The Scarf
Sherlock Holmes froze. Listened. Held his breath. Someone had just knocked on his door, and he didn't want visitors.
And as he didn't want visitors, or to answer the door, he ignored it.
Except he then heard Mrs Hudson shout helpfully up the stairs:
"He's in - he just hasn't heard you. Knock again!"
He muttered something to himself about putting Mrs Hudson on permanent mute if she didn't stop not shutting up, sighed and bowed to the inevitable as the door was knocked again by very determined knuckles.
Striding over to the door he wrenched it open so quickly the person on the other side stepped back in surprise at both the speed of action and the force of the consulting detective's scowl.
"What are YOU doing here?"
"And a happy Christmas to you, too!"
Detective Sergeant Sally Donovan could not help the sarcastic comment. Sherlock Holmes always brought out the worst in her.
"What are you doing here? Has no-one told you it's Christmas Eve?"
"Of course they have! My car's outside the door and is full of presents. I'm on the way to my gran's."
"Too much information. So what?"
For a long moment they glared at each other. Impasse. Sally finally tried a smile and asked, ever so politely:
"Can I come in? Just for a minute?"
Sherlock huffed his cheeks out in wordless disapproval and was on the verge of saying no and slamming the door in her face. But she did not back down. In fact her mouth set in a determined line as she leaned in closer towards him. So if only to avoid the risk of bodily contact Sherlock whirled away and towards the fireplace, turning to face her as she entered his sitting room and then waiting to hear what she had to say.
He almost tapped his foot in impatience, but thought better of it. This was not the time of year for another slanging match with Sally Donovan. Season of good will, and all that nonsense, as John Watson kept reminding him.
He satisfied himself by crossing his arms, lifting his chin and glaring at her. Waiting.
"Sherlock! You don't take decorations down on Christmas Eve!" Sally could not help herself.
The decorations box was half full. He was in the process of taking a string of fairy lights off the chimney breast, and she also noticed an haphazard pile of Christmas cards also taken down and plonked on the mantelpiece. Clearly on their way to the bin.
"Mrs Hudson insisted on decorations going up for her little drinks party here last night. So now I'm taking them down. Sorry you weren't invited," he added insincerely.
"I had better things to do," she agreed.
Score forty-all, she thought. And let a small smile escape, which he noticed - of course he did, he notices everything! - and which made him frown.
"And I am sure you have now. So what are you doing here? I keep asking. It cannot possibly be a social call."
"Funnily enough, it is."
She stopped trying to force his eyes down to meet hers rather than focussing ever so slightly over the top of her head, so she could see into his face. With a quiet click of her tongue at another failure attempting to locate ordinary civilised behaviour within the consulting detective, she turned away to open her capacious handbag and take out a little parcel.
"Suspicious package?" he suggested blandly.
"Brat!" she said.
"Thank you!" spoken ironically with an air of gentle and modest surprise.
Honestly! One of these days I will smack him, I really will, and I won't care a bit what Lestrade says…
She swallowed her irritation, held out the soft small parcel wrapped in silver paper topped with a tasteful dark blue bow.
"It's for you," she said.
He looked at her sharply; looking - waiting - for the joke, the sneer, the punch line. He did not smile, nor did he put out his hand to take what she was offering him.
"No tricks, Sherlock. This is just for you. From me."
"Why?" his voice was hard and suspicious. She couldn't blame him, but still….
"For God's sake, Sherlock, stop being such bloody hard work all the time!"
"Why?" he repeated. "You don't like me. I'm not stupid. I'm just some freak - your words, so don't look at me like that - so why would you get me something as sentimental as a Christmas present?"
"Don't sneer. It doesn't suit you. Well, no, what am I saying, actually it does….I should be used to it…." she flapped one hand in irritation.
He said nothing to that, just exhaled and rolled his eyes as if pushed beyond human endurance.
"It's…..I felt I…..OK then," she flapped both hands now in frustration.
I came in here telling myself I wasn't going to get cross, and now look at me! How does he always do this to me? How?
"OK, then, don't think of it as a Christmas present. Think of it as the alternative for the words 'thank you'' which are two words I honestly cannot get past my teeth when I try to say them to you."
"Then don't try. I don't expect or want thanks from you for anything. What should I want thanks for?"
Sally Donovan tried not to smile at that childish little wrinkle that appeared across the bridge of his nose when he was puzzled by something. And felt quite proud of herself for having finally puzzled him about something at all. But she still shook her head in frustration at his blind spot and reached out to put her hand on his arm.
He flinched away from it automatically before she even reached forward.
"You're not just being a prat, are you?" she said as if finding some epiphany. "You really don't understand why I want to say thank you?"
He was still looking at her blankly, and she realised this was genuine, no bad tempered act. So she really was going to have to do this the hard way. She sighed and thought of asking Santa Claus for patience.
"Can you remember where we were three weeks ago, Sherlock?"
"The Gillespie stake out in the Manningtree Warehouse in Silver Town," he replied instantly. "The smuggling bust that turned into a bit of a shoot out."
"You got it, well done. Anything else?"
He looked down at her and frowned, those strange shuttered grey eyes moving without seeing her, doing some sort of internal audit she found disturbing. She was never usually close enough to see him going inside his head like this, and it was something of a shock, seeing and realising how much he could block out the world and how deeply he could travel into his mind's eye.
" Fifteen policemen, six armed. Five vans. Seven villains. Fifteen million pounds worth of stolen art work and paintings. A brief yet telling exchange of fire. Oh, yes!"
The eyes flashed up at her. Light finally dawned. She sighed.
"Are you OK, now?"
She smiled, drained by the effort of reaching him. It was rather like dealing with a slightly mentally retarded child sometimes, she thought, and not for the first time . Or perhaps this was how all geniuses behaved? She would have to ask Lestrade, he was the expert at translating Sherlockese into plain English.
Three weeks ago on a wet and bitterly cold night, at a stakeout at a huge apparently derelict warehouse, the police had heeded a tip off from Sherlock Holmes via his homeless network of contacts that a big shipment of smuggled high class artwork was due in.
From cold and bored to explosive and dangerous motion within seconds, a brief and unexpected exchange of fire had Sally Donovan and Sherlock Holmes diving together for the same scant cover whilst bullets zipped over their heads.
Sherlock, in a graceful rolling dive, came to rest against a concrete wall. Sally, throwing herself inelegantly forward, thwacked against something metallic that clanked, shifted and clattered to the ground. She felt Sherlock's hands dragging her down.
She swore then, felt Sherlock grab her shoulders to stop her banging her head against the wall or floor; she was never quite sure which. She was angry she might have needed his help, and especially angry by the fact that he at least thought she did. And acted accordingly.
They lay prone, together in a prickly sort of motionless suspense. There was a shouted exchange across to their right, a sharp clatter of gunfire, and then the crooks, realising the police had more powerful guns and better support than they did, showed their first signs of sensible behaviour and immediately gave themselves up.
There were shouts, clipped orders and everyone stood cautiously as torches came on to illuminate the scene.
"Come on…ah!" Sally Donovan made to stand, but felt her right leg give way beneath her.
"You're hurt," Sherlock breathed into her ear in the dark.
"No!" she denied angrily.
"Yes you are. I can smell your blood," Sherlock corrected..
Yep, Sherlock is definitely creepy.
Donovan started to immediately retort: "Don't be…." and then realised he was right. There was a strange tingling sensation in her right calf that was not quite yet pain, and as she reached down to touch, her hand was suddenly both wet and warm.
She was aware of Sherlock Holmes grasping her shoulder again and turning her, taking a torch from a pocket of the belstaff coat and shining it towards her and down.
"Don't try and move," he said, grasping her leg firmly with one hand.
"Officer down! Over here!" he shouted "Ambulance!"
He pushed her flat onto the filthy concrete and loomed over her.
"Sherlock, get off me! Don't be…." Sally Donovan began, but he commanded "Shut up, Sally!" and put the Magilite torch between his teeth. She released she must not be feeling quite herself, because she actually did what he said. Then felt him grasp the bottom hem of her trouser leg, brace himself and rip the fabric up to her knee. The sound of tearing fabric sounded ridiculously loud in the confined space.
"Oi! They're my best trousers, Holmes!"
"Were," he corrected, almost conversationally, and she felt his hands on her leg, strong and vice-like, then heard the low humming noise he often made when concentrating.
"How….? What….?" she began.
"Medic!" he called again. He flipped open his phone, tapped in 999 and summoned an ambulance.
"Hang on, Sally. Eight minutes max," he said.
"Am I….badly hurt?" she asked. "I don't feel badly hurt."
"Deep gash, bleeding heavily. Rusty corrugated iron sheet. Not pretty," he said.
She craned awkwardly to try and look, but her leg was in shadow, and Sherlock's grip would not let her move it so she could see as well as him. But she was suddenly aware that he was, literally, pressing the cut edges closed and holding them together to stop the blood flowing quite so freely.
"Rust flakes deep in the cut, Sally. Got to do something about that," he said, and before she realised what he was doing he had spat out the torch and bent his face down to her leg.
The sharp and unexpected bite of his teeth on a part of her body that was now starting to hurt made her yelp in surprise as much as pain.
"Stop it, you nutter!" she squealed.
One day….One day I am really going to kill Sherlock Holmes. Years of mental cruelty, your honour. I just couldn't take it any more, especially when he started eating my leg…..
He spat something out to one side, there was the disconcerting pinging sound of metal shards hitting the wall to the side of her, and then she saw blood - her blood - on his lips. It looked, and felt, seriously weird.
"Shut up, Sally. Got to stop the bleeding. Had to get those chunks of rusty metal out of the cut first. Ran out of hands." He spat delicately to the side. Twice.
Then whipped the soft blue cashmere scarf from around his neck and drew it tight around her leg just below her knee. Bandage, tourniquet or both, she was never sure, trying again to peer round at herself in the dark.
"Let me get up!" she demanded. She was starting to get scared now. Although whether she was more scared of her wound or Sherlock Holmes at that point she would never, later, be able to say.
"No," he ordered simply, "Stay down. I'm not letting you bleed out on me."
"Terrible bedside manner, Holmes," she said, starting to feel a bit lightheaded.
"Ah, you love me really," he said, quirked a charming smile at her so fleeting she always felt afterwards she had imagined it because she was getting to feel a bit faint and lightheaded, and then busied his hands on her leg. She was vaguely aware of his handkerchief now also being wrapped around the cut and knotted tight.
She did not expect words of comfort from him so she was not disappointed, but she was surprised when he took off his coat and wrapped it around her with a clumsy, nonchalant sort of care. As soon as he heard the ambulance coming he stood up, beckoned the paramedics towards him and handed her over to their care.
She was starting to feel very sleepy as the medics bustled around her with their kit and brisk hands. She was being scooped up onto the trolley when Sherlock Holmes calmly reclaimed his coat from around her and replaced it with a blanket with the same cool precision, put the Belstaff back on. He looked down at her with an expression she could not read,winked at her - her! The cheek of it! - and strode across to Lestrade and the rest of the team going through the mechanics of arrest and recovery without so much as a word or a backwards look in her direction.
It was then the enormity of what had happened hit her. She had been hurt. She could have been missed in all the confusion. Could have fainted in her dark corner and bled to death, and no-one might even have known until it was too late.
The thought that she may well owe her life to Sherlock Holmes was more than she could bear. And that was her last thought for quite some time.
o0o0o0o
"Yes," she said. "I'm OK now. Thanks to you."
He shrugged absently and turned away from her.
"You would do the same. The police force is a caring profession."
"Perhaps. But this was you." She managed to keep her voice quiet and calm; not scream -"But this was YOU!" in the amazement she still felt. Which perhaps, she was finally beginning to understand, was not quite fair of her….?
"I'll try not to make a habit of it," he said "As long as you don't make a habit of getting injured."
Did she see really the hint of a smile there? She hoped she did. So she gave him the benefit of the doubt and smiled back at him.
"I'll try not to do it again," she promised politely.
"Good. That's good."
He turned back to the tangled fairy lights, dismissing her.
"So what are you doing for Christmas?" she heard herself asking that rigid back. "Over to John and Mary? Christmas lunch with your brother?" the polite social queries sounded trite even to her own ears. She couldn't quite believe she had asked them.
Sherlock Holmes does that to you! Makes you trip over yourself! How does he do that? Without even saying a word?
"Don't be absurd," he said, without turning round.
And despite his brusque rebuttal, Sally Donovan felt a sudden and uncharacteristic pang of loneliness in her heart. Had a sudden image in her mind of the Ice Queen and the little boy with the tear in his eye….and immediately mentally berated herself; heard herself mutter something about Christmas and too much cheap sentiment about….except when she did that she felt like she sounded like Sherlock Holmes. Dammit!
Yet she still thought she might have had a brief glimpse into his contained and isolated life. No-one should be alone at Christmas, she thought. Not even Sherlock Holmes.
"You could come with me to my gran's. Open door policy in our family. The more the merrier, especially at Christmas. Another one will barely be noticed…." she was surprised at herself as she heard the words she was saying.
Get a grip, Sally! This is Sherlock. This is the freak! Shut up, woman!
"That is even more absurd, Donovan," he said. But then he turned to her and quirked a lopsided little smile in her direction, almost as if he appreciated the offer really. Even though he would never say so.
Despite herself she found she was putting her hand on his arm now, leaning in towards him, rising onto her toes to press a soft kiss onto his cheek.
Hell, girl, it is Christmas after all! You'll both just have to live with it. And sometimes he's not so bad. Not really.
She felt the cool taut skin, smelt the cleanness of him, his expensive citrus cologne, his body heat. She felt him tense under her touch, but he did not flinch away this time.
He smiled properly at her then, probably for the very first time, looking down into her face. His eyes crinkled, his face softened, and the expression in those unfathomable eyes showed a rare warmth. With a shock she realised how attractive he could be when he relaxed. And she smiled back at him as they shared a rare moment of mutual comfort and accord.
"I promise never to tell anyone you have been nice to me," he whispered, so softly she barely heard the words. "That would do your reputation no good whatsoever."
"Exceptional circumstances," she agreed. "And Christmas cheer."
She tore her eyes away from his face and again proffered the parcel he had ignored.
"As I was saying…." she said again. "Happy Christmas."
He hesitated, looked at her sharply from under his brows, as if reluctant to trust….then opened her parcel with swift economical movements, and a blue cashmere scarf drifted into his hands.
"The hospital had to cut the old one off me. It was saturated in blood and would never have been the same again," she explained.
"It did not matter," he said, looking down at the scarf, fingering the material. "But thank you."
Three softly spoken words, but in them he somehow recognised and expressed to her his appreciation of the effort she must have made to replace the scarf with a replica, and how much it must have cost her in both money and commitment, to do so.
He bent towards her, drifted the gentlest butterfly kiss onto her right cheek and stepped back.
Sally, unexpectedly finding she now had a lump in her throat, backed and turned away from him.
"I have to go," she said. "The family are expecting me."
"Of course."
He sketched a bow and stood back, formal, imperious and erect again. And she left his home without another word.
As she ran down the stairs, unable to keep the smile off her face, she heard the sound of a violin suddenly following her. And recognised the tune.
We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
She turned back and looked up as she got into the driver's seat of her car. She could see his silhouette, violin tucked into his shoulder, and sketched a farewell wave. He did not wave back. But she smiled to herself nevertheless. And kept smiling for some time, even after she had started the car and driven away.
So she did not see him turn from the window with a rueful smile and shake of his head, lift the scarf, stroke it gently and put it away in a drawer. Along with seven other scarves almost identical to it.
Then return to the Christmas decorations. Changer his mind, close the box and leave in place the decorations spared now, and still on the walls.
Well, he thought, another few hours would do no harm. And there was no-one else to see them. So who would know? He smiled to himself. Time to walk along to Trafalgar Square to see the Norwegian tree, hear the service, and watch the hordes celebrating Christmas. Belstaff, leather gloves, and perhaps even Sally's new scarf…..?
Happy Christmas, Sally. Happy Christmas. And as Tiny Tim said, God bless us, everyone. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head in disgust at his own whimsy. But it was Christmas after all. So perhaps just once a year? He was on his own again, after all, so there was no-one to know or notice.
He thought he might just get away with it, just for once… and it's all your fault, Sally Donovan!
END
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