—

“Are you excited, Saguru-kun?”

“Yes, Papa!”

“Okay, turn around again, I need to get another photo. God, the uniform is so darling, isn’t it?”

The boy turned around for his mother, arms out, heels together, smile broad on his rosy face. The little suit jacket had been tailored for him, and he had two others just like it, ready for his first year at White Chapel Academy – just three days away. 

“It is, dear.” Mr. Hakuba, as he was called then, chuckled and leaned back in the comfortable patio chair that he frequented on summer afternoons. “Son, you’ll remember to write to your mum, yes?”

Saguru nodded twice, each with conviction. “I will! I wonder how much free time there’ll be?”

Mrs. Hakuba – really, Marion to everyone, reached out to tug her boy over by the front of his jacket, adjusting his tie for the fourth time in the last twenty minutes. “The timetable seemed fairly full, but I can’t imagine that there won’t be time in the evenings. You’d better write to me, or I’ll be so cross!”

She pulled him close, kissed his forehead, then took his hand to gently guide him away and back into the grass. 

“I will, I will! I promise. Eeevery day. Just like the Beatles. ‘All my lovin’, I will send to you~ou!’”

“Hey! Wait a minute Mr. Postman-!”

Mr. Hakuba rolled his eyes. “You two. Honestly.” He was used to their song battles by now, but it never ceased to amuse him. Which meant that he was required to scowl and turn back to his newspaper. 

“Honestly, Jones, I’m not certain how much I can really tell you about White Chapel. I’ve… spent a rather large amount of energy actively repressing the memories, you understand…”

“So you knew about what was going on?”

“Yes, I did. Though not at first. No, the first three months that I was there, everything had gone according to expectations and I was so engrossed in my studies that I… I’m afraid that I was oblivious.”

The man, another foreigner, leaned forward, coffee in hand. “When did you meet Sarah?”

“Oh, I… I’d seen her around, probably from the first day. But I didn’t know who she was until much, much later. Just another drab face in the dreary crowd.”

Jones laughed. “And here I was hoping for some kind of story to spin…”

“You would, wouldn’t you? But no, no… my relationship with Sarah was much more… distant than all of that.”

“Fine, fine. Back to White Chapel?”

“I was nine years old when I first started there. Again, I… I have some difficulty remembering everything from that period of time, but I do recall that I was terrified of being away from home – and Baaya, especially -and having to share living quarters with other children for the first time in my life. Yet, at the same time, I was thrilled that my instructors were good. Very passionate about the subjects that they taught. Exceptional, all of them. It’s a private school. I was fortunate to get in, what with the difficulty of the whole transcript mess…”

“What about your transcripts?”

“Oh, I did a bit of school hopping when I was younger. I was transferring from a Japanese school, though the rest of my transcripts were from a public school in Britain, which caused some confusion and delays in paperwork… I’m certain my parents used their influence to nudge things along, though they’ve sworn to me that it was by my test scores alone.Regardless, we were thrilled.”

Chuckling, Jones waved a dismissive hand. “Of course, of course… So where does your story begin in regard to the whole affair?”

“I suppose it, like most things, began with… pride.”

“Pride?” Jones arced a brow, then waited.

“One of my teachers had… incorrect information. After having been there a semester and returned from the, ah, Christmas holiday, I’d grown a little cockish. My grandparents – on my mum’s side, of course – spoiled me with praise and I had so many stories to tell…" 

"Go on.”

“I called one of my instructors out on error in front of the the class. Sister Fairmore was understandably upset. Wrong, but upset, and asked to speak with me once class was dismissed. At which point, she advised me to meet with the Headmaster.”

“…Amos Ramson?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Good God. Hakuba. You-?”

The detective stiffened at that, then forced a faint smile. “Father Ramson told me that mine was the sin of pride. Quoted scripure – Proverbs 16:18 – Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. – and explained that he would work tirelessly to rid me of that vice.”

Jones hesitated several seconds before continuing, voice low. Cautious. “What happened then?”

“We discussed whether I should attend Oxford or Cambridge.”

“…Really?”

“Yes, really.” Hakuba sighed. “Jones, my name wasn’t supposed to be on that list. It’s inaccurate. I know what he’s trying to do, but it’s not going to work.”

“God, that’s a relief!”

“Indeed.”

“At least I can use that in our statement…”

“I’d rather we not address that particular issue at all, actually.” Hakuba cast a cool glance at his agent, who stared back at him curiously, perplexed. Waiting. With a sigh, he added, “…Out of respect for the others on the list. In particular Miss Brown." 

"I’ll take that into consideration.”

“It’s appreciated.”

Jones bit his lip, then set his coffee cup aside to put both of his hands on his laptop’s keyboard, adding notes. “So was that your entire punishment? No ruler, no hand slapping, no black box?”

“Oh, no… no, not exactly. Not from Father Ramson. His modus operandi was always the same – to teach us to kneel before God.”