Chapter Ten
John walked into A and E at St Mary's on his day shift rotation and surveyed the remnants of the weekend onslaught. Scanning the case notes, he clocked a selection of alcohol poisonings, drug overdoses and victims of assault; one knife wound, some sports injuries and a little old lady with a heart problem. Pretty much par for the course, he thought, and got down to work. He didn't get a moment to himself until lunch time when he managed to grab a sandwich and a coffee in the hospital canteen and took the opportunity to ring D Division to speak to DI Browning or his Second in Command, DS Cromer. It was Cromer who picked up.
'Hi, John Watson here. Did you read my email?' he launched straight in.
'Sure did, John. Wow, impressive work, I must say. Glad you called because I just need to check a few points with you,' said Cromer.
'Fire away,' John replied.
'This ID on the stiff, is it confirmed?'
'The DNA test is pretty conclusive but you could order a comparison with dental records which would put the final stamp on it. We can also access the deceased's medical records, now we have a name, and find out more about any conditions Mr EAstridge may have had and how they were being treated. I got the results of the tox screen and the genetic analysis today and the medication identified in the dead man's system correlates closely with his congenital condition. They found anti-convulsants and muscle relaxants in his blood and this particular type of dwarfism has a high probability of epilepsy and is characterised by painful muscle spasms which would require that type of treatment. If Mr Eastridge's medical records concur then I think we can say with a fair degree of certainty that this is indeed Mr Jamie Eastridge.'
'Er, good, thank you, doc. So, the woman you spoke to, this 'Josie' person, she claimed she was his girlfriend?'
'She most certainly did.'
'Do you think she is living there?'
'No idea. She was there when we called but we didn't hang around to see if she left.'
'And the man who rang you, was he there when you called at the bungalow?'
'We didn't see anyone else but that's not to say he wasn't.'
'OK, it's just that we would like to collar them both at the same time to give them less chance to scarper or destroy evidence, if you get my drift.'
John was beginning to wonder whether this man would like him to wipe his nose and cut up his food for him, too. He quietly thanked the god of small things that Greg Lestrade was such an excellent cop and that Sally Donovan, for all her faults, was damned efficient.
'I can't advise you on that, Sargent. But I do have a request.'
'What's that,' Cromer asked, sounding a little disappointed.
'I'd like to be allowed to observe when you question them.'
'I'm sure that could be arranged. You might even be able to advise us on what questions we should be asking.'
For a moment, John wondered was this man for real or was this his idea of ironic humour? He feared it was the former. He said goodbye, hung up and went back to work.
ooOoo
Sherlock stepped out through the front door of the hostel onto the pavement, having eaten a good breakfast and with a mission to complete. He had risen early after another restless night full of disturbing dreams, eaten and set out. He would have liked to shower but undressing in a hostel full of curious men was a problem. There was very little privacy and the fact that he was wearing Gucci shoes had not gone unnoticed. If anyone had spotted his Armani suit or Paul Smith shirt, it might have tipped the curiosity balance so he had kept his camouflage clothing on throughout the night, which was not unusual amongst the homeless. They liked to keep their few possessions close. He was about to amend the clothing situation but first things first. He turned and headed for the barber's shop.
Pushing open the door, which made a nostalgic ringing noise as it knocked against the bell suspended from the ceiling, Sherlock stepped inside the shop. The barber, a middle aged man, turned to greet him with a welcoming smile.
'Good morning, sir. What can I do for you, today?'
Channelling Captain John Watson but with the 'Arthur' accent, Sherlock asked for a short back and sides. He took off his camouflage jacket, revealing the suit beneath but that was OK because he was no longer 'homeless'; he was a 'serving officer' in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers so a fancy suit was not beyond the bounds of possibility.
'What brings you to these parts?' asked the barber, as he gowned up his first customer of the day and began to attack his hair. Sherlock related a tale of being an officer in the army who had been on six months' extended compassionate leave following a family crisis but was now on his way back to join his regiment which was leaving for Afghanistan in a month. The barber turned out to be a Falklands veteran so had plenty of army anecdotes to share and, courtesy of John's war experiences and his penchant for relating them, in graphic detail, when half cut, Sherlock had quite a few amusing ones of his own. Forty-five minutes later, the new hair style was achieved.
'Would you like me to do something about that?' the barber asked, referring to his two-day stubble. Sherlock grinned at him, through the mirror.
'No, I think I'll 'ang on t' tha' a bi' longer, thanks, mate.'
For two day's growth, it was a bit of a sorry sight. Sherlock was not what one might call a 'blue chin'. His facial hair was very slow growing. It would be a good few weeks before he could audition for Captain Birdseye commercials. He needed all the growth he could get. Having been brushed down by the helpful ex-squaddie, Sherlock put his camouflage jacket back on and, taking out his wallet, handed the man his £20 note.
'Sorry, I don't 'ave anythin' smaller,' he apologised.
'You put your money away, sir. You young lads out there, risking your lives to protect us back here; my old dad would never forgive me if I took your money.'
Sherlock felt a pang of guilt for deceiving this generous and kindly man but he had to preserve his cover so he thanked him profusely and left the shop, jamming Arthur's beret back on his head and raising his jacket hood to protect his neck, exposed now where his hair used to be, and to hide his face from the high street cameras.
Next stop was the pawn shop. He needed to redeem his watch for some readies. Another bell jingled on another shop door. The man behind the counter looked up from the racing page of his redtop. Sherlock had checked out the window on his way past and could see some fairly decent watches on display. His watch would not scare this man.
'How much for this?' he asked, taking the watch off his wrist and passing it across the counter. The man put a glass in his eye and took a good look at the time piece. He could see it was the genuine article, not a fake.
'I'll give you £200,' he said.
'No chance', replied Sherlock.
The man thought a bit more.
'£300'
'That watch cost me £3000. Look it up in your catalogue. You can get £1500 for that, easy. So make me a serious offer or I'll go elsewhere.'
The man thought some more then said,
'I'll have to ring my boss'.
Sherlock shrugged. The guy took out his mobile and speed dialled the shop owner. After a brief mumbled conversation that Sherlock didn't bother to eavesdrop on, the man hung up and recommenced negotiations.
'I can offer you £800.'
Sherlock held his hand out for the watch, shaking his head.
'OK, £1000,' the man spluttered.
'Cash?'
'Of course,' was the reply.
'Deal,' agreed Sherlock and offered his hand to shake.
As Sherlock left the pawn shop, pocketing his grand and heading for the next part of his mission, the man behind the counter flicked the pages of his newspaper from the weekend racing results to Page Three, passing right over - without a second glance - a photo of his last customer under a banner headline that read:
Disappearing Detective: Sherlock Shocker.
Sherlock's next stop was a cheap but cheerful clothing store where he bought a triple pack of boxer shorts and the same of socks. Wearing his underwear for a third day was not too bad but longer than that was not an option. He knew a boy at school who made it his mission to wear the same pair of boxers for a whole half term. Matron had to threaten him with Custos to get him to give them up to the laundry after a month. At that stage, they could practically walk on their own. Sherlock had no desire to go down that route.
Between that shop and the camping store, he nipped into the public toilets and took off the fatigues, stuffing them into his shop bag. He needed to change his cover story for the next part of the mission. Gone was the captain from the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers; here now was the smart business man, buying outward bound gear for a 'Stag' holiday, 'doing the Three Peaks Challenge' with a bunch of mates.
Ducking out of the Gents, he kept his back to the CCTV camera he had spotted above the frontage of a jewellery store and slipped straight into the camping shop. Sherlock approached the counter and gave them his spiel. Leaving there half an hour later and £300 lighter, he had all his purchases inside his newly acquired back pack. He turned left out of the shop and took the first left to get off the High Street. Cutting through the back streets, he made his way to the local leisure centre.
This was a calculated risk but he needed somewhere to change out of his suit into the survival gear and he wanted to start out clean so he planned to go for a swim, take a shower and then, having donned his new persona of back-packer/hiker, he would walk straight out of there into the wilderness. Amongst his purchases in the camping shop had been a pair of swimming shorts and a pair of wrap-around sun glasses. He was wearing the dark glasses when he paid for his swim ticket and hired a towel for an extra quid.
The public swimming pool was very quiet at this time of the morning. The early swimmers had been and gone, the lunch time crowd were two hours away. So Sherlcok had the pool almost to himself - which was not great for cover but he needed this swim. He kept his face in the water as much as possible, guessing that Mycroft's favourite piece of software - facial recognition or FaxRex - was his biggest enemy. After swimming lengths for nearly an hour, he hauled himself from the water and padded to the shower, concealing his face by rubbing it with the hired towel. After a long, hot shower, he dressed in his new clothes, and packed his shoes, suit and shirt into his new back pack, along with the fatigues, the camouflage jacket and the beret.
His two alter egos packed away in the bag, along with his spare underwear, energy bars, water bottle, Ecover toiletries and herbal mouth wash - all bought at the camping shop. They think of everything, he thought; his arctic sleeping bag stowed in the bottom section of the pack and the rolled up ground sheet tied on by the bungee straps, over the top flap, he was ready to go. The wet shorts, he wrapped in the shop bag and stuffed in the front pocket of the pack. He could dry them later. The OS map was in the side pocket where he could easily access it. So, dumping the towel in the laundry bin on his way by, he hefted the back pack and headed for the exit.
As he passed through Reception, his eye was caught by a poster in the process of being pinned to the main notice board in the lobby, right where people came in and out. It was a picture of him, the one from William's bedroom, under the heading:
Missing Person
Have you seen this man?
There was small print underneath the photo but he didn't stop to read it. His heart was pounding, not because this confirmed how fast the chasing pack were coming up on him – he'd been there before and lived to tell the tale – but because that image transported him back to Molly's flat, to his son's bedroom, to the first time he'd laid eyes on his own child, in the flesh, and touched his hair with his finger-tips; and Sherlock's heart broke all over again. Tears stung his eyes as he pushed through the swing doors of the Leisure Centre, turned right and strode away from the Cumbrian city towards the Scotland.
ooOoo
Back in the John's Street Hostel, the manager, who had just enjoyed a rare weekend off, came out of her office carrying an A4 poster she had just printed off the computer. It was a nationwide alert for a vulnerable missing person, a young man suffering from PTSD, dearly loved by family and friends who just wanted his safe return. It had melted her heart when she read the blurb and looked at the photo. Such a handsome young chap, she thought. Such a shame! As she pinned the poster on the hostel notice board, the cook came and stood at her shoulder. Looking at the image, she suddenly put her hand up to her mouth.
'Oh my God!' she gasped.
'What's wrong?' the manager asked, alarmed at the woman's behaviour.
'He's here! He turned up yesterday. He's sleeping in the five-bedder!'
'What, now? He's not there now, is he?'
'No, he got up early, had some breakfast and went out. But he's here, in Carlisle. Quick! Phone the police! Ring that special number! Oh. My. God!'
ooOoo
