Not being a master of disguise, Maddy decided to go for the obvious approach. She picked a spot close enough to 221B to watch John enter and exit, but far enough away to not be obvious and she sat down to beg, asking passers by for loose change. People are quick to ignore you if you are asking them for money.
She had picked the direction that John usually walked when he left toward the station. Near the corner as she was, she could follow his movements all the way down the other street without moving.
Every evening she would send a text to a certain number that Sherlock provided. Sherlock would never reply. She would add a code word to her text to show that it was from her. They had decided that the last word in each text would start with a letter from the chorus of Yellow Submarine.
"I would include the verse too." Sherlock had said, "But it is obvious that you do not know it."
Day 1
[Stayed at home all day, windy]
Day 2
[Went out for food, walking very slowly, everywhere]
Day 3
[Stayed in all day. One visitor. Landlady turned her away]
Day 4
[The funeral Left in black car looked lonely]
Day 5
[Left early came back drunk late]
Maddy had finally been given custody of Abud's body. At first they refused because she could not prove that she was his wife, but as no one else claimed him they finally relented.
He had a traditional Sunni ceremony at the graveside. She brought some people from the shelter using her money to pay for their transportation. Catherine was also there, and she helped Maddy serve a small meal afterwards that they shared with anyone who asked.
The people in the funeral home were very nice. Death is one place where there is no rank. Most of her money went to pay for his burial. The rest went to the director for the transport and re-internment of Abud's brother. She had found his cremated remains and she arranged to have them buried over Abud's grave. He would rest easier for that.
After the funeral, she went back to Baker street. She wore the black scarf that Sherlock had given her over her face as a mourning shawl. Walking slowly past 221B in the nighttime, she looked up at Sherlock's apartment. The lights were out, but she saw a face in the window. John's face looking out as if he was waiting for Sherlock to come home. John saw her looking at him, so she kept walking. Perhaps he would see her as a projection of his own soul. A figment of his imagination which saw the morbid in all things now. She pulled out the phone and texted Sherlock.
Day 6
[Busy with my own funeral Came late. Face in window no Light]
The next day the street was fairly quiet. Maddy pulled out her book and continued to read.
"Nobody knew where he was, and many tears were shed; little Gerda cried long and bitterly. At last, people said he was dead; he must have fallen into the river which ran close by the town. Oh, what long, dark, winter days those were!
At last the spring came and the sunshine.
'Kay is dead and gone,' said little Gerda.
'I don't believe it,' said the sunshine.
'He is dead and gone,' she said to the swallows.
'We don't believe it,' said the swallows; and at last little Gerda did not believe it either."
Maddy was surprised to see a large black car pull up to the door. A man got out. She recognized him as the man she had seen before. The man with the chain in his waistcoat. He rang the bell and a woman let him in. The car, as before, drove around the corner to wait. He wasn't there long. About half an hour, then he came out and stood on the steps, a phone to his ear. He scanned the street and for a second he stared straight at Maddy before turning his eyes away at the approach of his car. He got inside, and then the car drove by the corner slowly and ominously. The darkened windows reflecting her own image back to her as she tried to look inside.
That evening after dark, Maddy was preparing to go back to the shelter when a black car came up to her. The window rolled down, and a richly dressed woman with dark hair beaconed to her. "Come here." She said.
Maddy looked at the car and she did not like it one bit. She shook her head and smiled, pretending that she did not understand. The door opened.
Maddy started to walk. The car door closed and the car followed her. She ran turning down a side street. The car followed. She ran across a busy street almost getting hit, and down another alley. When she got to the end of the alley, the car pulled in front of her. She turned to find a large man standing behind her. She was terrified, but she knew better than to show fear. He reached out for her, but she pulled her arm away, getting into the car of her own will.
The man slid into the seat next to her. The woman sat on the other side.
"Hello," she said.
Maddy remembered the woman on the phone. The one who wanted to meet with Sherlock. "Are you Irene?" She asked her.
"I am if you want me to be," she said and then began texting on her phone. The car drove up to a fancy house and drove past a metal gate into a private garage. The man ushered her out of the car and another man searched her. She knew better than to put up a fight, but she did jump when they took her phone. They looked at her with malice, and she became still trying her best to look harmless and unobtrusive.
They walked her through the hall of the house. It was clean and fancy. It looked like a show house. It didn't seem possible that anyone lived in a place like this, with white carpets and mirrors on the walls.
She was shown into a richly furnished room. The man in the waistcoat sat in a leather chair before a tea tray. They sat her down in a chair across from him but much too far away to reach either him or the tray.
They gave her phone to the man who turned it over in his hands and played with the keys for a moment before putting it down beside his tea cup.
"Well, well Maddy Mohammed is it? Or would you rather go by Madeline St. Martin?"
Maddy said nothing. The rich man poured himself a cup of tea and placed it to his lips. He didn't offer her any.
"You've been watching John Watson. You've virtually camped outside his house, and you were there before. Quite an interesting hobby you have. What are you hoping to find there? Or is it simply a job that you are doing for your employer. Can you speak?"
"Yes I can speak," Maddy said, " and I don't have an employer. That's why I'm on the streets."
The rich man gave a vicious smile, "We know that's not quite true is it. First of all, you've been working at the shelter part-time, but recently you buried your "husband". Paid for the burial and the funeral yourself. Quite a feat for an unemployed widow with no income, so tell me where is your employer now?"
"I told you, I don't have one," Maddy said.
"Don't lie to me," the man snapped, "Those notes were traceable. We could have you in jail for conspiracy of kidnapping and murder."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean your 'husband's' employers. Why are you loyal to them? You must know that they are the ones who killed Abud Mohammed."
"What do you mean? Who killed him?"
"Your employer did."
"You mean that Abud was shot by...that's not possible."
"So you do have an employer. Where is he?"
Maddy put her hand to her head. Could Sherlock Holmes have shot Abud? it didn't seem possible. He had texted her not an hour before. She saw him pass in the police car. This man was mistaken.
"No, he wasn't there," she said, "He didn't shoot Abud."
The rich man in the suit smiled like a viper. "He didn't do it personally. He has other people who do that kind of work for him."
Maddy looked into the face of the rich man. The man who was trying to tell her that Sherlock Holmes was a killer. The man who tried to tell her that he had killed her husband. It was the newspaper all over again. The people in power, and this man was obviously one of them, wanted her to obey. They were liars. He was a liar. She had seen killers before, and she knew that Sherlock Holmes was not one of them. This man wanted her to betray him. It would not happen.
The man seemed to be reading the expression on her face. He sat back in his chair and steepled his hands looking more like a murderer in that moment than anyone she had ever seen "So it is loyalty. I am honestly surprised. I never thought of James Moriarty as the kind of person to instill loyalty in someone like you."
"Who?" Maddy asked.
"Your employer, James Moriarty," he said. "Certainly you must know by now that your idol is dead."
Suddenly Maddy realized that this man thought that she was a spy for someone else. She had been mistaken for someone that she was not, a pawn in a game of gang bosses. She knew what happened to pawns in games like this. She wasn't going to get out of here alive was she?
Maddy glanced at the phone. What would Sherlock think when he didn't get anymore messages? He would probably know exactly what happened. She couldn't help him protect John anymore. She couldn't help herself. At least Abud had been laid to rest properly.
The man stared at her silently, his eyes darting back and forth. Then he picked up her phone. He pressed the keys in a complex pattern and the screen opened.
"How did you do that?" Maddy said
"Please..." He said as if she had insulted him, "All of these phones have developer keys that allow the makers to get in if they need to. It is a simple thing to learn them for the different models of phone." He looked through the messages, and then glanced up at her.
"A communication, but with whom? The last word is obviously a identification code. What code has three L's in a row. Is it mathematical?" He punched a few more codes on the screen, and then he sat very still. His eyes looked up at Maddy, the expression changing to one of wonder. He stood, the phone clasped in one hand.
"Where is he?" the man said.
"I thought you said that he was dead," Maddy said her mouth in a hard line.
"I thought that he was," he gasped, "Tell me, where is Sherlock? It's him you work for not Moriarty. Where is he? When did you last see him?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Please," he said, "This is too important. I punched in a code on a whim. Only Sherlock could have put this message in this phone. Where is he?"
Maddy stood and the man who had been waiting patiently beside the door walked closer ready to restrain her. She glared at him in anger.
"You people," she said, "I'm sick to death of you. You think that because you have money that you own people like me, but you don't. You make the world uneven and you like it that way. You like being on top and telling other people what to do. You walk over other people's lives, over people's dreams. We aren't even real people to you, are we? What does it matter to you that my lover was shot in a warehouse last week for dreaming of running a business in Brighton, for dreaming of a life for our children? Children that will never be born because some other rich man, someone like you, decided that the loose ends needed to be swept clean.
"You people of prestige and power, living in your castles of glass and furniture, thinking yourself so high above us who live on the streets. You have no compassion, none of you. It's been choked out of you by your privilege and your public school educations. You're taught to be glad of what you have and work to make sure no one else gets any of it. Well I don't want it. I don't want to be like you!
"When I came in to this room, I was less to you than a dog. No, I was a kitten in a bag that you planned to drown for your sport. Now that you want something you change your words, but nothing of you has changed inside. You will never change.
"So kill me if you want to. Kill me like they killed Marianne beating her face until her own mother couldn't recognize her. Kill me like they killed Abud, and that other man who I never knew. I'm sure that he had dreams too. But don't worry, even if you don't do anything to me, all you really have to do if you want to kill me is wait. Wait until the next cold spell makes my toes freeze off. Wait until I die of hunger because the funding was cut to the shelter for the third time. Wait until I get old and sick and no one bothers to check to see if I need water or even if I'm still breathing. It shouldn't bother you. You have this house. You have your cars and your fine women in furs to take care of you. But I still believe in Karma, and I know that this evil will return to you. It will return to you tenfold!"
Maddy was breathing hard now, her voice cracked on the last note, and she felt like she was about to cry. The man stared at her open mouthed, the phone clutched in his hand. He bowed his head folding his hands together under his chin. Then he looked up apologetically.
"I'm sorry Miss St. Martin for inconveniencing you," he said, "My associates will take you wherever you wish to go."
Maddy's anger was bleeding out of her by the minute. The man clutched the phone to his chest as if it held his life's hope. She knew better than to ask for it back.
They escorted her to the car in silence. Since they already knew about the shelter, she had them take her there. There would be no more watching John. Her cover was blown.
"I'm sorry Sherlock." She said to herself as she stepped out of the car and walked down the river road toward her bed.