hopelessly clouded, they were good.

This was why Hazel would never be able to hide it.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Hazel said, more calmly than she felt. She, of the two of them, was supposed to be good at dealing with feelings. Daisy tended to either pretend she didn’t have them, or treating them like a game. And yet here, she felt stuck.

“You’ve been pacing,” Daisy said, and Hazel abruptly sits back down on the sofa. “And you ate all the macarons. You usually spread them out over at least two days. So it can’t be the case, because I noticed the empty box when we came in.”

Daisy sat next to Hazel on the sofa, fixing her with her patented the-jig-is-up-you-might-as-well-confess stare.

“Is Natalie your girlfriend?” was what Hazel, against all her better judgement, blurted out.

Daisy’s nose wrinkled.

“No, of course not,” she said.

Hazel hadn’t thought so, but it was a relief to hear it all the same.

“Why were you kissing her?” she asked next, this one out of genuine curiosity.

Daisy, the tips of her ears slightly pink, shrugged.

“Just an experiment,” she said. “Call it curiosity. Didn’t take you long to figure out who she was, I see. Impressive.”

“Was that all it was?” Hazel asked, confused. “A test of my detection skills, seeing if I could figure out who the girl you were randomly kissing in our living room was?”

“Not quite,” Daisy said. “I was testing several hypotheses. The results were...inconclusive.” She looked slightly shifty, brittle, almost, and Hazel is suddenly reminded of the look on Daisy’s face when she’d found out about her mother’s affairs. She hated putting that look on Daisy’s face.

“I was wondering,” she started, and then reached out to put her hand on Daisy’s knee. She steeled herself, screwing up her courage. “Can I kiss you?”

Daisy stared at her, and her expression was indecipherable.

“Of course, Watson,” was what she said, and Hazel would parse that in a minute, because all she could really grasp was yes.

She leaned forward slowly and pressed her lips to Daisy’s. She was rather terrified of doing it wrong, or that Daisy wouldn’t like it, but after a moment Daisy leaned into the kiss, and in another moment she had taken it over. Her hand found Hazel’s on her leg and clamped over it, and she kissed with the kind of recklessness Hazel probably should have expected.

Hazel opened her eyes just before they parted and found Daisy’s eyes open as well, and she wouldn’t be at all surprised if Daisy’s eyes had been open the entire time.

“That was...good?” she said, not meaning to make it a question but the inflexion slipping out at the last second.

“Very good,” Daisy agreed. “Much better than Natalie.”

Hazel laughed, even though she still had almost no idea what was happening.

“So,” she said, and then stopped. “Do you want that to be something that we do now?”

Daisy sighed in apparent exasperation.

“Just ask me to be your girlfriend, Hazel,” she said flippantly. Hazel didn’t miss, however, how she was nervously picking at her fingernails.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

“Obviously,” Daisy replied. “Why else would I have been practicing kissing?”

Hazel stared at her.

“That was...because of me?”

“Obviously,” Daisy said again. “I thought you might eventually come around, and I wanted to be prepared when you did. I didn’t think it would be this quickly, although I supposed I should know not to underestimate you.”

Hazel kept staring.

“I suppose it was also—” Daisy started, and then looked away. “I may have been—it was suggested to me that trying to provoke jealousy might work in my favour.” She looked like she was choosing her words carefully.

“Suggested by who?” Hazel asked.

“The internet?”

Daisy was blushing furiously at this point, although she was still trying for a flippant expression. Hazel loved her.

“You should have just asked me,” Hazel said, although that wasn’t really Daisy’s style. Daisy preferred to treat feelings like a game, or a trick, something familiar and easier to grapple with. Hazel shouldn’t really be surprised that this time was any different.

Daisy, instead of answering, leaned forward and kissed her again on the lips. It sent a pleasant shock through Hazel, and she couldn’t stop herself from smiling, effectively ending the kiss.

Daisy huffed.

“You’re not supposed to smile when we’re kissing,” she said. She sounded like she’d read a 12 point article on how to kiss that she was quoting directly from.

Hazel kissed her again, managing not to smile this time, and Daisy nodded, satisfied, when they parted. Then she bit her lip.

“Hazel, I—” she started, looking down at her lap. “You know I’m not the most experienced at this, and I just want to make sure…” The sight of Daisy so unsure was unsettling. Hazel grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and Daisy straightened her back and looked up, meeting Hazel’s eyes.

“I don’t want this to change things too much,” she said. “What we do is important, and I don’t want this to get in the way of that.”

It was funny; Hazel saw this more as a way of keeping what they already have forever. She wasn’t going to let it ruin things. She nodded and kissed Daisy again.

“Detective society forever,” she said, and Daisy was the one that smiled this time.

“Detective society forever,” she echoed.