July 2009
Jim could make Moran deliver the USB drive anywhere at all—a self‐serve locker, the penthouse in central London, taped to the underside of a random restaurant table—but by the time his phone chimes offering the prelims for Bart's it's been four months since he's been in the presence of a person who knows his name and one since he's been near a human being at all and he's crawling out of his skin. Four months isn't great; he's cycling faster.
He prefers to avoid people. They're dull and content and if he spends too much time with them on an individual basis the jealousy and contempt bubbles up and boils over and then he has to make a mess to calm himself down. In the early years when he was still discovering what he was capable of it was more of a problem and therefore more interesting but he has staff for that now. These days he merely arranges the mess.
He has staff for everything and it's awful. In every country worth bothering with he has flocks of employees who handle the necessities of life: travel and property and food. They're his worker bees and they perform all the mindless mundane tasks required to keep a body warm and alive. He'd rather starve to death than visit the grocer's on the reg but that would be cheating so he scrupulously doesn't allow himself to starve to death. Instead he hires cooks and assistants and caretakers and drivers. Well, his administrative cells do.
He has nests of fallen soldiers across the globe and sleeping solo snipers and money launderers and skilled forgery artists and demolitions experts all available to him at a moment's notice and he has his clients. They're his too, though they don't know it.
Jim may be the King of Crime but he's still a human being. He accepts that about himself. Periodic human contact is necessary for any instance of homo sapiens and he is no exception.
In the past at four months he might have sent Moran somewhere annoying—France, or Russia, or Florida—with the thumb drive. Four months really is weak and the irritation of an extra few days wait would have been enough of a self‐rebuke to balance it out but he only has to keep it together until the first of April. It should be fine. And if it's not, that's fine too.
It's July and sweltering and raining at the same time and that further tilts the scales. He'll have Moran come to him just for the small pleasure of making him suffer the miserable London weather.
It means Jim has to suffer it too because he's at the lab and Moran hasn't got a clue about that. Nobody does and he's as certain as he can be of it because he handled it personally. The best way to keep a secret is to tell no one and the best way to tell no one is to need no help.
This building and its equipment were the coin in that particular shell game and the holding companies and threadbare non-profits and defunct trusts were the cups. Under his deft touch they'd weaved and jumped and shuffled, bought and sold and merged in a frenzy of acquisitions and deliberate bankruptcies and misplaced documents until the prize was nowhere to be found.
If he has to go out into the sticky wet night too that's all right because he's in the mood for it. It's definitely time.
He texts Moran. Penthouse, 11 pm.
He sheds the pyjamas like a second skin and scours himself in the lab shower before slithering into khakis and a polo shirt buttoned all the way up and unfashionable glasses.
He mumbles a shy awkward goodnight to the lone security guard in the lobby—on contract, not one of his—and takes a cab to the flat on Dougherty. No one will be there at this hour but he pockets the glasses anyway and unbuttons the polo before skipping up the steps to the door.
Three more texts fly and he is only there long enough to strip again and apply a suit. The service staff have never seen him arrive or leave in anything else and he won't startle them tonight. They don't know his real name or what he does, only that he's rich as Crassus and flits in and out at odd intervals. They think he's in oil or property speculation or—his favourite rumour—that he's an insecure trust fund kid dressed up like Daddy.
For a moment he thinks of dragging the old bastard out of the filthy hell he'd tipped him into—one bottle of Macallan M left on the kitchen counter and the thing was done; it served him right for even trying—and presenting him lovingly as his father. They'd be so busy blanching and trying not to breathe in the stink he doubts they'd even notice their identical angular thumbs.
"Mr. Williams," murmurs the driver, extending an oversized umbrella. Right on time two more cars arrive: half of his personal security detail, detached from him for months. Unlike the driver these almost know his name—M—and they don't like being parted from him. They follow the sleek black sedan to the tower like reproachful ducklings.
Despite the plastic shelter Jim's damp when the lift hits the top floor and London is clinging to him like a film. He showers again and towels his hair dry before dressing in a soft grey v‐neck t‐shirt and loose drawstring pyjama bottoms and a knit orange cardigan. It has pockets wide enough for the Beretta. It's unlikely he'll shoot Moran tonight but his lieutenant will notice the weight of the gun in his pocket and he'll remember what Jim wants him to remember.
By the time he's out of the bathroom the other half of his security detail has fully withdrawn to the rooftop garden. The meal he requested from the restaurant on the penultimate floor is waiting for him on the dining room table. It's only salmon and brown rice and wilted spinach but it's still huddled under a shining serving lid and there are too many forks and four pieces of sparkling glassware. It's positively uncalled for. The people downstairs must be bursting from boredom. He knows the feeling.
He lifts the plate out of its gleaming nest and takes one fork to the sofa. He flips on the television to eat; the newspapers must wait.
It's good to have something to look forward to. Jim wants to read the backlog of newspapers—he only takes the London Evening Standard at the lab and mobile news sites tend to omit the details he's most interested in—and he wants to talk to Moran and above all he wants that USB stick in his hands. He has a feeling about Bart's and he's itching to know if he's right.
Usually by the time loneliness drives him back into the world he is wild and spoiling for trouble. He never takes it out on his personal security team—to them he is unfailingly kind, generous, and charming; he is no fool—so his right hand man tends to take the brunt of the backlash.
When Moran arrives he's clearly expecting some kind of bad behavior. Jim can see it in the set of his shoulders and the awkward angle of his arm hanging next to the empty holster and his faint grimace.
Sebastian Moran doesn't like him.
In his position Jim would feel the same way. Moran's been under his thumb for more than a decade, ever since he was hot‐headed enough to despise a fellow soldier in his unit and depraved enough to act on it and foolish enough to keep some of the evidence where someone clever could get at it. The first thread Jim ever wrapped around him was the colour of extortion.
("May I marry?" he'd asked gruffly two years later, already in deep enough to know that permission was required.
"By all means," Jim replied. And then there was a new thread spun, gold for the colour of Elizabeth's hair. It was lovely set against the rest of them, and the strongest of all until the children came.)
From his vantage point sprawled on the sofa Jim catches the little flinch when Moran spies the Xbox controller in his hands. He smiles.
"Want to play Call of Duty?"
"If you like," is the bland response, but the corners of his Moran's mouth tighten.
Jim raises his eyebrows. The Mario Kart incident hangs between them and he lets the silence spin out and his smile spread until Moran is too annoyed or embarrassed or unsettled to maintain eye contact.
"Don't look like that," Jim says. "We can play co‐op."
Moran shrugs and picks up the other controller before sinking into a chair. They play a dozen matches and win them handily. They work well together in this as they do in everything else and Moran ekes out an overall performance win by a point—Jim wonders if they're both keeping track of the math—and that's as it should be; it is a simulation of his profession, after all.
"That's enough," Jim says. It's still early, only just after midnight.
Moran puts the controller down carefully on the table and sits back in the armchair, staring at the blank wall ahead. Jim is well within his peripheral vision; Moran cannot be unaware that his employer is studying him. The anxiety is there, it shows in the unnaturally still fingers upon the armrest, but it is not the primary emotion. The rest of his long body speaks of resignation: the dull, unseeing look directed at the wall; the slightly slumping shoulders; the head tilted back to rest against the tall back of the chair.
Ten years of painstaking lessons and Moran has learned them beautifully: don't lie; don't flatter; don't make excuses; don't be curious. He's one of three people alive who have seen even a hint of the real Moriarty, and of course he's as dull as concrete.
It's irritating even though it's Jim's own doing. He has fashioned him into an obedient oversized doll, the kernel of his true personality hidden away in self-defense. It's not worth the effort of uncovering, he's seen it before and it's small and boring. Shooting Moran would be pointless; he's practically dead already.
Everyone Jim shows himself to dies in one way or another.
He can't imagine why he thought he wanted to talk with him.
"Good night," he says, rolling his neck. It doesn't crack.
Moran doesn't wait to be told twice. He leaves the USB drive on the table next to the controller and goes away.
The itchy feeling is still with him and it isn't the bitter ache of solitude that has been such a constant for so long it's practically a companion all on its own. The newspapers won't scratch it away either. He knows what's wrong.
It's the botched charity case.
It's Sherlock Holmes, standing in front of a door in Yorkshire he had no business even knowing about.
It's the memory of surprise, infuriating but also rare and precious.
Jim springs from the sofa and snatches up the USB. He's flush with anger and anticipation and a thin thread of hope and the strange feeling crackles all along his skin. The drive is tiny and it's only a storage device but in his hand it feels more like a bomb. He clutches it tightly in his fist and hurries to the master bedroom where the laptop waits.
It's time to make a mess.