The Dead Man's suitcase

I'm dreading 'The Reichenbach Fall', and this is probably why...

(NB I have to confess this started with the first sentence, which I took as a prompt. It originates from BBC Radio 4's splendiferous programme, 'From Our Own Correspondent', in which various BBC reporters offer stories about their experiences across the world. I can't remember the name of the man who wrote this, for which I apologise to him profusely, but the story was about how he was researching the life of the founder of the oldest bookshop on the African continent, who had happened to be a friend of Grahame Green. I heartily recommend the programme to you as a superb way of learning about the world.)

I am opening a dead man's suitcase. Sherlock Holmes's, to be precise. It has taken 12 days for me to be able to face up to it. Twelve days since I arrived home from Switzerland. Twelve days during which I have hardly known a coherent thought, or spent a moment without his face swimming behind my eyes. My friend. My Sherlock.

At the end of the week, I must attend his memorial service. Mycroft has organised it. Well, I say Mycroft. Given his current state, I imagine Anthea has done it all with her usual precision. Mycroft is hardly capable of speech, never mind organising a large social ritual of goodbye.

I am numb. I know only a buzz on the edge of conversation, voices muffled around me, barely heard. The man who saved my mind and my life is gone. I move my body, go through the motions, but my heart and my brain are frozen.

So I open the suitcase. His suitcase.

As soon as I lift the lid, his smell fills my nostrils. Chemicals, cigarette smoke, cinnamon, oranges and, for some reason I could never work out, the rich fruity odour of black cherries. How can a man smell of black cherries? Sherlock did.

I slide my fingers into the layers of his clothes, some dirty, others clean, waiting to be worn by a body that is lost. I press my face into their folds, close my eyes, breathe deeply. His purple shirt is on the top, fine silk, sharply cut. He was so finicky about his clothes. Always the best. Only the best.

That shirt. Oh, God, that shirt. Once, when I fell, he pulled me to my feet, and I stumbled against him. My face made contact with his chest, and I felt the heat of his body, the smoothness of his skin through the delicate fabric as it pressed to my cheek. It was only a moment. Now it is the only moment I have. I lift the folded shirt out of the case and press it once again to my cheek, but the silk is cold as it slips against my skin. He will never be inside it, warming it, again.

Out of the folds of silk falls an envelope. Thick cream vellum, marked with his familiar impatient scrawl – my name is on the front.

'John Watson – to be opened only in the event of my death.'

My hand shakes as I read those prescient words. He knew. Of course he did, I realise. Sherlock knew everything. He knew all along.

My fingers are too numb to slide under the flap, and even if they weren't, I am not capable of processing text right now. I cannot read. My mind is too fogged with loss. I don't want to leave the suitcase, but I need to know what is inside his last message to me. Perhaps it will explain why he left me that last night, why he was so stupid as to go up that bloody mountain alone when he must have known what was waiting for him at the top.

Oh, Sherlock.

I close the lid of the suitcase, frightened that if I don't, the last scent of his skin, of his presence, will dissipate. I walk down the stairs, one foot in front of the other, making the movements with conscious deliberation. I have to think about every movement carefully now. Otherwise my body would do nothing, would just sit there and solidify. After all, what is the point in moving without him?

I raise my hand, make a fist, and rap with my knuckles on her door. Mrs Hudson. The only one who really understands.

Her eyes are bright with tears when she opens up. She witters on about something. I do not understand her. I don't understand anything people say to me now. I hear their words, but they make no sense to me. I stare at her mouth as it moves, find myself frowning. She rests her hands on my arms and looks into my face, her features a question. I detect the upward inflection of her voice, and realise she is asking me what I want from her.

I press the letter into her hands.

She reads the front, and pushes it back, shaking her head. But I can't do it myself. I beg her, in words I can't hear or understand.

She takes my hand and leads me into her plush, stuffy little sitting room. We sit on the plum velour sofa and I watch as she slides her finger under the glued flap and tears it open. She draws out a sheet covered with dense words, unfolds and scans the first line or two. Then she breaks down. Shakes her head through the tears. Presses the paper back into my fumbling fingers. I realise she can't do it. She puts her arm around me, to show me I need not do it alone. I manage to hold the sheet still, and struggle to focus on the jumble of shapes his long, beautiful fingers have made on its surface. I think about his fingertips running over it, his knuckles curled around his fountain pen, making those familiar black smudges. I understand that these are his last words to me. I must force myself to decipher them as best I can. I squint hard and try to make out those lines that are the last I will ever have of him.

Dearest John,

If you are reading this, I am dead. No one is more sorry for that than me. If I am alive, then I will be telling you these things myself, and you will understand from my own mouth why I went, why I had no choice, and you will never read these words. However it turns out, I must tell you these things. I should have said them before, but I never could.

These are the last hours before light. When dawn comes, I shall head up the mountain to meet Moriarty. I know why I must do this. There is only one thing that matters to me now. It is your safety. While he lives, you will never be safe. I cannot bear to have you in danger, my dearest John. I can no longer live under that sword of Damocles. Can you not see that? Whatever happens to me, I promise you, he will not come down that mountain alive. I swear that to you now.

You will be angry, but please try to forgive me. I cannot see any other way.

There is something else I must tell you before I go. It is this. I am yours, John, body and soul, heart and mind. I have never loved anyone but you, and I never will. I have loved you from the moment we met, and your name alone will be on my lips as I die.

I find myself wishing I believed in reincarnation, that there might be hope of something on the other side of the darkness that I have walked beside all my life. I long to believe that somehow, one day we will meet again, and you will take my hand, and bless me with that beautiful smile, and I will be happy again.

For believe me when I say that you have made me happy. Happier than I ever believed was possible for me, or ever had a right to be. I have never deserved your goodness. I have been cruel and thoughtless, vain and arrogant. I have taken you for granted. Please understand I regret all that now. You have given so much of yourself for me, asking nothing in return, and I never appreciated it, or showed you how much it really meant to me. But it meant the world to me, John. It meant everything. I am nothing without you. You have made a man of me, perhaps even a good man. I owe you everything.

So please forgive me, my love.

And when I am gone, don't incubate your grief or anger. Go out and live life. Grab it with both hands and wring the hell out of it! Bite into it with your teeth, and savour it. Find a beautiful girl who will make you happy. Live the life you were born to live and live it without regret. For you are the best of men, and you deserve to be the happiest.

And if, in the next life, we should meet again, please, don't frown, or bark at me the way you always do when I have disappointed you. Give me your beautiful smile and make the world shine for me once more. And in between, remember this: that no man was ever more loved than you,

Your own, now and forever,

Sherlock.