Chapter 2: Mistreatment

Before Sherlock decided to fashion himself a career as a detective, no Holmes had ever stepped foot inside of a pound. Or rather, a Ward Shelter and Holding Facility. But that was a mouthful. So people just called them pounds.

No, the Holmeses had always acquired their charges through more respectable means, such as at silent auctions and from high-priced distributors known for scouting out and placing good-stock, high-quality wards with good-stock, high-quality Britons. Barnaby had been one of those wards of good stock. He had been brought to the household when Sherlock was only seven. Though an older ward—even older than Sherlock's father—he came with impeccable paperwork outlining his steady character and mild temperament. No stealing, back-talking, trouble-making, or midnight-running from this one. He was respectful and compliant, apparently exactly what Mr Holmes was looking for, after the fiasco with Redbeard.

When Sherlock turned eighteen and by law became a host for the first time, he inherited Barnaby. That is, his father signed over the registration. It was good, he said, for a first-time host to already be familiar with his ward. But when Sherlock went off to school, Barnaby stayed on at the estate, making Sherlock a host in name only, which suited everyone just fine. Mycroft's ward, Henrietta, was of the same ilk: inherited from his mother and managed at the estate as he pursued his career elsewhere. As the wards aged, the Holmeses hired part-time and then full-time caretakers to see to their needs, as any good host ought. Having reached the age of exemption themselves, they no longer took on new wards but were still of sufficient means to manage their sons'.

Sherlock's parents were now gone, and with the estate falling to Mycroft, the elder Holmes managed all of the affairs related thereto, including the wards. In time, Henrietta died of stroke, and since her passing, Mycroft had taken on four wards, all elderly, and kept them until they, too, expired. It was his way. He saw it as philanthropic. Elderly wards needed hosts, too, but few families were willing to take them on. So thank God for the benevolent Mycroft Holmes. But Sherlock saw it for what it really was: the most hands-off approach to hosting he could design. Both brothers lived in London; the estate lay to the south, and there were kept the aging wards, cared for by well-paid geriatrics nurses who saw to their end-of-life transition.

Only now, Barnaby was dead. And by law, Sherlock needed to replace him. Unless, of course, he could qualify for exemption status. Which he intended on doing.


The pound had a distinct odour of industrial-grade disinfectant. One could smell it from the car park. Lestrade was already sniffing irritably.

They entered through the double glass doors and into a foyer-type reception hall where, behind a long desk plastered with brightly coloured posters (All wards need a little TLC! and Did you remember to vaccinate? Ask about handy fridge magnet reminders! and One out of every three wards suffers depression. How to keep yours healthy and happy), three harried-looking women stood with a phone in the crook of her neck, managing a queue, and typing rapidly at a computer while talking to an unhappy couple, respectively. A string of fairy lights and a plastic, ragged, be-decked tree in the corner failed to imbue the room with a festive spirit, if the looks on the patronages was anything to judge by.

Lestrade and Sherlock skipped the queue and cut their way to the front, ignoring the dropped jaws and dagger-eyes and the one outraged man who said, 'Just where do you think—?'

'Excuse me, sir, back of the queue,' said harried woman number two, pointing with two fingers because at some point in her past, she had been told it was rude to use just one.

'Detective Inspector Lestrade.' He produced his identification.

Sherlock would never admit it out loud, but he loved that moment. If he ever chose to actually join the Met, it would be solely for the purpose of getting to do that. 'I'm a consulting detective' was never met with the same obsequious response. If it wasn't a scowl, it was an eye roll, or worse still, a confounded ruffle of the forehead followed by, 'You're a what now?' A little more deference would be lovely.

'And my colleague, Mr Holmes.'

It would do.

The telephone slipped, the keyboard stopped clapping, and the queue quieted with intrigue.

'Pardon,' said the woman. 'What's this about?'

'We're just here to talk to one of the wards who was recently brought in. Registration number . . .' He slowly extracted his notebook where he'd scribbled down the information, and Sherlock rolled his eyes. Lestrade was far too old-fashioned for his own good.

But Sherlock, having heard it once, had already memorised it: 'YR3914-23. Goes by Westie.'

'Give me just . . . a . . . moment . . .' she said, beginning to type. 'I need to look it up.'

While they waited, Sherlock noticed in the adjoining space two children, four and six if he had to guess. The older girl held the little boy's hand, but she herself looked close to tears. Beside them, two adults conversed. One was clearly a social worker, and was wearing a Ward Social Care badge as proof; the other looked to be a worker at the Ward Shelter and Holding Facility. The WSC officer occasionally touched the little girl's head (it was easier to reach), but otherwise, the children were more or less ignored.

Sherlock honed in on the conversation and filled in the details of their story in a matter of seconds. The children's parents had recently been on holiday in New France, where a car crash had taken both their lives, leaving their son and daughter orphaned. There were no blood relatives to assume custodial care. Their family assets would be liquidated and absorbed by the government. Today, officially, the children had just become wards of the state.

An unfortunate occurrence, but not an uncommon one, Sherlock mused. More common stories involved biological parents with drug addictions or unlawful sex habits or violence, but there were the tragedies as well. Car crashes, cancer, heart attacks, boating mishaps, murder—there were a thousand ways to make an orphan. And the State of New Britain had one grand solution for all of it: the Ward Social Care Programme, a product of the Compulsory Foster Care Act of 1958.

These children would be bought quickly. The younger, the better. They wouldn't spend long in this place, and just as well. Each might go for as much as £20,000, given their previous home environment and healthy status. Doubtful they would be sold together, though. Family units were obligated to provide care for only one ward, after all. Two was being unnecessarily generous.

I don't have interest in hiring on a nanny, Sherlock thought vaguely, then caught himself, wondering why he was thinking about it at all. He was applying for exemption. Tonight. Best get it over with quickly.

'YR3914-23,' repeated the woman, having found the file. 'Male, Indian stock, twenty-four years old. Sound right?'

'That's him,' said Lestrade.

'We have him on four. Let me call down Rudy, AMH warden. He can escort you.'

Adult Male Holding comprised the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors of the building, and was the least trafficked of all the divisions. Hosts coming to buy a ward from the pound avoided it, because who wanted to host a full-grown male who had ended up here? Best to stick with the ground floor and first level, the Child Sanctuary, where children were kept in rooms resembling playgrounds, clean and brightly decorated with toys, crafts, and wall art to hide the cracks in the sheetrock. The best and brightest didn't last long. Those who were not purchased within a reasonable timeframe were 'obligated', that is, placed into the citizen lottery. If your number came up, you took on an additional ward. It was like being selected for jury duty, only permanent. Unless, of course, you could finagle a sale, trade, or bribe.

The second and third levels were designated AFH, or Adult Female Holding, and Sherlock had spent some time there on cases (the most recent: 'She stole my gran's pearl earrings and sold them. Make her tell you where they are!'). There, the women sixteen years and older slept three to a room holding two bunks and a single, but there was a decent-sized common room and cafeteria, and on the north end, a show-room. Older women not yet of exemption age often went for an adult female and kept them on through retirement. When the host died, though, the ward often ended up right back here. Men were restricted from purchasing females, unless married or homosexual, but even then there was no guarantee there wouldn't be trouble, and Sherlock had been called in on those, too: when the police were scraping for evidence and couldn't turn anything up, Sherlock usually could. Female wards were far too frequently abused; some were calling it an epidemic.

Females on the AFH had an expiry date of three months, at which point, if not placed with a host family, they were removed to Storage. Well. Colloquially, it was called Storage. The state called it a Permanent Shelter for Unplaced Wards. Unwanted. That's what they meant. Those shelters were far outside of the city, somewhere they wouldn't be a bother.

A child came to a pound because of a tragedy.

A woman found herself there because her host was rotten.

And a man? A male ward ended up in a pound because he was rotten.

Maybe that's why adult males occupied the top three floors, the farthest from potential hosts. Violent, lying, deceiving, stealing, renegade wards were by and large male, and host families were not expected to cope with them for long. Not even the pound was expected to cope with them for long. Male wards had an expiry period of only two weeks before being sent into Storage. Few were ever placed again.

The lift doors opened, and Sherlock and Lestrade followed the warden, Rudy, into an expansive room where individual holdings ran in long rows and blocks like storage lockers. The children ran free and played; the females moved about and socialised. The males, however, sat behind chain-linked doors on state-issued cots, waiting for their turn for the loo or their shift in the cafeteria for dinner. Breakfast and lunch were served in brown paper sacks through a slot in the chain links.

'Just down there,' said Rudy. 'Holding number 38.'

The ward, Reg. No. YR3914-23, sat alone, hugging himself and rocking on the cot. He had been processed and placed there just within the past hour. What's more, his host of nearly twenty years had died earlier that day. It was no wonder he looked to be in a state of shock. Had things played out differently, he might never have seen the inside of a pound.

'Westie, is it?' Lestrade asked the dark-skinned, large-eyed young man. He showed his ID through the chain link. 'I'm a police detective, Westie. And I'm here to ask a few questions about what happened earlier today between Lucy and Joe. Can you stand up and come closer to the door, please?'

The ward pushed languidly to his feet and came closer, still shaking, still hugging himself at the elbows.

'Tell me about this morning, Westie. About Lucy. Before Joe got home, what were you and Lucy doing?'

Already distraught, the sorry-looking ward pushed a hand under his nose and murmured almost under his breath, 'Nothing bad, sir. Nothing bad.'

'You're going to have to tell, Westie. And it's important that you tell the truth. You're not going to get into trouble. Do you understand?'

Withholding a sigh of impatience (a mask for his discomfort), Sherlock turned away on the pretext of having an interest in the layout of the floor, as if he didn't already know it well. He honestly hated ward interrogations. He hated wards. Not the wards themselves, necessarily, but there was just something about them, as parts of a whole, that made everyone a little prickly, and Sherlock was no exception. He pretended he was an exception. He was good at pretending. But the less he had to do with wards, the better.

Westie was nodding.

'Were you touching Lucy? Was Lucy touching you?'

'Weren't nothing bad, sir.'

'Is that a yes?'

'Yes.'

'Okay.' Lestrade was scratching in that goddamn notebook again. Couldn't the man type notes into his phone like a normal policeman? 'You're going to have to be more specific for me, Westie.'

As Lestrade continued in his line of inquiry, Sherlock's roving eyes landed on a holding at the end of the row, fifteen paces away and in the corner squarely facing Westie's cell. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the holding itself. It was the man sitting inside of it. Maybe it was the way he sat so erect on his cot, spine as straight as a soldier's at attention. Maybe it was the contrasting forlorn expression. He stared, but the man didn't stare back. Rather, he seemed to be looking at nothing at all. But why was he sitting so tall, so rigid?

'Was this the first time Lucy had kissed you?'

Sherlock refocused on the interrogation. The ward's head was hanging; his hand covered his eyes. But he shook his head no. 'She loved me,' he wept.

Hosts can't love wards, Sherlock thought. Not like that.

'Westie, I need you to pay attention and answer the questions, all right? Had Lucy ever kissed you before, or asked you to kiss her?'

Sherlock couldn't bear to listen to this anymore. Feigning purpose, he wandered down the long row, toward the fair-haired ward at the end. He wasn't sure why. The ward's curious posture suggested there was something of a mystery about him, and Sherlock enjoyed mysteries. Maybe that was why. A moth to a flame. But he moved slowly, passing empty holdings or sleeping wards or wards lying on their cots and staring up at the ceiling and its greying, peeling paint. When he was only feet away, the ward's eyes slowly lifted, and he noticed Sherlock's advance for the first time. A hand closed into a fist on his knee.

Then Rudy reappeared, making sweeps of the rows. Instantly, Sherlock pretended to be interested in something else. But from the corner of his eye, he saw Rudy stop in front of the mystery ward's chain link door and sigh. Rudy reached into a slot large enough for a bread loaf.

'Is this lunch?' He withdrew a brown paper sack, untouched, weighted down with food. 'You barely touched your yoghurt this morning. What is this, a hunger strike?'

The ward made no reply, and Rudy waved a hand, saying, 'Bah.' He continued down the row. When he passed by Sherlock, Sherlock didn't stop himself. He followed after and began to pry.

'What's his story?'

'Which? The ward who won't eat his veggies?'

'That's the one.'

The man shrugged. 'They called him Tiny on the outside. Won't answer to it now, but that's what he came in with. I wouldn't say he's been a problem. Noncompliance is my biggest complaint, but it ain't nothing big. Only stopped eating yesterday, I reckon.'

'No, why is he here?' Sherlock took the paper sack and opened it. A cucumber sandwich, it looked like, wrapped in cellophane, and an apple. Rudy had left the water bottle in the cell.

'Mistreatment, that one.'

'Who did he mistreat?'

Rudy shook his head, taking back the untouched lunch. 'You got it the wrong way 'round. He were the one being mistreated. You don't see it so often with the males, but it happens.'

'What do you mean? What happened to him?'

'Host was a cock, that's what. Near as I can tell, starved him, beat him, messed him up pretty good, just because he could. You know the type. In your line of work, you know what I'm talking about. Bastards. They're the kinda people who should be locked away, not the wards, and I'm not the only feller who thinks it.'

Sherlock grunted noncommittally. 'So someone reported it?'

'Guess you could say that. Neighbour heard a gun go off in the middle of the day.'

'He was shot?' Sherlock looked back at the holding and the ward, who had not moved a muscle.

'Poor bugger,' said Rudy. 'Took it in the shoulder. Fairly fresh. Still on antibiotics, that one.'

Mistreatment, Rudy had said, but Sherlock was fairly perplexed. In his line of work, that was called attempted murder.

'Why was he shot?'

'Search me. Not important now, I guess. It's a wonder the sod is still alive, to be honest. They say it was an hour or more before someone got to him, and him all bleeding out like. Shoulda killed him, that.' He sighed again. 'Pity it didn't. Been here ten, eleven days already, and no one will take on a damaged ward like that. We'll have to move him to Storage by week's end, and that'll be that. Not the best way to spend Christmas, make no mistake.' Then he said it again: 'Poor bugger.'

Something funny was happening in the back of Sherlock's brain, something ticklish and bothersome. He forced himself to ignore it.

'And the host?'

'The standard, I imagine. Five thousand pound fine for mistreatment of an adult male ward. He won't be allowed to host for another five years, and only on condition of mandatory care-giving classes. He can appeal, but my guess is, it's just a snazzy way of getting out of his civic duty.'

'Sherlock.'

Lestrade had come up just behind them and was slipping his notepad back inside his jacket. 'Got what I need. Joe's a liar and his sister was a molester. Ward thinks he was in love, but we know how judges react to those kinds of claims. Open and shut. Anything else you wanted to do here?'

He'd heard almost nothing of the interview for himself, and Sherlock realised that he'd now lost interest almost entirely. Glancing back at the ward that had inexplicably distracted him from the job, he saw that the fist had relaxed again and flattened itself on his thigh. Other than that, there had been no change.

'No. Let's go.'

Lestrade gave a sharp nod to the lifts. 'Well then. How was that for time well spent? Bet you're thrilled you came.'


'It was announced today that the pilot employment programme, under proposed Bill W-459, which would amend the CFCA, has been cancelled. Among its critics was the Lord Commissioner of Emancipation himself, Lord Mag—'

Sherlock snapped off the television. He needed a superior distraction.

He was back at Baker Street. The case had proved dull, unworthy of his extraordinary talents, and had barely taken a handful of hours. And yet, he fell uncharacteristically unsettled. Maybe it had started with Mycroft's phone call, but it had certainly culminated at the pound.

He didn't want to examine it. So he didn't. He just turned up the music.

The way others might drown out their thoughts in stereo, Sherlock poured his into the violin. Fervent concertos like Bach's Chaconne from Partita in D minor, followed by Locatelli's rapid Caprice in D major, and he was just in the middle of a series of cascading runs in Paganini's Caprice no. 4 in C minor when Mrs Hudson popped her head in with a yoo-hoo!

'Goodness, Sherlock, are you in a strop?' she asked when he screeched the string and whipped around with lightning in his eyes.

'I'm fine, Mrs Hudson.'

She bore a tea tray and set it on the coffee table. He had no idea why she did this, as if he were incapable of making his own tea. She was his landlady, not his housekeeper. Not that he ever stopped her. He didn't much like bothering with making tea; he did quite like when it showed up uninvited.

Only, just now, he was too peeved to say thank you.

'You've been at it for hours. I thought you could use a break, before you cramp.'

He sighed to let her know how irritated he was, then set the violin aside and accepted the cuppa. 'I don't cramp,' he said sulkily, catching himself before he shook the strain out of his left hand. He'd flex it when she wasn't looking.

'All the same.' She piled extra biscuits on his plate.

'Mrs Hudson, you're of exemption age,' he stated plainly.

She laughed. 'Quite a few years beyond the minimum, dear.' She paused in the act of pouring herself a cup. 'Why?'

'What happened with your last ward? Did you sell, or . . . ?'

'Oh no, dear. I . . . Well, I found her a good home. We all try to do best by the wards in our care, don't we? I did mine. And she's happier for it than if she'd stayed on, if you gather my meaning.' She smiled at him, but her eyes were a little evasive. Sherlock understood. No one much liked talking about how a host-ward relationship terminated. One way or another, there was always some measure of guilt involved. So he let it go. He didn't really want to seek her advice, or anyone's, on the matter of Barnaby's replacement.

'I'll come back for the tea tray later,' she said. 'You go back to your music, dear.'

He wriggled his nose and drank the tea.

An hour later came another interruption to his recital: the promised courier, bearing Barnaby's expiry forms and a reminder of his thirty days to re-establish himself as a host, according to British law. He flung the papers at the cold fireplace and ignored them the rest of the night.

That night, quite against his will, he found himself tossing and turning in bed, thinking of Redbeard. He didn't know why he had bothered to go to bed in the first place. He wasn't the least bit sleepy, and his brain was absolutely refusing to turn off. But he was seeking respite (from what?) in sleep, and it just wasn't happening. Maybe he should get drunk and just pass out. He wasn't much for drinking, let alone drinking alone. He often preferred other sorts of depressants—a tempting thought. But in the end, he just ended up throwing back the covers, marching into the sitting room, and turning on late-night snooker, a thing he hated above most things. He sat in his chair, knees drawn up, and silently mocked the players for their form, fails, and fashion choices.

His phone sounded close to his ear. Sherlock startled awake and fell out of his chair, only then realising, despite his best efforts, he had fallen asleep in it somehow. The sky was only morning-grey, which meant it wasn't even seven o'clock yet. He crawled to the coffee table (Mrs Hudson had never returned for the tea tray) and saw Lestrade's name on his caller ID.

'What?' he greeted.

'So. I'm on my way back to the pound. Wondered if you cared to join me.'

'The pound?' He sat back on his heels. 'What for?'

'They found him asphyxiated in his cell this morning. The ward.'

'The one that was shot?' Sherlock rose swiftly to his feet, morning haze clearing rapidly.

'What? No, asphyxiated, I said. With the bedding. Westie. They think it's suicide. I want you to come with me to see if they're right.'