Stockholm 1983
The queue for the telephone kiosks was ridiculously long. Miriam Holmes adjusted her bag on her shoulder; rootling around in the bottom of several of its (many) compartments for change. Staring at the krone in her hand made her none the wiser as to the possibility of it funding a phone call of reasonable length back to London, so Miriam shook her head and started on her coat pockets. She really was ridiculous, but knew she couldn't rest until she`d checked Vernet and the boys were OK. For goodness sake, woman – Miriam was notoriously tough on herself – you`ve only been absent for a tragically short five hours…they will be fine!
"Little ones at home?"
A soft, quiet and oddly calming English voice cut across her thoughts and Miriam looked up to lock eyes with a man, smiling benignly at her.
"You are…" She was going to say `very perceptive`, but – "… entirely correct." came out. Rueful smile. "I seem to still be trying to grasp the Swedish exchange rate."
He smiled at her. His teeth were white and perfect and his eyes, behind round wire glasses, were the very deepest shade of brown. Almost black.
"Be kinder to yourself, Miriam. You`ve barely had time to acclimatise from the flight. I expect you haven't even checked in."
As her eyes widen, he smiles and taps his own name badge and her eyes glance down to her own.
"I was on your flight." Adds `Lew Murtagh`, fishing around in his pockets. He is small of stature and has a dancer-like stance and proportions. `Light on his feet` pops into Miriam`s head, unbidden. He is suddenly holding out a clenched fist and it takes her a few microseconds to realise it is full of – change.
"Oh, I can`t – "
"No, you absolutely CAN," replies Lew Murtagh (Durham University Biomechanical Mathematics Department). His voice is still quiet and soft, but brooks absolutely no option for refusal.
And she extends her palm, allowing the silver coins to cascade from his hand to hers.
Miriam Holmes had always been good with numbers. As a child, she noticed numbers on road signs, buses, gate posts, shopping lists and would use them to make her own little algorithms. A sort of attempt to make sense of a strange and confusing world. Numbers were clear, honest, straight-forward. They always did what you wanted them to do and didn't ignore you or not come and visit you, even when they had promised. Studying at the prestigious Imperial College, London and gaining a First Class Honours degree, Miriam felt she had surely found her niche. A fortuitous job within the Pure Mathematics Department meant she could lecture part time in a subject that still gave her great comfort, and still have time for her boys back at home.
And, perhaps, even write that book that everyone seemed to have inside them (just waiting to leap out onto the page – as if anything worthwhile was that easy).
That evening, a welcoming dinner, hosted by Stockholms Universitet for the delegates of the conference, was well underway by the time Miriam saw Lew Murtagh again. At a short lecture that afternoon (on some applications of the homological theory of graded skew-commutative rings), she found, to her embarrassment, that she was scanning the crowd of strange faces for his. How very odd that she would do that. It simply wasn't like her.
"There is a Ghost Walk from Järntorget, Old Town, starting at seven thirty." He had slid, sinuously and silently, into the chair beside her. Dark eyes, dark hair and a very well cut evening suit; very possibly by a designer she should probably have heard of.
"Are you game?"
Miriam Holmes looked into eyes of jet, which seemed to twinkle darkly in the candlelit Swedish hall. The chattering voices from all around them had suddenly muted into muffled murmurings and she and this virtual stranger seemed to be contained in some kind of isolated bubble. Miriam was a sensible and dramatically down to earth woman who had never so much glanced at any other man since meeting the tranquil and lovely Vernet Holmes, almost fifteen years previously. She adored her strange and beautiful boys and upsetting any applecart was probably the furthest ever thing from her mind. It simply did not compute. It was not logical.
"I am." She answered.
Hours later…
He was around ten years older than Miriam and had recently been awarded a Fellowship in Mathematics at Durham University.
"I have read your paper!" Miriam felt an excitement akin to her best friend Beverley`s at a Donny Osmond concert in 1972 (`I love him – I will be Mrs Osmond one day!`)
"It was inspirational – ground-breaking." She is blushing in the darkness of the Swedish night and her eyes are unable to meet his. "It makes me want to write my own ideas down and make something of them."
Lew shifted on the park bench, facing her. They had lost sight of the other ghost hunters around forty-five minutes ago. Neither of them cared. He was fidgeting and tapping a small rhythm with his fingers, like a metronome. It was strange that she didn't find it annoying in the slightest. It was high summer in Scandinavia, but the hour was late and there was a chill in the air. Miriam shivered.
"You should do that, Miriam." He spoke softly and his white teeth glinted under the street lighting. "You have a talent. I adore talent – my respect for the person who achieves is boundless." Lew tilts his head and the haematite eyes glitter.
"Life is short," he said.
xx00xx
I threw a wish in the well,
Don't ask me, I'll never tell
I looked to you as it fell,
And now you're in my way
I'd trade my soul for a wish,
Pennies and dimes for a kiss
I wasn't looking for this,
But now you're in my way
Your stare was holdin',
Ripped jeans, skin was showin'
Hot night, wind was blowin'
Where do you think you're going, baby?
As she mainlined the jaunty words of Ms Carly Rae Jepson via her ear buds, Molly Hooper couldn't help but contemplate the huge diversity between her running backing track and her running route plan. Sherlock had, in a really sweet attempt at involvement in her marathon training, devised a running route that incorporated at least one crime scene within each run. He liked to call it, `Molly`s Marathon Murder Route Planner` and had made an actual App for it. Thus, a slightly wary Molly Hooper (sometimes accompanied by Mary Watson, and a few others from the Bart`s running group) found herself jogging by The National Antiquities Museum (which had witnessed the sad demise of Soo Yin Lee); Borthwick Wharf (the abandoned body of Ian Monford in his own car boot); Broadwick Street to Wardour Street, via Poland and D`Arbley Street where John and Sherlock had chased a certain murderous cabbie, and the Duke of York Steps to the Mall, where Sherlock had taken Mary on a very illegal motorbike ride to find John.
There were many, many more.
Sherlock loved London, this much she knew. It was a hobby of his to have a clear and exact knowledge of it, and she was touched he felt her worthy to share it with.
Sweet.
With a side of creepy.
You took your time with the call,
I took no time with the fall
You gave me nothing at all,
But still, you're in my way
I beg, and borrow and steal
Have foresight and it's real
I didn't know I would feel it,
But it's in my way…
Molly was on her way home to Baker Street now, after a charming run through Shaftesbury Avenue and Gerrard Street where she jogged by The Lucky Cat Emporium and the flat where Sherlock had nearly been strangled to death by a murderous Chinese acrobat. Ah, happy memories! Turning across the junction of Northumberland Street, she almost lost the thread of Carly Rae`s demands as she all but collided with a girl who had suddenly stopped dead in front of Molly, to look at her phone.
"Oh god – "
"Oh no! I`m so sorry!"
An embarrassment of stranger-entangled limbs (some of them sweaty) and retrieval of dropped bags, phones and iPods ensued. But, no real damage was done. The girl was small, blond, curvy and around twenty five. All in all, pretty hot.
Her apologies were profuse.
"… my fault… not looking at all… stupid phone mapping… completely lost…do you live locally?"
Molly had, by now, got both her breath and her iPod back. She smiled at the girl.
"Where do you need to be? I might be able to help?"
And the hot, young blonde scrolled down her phone, forehead crinkling.
"I need to meet this guy. I`ve got a bit of a problem, you see. I`m sure he can help me. I think he lives near here, but I just can`t find it…"
Molly tried to cut short the ramble.
"What is this guy`s name?"
Scrolling down. "Er… it`s Sherlock – Sherlock Holmes. He lives at 221B, on Baker Street. Any ideas?"
xx0xx
A proffered hand and a wide, accommodating grin.
"John – John Watson…I – we`d like to hear your story, Miss Wright – "
"Theresa."
Grin widens.
"Theresa. Please sit down, Theresa."
"Well, Terri, actually…"
"Ok, please sit down, Terri…"
Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper watch this exchange from the kitchen of 221B. If Sherlock is thrilled that Molly Hooper has brought him a potential case into his very lap that evening, he is not showing it. Molly is drinking a bottle of water and enjoying Sherlock`s consternation.
"Molly, what is John doing? His welcome seems … wrong?"
"Sherlock, he is flirting with her."
"Flirting?"
"Enjoying a little bit of sexually charged banter. Fun. Non-threatening. Mary won`t be upset. He can`t help it. She has outstanding breasts."
Sherlock blinks. Twice. Molly`s heart gives a little lurch and it`s all she can do not to embrace his puzzled shoulders and kiss him. But – very unprofessional.
"I see. John is held to ransom by his hormonal urges, based on a subliminal appreciation of the breasts of a stranger."
"They really are excellent Sherlock. Take time to appreciate."
He looks away from John and their new client and eventually catches on. Her eyes are twinkling wickedly as she downs the water. Sherlock notes her hair is matted and plastered to her head, cheeks are flushed and the clay adhering to her left trainer indicates she took Murder Route No. 6. (a good choice for an autumn evening) and simultaneously computes that he loves her. He loves her very much. But, he won`t do a thing right now. Unprofessional. And he is being – Sherlock Holmes.
Theresa Wright has soon been offered and afforded a cup of Darjeeling, a custard cream and a tissue. The latter is not for the tears of an emotional client, but the sneezes of a hay fever sufferer.
"Blimey, how embarrassing was that? I am sorry, Mr Holmes, but it must be your tiger lilies."
Sherlock is entirely blank. She points to the orangey black flowers on the mantelpiece, jostling for room with Billy.
"Allergies. Anyway, I just wondered if you could help me. I read about Doctor – about John`s blog on that Devil`s Flower case, and it seemed like you know your way round a mystery."
Sherlock leaned forward in his chair, and John Watson was 99.9% positive it wasn't for a better view.
"I love a mystery," corroborates Sherlock Holmes, his eyes glittering. "So, please tell us, Theresa, why a man who doesn't call you ever again after a date should be a mystery?"
John is getting ready with an apology, but, then –
"We men are fools in so many areas of life – even a beautiful woman such as yourself is not immune to our idiocies – "
Good save, Sherlock.
"It wasn't so much him not calling, Mr Holmes – Sherlock. I really quite forgot about him for a couple of days, down to the robbery an` all."
After, what has seemed a fulfilling and successful date, poor Theresa, a hotel receptionist at a family run hotel, had returned to a ransacked and thoroughly burgled mess. Although nothing had been taken, everything she owned had been turfed out onto the floor and rifled through. She had thrown away half of her clothes (particularly the underwear) and had to replace all locks and a window.
"I never did hear from him again, M – Sherlock, but that wasn't the weirdest thing…"
"That you have a long haired Persian cat, despite your many allergies?"
"Oh – er…"
"That your flatmate is at least six inches taller than you, but is far less accommodating?"
"Well, yes, but – "
"That you work a night shift, but your supervisors have no sympathy that building work has started in your street. You are exhausted and thinking about a job change. Furthermore – "
"Sherlock…" John has stopped taking notes – a sure sign to Sherlock that he is veering into `showing off` territory.
He smiles over-brightly and nods for her to continue.
"I was in Gianni`s (the coffee shop on the corner) and we were, you know – "
"Drinking coffee?"
" – chatting. And, what do I find, but Ella, my neighbour, had also been burgled, only last week."
John was hoping Sherlock wasn't going to offer some comment about a `lazy universe`, but he remained in listening mode.
"And, that wasn`t the end of it – "Terri leant forward herself and Molly had to turn away to hide a smile at John`s pinked cheeks verses Sherlock`s poker face.
" – I found out, through Twitter, actually, that not one, nor two, nor even three neighbours had been burgled in the last three weeks …"
Sherlock`s left foot was tapping, imperceptible to most.
"Was it four neighbours, Terri?" Cut in John Watson, recovering his countenance. "You are saying that four neighbours were burgled in the very same street over the last few weeks?" He looks at Sherlock as she nods. "An organised gang – "
Sherlock holds up his hand.
"Tell me, Miss Wright, was anything taken in any of these break-ins?"
Shaking her head – "same as mine. Just left a right old mess."
He nods.
"And the victims – there was something you all have in common?"
She nods.
"There was – there is." Terri takes a delicate nibble of her custard cream and a few crumbs fall downwards.
"Women. Around my age. All single women. Weird, eh?"
And Sherlock sits back with a happy little smile.
Later that evening, John Watson sips his tea, speculatively. He is currently between assignments, since signing back up with the MOD as a Medical Recruitment Officer. Truth be told, he is loving his first hiatus from work for what seems like forever. And he is putting his time to good use, he feels.
"Think it may have potential, Sherlock? Seems odd, so many break-ins with nothing stolen."
Sherlock has adopted his lying-on-the-sofa-with-steepled-fingers-and-closed-eyes pose. It would be just like old times, except for a fast-asleep twenty month old child lying on top of his chest (and, John noted happily, drooling on his purple shirt). Benedict rose and fell slightly with every breath his father took.
"Not enough data – yet. Need to check the press for links. I might ask Wiggins to take a stroll down Ms Wright`s street tomorrow. He really is becoming quite the observer."
John puts down his cup suddenly. It clatters more than he meant it to. Or perhaps he did mean it to.
"I could take a look – if you like?"
Sherlock breathed out slowly, elevating his son again. "Hardly a good use of your time."
John feels he should, perhaps change the direction of the conversation, for his own good.
A grown man – a father himself – should not be feeling (jealous?) odd about an eagle-eyed down and out helping out his friend. Ridiculous.
"Tell me, then, how you knew those things?"
"Things?"
"I get the Persian cat (black shirt), but the taller, unaccommodating flat mate?"
"Mmm. Well applied eyeliner; poorly applied lip liner. Mirror in house too high up for Ms Wright. Flatmate taller, so wants it her own way."
"The night shift; horrible bosses and possible job change?"
"As I said, good eye make-up, but foundation failing to conceal under eye dark circles. A redness in both ear canals – probably not an infection then – but more likely to be an allergy; perhaps an allergy to earplug foam. She does seem to be the type of person susceptible to this. Slight indentations around both temples. Recently removed what could be an eye mask. So, keeping out the sound and the light. I could see cement residue on her trouser cuff. She has walked passed at least one building site. Also, our client had a CV and Guardian jobs page slightly protruding from her bag. She had mentioned how much she loved working at the hotel, so, surely she would attempt to change her shifts? The CV shows they wouldn't or couldn't accommodate her. I prefer to think wouldn't."
"Why on earth would you think that?" John picks up his cup and saucer again.
"Human nature? Female boss – wife of the owner."
John is nodding, realising. "She was jealous. Of Terri."
Sherlock nods, slightly, adding:
"Who wouldn't be – of such magnificent breasts?"
And he opens one eye as John`s cup and saucer clatter together once again.
