FORTY-THREE
Chessie and I did end up taking the car. I tried to tell her I didn’t need a change of clothes, but she insisted that there was no reason to let small comforts lapse now, when we might by necessity have to abandon them later. She wasn’t exactly wrong. I’d probably appreciate having something to change into, especially after accumulating the grunge of a sleepless night. But I just wanted to get to the Academy with all haste.
‘And sit around staring at the walls?’ she challenged. ‘No, you go grab a big stack of those journals for us to go through. We both know you won’t be sleeping a wink.’
So I grabbed a big stack of those journals while she threw together an overnight case for the two of us, and we piled back into the car and started for Marylebone.
She had driven for perha
