Chapter 3: Paul
This chapter is for my friend MapleleafCameo who came up with some imaginative Canadian slang and can deplore my abuse/misuse of the Canadian people in her reviews ...
And for Arty Diane, whose 'So, Sherlock', series inspired Molly's musing in the garden and Paul's Wonderland moment ...
And for Ennui Enigma who suggested estrogen ...
Mycroft was completely composed by the time he walked back out into the garden with the Foreign Secretary. Sherlock eyed them as if they were an interesting species of alien.
Molly wondered, absently, if he was either about to produce a magnifying glass from his pocket to study them or would say, "No room, no room!" like in her favourite scene from Alice in Wonderland. She could see Sherlock as the Mad Hatter, but who Mycroft would be was beyond her - 'the Walrus perhaps', she thought, trying not to giggle. She shook her head surreptitiously to rid herself of her daydreaming and launched in with her findings on Mycroft's prompt.
"A quick analysis of the tablets in Parkinson's bathroom cabinet showed them not to be the aspirin that they claimed to be." Molly sighed deeply. "The poor man hadn't stood a chance really given his history and what they contained. Highly powerful coagulants. Would have resulted in blood clots, which might have killed him at any time." The Minster shot a worried look in Mycroft's direction, but Mycroft seemed undeterred.
Molly continued, "Sherlock, you were right about it being in the medication he was taking. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make them look exactly like the aspirin he was probably taking to thin his blood. Naturally, they were having the opposite effect from what he believed.
"The other result is less conclusive though, Minister. Might just be a bit of luck for the murderers. It's quite possible that the high levels of estrogen in his system were elective hormone therapy prior to a sex change."
Mycroft snorted through his nose and put his napkin back up to his face while he composed his features.
The Minister stepped in. "He was way over the rainbow but he wasn't taking hormone therapy. He wasn't that kind of gay. Don't ask me how I know. Whatever you may have found, young lady, that result was not of his own making."
The Minister asked some more questions about recombinant factor 7a and its effects combined with estrogen. Molly thought that he was angling for how painful a death the agent had suffered and she tried to reassure him all she could. Heart attacks could be painful affairs, but some people just dropped down dead. She erred towards the latter possibility, though some of her findings during the autopsy pointed in the other direction.
She wondered how intimately the Minister had known about the nature of the man's gayness, and whether that was why he was so concerned about the extent of his suffering. The Foreign Secretary was well known to have a beautiful wife and three of the most photogenic children in Westminster. But she knew of plenty of men who had seemed happily married before running off with their male personal trainer or the pool boy. Not many had then started wearing dresses and calling themselves Barbara though, she admitted to herself.
Sherlock eyed his brother with less than fraternal concern. "What was he doing for you, Mycroft?"
Mycroft narrowed his eyes and shifted ever so slightly in his chair.
"Top secret, can't possible divulge. You'll have to do your sleuthing without that little morsel of information." He looked uncomfortable and Molly felt sorry for him. She had a feeling that Sherlock was being spiteful to his brother in some obscure way and, in the past few hours, she had developed an urge to protect the portly man. He seemed to her to be vulnerable under all his English stiff upper lip ways.
She was about to intervene when Sherlock smiled sweetly and said, "We've done the how, and the why, surely the who is more your line of enquiry, dear brother?"
Paul LaPorte of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was enjoying his current assignment. Not so much for the work itself, it was a relatively mundane affair of investigating a breach of online security that effected the Bank of Montreal. It wasn't so boring as funds being syphoned but seemed to be a more insidious than common theft or he'd not have been assigned to investigate. There were terrorist connections and a serious threat to the relationship with the British authorities.
It wasn't usual to leave Canadian shores on his investigations but, in this case, he was the recognised expert and he'd been glad of the opportunity for some travel overseas.
It was the location and the company that he was keeping that was what made it worth leaving his hearth and slippers behind in Port Coquitlam. He'd always liked London. There was something quirky and intense about the city. It was a contradiction of styles and lack of taste that appealed to his sense of humour. But more than that, there was a certain woman who had caught his eye on this trip. Her accent melted him every time and it would have been easy for him to take his eye off the assignment if it hadn't been so important for him to succeed. She reminded him of what he liked best about London; she also had contradictions, her elegance and yet shyness appealed to him. She wasn't a classic beauty, but she had soulful eyes and he was a sucker for soulful eyes when matched with a British accent.
It had been chance that he had met her and she wasn't connected with the case on which he was working. It was a relief not to be dating someone who lied for a living, whichever side they were on in the game. He'd dated colleagues and people he'd been investigating, but those, by definition, would never go anywhere and he was a stay at home guy by inclination, despite his career choices.
He was posing as a trader in the City and had already gained the trust of the main suspects. Harvey Walsh had motive and opportunity to have committed the monetary fraud by transferring funds into an offshore account. He didn't have the computer acumen however, though he could be working with an accomplice. Then again, his English upperclass twit persona could be a well executed act.
There were a couple of traders who seemed to be throwing more money around of late. It turned out that one of them had come into a substantial inheritance and was sharing it with his lover. He figured it wasn't his business to divulge this piece of personal information to their employers, so he neglected to mention them at all in his reports back to his own office who might share any details with the London based company.
Then there was the regulator from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) who he was liaising with, Charles van Vechten. He never trusted anyone who had got so high in the profession and was so self-effacing. They were arrogant SOBs, to a man, good at what they did and believing themselves to be even better. This guy was falling over himself to say how humble and unworthy he was - the fake.
Paul also suspected the rather intrusive woman who was part of the custodial staff, Katie O'Neill, who seemed to specialise in the seventh floor - it was certainly the cleanest floor in the building - the floor that held the computing systems that had been hacked to Canada's detriment. And wasn't that a rather suspicious name for someone not obviously Irish?
It wasn't that she was impertinent, meddlesome and inquisitive about everything that went on around her. Plenty of students worked periodically doing menial jobs these days and clever people also took temp jobs or worked at something mentally undemanding if they chose to.
Her clothing conflicted with her role as a custodian on minimum wage, working for an agency. Just the odd 'mistake', like a scarf that was obviously from Harrods or her jewellery, a ring that would have cost a small fortune. She saw him eying her Gucci handbag once, and all too quickly said, "knock-off, got it cheap in Camden Market". Yeah, right. He could tell the difference. And then she turned up next day with a replacement and it looked liked she'd mugged a bag-lady to get hold of it.
He'd been given the phone number for a Sherlock Holmes by the MI6 agent who'd contacted him on his arrival. He rang the number given, listening to silence that went on too long before the dialing tone started. 'What is it with English systems and the English public who put up with substandard service? It wouldn't happen in Vancouver, let alone be tolerated.' It connected finally and rang for less than a full ring before it was answered, like the recipient had been waiting with him for it to connect.
"Yes!" the curt crisp tones of the English upper classes. Paul smiled to himself. He's either going to be another dink or a genius - my guess is genius or I wouldn't have been given his personal number.
"Well hello! Mr Holmes, I presume, eh?"
"What exactly in my tone led you to believe that I was answering for a little chat-chat? State your business or get off my personal line!"
Paul wondered if the man ever spoke in anything but staccato phrases followed by exclamation marks and realised that what this odd conversation reminded him of was his favourite scene from Alice in Wonderland where Alice meets the caterpillar. He suppressed a grin.
"Paul laPorte of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I was given your name and contact by MI6 in connection with a case I'm working on at Donahue, Levin and Levin. I need your assistance in shifting through some of information concerning employees in a case of national importance-"
"British or Canadian national importance?" the voice snapped.
"Both, I'd say-"
"So you don't know which country you're working for, you can't analyse your own data and you're wasting my time with no indication what possible interest this might be-"
Paul was having trouble getting out a full sentence and wondered whether the conversation was going anywhere, so he did some hasty interrupting of his own.
"Mr Holmes, if you don't listen to the evidence, how you can you possibly-"
"Send me what you have, I'll look into it," the voice said wearily, and the line went dead.
