Chapter 7
"Dear God, what is that smell?" John hovered, not taking his coat off just yet.
"My experiment." Sherlock shrugged off his coat and hung it on the back of the door. "Count yourself lucky, the liver was far worse." He headed straight for the kitchen and reluctantly tipped his test tube contents down the sink.
"You were pretty hard on Mike back there."
"Mike's an idiot." Sherlock opened one of the kitchen cupboards and brought out a pint glass. He started to fill it with tap water.
"He was distraught."
"He let a con artist into his department. A con artist who, I might add, murdered the man he was impersonating - "
"Now, slow down, we don't know that for sure - "
"Yes, we do – and has probably abducted Molly," Sherlock allowed himself a small breath of commiseration, "so, yes, he should be distraught." Then he downed the water in one long draught, upturning the glass on the draining board.
"I think I'm going to help with the manhunt," John announced.
"No," Sherlock ripped a page out of his pocket notebook and passed it to him, along with his wallet, "you're going shopping."
"I'm in no mood to go shopping." John looked at the list fleetingly. "What about finding Molly? Are you going to help or not? Don't you care about her at all?" He recalled the pair's lunchtime quarrel. "What am I saying? Of course you don't care."
"I never said I didn't care, a man-hunt's just not my biggest priority right now."
"There's something wrong with you." Sherlock's wallet weighed more heavily in John's hand than leather and paper and plastic should. His knuckles whitened.
"Never claimed otherwise."
"There's something weird about this whole case and you're not telling me. The moment you knew Molly was missing, something changed. Your whole face changed. We can't let that video be the last time we see her alive, Sherlock. After all she did for you."
"After... did..." Sherlock hung his head, leaning on the kitchen counter for support. He wouldn't look John in the eye. He stayed like that at the counter for longer than John would allow himself to indulge the man.
"Right, well, I suppose I'm doing the shopping then." John changed his tone to try and somehow call a truce. "What are you going to do?"
"I need to sit here and think." Sherlock crossed to the living room and curled his long legs up under him in his chair. He stared long and hard at the bunch of poppies that Mrs Hudson had put in a Robertson's Marmalade jar with a little bit of water.
John took a deep breath to stop himself doing something unspeakable to the man. He looked at the list again. "Please tell me this is part of a plan."
"All good plans start with shopping."
"Shopping."
"Yes, shopping and thinking. Thinking and shopping. Now run along."
"But the search, Sherlock - "
"The metropolitan police's modus operandi is to look for a needle in a haystack in the most traditional sense of the phrase. Molly is not a needle and London is not a haystack. Provided she's still in London, that is - she may not be. No, as with a murder, they'd be better off looking for a motive. Go right back to the beginning of the story. How do you really find a needle, John?" John looked blank. "You burn the haystack down."
Shopping was already looking like the better option. "Okay. You do some thinking and I'll just… I'm trusting you the burning thing's figurative, then?"
But Sherlock was already deep in thought, squinting at something John couldn't see.
He looked at the two numbers. One was the fake Barnett's number. No point. It was probably a burner anyway. An operation as organised as this wouldn't make the mistake of being traceable by GPS. He spent a second toying with the idea of calling. Even if it was only to give that man a piece of his mind. He replayed the image of Barnett leading Molly off to the museum café. He pictured them sitting down to coffee.
I WANT TO APOLOGISE FOR EARLIER, the message had said. Fast-forward.
He saw Molly slip her bag under the table, just where they'd found it, and sip the coffee. It was probably laced with some of the Valium he'd killed the real Barnett with. It would have taken about 20 minutes to take effect, in which time he would have walked Molly to the conveniently placed ambulance at the back gates of Dominion House, probably under the pretext of talking about her current case work.
No, the story started way before that. It started months ago with an illegal immigration. Rewind.
Ticos Floarea
Tarcáu
Potoci
Place names fell through his head.
He narrowed it down a bit.
Hamzoaia
Bicaz
BICAZ!
He was standing in a glade in the Carpathian mountains. Tall pines shaded him from the midday sun and a glassy blue lake was visible just beyond the trees. It was breath-taking, like an oasis from the storm in his mind. The slain Romanian girl stood before him, naked. The top of her head, most of the cranium, was missing and there was a livid wound flapping open on her right thigh; the letterbox. Her skin was grey and she stared right in front of her, unseeing.
This will not do. He decided to give her some dignity in death. Only God knew if she'd been granted any in her too short life.
He gave her a virginal white dress that billowed in the light breeze, tied at the waist like a Grecian icon. Then he replaced the missing cranium with carefully dressed long dark curls. The colour came back into her cheeks. He decided to let her smile; she deserved to be happy in death.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello," she said, only now moving her eyes. Her head turned as she followed his circumnavigation around her.
"It's beautiful. Why did you leave?"
The girl glanced around at the forest. "There were no jobs. They promised me work as an au pair."
"But when you got there it was very different to what they said, wasn't it."
The girl nodded.
"Did that kill you?" He pointed to the wound on her leg.
"No," said the girl.
Molly had been close to finding out what killed her; that was why she was taken, he concluded. Shame he didn't have the notes; the fake Barnett had taken those too, but he did have the next best thing.
Suddenly the dead girl was replaced with Molly, clothed in the white dress, her childlike face framed with romantic pin-curls.
"Hmmm, that's an improvement on your usual attire."
"It's not for you."
"Blunt as ever, I see."
The ghost of a smile crossed her face.
"You removed her brain."
"Yes."
"You did that because phlebotomy and toxicology didn't find anything."
"Is that a question or a statement?" his mind-Molly said cheekily.
He began to circle her slowly, checking he'd imagined her figure correctly.
32 -24 -34
Hmmm, coincidence?
"You don't believe in coincidences," Mind-Molly smirked.
"Well observed."
"Do you believe in love at first sight?" she asked without warning.
He cocked his head slightly to one side. "Not now, Molly. I'm trying to solve your murder."
"I haven't been murdered yet."
"We don't know that for sure. That's what's killing - " he had been going to say, 'me'.
"There's this man and I love him," she continued, looking straight forward, "at least, I think I do. I can't stop thinking about him. He's so intelligent it's like he's burning."
"Yes, I do feel like I'm burning," he frowned, quickly falling into the trap, "how could you know that?"
"I see you when you think he's not looking."
Could it be that she was the only one who really saw him? No, that's not allowed. His carefully constructed Prison of Alone must not be compromised again. You're not allowed in my head this way, Molly. Oh, damn you already are. She wasn't playing by the rules.
"Back to business," he snapped, "what were you looking for in her brain? Cancer, blood-clot, heavy metals?"
"You're asking the wrong questions," said Mind-Molly and she looked down. Blood started to soak through the dress, approximately in the position of the Romanian girl's leg wound. Then it started to flow freely, completely saturating the exquisite white fabric until it was weighing her down. Mind-Molly's eyelashes fluttered closed and she started to fall backwards, slowly, as if underwater.
He reached out feebly, but she was already plummeting toward the forest floor. Only it wasn't a forest floor now, it was the concrete floor of a warehouse. The blood pooled around her under the harsh floodlights, sticky and clotted at the edges.
"I won't let that happen!" he said to the corpse.
"Then think, stupid," a dark-suited figure stepped out of the shadows.
"I'm trying." He turned back to the remains of his Mind-Molly to find that she'd been replaced with the Romanian girl, now lying on a mortuary table. The dark-suited figure came and stood on the opposite side so that they were both looking down on the naked body.
"It's like a game of Operation isn't it?" said the other man, "you always were a bad loser. Could never stand to be… wrong."
"Oh, piss off Mycroft. You're not welcome in here."
Sherlock busied himself with trying every conceivable foreign object that could have been secreted in the girl's wound. It was indeed like a game of Operation.
Cannabis… too cheap.
Heroin… Coke… more expensive but still pointless.
Weapons… Ammunition… too heavy. Also pointless when there were better ways of getting them into the country.
He dismissed them all.
Something expensive… something worth killing for… trick question; nothing's worth killing for, except saving another... concentrate... Gold… Diamonds… maybe diamonds! But there were no known diamond smuggling operations between eastern Europe and the UK.
No known operations.
He put that one on the back burner for later.
More valuable than diamonds… Something electronic… bomb parts?
"That's absurd," he said to the motionless figure on the table, "is it absurd? Why is it absurd?"
"Because there's nothing you can make a bomb out of that isn't already available here." The dead girl spoke up, getting impatient.
His whole thought process had taken but a few seconds. Sherlock's eyes flew open and he focussed on the makeshift vase of poppies on the coffee table.
Papaver Somnifarum.
"This is no good. I need to consult an expert."
"You really should apologise, you know."
"And to whom should I be apologising?" Sherlock opened Mrs Hudson's fridge as she bustled around making tea.
"That poor girl," she scolded him, "I heard your raised voices. It's just not gentlemanly. I've a mind to call your mother. She wouldn't stand for you treating a girl like this."
Sherlock closed the fridge, disappointed. "Have you got any cake?"
"Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious you're both frustrated." Mrs Hudson reached for the milk.
"Anything remotely edible would do. Anything with sugar in it, really." He opened the fridge again and handed her the carton.
"You think I don't know what's going on up there most of the time, young man, but I hear things. I can smell smoke sometimes too, don't you doubt it." She reached for the good cake tin, up on top of the kitchen units. He took it down for her before she did herself a mischief. "And I'm wise enough to know when a woman has been scorned. I know the tone of voice, even through these floorboards."
Sherlock had already partially switched off, sitting down at the small table. "Is this Mr Kipling?" He opened the tin and sniffed the cake.
"And now she's missing. Probably eloped with that boyfriend of hers, not that you'd care. He's nice enough of course, but he doesn't really inspire passion, does he? All I'm saying is you need to fix it." She plonked the mug of tea roughly in front of him. Some of it sloshed over the edge.
"Mrs Hudson."
"Yes."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"You can, but I can't guarantee you'll like the answer."
"It's about something else."
"Okay, then." Mrs Hudson folded her arms across her chest, still unimpressed with his treatment of Molly.
"It's about smuggling."
"I don't know anything about smuggling."
"Yes you do. Your husband spent thirty five years exporting a mountain of cocaine out of the USA. Of course you know something about smuggling. You couldn't fail to learn something about smuggling." He put some of the fruitcake in his mouth to punctuate the point.
"But I do know something about women and it's obvious she's still sweet on you - "
"Mave you mever meard of momeone miding drugf infide deir dody." Mouth still full of cake, he washed his words down with hot tea.
"Well, of course. The usual ways up the… you know. Inside a… you-know-what." She whispered the last part behind her hand.
"Yes I know about that. What I mean is, actually cutting a cavity in their flesh and sewing something into it."
"Not exactly. But there was a story about a young lady who wrapped up a package of… you know, like a baby and she got away with it too, because no-one would wake a sleeping baby on a plane, would they?"
"I have no idea. What about other things? Not drugs, say… something the size of a radiator pipe."
"Oh, I wouldn't know about anything else… unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless you count the Mexicans. They always had very creative ways of getting things out of the country. Very clever. Stealing radioactive material from hospital CAT scanners and selling it on, if you get my meaning. Making a huge profit they were. Only, it wasn't long before some of them started turning up dead in the desert. They just didn't know how to treat the stuff, didn't respect it. They were stuffing it up their jumpers for all we knew. Anyway, Frank always said - "
And that was the point he pretty much tuned her out. Radioactive material? Molly would have found that wouldn't she? There would have been signs of radiation sickness. Gamma radiation.That was a standard thing to look for.
Heavy metals?
A few bars of subconsciously remembered Iron Maiden played in his head.
Don't be silly!
Lead?
Too obvious, idiot.
Bismuth?
His game of life-sized 'Operation' returned. A rod of Bismuth floated above cavity in the corpse. He rejected it and it spun away into oblivion.
Back to the radioactive elements.
Plutonium?
Neptunium
Uranium
ProtactiniumThoriumActiniumRadiumFrancium…
All Gamma Radiation…
Radon, Astatine, Polonium, Promethium…
Wait. Go back. Polonium? POLONIUM!
Polonium 210 emitted only alpha particles. There would be no gamma radiation to detect, but it would cause massive cell death on contact or even close proximity.
A rod of polonium 210 spun around in mid-air, became coated in a more innocuous metal and inserted itself into the cavity in the Romanian girl.
Perfect! It was valuable enough to want to hide; it was something you couldn't risk being found on your person or in a lorry, and most importantly, it was something that could poison you in an almost undetectable way. Almost undetectable because you had to know what you were looking for before you started looking. He would know.
His mental map zoomed in.
Romania, Polonium, dead girls.
The picture was complete. It all made sense now.
Yes!
No.
NO!
Polonium 210. No.
He took his favourite pencil out of his pocket and held it at arm's length, between finger and thumb.
Mrs Hudson was just finishing her own cup of tea, saying, "you both need to just get it out in the open, admit you have feelings for-"
"Mrs Hudson!" Sherlock scraped his chair back violently. "Pack a bag and go to your sister's. Don't ask any questions, just go! Get as far away from London as you can, and don't come back until I tell you. Don't touch me!"
She was uncomprehending.
He looked at the half full mug and the cake tin, his breath coming fast and he swallowed hard. "Do you trust me?"
"Y – yes, of course I do, sweetheart. What's wrong?"
"Something very bad. Worse than anyone imagined."